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Ethnohistory
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ETHNOHISTORY 31(2):79-92 (1984) HAYDEN
Abstract
Introduction
Definitions
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80 BRIAN HAYDEN
Because taxonomy has been used in biology and zoology almost exlusively
to refer to typologies oriented to elucidated historical relationships between
units of study, the term "taxonomy" might best be reserved for typologies with
similar goals in archaeology.
Emic: refers to the way indigenous groups classify objects or behavior which
they use. It is basically what might be termed an "ethnographic" classification
(Harris 1968 571).
Etic: refers to the way "scientists" (in this case, archaeologists) classify
objects or behavior to resolve specific problems, or find out specific types of
information (ibid).
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Emic Types to Archaeology 81
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82 BRIAN HAYDEN
easier than had previously been the case, and in effect it liberated an
part of archaeologists' time, resources, and efforts. For the first time
archaeologists found themselves in a position to ask systematically more
substantial questions of their data than the chronological queries prevalent
until then. They began to address questions concerning the reasons for cultural
evolution, the functions of artifacts, and the precise nature of social and
political systems of past cultures.
The second development was that by around 1950, prehistorians in some
parts of the world had carried out enough research that their knowledge of
specific local sequences was relatively complete. The Pecos conferences helped
establish such culture-histories for the southwestern United States. In these
areas, it was also possible to go on to ask other questions of the archaeologi-
cal record-an approach advocated by Taylor (1948) and Kluckhohn (1940)
just prior to the advent of radiocarbon dating. As a result of both of these
developments, archaeologists began to rediscover the fact that types were
created for specific purposes (e.g. Hill and Evans 1972). Clearly, to deal with
the new areas of inquiry to which archaeologists now began to turn their
attention (artifact use, trade, socio-political organizations, evolution, and
others), typologies formulated to deal with culture-historical problems were
not necessarily going to be very useful. Because most people had forgotten,
however, that existing archaeological types were formulated specifically for
answering culture-historical problems, this fact was not at first generally
recognized.
The major point of this short history is that there is no universal typology.
Typologies are devised to deal with specific problems (see Hill and Evans
1972). Typologies can be devised to resolve problems of temporal relation-
ships, cultural affiliation, and tool use; to identify individual manufacturing
styles (Hill and Gunn 1977); to identify community styles, trade, and
technological processes; to estimate interaction between communities or
community groups; to monitor recyclying and status differences; to help
interpret religious structures and beliefs; to distinguish between egalitarian
(symmetrical) versus hierarchical (asymmetrical) social organizations; or to
deal with any other specific interpretational problems of interest to archaeolo-
gists.
If types can be related to so many different areas of inquiry, it may be asked
how typologies can be evaluated. First, typology is a level of theory work,
albeit a low level, and like any theory can be evaluated using a range of
parameters (Meehan 1968: 97-121). These include: i) testability, ii) parsimony,
iii) number of observations that fit or do not fit derivative hypotheses, iv)
number of different types of data accounted for or conflicting with derivative
hypotheses, v) compatibility with generally accepted theories, vi) internal
consistency, vii) power, and viii) scope. Justeson (1973) has also argued that
typologies should exhibit certain statistical characteristics which can be used to
evaluate their usefulness. But most importantly, typologies can be compared
and evaluated in terms of how well they work, that is, how well they answer
the specific questions for which they were designed. For instance, Ritchie and
MacNeish's (1949) Iroquoian typology, like Ford's typologies, was designed to
place assemblages in a relative chronogical sequence. Whallon (1972) has
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Emic Types to Archaeology 83
Ethnographic Classification
Before discussing the relationship of emic to etic types, there are a number
of important aspects of emic taxonomy which need to be made clear.
1. Anthropologists do not know under what specific conditions elaboration
of categories takes place in languages; nor have they ever begun to address this
question.' Nevertheless it seems probable that the more frequently used or the
more important a material, artifact, or behavior is to an individual's livelihood
the more specialized the terms will be which refer to that aspect, and the more
specialized the tools will be as well. An example of this is the detailed
elaboration of terms for minerals used in ceramic production by fulltime
indigenous potters in the Yucatan (Arnold 1971).
