Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process

In ceramic studies, as in other fields, there is a periodic need for synthesis: a need to assess the accumulated data and wring from them a semblance of order, a need to systematize. This need is met, for now, by Arnold's book—a well-illustrated and cogently argued discourse on ceramic ecology. In creating it he assembles a world-embracing array of data on clay sources, climate, subsistence practices, workload scheduling, division of labor, social status, and economic complexity. He draws upon general systems theory and a cultural ecological perspective to organize this seemingly diverse array of data and focus them upon the practice of potting. Frankly, I am surprised and relieved that he does so without using ponderous jargon. The book opens with a crisp overview of the author's chosen subject and a statement of his position on issues of epistemology, theory, and evidence. His position on ceramic types and varieties, and his view of the cogency of ceramic evidence for inferring past patterns of social and political organization will trouble some of my colleagues. Some, I suppose, will simply choose to ignore them, but as his copious examples in the following chapters illustrate they will do so at their own and their profession's peril. In the first of seven substantive chapters Arnold addresses clay, water, and fuel quality, quantity, and distribution to assess their threshold effect on the appearance, intensification, and spread of pottery production or aspects thereof. He follows this with a well-conceived chapter on weather and climate as regulatory mechanisms with respect to crucial steps and . stages in the scheduling of ceramic manufacturing tasks and the cost effectiveness of special production techniques and facilities. The next three chapters are devoted to the scheduling conflicts that stem from the interrelations among climate, resource distribution, subsistence practices, and population size as these are mediated by the sexual division of labor, the emergence of craft specialization, and the level of demand for products of the potter's effort. Chapter seven focuses upon the specific consequences of population growth and population pressure for the spread and diversification of potting as an income-producing craft and chapter eight upon those technological innovations that make potting a more efficient income producer. To his credit, Arnold neglects neither the natural nor the cultural barriers that innovators encounter in attempts to enhance their efficiency and increase their income. In the final chapter Arnold models the environmental forces that shape potting as it takes the form of a domestic chore, a household craft, and a workshop industry. If there is a shortcoming here it is not Arnold's but an atomistic tendency in the systems approach itself, a tendency to see motion as a consequence of the interaction among entities rather than an integral part of the system, a tendency to emphasize being rather than becoming and structure rather than structuring. He concludes, rightfully enough, with some intriguing and potentially potent suggestions for his archaeological colleagues, suggestions that I, for one, do not think we can afford to ignore.