I agree with Bill Adams that time lag is an important research question and
after rereading his original paper on the subject and looking over the
Silcott report, I have some questions as to just how long that time lag is
and some questions as to the way in which it has been calculated. Here are
my comments on Bill's paper.
1
COMMENTS ON BILL ADAMS TIME LAG PAPER
notes by George L. Miller
June 3, 2000
*********************************
After reading Bill Adams' paper, "Dating Historic Sites: The
Importance of Understanding Time Lag in Acquisition, Curation, Use, and
Disposal of Artifacts," I reread his first article on the subject. "A
Model for Determining Time Lag of Ceramics Artifacts" that he wrote with
Linda P. Gaw. This paper was published in the 1977 Northwest
Anthropological Research Notes. That was 23 years ago; Bill needs to go
back and rework his Silcott data. We have all learned a great deal since
then, and our ability to date artifacts has greatly improved. The time lag
dates from the 1977 article appear to be the same ones used for the
rewritten paper posted on Histarch. Next, I went to the Silcott data
inventory to examine the data on the ceramics used in the time lag model.
The great thing about Bill's Silcott excavation report is that it provides
a detailed inventory and enough illustrations to enable others to reexamine
the data being used so that they can make their own conclusions.
The data that I looked at were from the Wilson Store that was built in
1910 and destroyed in 1928 (Adams 1977:220). Bill records the following
mean dates for the glass bottles and ceramic vessels from the Wilson Store
site (Adams 1977:222 & 224).
|-------------+--------+------------+-----------|
| | | | |
| Material | N | mean begin | mean end |
| | vessels| date | date |
|-------------+--------+------------+-----------|
| | | | |
| Glass | 97 | 1907 | 1919.5 |
|-------------+--------+------------+-----------|
| | | | |
|Ceramics |19 |1886 |1902.3 |
|-------------+--------+------------+-----------|
| | | | |
|Glass mean | |21 years |17.2 years |
|minus ceramic| | | |
|mean date | | | |
|-------------+--------+------------+-----------|
The following vessels were the ones used to calculate the mean beginning
and end dates.
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
|Vessel|Maker & reference |begin |end |dates from |begin |end |
|No. | | | |sources | | |
| | | | |published since | | |
| | | | |Adams' 1977 time| | |
| | | | |lag article | | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
|S03D |K.T. & K, S-V China|since |1905? |Gates & Ormerod |ca |1929 |
| |(Thorn 1947: 133) |1870 | |(1982:126a) |1905 | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
| S01B | Alfred Meakin of / | 1875 | 1897 | | | |
| | England (Godden | | | | | |
| | 1964:425) | | | | | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
| S00D | J. & E. Mayer. | 1881 | 1895?| Lehner | 1881 | 1915|
| | semi-vitreous China| | | (1988:283-284) | | |
| | (Thorn 1947:136) | | | | | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
| S15A | J. & E. Mayer. | 1881 | 1895?| Lehner | 1881 | 1915|
| | semi-vitreous China| | | (1988:283-284) | | |
| | (Thorn 1947:136) | | | | | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
| S17A | Alfred Meakin, | 1875 | 1897 | | | |
| | Royal Ironstone | | | | | |
| | China/ England | | | | | |
| | (Godden 1964:425) | | | | | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
| S03A | Johnson Brothers | 1883 | 1913 | | | |
| | England (Godden | | | | | |
| | 1964:355) | | | | | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
| S00E | AL . . . Akin . . .| 1891 | 1905?| | | |
| | Land probably | | | | | |
| | Alfred Meakin | | | | | |
| | (Godden 1964:425) | | | | | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
| S00F | Johnson B. . . | 1913 | 1926?| | | |
| | England above a | | | | | |
| | crown, (Godden | | | | | |
| | 1964:356) | | | | | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
| | | | | | | |
| S01A | Alfred Meakin | 1891 | 1926?| | | |
| | England in a circle| | | | | |
| | around a crown | | | | | |
| | (Godden 1964: 426) | | | | | |
|------+--------------------+------+------+----------------+------+-----|
Those end dates with the question marks are ones that Adams ends with a
dashed line in the original graphic for his time-lag article.