The development of more complex categories as a function of frequency of
material use can probably be derived from general concepts of efficiency such
as employed by Zipf (1949), where it is easier and more efficient to have a
separate name for frequently referred to tools or characteristics rather than
having to describe them in detail each time when communicating with others.
Thus, the Eskimo have nearly 60 terms for different types of snow and ice,
while urban Canadians have only two or three; and full-time Tzeltal potters in
Amatenango have many more pottery terms and many more pottery making
tools than their part-time pottery making cousins of Chanal and Aguacate-
nango (Deal, n.d.); and cattle ranchers on the Great Plains have even more
terms for grass and grass characteristics than the number of terms the Eskimo
have for snow (Frison 1978:8).
Whatever the precise conditions of category elaboration eventually turn out
to be, it is difficult to quantify many of the independent variables (e.g.,
"importance" of materials and behavior) which one might expect to lead to
specialized terminologies. One would expect there to- be a relatively loose
correspondence between variables representing such conditions and the
number of terms relating to specific types of artifacts or behavior. For
instance, why are there not separate terms for the small ceramic collanders
used for making ritual atole versus the large collanders used for washing
tortilla maize (see Table I)? These types of questions are difficult to answer.
2. Related to the first point is the fact that when elaboration of emic artifact
categories occurs, the principles which determine those specific aspects of the
artifacts to be singled out for special emic terminology are not known. Again
it can be suggested that the aspects of the artifacts which will receive special
names should be related to the function of the artifact. This proves, however,
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Table 1.
Comparison of Emic Pottery Terms from Chanal with Uses and
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Emic Types to Archaeology 85
to be a rather nebulous concept when attempts are made to use it. For
instance, the function of some artifacts is to obtain food or make other tools,
while the function of other artifacts is to regulate social interactions, and the
function of still others is to represent ideological or belief systems (the
technomic, socio-technic, and ideo-technic artifact types of Binford 1962).
Unfortunately, such functions are not always separate and sometimes individ-
ual artifacts operate in two or more of these realms at the same time. Artifacts
are multidimensional in terms of meaning (Binford 1972: 199-200; Linton
1936: 402). Our research concerning artifacts in contemporary Maya house-
holds demonstrates this point in detail. Trying to test the proposition that the
aspects of artifacts for which individuals choose to develop specialized terms
are related to the principal function of the artifacts is also fraught with
problems of quantification and measurement, especially concerning the identifi-
cation of function, or functions of artifacts. Again, this question as it concerns
tools has never been addressed, much less solved by anthropologists.
3. Another important aspect of emic categories is that they may vary within
communities according to specific roles of individuals. For instance, full-time
manufacturers may have elaborate categories for their products and their
parts. On the other hand, traders and merchants may have very different
concerns and may emphasize very different attributes in their terminology,
such as size, weight, decoration, and aspects related to selling and transport.
Generalized users of these same objects may be only interested in their overall
functional classification, while specialized users may have elaborate distinc-
tions for the same objects. Finally, persons interested in recycling the objects
may have an entirely different typological system for dealing with the same
objects. For example, contemporary recycling plants sort all glass bottles by
color. Thus it seems that as in archaeology, there are many emic classifications
of the same objects, which vary according to the purpose for which specific
individuals are interested in artifact classes. Unfortunately, as argued in the
preceding paragraph, only a very vague notion as to the concerns that lead
individuals to elaborate specialized names for specific artifacts or parts thereof
is known.
4. People are often, if not generally, unconscious of the rules they use in
their behavior, and furthermore they are generally unable to describe their
behavior in terms of rules or to give reasons for their behavior. This does not
necessarily refer to obvious behavioral aspects such as eating, building houses,
or sleeping; but rather it refers to the subtle details of behavior, tool
manufacturing, and tool use. While this statement may seem unusual to some,
it is really no different from the often-heard assertion of linguists that most
individuals who have not had formal schooling (and even many who have!)
are incapable of articulating the rules of grammar which they use in speaking
every day. In English, there are very few people who are even aware that there
is a fricative and non-fricative form of "th," or that there is an aspirated and
un-aspirated form of "p." Thus, it should come as no surprise that most
individuals in traditional communities have difficulty in dealing with ethno-
graphers' questions as to why they use intermediate punches in flaking stone,
or why some pottery forms are better than others, or similar questions.
