Ron

Thank you for the kind comments.  I've been slow in responding to 
HISTSRCH and also missed the SHA meeting due to a anti-bacterial 
resistant staph infection.  Difficult to use a computer while on your 
back with your left ankle higher than your heart (some have suggested 
I don't have one).  A $55.00 pill seems to be curing it.

Thanks again for pointing out the real difference between Sprague and 
South.  The reason for the difference is that Stan worked in 
isolation and I ran my ideas through several hundred students.

Rick


At 10:23 AM 1/25/2007, you wrote:
>
>I have been waiting for Rich Sprague to reply to his thread. After several
>years of attending SHA conference symposia and hearing the problems 
>many people
>  encountered with Stanley South's model, I elected to work with Sprague's
>functional model for analysis of collections recovered at the Ballast Point
>Whaling Station and Chinese fishing camp (CA-SDI-12953) at San Diego,
>California. I corresponded with Sprague and launched into the 
>analysis, which is  nearly
>complete. I expect to produce a report on this work by the end of next
>summer.
>
>My problem with the South model is that it is so static. Other people
>applied their data to the model and it simply did not work. 
>Sprague's model, on  the
>other hand, enables analysis of the behavioral variables within a site due
>to factors such as ethnicity, gender, and economic class. I am more 
>interested
>in the variations than trying to force the data into some rigid model.
>
>Ron May
>Legacy 106, Inc.
>
>In a message dated 1/24/2007 1:18:06 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
>[log in to unmask] writes:
>
>Larry
>
>We have exchanged much of this already but HISTARCH  readers may not
>be aware of some of the details.  As indicated, what  you are looking
>for has already been done and used with great frequency in  western
>North America.  It was published as:  Roderick Sprague,  1981, A
>Functional Classification for Artifacts from 19th and 20th Century
>Historical Sites.  North American Archaeologist,  2(3):251-261.
>
>Stan and I carried on good humored correspondence (before  email) for
>many months on our different approaches to question of  functional
>classifications.  Statements such as "laundry lists" vs.  "where and
>what I did today" were part of that correspondence and should  not be
>taken seriously or misinterpreted.   Why this work has  been little
>used east of the Mississippi except by my former students has  always
>been a mystery to me.
>
>Changes suggested, such as those by  Cathy Spude, are usually ones
>that are made to make specific adjustments  for some special issue and
>are encouraged.  Unfortunately more often  changes are made to make
>the decision process easier and generally violate  the functional
>first level of decision.  For example cartridges are  grouped as just
>that rather than within functional groups of hunting, self  defense,
>recreation, national defense, etc.  This is also most often
>erroneously done with bottles and cans.
>
>Rick
>
>Roderick  Sprague
>625 N Garfield St
>Moscow, ID   83843
>208-882-0413
>
>At 09:39 AM 1/22/2007, you wrote:
> >Our  staff is working on the analysis of artifacts from a data  recovery
> >project on a 1910s to 1940s lumber mill town, Ravensford, on  the edge of
> >the Great Smoky Mountains in southwestern North  Carolina.  The
> >collection includes over 170,000 artifacts from 22  distinct house lots,
> >commercial lots, and several  dumps.
> >
> >We are trying to adapt South's functional category  scheme to serve as an
> >intermediate step in the artifact analysis. We  are tweaking it to
> >accommodate 20th century items as well as to try (as  others have done)
> >to minimize the inherent problems in forcing certain  multifunctional or
> >ambiguous items into fixed  categories.
> >
> >We are looking for references to discussions (in  publications, gray
> >literature, dissertations, or meeting presentations)  of similar attempts
> >at broader functional categorization of historic  period artifact
> >collections, based on South or other  approaches.
> >
> >Thanks in advance for any suggestions from list  members.
> >
> >Larry McKee, Ph.D.
> >Branch Manager/Senior  Archaeologist
> >TRC Inc.
> >1865 Air Lane Dr, Suite  9
> >Nashville TN  37210-3814
> >Office: 615 884-4430  Fax:  615 884-4431
> >Mobile: 615  482-7378
> >[log in to unmask]