Anthropology Times

Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 14: 77-102 (Volume publication date October 1985)
Carol Kramer
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Reading this article I began to think of how pottery is used, reused and discarded in my household. I’ve used pottery sherds to level surfaces, as incense burners, as components of artwork, as keepsakes from unfortunately broken prized pieces… roughed up kitchen pottery as planters, pencil holders, and paperweights. Kramer gives a tidy discussion of how studying living cultures can provide clues as to how to interpret pottery as found in the archaeological record. Kramer explains that ethnographic accounts of pottery-producing groups may aid archaeologists by providing information about “… learning routines, aspects of division of labor and social organization of production, scalar and spatial aspects of production and/or distribution (e.g. numbers of vessels manufactured, distances to resources and markets, workshop locations, sizes, and layouts), scheduling problems, secondary uses of pottery, potters’ expenditures and income, vessel prices, and the like.”

Kramer recounted a possible psychological profile of a potter … “psychologically and technologically conservative, unwilling to take risks and engage in innovative experiments, with conforming personalities and a low sense of self-esteem.” This isn’t the picture of the artist that I imagine when looking at beautiful pieces of pottery. Of course, when I look at my numerous stacks of hand-painted 1950s California dishware, I tend to romanticize the manner and method by which that was produced, too. I’ve often looked at colorfully planted flowers and vines and wondered about the lives of the (usually) ladies making those brush strokes day-in and day-out. Kramer notes that looking at brush strokes might be key to identifying the work of a particular ceramic artists because the decoration of a piece of pottery might involve the handiwork of many artisans.

Lately I’ve fallen into a pattern of ignoring the colors and strokes on my hand-painted dishware. This is a pattern I would like to break. I want to renew the sense of connection to the women who created the artwork and to the people who owned and used and admired the dishware before it came to me.

Here’s a short bio and list of papers by Carol Kramer. She worked to improve the working lives and academic opportunities for women in anthropology and archaeology.

My warmest regards,

S.

The Study of Language Use in Oceania
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 15: 149-162 (Volume publication date October 1986)
K A Watson-Gegeo
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

This was a relatively short review (around 10 pages). It’s more of a bare bone directory of where to go for more. I would be interested in the studies that examined “the communicative aspects of music and chant, where songs and chants are carefully coded messages, have important functional relationships to spoken language, are significant instantiations of social hierarchy, or provide a forum for dispute.” Using song and chant in these ways resonates with my experience growing up in the Mississippi Delta and recent experiences in Southern California. I think specifically of women singing in unison or back and forth or in sequence. In the Delta my experience was with black women; in Southern California my experience has been mostly with women with Mexican heritage. The experience feels the same. Sometimes the singing works as a secret communication in that the song may have an in-group defined meaning that fits the current situation. It can be a way of complaining and commiserating about a bad or unfair work environment though the lyrics might not offer an immediate clue. It can be a communication between the women as to their feelings about the current task, about the day, about relationships, or about a particular life period. It can be a way of gossiping openly as, again, the group members understand the song to be indicative of a certain type of person or behavior. Down South, the songs were often religious in nature and also often call and response songs… sometimes reduced to humming or nonverbal chanting. I’ve never actively participated in this type of singing in a significant way (too young at one point and too shy at later points), but I do find it comforting. Perhaps I will one day look for studies on communication through song in the United States; it’s not high on the list at the moment.

I will try this week to return to the practice of choosing the next articles in groups of five as I have found myself more and more leaving the decision until later in the week than is comfortable. Generally speaking I’m looking for ways to rededicate myself to perhaps have a stronger finish to my year of self-study.

With sweetness from all the ages,
S.

