Professional Documents
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Integration
Author(s): Philip Phillips and Gordon R. Willey
Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 55, No. 5, Part 1 (Dec., 1953), pp. 615-
633
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/664720
Accessed: 03-11-2017 23:20 UTC
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AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST
VoL. 55 DECEMBER No. 5, Part 1
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616 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 155, 1953
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PHILLIPS AND WILLEY] METHOD AND THEORY IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY 617
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618 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [55, 1953
NOMENCLATURE
SPATIAL DIVISIONS
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PHILLIPS AND WILLEY] METHOD AND THEORY IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY 619
cation have the variability found in the size of local groups from one sort of
society to another. In strictly archeological terms the locality is a space not
large enough to preclude complete cultural homogeneity at any given time.
Region :-A considerably larger unit of area usually determined by archeo-
logico-historical accident. Quite often it is simply the result of concentrated
research by an individual or group. Rightly or wrongly such a region comes to
be thought of as having problems of its own that set it apart from other regions.
Regional terms are those most often found in the titles of archeological papers
of wider scope than excavation reports. Through constant reiteration they
become fixed in the literature and achieve a kind of independent existence.
Regions are not altogether without reference to the facts of geography, how-
ever. In stressing the accidental factor in their formulation, we must not
overlook the tendency for environmental considerations to assert themselves.
In portions of the New World where physical conditions of sharp diversity
obtain, archeological regions are very apt to coincide with minor physiographic
subdivisions. Of the various units of area defined here, the region certainly
offers the most practicable field for the study of culture-environmental
correlations.
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620 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [55, 1953
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PHILLiPS AND WILLEY] METHOD AND THEORY IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY 621
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622 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [55, 1953
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PHILLIPS AND WILLEYJ METHOD AND THEORY IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY 623
TEMPORAL SERIES
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624 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [55, 1953
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PHILLIPS AND WILLEY] METHOD AND THEORY IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY 625
It may also be pointed out that area chronologies almost invariably tend
to take on the characteristics of a developmental sequence, in which case it
is more appropriate to refer to stages rather than periods. More often in such
cases, however, the two terms are used interchangeably as though they meant
exactly the same thing. Fortunately, deliverance from this kind of ambiguity
will come, as it has for the later periods in the Southwest, when current
techniques of absolute dating have reached a point of sufficient dependa-
bility. Then we shall be able to place a given unit within a temporal framework,
on the one hand, and a developmental sequence, on the other, without con-
fusing the two operations.
The above remarks are an evaluation unfavorable to area chronologies in
general. They have undoubtedly served a useful purpose in focusing attention
on larger issues, but have done equal disservice in fomenting endless contro-
versies over fictitious problems. We submit that, when it comes to dealing
with major spatial and temporal distributions on levels so far removed from
the concrete data, it is preferable to employ formulations of a more fluid
nature, those which carry the least implications of precision in respect to the
dimensions of space and time. Such are the terms remaining to be defined.
Before proceeding to do so, it may be well to pause long enough to explain
again what we are doing, or rather what we are not doing. This is not a de-
scription of a taxonomic method either actual or contemplated. A regional
sequence may be the result of correlating local sequences, but it is not the re-
sult of combining them. That would be taxonomy. The area chronology has
even less formal relationship to the regional sequence. In sum, we are simply
recognizing the fact that certain cultural and chronological formulations
differ from others of larger spatial and temporal dimensions, because the
operations involved are different, and we find it useful to distinguish them by
the nomenclature suggested here.
INTEGRATIVE DEVICES
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626 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [55, 1953
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PHILLIPS AND WILLEY] METHOD AND THEORY IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY 627
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628 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [55, 1953
CULTURE-HISTORICAL INTEGRATION
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PHILLIPS AND WILLEY] METHOD AND THEORY IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY 629
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630 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [55, 1953
H -------- P ------- H
C C
CT* Component
P- *Phase
TT- Tradition
HH Horizon
sense. They are located in space and time but are not dependent on th
properties for their meaning. Operationally, components are combined
phases because analysis reveals cultural uniformity amounting to prac
identity. We usually know, to be sure, that they are closely associated
graphically and we assume contemporaneity but neither of these consid
tions is necessary for the recognition of the relationship. This is because
space and time dimensions that inhere in all archeological concepts are h
on this low level of classification, reduced to negligibility. For all pra
purposes the space occupied by a phase may be regarded as a point; the
an instant. The phase, in other words, is a formal abstraction that can
manipulated independently of space and time.
