Neff Ceramics Evolution

Ceramics and Evolution
Author(s): Hector Neff

Source: Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 4 (1992), pp. 141-193
Published by: Springer
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4 Ceramics and
Evolution
HECTOR NEFF
Introduction
Over the past decade, American archaeologists have ar

gued with increasing frequency that archaeological phenomena can
be thought of as products of Darwinian evolution (R.C. Adams 1981;
Braun 1990, n.d.; Dunnell 1978, 1980, 1982, 1989; Leonard 1989;
Leonard and Jones 1987; O'Brien and Holland 1990; Rindos 1984,
1985, 1986a, 1986b, 1989). Despite the growing interest in Darwinian
theory, the hope that evolutionary theory might "be rewritten in
terms that have empirical representation in the archaeological rec
ord" (Dunnell 1980:89) has not yet been realized. Some progress to
ward this goal has emerged from an explicit recognition that human
behavior and the products of human behavior are aspects of the
human phenotype (Boyd and Richerson 1985:36; Dunnell 1989;
Leonard and Jones 1987; O'Brien and Holland 1990). Like other
phenotypic characteristics, the behaviors used to make artifacts at a
particular place and time (and therefore the artifacts themselves) can
be explained by reference to history (descent, inheritance of informa
tion) and selective retention.
My goal in this article is to promote a Darwinian perspective on
the archaeological record. The basis of this approach is a focus on
variation and how variation gets reconfigured in specific historical
sequences (Dunnell 1982; Leonard and Jones 1987; O'Brien and Hol
land 1990; Sober 1980). Braun (n.d.) and Rindos (1989:5) have stressed
that such a perspective ties explanation to realized historical se
quences; a Darwinian perspective on the archaeological record must
be built upon a consideration of actual archaeological phenomena.
Because broken pottery dominates the archaeological record inmany
141
142 Hector Neff
and the framework for many archaeological se

regions provides
quences, evolutionary archaeology will inevitably confront the need
to account for pottery-making aspects of the human phenotype. This
article examines how the specific activities involved in pottery-mak
ing are shaped by Darwinian processes, thereby providing grounds for

assuming that patterns of ceramic variation observed in the archaeo
logical record themselves can be viewed as shaped by Darwinian
processes. My basic argument is that ceramic evolution is differen

tial persistence of information on ceramic making through history.
A theory of ceramic evolution is therefore a theory of how informa
tion on pottery-making is invented, transmitted, recombined, and
eventually lost. I suggest that the mix of ceramic traits observable at
any point in time-space results from differential persistence of infor

mation within ceramic traditions and from differential persistence
of traditions themselves.
In the second half of this article I examine ceramic
existing theory,
method, and applications from a Darwinian
point of view, seeking
to identify what might be kept and/or adapted and what probably
will be discarded as an evolutionary approach to pottery takes shape.
Some examples of ceramic evolution described in the existing litera
ture are summarized. The scope of the present paper is restricted,
however, by omitting detailed discussion of the methodological im
plications of Darwinism for ceramic analysis. Clearly it is important

to develop tools for measuring Darwinian processes in the archaeo
logical record, but I think the first step toward rewriting evolutionary
theory for archaeology is to establish the applicability of Darwinian
concepts to the empirical phenomena of concern to archaeologists
(i.e., the contents of the archaeological record, in this case, ceramics).
Ceramic Evolution
Darwin's theory of variation and selective retention has

become more prominent in the cultural
anthropological conscious
ness during the past twenty-five years (Alland 1975; Campbell 1965;
Boyd and Richerson 1980, 1985; Cloak 1975; Cohen 1981; Durham
1976, 1979, 1982; Richerson 1977; Ruyle 1973). In archaeology, intro
duction of an explicit Darwinian perspective on change has occurred
within the past decade or so (Dunnell 1978, 1980; Kirch and Green
1987; Leonard and Jones 1987; O'Brien and Holland 1990; Price 1982;
Ceramics and Evolution 143
Rindos 1984, 1985, 1986a, 1986b, 1989). A key innovation promoting

independent contributions from archaeology to evolutionary theory
is the recognition of a structural analogy between archaeology's re
lationship to anthropology and paleontology's relationship to biology
(Alland 1975; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Dunnell 1982; Flan

nery 1985; Kirch and Green 1987; Thomas 1986).
Just as paleontologists cannot expect to extrapolate gradual change
in gene frequencies within populations to higher taxonomic levels
or to geological time frames (e.g., Gould 1980b), archaeologists can
not expect simply to extrapolate the processes of innovation and
transmission observed
among living groups to account for the diver
sity of the archaeological record. Recognizing the limitations of
strict neo-Darwinian gradualism, several paleontologists (e.g., Gould
1980a, 1980b; Eldredge 1985) have proposed that the diversity of life
recorded in geological strata is the result of selective retention of
variation on several hierarchical
levels, from populations to
up
monophyletic taxa.
Similarly in archaeology, Darwinian concepts
will prove more powerful if they are conceived hierarchically.
Eldredge's (1985) discussion of hierarchical evolutionary theory
provides some useful insights for the generalization of evolutionary
theory needed for archaeology. Eldredge proposes that evolution is
the interaction of two parallel hierarchies. The genealogical hierar
chy contains information partitioned at different levels, including
genes, chromosomes, organisms, demes, species, and monophyletic
taxa. The ecological hierarchy consists of "interactors," including
molecules, cells, organisms, populations, communities, and regional
biotas. The genealogical hierarchy supplies information determining
the form and function of interactors (Eldredge 1985:180), while inter
actions within the ecological hierarchy determine what information
persists in the genealogical hierarchy (Eldredge 1985:182). If cultural
information is conceived as partitioned at several levels of inclusive
ness, like the genealogical hierarchy, then a hierarchy of processes
that may shape the available pool of cultural information may also
be envisioned.
Turning now specifically to ceramics, we may assume that people
at any point in time and space possess information related to pot
tery-making. At certain points, of course, people possess no useful
information related to pottery-making, i.e., before the "invention"
of pottery. The ultimate source of all information about pottery
making is creativity (including trial-and-error problem solving) and
144 Hector Neff
accidental innovations of individuals. Both new and old information

