George and others,

At the risk of making a general, undirected comment that will then be
characterized as mongering of some sort or that will make me the
target of an ad hominem slam, I offer yet another reason to revel in
the Iain Walker article George has brought to our attention.  I find
it shocking that years and years after Iain Walker's article was
published and then reprinted in Schuyler's book, so many historical
archaeologists persist in referring to white ball clay pipes as
"kaolin" pipes--Walker  blows that misnomer to smithereens in the
same article, backing up what he says with incontrovertible evidence.
I suppose I labored too long under the impression that most everyone
reads that Schuyler collection, or most of it, as part of their basic
training in historical archaeology.  I always thank my lucky stars
that there are people like Walker on pipes or all those wonderful
bead folk to get down and dirty with a category of artifact, study it
in depth, and, like George does with ceramics, share the wealth of
information.  Making use of this information is, um, a good thing,
and I am grateful to those who labor at the coal face to help the
rest of us learn about what it really is we are talking about.
(pardon the fractured grammar, it's been a long day and getting
longer)

M.

>Mark,
>
>Iain Walker's comments were not a review of Walter Taylor's book.  He was
>commenting on the whole field of historical archaeology in North America
>after working in Canada for five years and having been trained in European
>prehistory.  Iain hands out some choice comments on Binford and others, and
>the essay is an interesting read.   The fact that is was the first article
>in the volume one of Historical Archaeology says something.
>
>George L. Miller
>URS Corporation
>561 Cedar Lane
>Florence, New Jersey 08518