Dr. Mainfort's comments are well-advised, and identify the point that has
driven many, if not most researchers to use the generic appelation
"whiteware" in the first place.  While the various gradations and subtle
varieties of refined white earthenwares made after the heyday of creamware
and pearlware can be readily identified when dealing with whole or
restorable vessels, particularly when they bear maker's marks, most
archaeologists deal with these wares as pitiful little fragments.  The
difficulty (no, impossibility, in many cases) of sorting at the sherd level
is the source of the crude taxonomy, I fear.  Seems better to lump where
one cannot distinuish, rather than split on the basis of some
unreproducible categories founded on vibrations emanating from the
ceramics.
 
 
 
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Patrick E. Martin, Associate Professor of Archaeology
Director of Graduate Studies in Industrial Archaeology
Editor of IA, the Journal of the Society for Industrial Archaeology
Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, Michigan 49931-1295 USA
Telephone (906) 487-2070   Fax  (906) 487-2468   Internet  [log in to unmask]
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