The following are vessels that Bill did not use in his 1977 article
on the calculation of a time lag.
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
| | | | | |
| Vesse| Maker / mark | dates from sources | begin| End |
| l No.| | published since Adams | | |
| | | original article on | | |
| | | time-lag | | |
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
| | | | | |
| P01 | HAND PAINTED / | mark used from 1891 to 1921| 1891 | 1921|
| | NIPPON | | | |
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
| | | | | |
| P03 | ORLA / GERMANY | Kovel & Kovel (1986:94) | 1891 | 1939|
| | | list the Orla factory as | | |
| | | beginning in 1881. The | | |
| | | mark suggests a post | | |
| | | McKinley Tariff date and | | |
| | | probably pre WWII as an end| | |
| | | date. The Orla pottery was| | |
| | | in East Germany which | | |
| | | suggests a 1939 end date. | | |
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
| | | | | |
| P04 | Made in Japan | U.S. Customs regulations | 1921 | 1941|
| | | forced Japanese potters to | | |
| | | stop labeling their wares | | |
| | | Nippon and switch to Japan | | |
| | | for their mark on imported | | |
| | | wares in 1921 | | |
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
| | | | | |
| S00B | W.S. George/ | Lehner 1988:163 | 1930s| 1940|
| | Radisson | | | s |
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
| | | | | |
| S00K | W.S. G probably | Lehner 1988:162 | 1900 | 1955|
| | W.S. George | | | |
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
| | | | | |
| S16B | Cleveland China | Lehner 1988:96 | 1890s| 1930|
| | | | | s |
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
| | | | | |
| S18 | Ideal Porcelain / | Gates & Ormerod 1982:187 | ca | |
| | McN. E.L.O. | | 1905 | |
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
| | | | | |
| S37 | W.S. George / | Lehner 1988:163 | 1930s| |
| | White | | | |
|------+-------------------+----------------------------+------+-----|
While Bill cannot be held accountable for information not available
in 1977, he does need to rework his data for publication in 2000.
Clearly, the above dates and probably others would move his mean beginning
and end dates to a closer match with the occupation dates of the site.
I did not look at the bottles listed in the Silcott report. Bill's
description in the original article indicates that he only used marked
bottles. I feel that the use of only the marked bottles has skewed the
bottle dates in at least two ways.
1. The use of trademarks by bottle manufacturers became much more
common after the introduction of the Owens Automatic Bottle Blowing
Machine in 1903. To leave out unmarked bottles skews the sample
toward the later bottles. Even during the early machine-made period,
many bottles were unmarked. For example, the Owens Company did not
begin using a trade mark until 1911 (Toulouse 1971).
2. The production and consumption of bottles greatly increased from
the late 19th century on into the 20th century. American bottle
production tripled from 7,770,000 gross in 1899 to 24,000,000 gross
in 1917 (Miller & Sullivan 1984:88). Much of this increase was due
to falling prices for bottles and the development of good cheap
closures for bottles as well as jars.
Given that bottle consumption was increasing through the period that the
Wilson store was ocupied (1910-1928), and that the site has been lumped
into a mega assemblage, the bottle distribution would clearly be waited
toward the later period of the site's occupation. Thus, the resulting
dates would exaggerate the amount of a time lag between the bottles and
the ceramic vessels. Given this information, I do not see how the time
lag between the bottles and glass can be 20 years. The data needs to be
reworked and a new set of dates calculated before this paper is submitted
for publication.
In addition to the Silcott data, Bill presented mean beginning and
end dates from a number of sites which also appear to have a twenty-year
time lag in the dates of occupation and the manufacturing dates of the
ceramics assemblage. I assume that most of these mean beginning and end
dates were generated using the dates provided by Stanley South in his
article on mean ceramic dating. Stanley acknowledged that many if not
most of the dates he presented were from Ivor Noël Hume. These dates were
published close to 30 years ago, and they have never worked well on 19th
century sites. The dates provided in Stanley's list cover the earliest
and latest known dates for each ceramic type. Many of these types have
very long date ranges which makes them of limited value in dating sites.