The Problem of Informant Accuracy: The Validity of Retrospective Data
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 13: 495-517 (Volume publication date October 1984)
H R Bernard, P Killworth, D Kronenfeld, and L Sailer
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

In thinking more about interviewing people this review jumped out at me. I’d like to interview people who work and study in anthropology, people who work on helping people and the planet. I’d also just like to talk to people about their lives and experiences and thoughts about the world. I know from past experiences observing and talking to people, that their can be tons of descrepancies between what people say and what they mean and how they behave and what they believe. This review confirms this casual observation. What I had hoped for and what seems to be here in this review are resources that could help me phrase and shape and present inquiries such that I’m more likely to get the information that I want, particularly when it comes to interviewing people about their lives generally. The authors here note that “minute rewording or restaging of situations radically affects the way people will respond.” People have a long chain of internal mechanisms shaped by culture and experience and they use to evaluate an interviewers questions and frame their responses such that their answers are a result of a “large number of subconscious decisions,” as noted by the authors here.

Previously I had read a review on anthropology and creationism. At that time I can across a poll with a result that 41% of Southern Americans believed the Bible to be literally true. Anecdotally speaking from my experience growing up in the South, I knew very few people who actually believed the Bible to be literally true, but I knew quite a few who would say that they did when asked. Threaded in the culture is a belief and admonition that when people asked questions such as that one, they were really asking you about your faith, and that it was important to give the most hardlined answers lest scholarly sorts might go back to some place like New York City and somehow report that people down South don’t really believe in God or some such. As a teenager I used to talk to people quite a bit about their religious and spiritual beliefs. I think the fact that I was young and had grown up locally made a huge difference in the openness with which people spoke. In my Bible Belt town, there was just a whole different mindset when it came to talking to outsiders about religious topics … the answers skewed conservative.

With sweetness and warm thoughts,

S.

Concepts of Time in Quaternary Prehistory
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 12: 165-192 (Volume publication date October 1983)
Geoff N. Bailey
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Reading this article I was most drawn to wanting to read more on the thinking concerning the relationship between study of the past and the study of present. Bailey writes that “on the one hand is the view that the past should be explained in terms of the present … and made relevant to present-day social concerns. On the other hand is the view that the present should be explained in terms of the past, that the study of the past should be in terms of large-scale historical processes not obviously visible to the individual observer in a contemporary setting, processes which to some extent determine the present situation.” The history professor who most influenced my thinking was partial to the latter view. I feel partial to Bailey’s statement that the two views do not have to be seen as mutually exclusive, but rather they can be seen as based on interrelated concepts of time.

In a most casual search on the subject matter of this article, I quickly came upon at least three other articles I would like to read. They seemed like that would further enhance my understanding of the discussion of time as it relates to archaeology and give additional guidance as to further reading:

“Time Perspectivism, Temporal Dynamics, and Battlefield Archaeology: A Case Study from the Santiago Campaign of 1898” by William E. Altizer

“Temporal Insanity: Woodland Archaeology and the Construction of Valid Chronologies” by Erin C. Dempsey

“Rethinking the great divide: long-term structural history and the temporality of event” by Jan Harding (opens a download window)

So far I’ve only given a cursory glance at them and I partly want to link to them here so that I will remember to go back to them.

Today I’ve been thinking again about how confronting death affects thinking about time.  Do Americans become more deterministic in their thinking about time when confronted with death … do we lean toward a thinking that there are processes at work that explain why a death occurred at a particular time?   A police officer acquaintance and former classmate of mine was shot and killed on the job over the weekend.  In more recent times I had reconnected with him on Facebook and we had chatted a couple times.   Chatting with him was such a special comfort to me in that his style of speaking and use of language brought a welcomed familiarity.  I was reminded that flowery romanticism in everyday conversation was just more commonplace in the Mississippi Delta (and the South in general) than other parts of the U.S.  Upon hearing of his death, I still had browser windows opened for articles he had linked to on Facebook and thoughts of speaking with him again were heavy in my mind.  When someone posted a picture of him on Facebook yesterday, I thought it was to show his recent fitness results.  But today there were messages of condolence from mutual friends.  I still don’t feel comfortable leaving Facebook condolences, but I’ve wondered how Facebook may be influencing the way we grieve and communicate with each other about death.

Many warm thoughts of you,

S.