On the Logic of Archaeological Inference
Early Formative Pottery and the Evolution of Mesoamerican Societies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4374401 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert J Sharer, Andrew K Balkansky, James H Burton (0000-0002-5695-9152), G M Feinman (0000-0002-4787-2733), Kent V Flannery, David C Grove, Joyce Marcus, Robert G Moyle (0000-0001-6513-2344), T D Price (0000-0001-5951-5621), Elsa M Redmond, Robert G Reynolds (0000-0002-1431-7653), P M Rice (0000-0001-8159-1989), Charles S Spencer, James B Stoltman, Jason Yaeger (0000-0002-4290-0440) |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 90-103 |
| Publication date | 2006-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Latin American Antiquity (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1045-6635 • E-ISSN: 2325-5080 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/25063038 |
| OpenAlex | W2324261054 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 35 |
| References cited | 23 |
The 2005 articles by Stoltman et al. and Flannery et al. to which Neff et al. (this issue) have responded are not an indictment of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) but, rather, of the way Blomster et al. (2005) misuse it and of the hyperbolic culture-historical claims they have made from their INAA results. It has long been acknowledged that INAA leads not to sources but to chemical composition groups. Based on composition groups derived from an extremely unsystematic collection of sherds from only seven localities, Blomster et al. claim that the Olmec received no carved gray or kaolin white pottery from other regions; they also claim that neighboring valleys in the Mexican highlands did not exchange such pottery with each other. Not only can one not leap directly from the elements in potsherds to such sweeping culture-historical conclusions, it is also the case that other lines of evidence (including petrographic analysis) have for 40+ years produced empirical evidence to the contrary. In the end, it was their commitment to an unfalsifiable model of Olmec superiority that led Blomster et al. to bypass the logic of archaeological inference
Archaeological evidence · Archaeology · Art · Geography · Mesoamerica · Mineralogy · Petrography · Pottery · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Isotope Analysis in Ecology · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Geology · History
Mesoamerica in the Preclassic Period
Mesoamerica in the Preclassic Period
The Formation of Complex Societies in Mesoamerica
Settlement Patterns of the Ejutla Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico
Settlement and subsistence among the Early Formative Gulf Olmec
Geoarchaeological Investigations in Mesoamerica Move into the 21st Century
El análisis composicional en el estudio de la producción y distribución de la cerámica prehispánica
Late Neolithic white wares from southeastern Shandong, China
Data-Informed Tools for Archaeological Reflexivity
Middle Preclassic Interregional Interaction and the Maya Lowlands
Where East Meets West
Recent Research in the Southern Highlands and Pacific Coast of Mesoamerica
Recent Advances in Mixtec Archaeology
Exchange of Coarse Orange pottery in the Middle Classic Tuxtla Mountains, Southern Veracruz, Mexico
Re-examining the Egyptian colonial encounter in Nubia through a compositional, mineralogical, and textural comparison of ceramics
A combined approach
Lead and strontium isotopes as tracers for Early Formative pottery exchange in ancient Mexico
New Petrographic Evidence Pertaining to Ceramic Production and Importation at the Olmec Site of San Lorenzo
On Proto-Languages and Archaeological Cultures
Instrumental Approaches to Understanding Mesoamerican Economy
Towards Future Economic Research in the Basin of Mexico
The Macrosignified of Formative Mesoamerica
LiDAR analyses in the contiguous Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin, Guatemala
Intensive Agriculture and Early Complex Societies of the Basin of Mexico
After 40 Years
Evolution of the Mesoamerican Mother Culture
Cultural Imperatives in Clay
The Altica Project
Residential Pottery Production in Mesoamerica
Intermittent Domestic Lapidary Production during the Late Formative Period at Nativitas, Tlaxcala, Mexico
Combining big data and thick data
A Microscopic View of Ceramic Production
The Color of Influence
Early Formative pottery trade and the evolution of Mesoamerican civilisation
Teotihuacan neighborhoods' expansion in Northwestern Mexico. Cultural implications and social processes from ceramic analysis of El Mezquital-Los Azules, Guanajuato
Understanding early classic Copan
Regional perspectives on the Olmec
Olmec Pottery Production and Export in Ancient Mexico Determined Through Elemental Analysis
Alternative Models for Exchange and Spatial Distribution
Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays
Pottery Analysis, Second Edition
Olmec to Aztec
Formative Mexican Chiefdoms and the Myth of the “Mother Culture”
Group Therapy in Crete
Ceramics from Roman Galilee
Excavations at E1 Remolino
Early Formative Pottery of the Valley of Oaxaca
Excavation at San José Mogote 1
Scribes, Warriors and Kings
Ceramic Petrography as a Technique for Documenting Cultural Interaction
The Cuyamel Caves
| Unique citing works | 35 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,84 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2023 (17) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 35 |