While Adams and Gaw used marked artifacts for the original time lag study,
the other sites Bill is using to show a time lag between occupation and
the dates of the ceramics appear to have been dated from South's 30 year
old article. Let's consider some of the dates from that original article
and how our knowledge has changed about them. I will be targeting
creamware, pearlware, whiteware, ironstone and white granite because of
the dominant position these wares occupy in 19th century assemblages.
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| Sout| Ware | South's | Comments | suggeste|
| h | | dates | | d dates |
| no. | | | | |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| 6 | "mocha" listed | c.1795-189| Mocha creamware | 1795-182|
| | under refined and| 0 | | 5 |
| | under pearlware" | | | |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| | | | Mocha pearlware | 1795-183|
| | | | | 5 |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| | | | Mocha whiteware | 1825-184|
| | | | | 0 |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| | | | Mocha whiteware on English| 1850-193|
| | | | tavern mugs | 5 |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| 8 | "finger-painted | c.1790-182| The potters called this | 1785-182|
| | wares (Polychrome| 0 | common cable, or possibly | 5 |
| | slip on cream and| | wormed, on creamware | |
| | pearl wares)" | | | |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| | | | on pearlware | 1785-183|
| | | | | 5 |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| | | | on whiteware | 1825-183|
| | | | | 5 |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| 9 | "embossed | ca1800- | the potters called this | 1820-183|
| | feathers, fish | 1810 | embossed edgeware, on | 5 |
| | scales etc. on | | pearlware | |
| | pearlware" | | | |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| | | | Embossed edged on | 1825-183|
| | | | whiteware | 5 |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| 3 | "Ironstone and | c.1813-190| Ironstone was Mason's name| 1805-185|
| | granite china" | 0 | for their version of a | 0 |
| | | | stone china, it was highly| |
| | | | decorated as were the | |
| | | | other stone chinas | |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| | | | White granite is the name | 1842-193|
| | | | most commonly used by the | 0 |
| | | | potters for white | |
| | | | ironstone. By lumping | |
| | | | ironstone with white | |
| | | | granite, the dates of both| |
| | | | types have been badly | |
| | | | skewed | |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| 17 | "under glaze blue| c.1780-182| "China glaze" was the name| 1775-181|
| | hand painted | 0 | applied to the early blue | 0 |
| | pearlware" | | painted wares decorated | |
| | | | with Chinese patterns | |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| | | | Blue painted pearlware | 1800-183|
| | | | with floral motifs | 5 |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
| | | | | |
| | | | Blue painted whiteware | 1825-184|
| | | | | 0 |
|-----+------------------+-----------+---------------------------+---------|
On page nine of Bill's draft paper "Dating Historical Sites: The
Importance of Understanding Time Lag in the Acquisition, Curation, Use,
and Disposal of Artifacts" there is the following paragraph.
Time lag is something,which has been noticed in assemblages, without
the researcher being fully aware of it. For example, Cynthia Price
(1979:21) acknowledged Ivor Noël Hume's 1795-1815 date (1970:179) for
soft pastel color in polychrome painted wares, while in the Ozark
sites she noted that soft pastel colors occurred until about 1830.
This is a time lag of 15+ years. Similarly, Ivor Noël Hume gives an
1815-1835 date for brighter polychrome painted wares, while Price
ascribed a date of ca. 1830-1860+ to them, a difference of 15-25
years. (The reason for the brighter colors is simple that they
overlay a whiter paste and are under a clearer glaze, that is, they
are on whiteware, not pearlware.) Noël Hume was giving manufacturing
dates, while Price was providing context dates for the archaeological
sites there. Anyone using Price's dates will already have the time
lag accounted, at least in part.
Bill has this all wrong. Noël's end date for the "soft pastel colors" is
off by 15 years. I have polychrome painted pieces in the "soft pastel
colors" marked by Enoch Wood and Ralph and James Clews who both date after
the War of 1812. The second problem with the above dates is the
introduction for the brighter polychrome painted wares is also wrong.
