Resent Approaches to the Study of Clay Vessels’ Shapes in West European and American Archaeology
П. Р. Холошин · 2018
The article presents a survey of main prospects and procedures of archeological vessel shapes study employed by West European and American researchers. Development of methods and techniques used in vessel shapes description and interpretation as a source of cultural-historical information is analyzed. The basic concepts of vessel shapes analytical study were formulated by A.O. Shepard in the 1950s. She proposed principal procedural approaches in her fundamental work (1956). Later on, these approaches gained momentum. The procedure of vessel shape disintegration into structural parts and evaluation of proportions of their рarameters is the most widespread method. The New Archeology impact exemplifies in striving for clear quantitative definition of vessel parameters and in elaboration of a functional perception of the material culture development. New sources (ethnography and experiments) are come to draw in study of vessel shapes. Study of pottery in traditional societies has brought up two problems: 1) incongruity of researchers’ typological developments and evaluation terms of the very culture-bearers and 2) limitations of functional and adaptive models of interpretation. The first problem has brought about the task description of a more detailed and objective fixation of vessel shapes peculiarities while vessels groupings further on is performed by dint of various mathematic and statistical methods. The second problem has brought about a wide drawing of sociological and cultural research concepts that allow proceeding to study of vessel shapes features in interpretation of data obtained as results of certain mental processes and behavioral patterns that the people formed. Ethnoarchaeology, i.e. study of traditional societies with techniques employed in archeology, makes a considerable contribution to this prospect development. Individual researchers also carry on study of traditional potters’ labor skills in specifically simulated conditions. A number of researchers assume that contemporary techniques of vessel shapes analysis fit poorly the developed notions of the nature of the phenomenon and express the necessity to overcome the flaw. In general, development of views on vessel shapes in West European and American historical studies conform the same regularities as the Russian archeology does.