Ceramic Variety, Type Cluster, and Ceramic System in Southwestern Pottery Analysis

During the past 20 years, the number of named pottery types in the Southwest has increased at such a rate that it is now virtually impossible for an archaeologist to know and be familiar with more than a small percentage of them. Some of these types are totally new, but a surprisingly large number represent refinements in terminology or segregations from more inclusive categories, resulting from further study and increasingly complex technological analyses. This proliferation of named types has alarmed many archaeologists. There can, however, be no legitimate doubt that if the intricate ceramic history of the Southwest and other areas of the New World is to be understood, research analysts must be free to break down their material to as fine a point as necessary in order to localize in time and space the infinitesimal variants of pottery which constitute, with other aspects of material culture, the documents of regional prehistory.