Up to this point most archeologists would probably "go along" thou
many, depending upon the areas in which they have worked, would p
to use other terms in place of phase. Where our point of view differs is in t
conviction that phase, as defined in these pages, is the largest unit of ar
logical culture that can be so manipulated. When formal abstractions a
expanded to embrace a wider range of forms they cease to be merely fo
and become spatial and/or temporal as well. Actually, by some seemin
paradoxical process, they lose rather than gain in formal content-the fam
phenomenon of shorter trait lists for higher taxonomic divisions. Why is th
Because forms are also fluid, changing constantly through space and time
you cannot expand an archeological concept without expanding one or b
usually both, of these dimensions. The result is that the change in for
within the concept are such that it can no longer be apprehended on a strict
formal basis. Space and time have become dominant in a system that is
retically supposed to be a formal one operating independently of space
time. It should surprise no one when such a system fails to work.
These remarks apply specifically to the Gladwin (1934), Colton (1939
and Midwestern Taxonomic (McKern 1939) systems. The Gladwin
Colton schemes are phylogenetic or historico-genetic. Phylogeny involve
lationships that are not only formal but also causal (i.e., based on comm
ancestry) and temporal. A and B are related not only formally but bec
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PHILLIPS AND WILLEY] METHOD AND THEORY IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY 631
they derive from C, which is, perforce, earlier in time. The use of the organic
evolutionary model is, we believe, specious (see Willey 1953: 369). The Mid-
west taxonomists, on the other hand, seem to be involved in a hopeless con-
tradiction in attempting to set up a scheme so heavily committed to the same
factors of phylogenic causality, and implied evolution and time, while insisting
that it must operate independently of the time dimension. To be sure, it was
McKern's idea that once the higher cultural units had been delineated by
means of the classificatory method, they could be arranged in temporal se-
quence through dates obtained by some other means. Failure of this hope is
becoming apparent now that Carbon 14 is furnishing evidence for the extremely
long duration and overlapping of many of these units.
We now turn back to our diagram and the two "systems" it is designed to
reveal. If it be granted that the component-phase system deals mainly in re-
lationships of a formal or structural nature, it certainly will be allowed that
tradition and horizon style belong to a different system in which the proper-
ties of space and time play dominant roles. The difference we are talking
about here is only a difference in the proportions of the space-time-form
mixture. In tradition and horizon style, form, or content is important-when
is it not?-but the temporal and spatial ingredients are dominant. The real
point, however, is not whether these two sets are essentially different concep-
tually, which is arguable, but that in actual operation they are not subject
to any necessary logical or systematic relationship. Components and phases
enter into traditions and horizon styles, their external relationships. may be
revealed and expressed by them, but they are not in any manner combined to
form them. In fact, the opposite process is more nearly in accord with cultural
reality; two or more traditions usually converge in any given phase. In short,
the effectiveness of the method, as we see it, depends upon interplay between
these two pairs of conceptual tools without systematic limitations of any kind.
To summarize briefly: insofar as this can be formulated as a program for
New World archeology, we are advocating: (1) that the primary emphasis
continue to be placed on the organization of components and phases (or their
equivalents) in local and regional sequences under stratigraphic control; (2)
that phases be studied intensively as the effective contexts of archeological
culture; (3) that their internal spatial and temporal dimensions be kept within
manageable limits of magnitude; and (4) that their external spatial, temporal
and formal relationships be studied and expressed in terms of traditions and
horizons without recourse to any taxonomic formulations of a higher order
than themselves. From this, as a common platform on which it would not seem
unreasonable to hope we might stand united, further studies could be carried
to meet specific objectives.
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632 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [55, 1953
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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PHILLIPS AND WILLEY] METHOD AND THEORY IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY 633
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