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 some unique physical or chemical aspect of the pottery itself. Ceramic theory and cultural process is an innovative approach to the archaeological interpretation of ceramics which significantly extends our understanding of the social, cultural and environmental processes of ceramic production.

About the Author

Dean E. Arnold is adjunct curator of anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and professor emeritus of anthropology at Wheaton College in Illinois. He has taught anthropology for forty-three years; and done field work in Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, and the Southwest. He has published three books, and more than sixty articles about potters, pottery, and pottery production and related subjects. He was a visiting fellow and visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge (UK), received Fulbright Awards for teaching and research in Peru and Mexico, and in 1996, received the Award for Excellence in Ceramic Studies from the Society for American Archaeology.

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