In The Evolution of Production Organization in a Maya Community, Dean E. Arnold continues his unique approach to ceramic ethnoarchaeology, tracing the history of potters in Ticul, Yucatan, and their p
How and why do ceramics and their production change through time? Social Change and the Evolution of Ceramic Production and Distribution in a Maya Community is a unique ethno-archaeological study that
Following the theoretical perspective of his earlier book, Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process (1985), Dean Arnold's ethnoarchaeological study explores the relationships of ceramic production to society and its environment in the Peruvian Andes. The book traces these contemporary linkages through the production, decoration, and use of pottery and relates them to the analysis and interpretation of ancient ceramic production. Utilizing an ecological approach within a single community, Arnold expands the scope of previous ceramic theory by focusing on the population as the unit of analysis in production and decoration.
This much-praised book aims to develop a theory of ceramics which will elucidate the complex relationship between ceramics and culture and society. Drawing upon the theoretical perspectives of systems theory, cybernetics and cultural ecology, Dr Arnold develops cross-cultural generalizations to explain the origins and evolution of the craft of pottery making. These processes are organized into a series of feedback mechanisms which limit or stimulate the initial production of pottery and its transition from a part-time to a full-time specialized activity. The author provides extensive ethnographic documentation, taken from a wide-ranging synthesis of the available literature and employing many data from his own fieldwork in Peru, Guatemala and Mexico, to illustrate the existence of these feedback relationships in societies around the world. Each mechanism is viewed, not as a relationship which exists in a few of the world's cultures, but as a universal generalization often based on
This is the first volume to bring together archaeology, ethnography, and art history in the analysis of pre-Columbian pottery. While previous research on ceramics has been divided among these three di
