Decoding prehistoric ceramics /

Within a very short time there have been remarkable changes in the practice of ceramic analysis in the United States. Al­though technical changes such as the growing use of quantitative methods are widespread, of perhaps more importance is an array of propositions that deals with the cultural causes of ceramic vari­ation, and it provides the focus of this book.

The first section of the book, with chapters by Graves, Kintigh, Washburn and Matson, Brunson, and Braun, is fo­cused on "ceramic sociology." The pa­pers by Stark and Feinman in the second part treat the organization of ceramic production. The third part, with papers by Froese, Plog, Smith, and Nelson, is concerned with problems of measure­ment and classification in an effort to understand the systematic role of pottery

In part four, entitled "Further Lessons from Ethnoarchaeology," Loungacre, DeBoer, and Hardin continue the use of ethnoarchaeological observations established in earlier chapters to provide us with fresh prospects for understanding ceramics through ethnoarchaeology.