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86 BRIAN HAYDEN
Archaeologists have sometimes been unaware of the fact that emic catego-
ries do not necessarily bear any relation to archaeological types. In this
section, one example of such a misapplication will be presented, as well as
examples of situations in which emic categories do not entirely coincide with
archaeological concerns but may aid in resolving problems, and a case where
emic categories correspond fairly closely to types in which archaeologists were
interested.
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Emic Types to Archaeology 87
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88 BRIAN HAYDEN
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Emic Types to Archaeology 89
types by the inhabitants of Chanal, it is evident that the primary reason for
having specialized names for ceramic vessels is to identify vessels used for
different functions or in different social contexts. These have important shape,
size, and paste characteristics which reflect their function. Decorated or
painted vessels are not generally distinguished from plainware vessels in emic
terms although such distinctions are made in the specialized pottery-making
center of Amatenango. Emic functional categories such as those of Chanal can
help archaeologists enormously when archaeologists are interested in dealing
with functional problems in their assemblages. This approach is especially
useful in cases where it is appropriate to use the direct historical approach
(Baerreis 1961; Steward 1942). On the other hand, if an archaeologist's
primary concern is to establish cultural-historical groupings, such emic
categories would be of limited, or perhaps no, use. One other example of a
situation in which emic taxons coincide with categories of archaeological
interest is the identification of different minerals used by full-time Maya
potters (Arnold 1971).
Conclusions
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90 BRIAN HAYDEN
Acknowledgments
The Coxoh Ethno-Archaeological Project upon which much of this article is based
was carried out with the financial support of the Canadian Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council, the Canada Council, and the Brigham Young University
New World Archaeological Foundation. I would like to express special gratitude to all
the cooperating officials of Mexico and Guatemala, including Martha Turok (Anthropol-
ogist, INI), Felix Baez-Jorge (Jefe, INI), Jaime Litvak-King and Carlos Navarette
(UNAM), Luis Lujan Munos (Director, IAH), Jose Castaneda M. (Director, INI), and
the Gobernador of Huehuetenango.
The very generous financial support and organizational talents of Dr. Jaime Litvak-
King (Director, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropologicas, UNAM), Dolores Soto de
Arechavaleta (Instituto de Investigaciones Antropologicas, UNAM), Rafael Abascal
(Director, Centro Regional de Hidalgo, INAH), Margarita Gaxiola (Centro Regional de
Hidalgo, INAH), and John Clark (New World Archaeological Foundation) were all
essential. I very much appreciated all their efforts.
I owe my very deepest gratitude to those individuals who aided in interpreting during
the Coxoh project, in Chanal: Gilberto Gomez Hernandez (Chavin), Juan Gomez Lopez
(Chavin); in Aguacatenango: Jose Perez Hernandez (First Regidor), Augustin Hernan-
dez Espinosa (Comiseriado Ejidal), Carmen Hernandez Jiron (Policia), Juan Aguilar
Hernandez, Aucensio Juroz Aguilar (Second Juez), Francisco Vasquez Hernandez
(Agente Municipal), Feliz Juarez Perez (Suplente), Hernandez Vasquez (First Juez); in
Cancuc: Antonio Perez Santis (Mekat), Esteban Santex Cruz (Pin), Lorenzo the Agente;
in Bajucu: Antonio Mendez Santez (ex-presidente municipal); in Napite: Hermalindo
Jimenez; in San Mateo: Xun Xantex.
I would especially like to thank all those individuals who received us in their homes
and extended to us their hospitality and cooperation. Project members included: Mike
Blake, Susan Blake, Mike Deal, Jane Deal, Ben and Peggy Nelson, Gayel Horsfall, Geof
and Joanna Spurling, Cathy Starr, Olivier De Montmollin, Brian and Huguette Hayden,
Russell Brulotte, Paula Luciw, Roxane Shaughnessey, and Margot Chapman.
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Emic Types to Archaeology 91
Thomas Lee Jr., and Gareth Lowe and John Clark of the New World Archaeological
Foundation were especially encouraging in the formulation of the project.
Notes
1. It is true that Berlin and Kay (1969) have dealt with the evolution of color
classifications. However, this is the only example of such theoretical work with
which I am familiar with and it clearly is not directly applicable to the
classification of material items.
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