Bill's supposition that the color change was due to a whiter paste and a
clearer glaze misses a very important innovation that took place in color
chemistry in the Staffordshire potteries. Simeon Shaw's 1829 History of
the Staffordshire Potteries talks about the recent introduction of new
red, green and brown printed wares which were gaining popularity. What
Shaw was describing was the introduction of the chrome colors. These
include the red/pink, different shades of green and purple, which was
achieved by mixing chrome oxides with other oxides. The resulting colors
were brighter in color, and do not seem to be as affected by the acidity
of the glaze. These colors were of course also made brighter by under an
untinted clear glaze. Chrome colors become the dominant ones in painted
and printed wares after 1830 and they are very much in use until 1860,
when decorated wares were for the most part taken over by white granite
wares. The use of chrome color painted wares came back sometime around
the 1870s, and remained in almost continuous use after that. Price's
dates are good, and they do not represent a time lag as Bill has
suggested.
There are some additional problems in using the dates generated by
Ivor Noël Hume and Stanley South in 1971. One is that they do not provide
dates for painted, edged, dipt or printed whitewares. The examples listed
above will show some of the problems of dating assemblages with Stanley
South's dates from his 1971 article. Those archaeologists who are still
using these dates (AND THERE ARE SOME) are often using just the mean date
and then trying to explain why the site date does not match up with the
formula mean date. This is a worthless exercise and I get the feeling
that many of those using the formula do not have a good handle on ceramic
chronology. To put it more bluntly, THEY CANNOT TELL TIME.
The obvious conclusion is that the better control one has on the
dates of the wares, the better chance we will have on establishing the
time lag between manufacture and discard. The second point is clearly,
that old data are suspect because the field is rapidly progressing. More
reports should have the level of detail that was provided in the Silcott
report so that those who want to use the data in the future will have
easier access to it. Too many CRM reports and site collection inventories
by the National Park Service have appendices that are unusable because
they have only minimal detail. Far too many archaeologists lump their
sites into mega assemblages as though the site was a single feature.
Comparing lumped sites, especially those occupied for long periods of
time, is a waste of time.
In closing, I hope that Bill's paper on time lag will generate some
meaningful discussion of these topics and perhaps posting other papers for
comments before they are submitted to journals for publication.
George L. Miller
URS
Florence, New Jersey
*******************************
Adams, William Hampton
1977 A Model for Determining Time Lag of Ceramic Artifacts.
Northwest Anthropological Research Notes 11(2):218-231.
Adams, William Hampton, and Linda P. Gaw
1975 Archaeological excavations at Silcott, Washington: the
data. Washington State University, Laboratory of Anthropology,
Report of Investigations. No. 53.
Gates, William C., Jr., and Dana E. Ormerod
1982 The East Liverpool, Ohio Pottery District:
Identification of Manufacturers and Marks. Historical
Archaeology 16(1 & 2).
Godden, Geoffery A.
1964 Encyclopedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks.
Crown Publishers, New York.
Kovel, Ralph, and Terry Kovel
1986 Kovels' New Dictionary of Marks: Pottery & Porcelain
1850 to the Present. Crown Publishing. New York.
Lehner, Lois
1988 Lehner's Encyclopedia of U.S. Marks on Pottery,
Porcelain, & Clay. Collector Books. Paducah, Kentucky
Miller, George L., and Catherine Sullivan
1984 Machine-made Glass Containers and the end of Production
for Mouth-Blown Bottles. Historical Archaeology 18(2)83-96.
South, Stanley
1972 Evolution and Horizon as revealed in Ceramic Analysis
in Historical Archaeology. The Conference on Historic Site
Archaeology Papers, 1971 6:71-116.
Thorn, C. Jordan
1947 Handbook of Old Pottery and Porcelain Marks. Tudor
Publishing Co. New York.
Toulouse, Julian H.
1971 Bottle Makers and their Marks. Thomas Nelson, New
York.
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