is shared among potters within some spatial and temporal range,
giving rise to supra-individual information-containing entities that
may be called "ceramic traditions."
The phenotype of an individual potter includes practices he or she
uses in making pots along with the finished pots themselves, both of
which are determined by the individual's pottery-making knowl
edge. Since no two potters possess exactly the same information on
how tomake pots, there is phenotypic variation among potters, some
of which may lead to differentials in the success of individuals at
transmitting pottery-making information to others. Phenotypic
characteristics that lead potters to transmit information more suc
cessfully tend to become more common, while characteristics that

lead them to transmit information less successfully tend to become
less common. The differentials among individuals in success at
transmitting pottery-making information give rise to individual
level selection for pottery-making practices. Successful transmis
sion depends importantly, though not exclusively, on making pots
that meet individual and group needs in a given environment. How
ever, it is important to remember that many aspects of phenotypic
expression are neutral with respect to successful transmission of pot
tery-making knowledge in particular environments,- also, aspects of
phenotype seemingly unrelated to pottery-making may influence
the success of transmission of pottery-making knowledge (O'Brien
and Holland 1990).
Information may also be lost, partitioned, or otherwise reconfig
ured through chance processes or large-scale events that effect differ
entials among supra-individual containers of pottery-making infor
mation, i.e., between ceramic traditions. Such events or processes
may neutralize selection based on the relative success of individuals
at passing on pottery-making knowledge. Following Eldredge (1985)
I refer to higher level processes as "sorting" rather than selection,
but it is important to stress that disruption of transmission on any
level is a Darwinian process.
The net result
of the filtering of pottery-making information that
goes on simultaneously on several hierarchical levels ismodification
of the pool of information about pottery-making that gets passed on
through history. In sum, ceramic evolution is a process whereby indi
vidual, undirected variation in pottery-making practices is converted
into variation patterned in space and time. A theory of ceramic
evolution consists of (a)mechanisms for generating and transmitting

cultural information related to pottery-making and (b)mechanisms
for reconfiguring the available information.
Information
In this section, I discuss variation generation and transmission, the

two mechanisms concerned specifically with information. I con
clude with a discussion of "ceramic traditions," the temporally con
tinuous, spatially bounded entities responsible for the perpetuation

of information related to pottery production.
1. Variation. The beliefs and practices of potters of any tradition ulti

mately arose as inventions of individuals working either in that tradi
tion or in related (including ancestral) traditions. For the Darwinian
framework to apply to ceramic evolution, invention (i.e., the genera
tion of variation) must be uncoupled from a second phenomenon,
selection, which shapes available variation.
In the short run, of course, most inventions are directed toward
solving specific, existing or anticipated problems. Humans often can
solve mechanical problems such as those encountered in ceramic
manufacture by trial and error or by reasoning about the conse
quences of particular modifications of the production process. Cer
tainly humans can articulate clear psychological reasons for their
inventions. Schiffer and Skibo (1987) have linked such problem-solv
ing abilities of humans who recognize the consequences of their ac
tions to technological change, that is, to evolution. On one level this
is correct: all traits of human technological systems ultimately origi
nated as human inventions.
"
However, 'directed' in an evolutionary sense is not the same as
'directed' in a psychological sense" (Rindos 1985:85). Directed inno
vation that successfully solves some mechanical problem becomes
important to evolution only by virtue of the effect of the new trait
on future bearers (Rindos 1989:13). No selective advantage may re
sult fromsolving many mechanical or engineering problems recog
nized in the present. Conversely, a 'chance' innovation that solves no
particular mechanical problem in the present may be a key ingredient
of some future technological system. Some innovations may have no
effect, but may increase in frequency due to chance processes, or
because they occur in a complex of successful traits (O'Brien and
146 Hector Neff
Holland 1990). The crucial point here is that problem solving and
inventiveness should be viewed as part of the mechanism by which
variation, the raw material for selection, arises (Braun 1990; Rindos
1989). Innovation by humans is "directed" only by individual thought
process and cultural context, which are independent of the future
selective and chance forces that will determine the innovation's suc
cess or failure.
The foregoing view of problem solving and inventiveness runs
counter to the argument that cultural evolution is Lamarckian
rather than Darwinian (e.g., Cohen 1981; Irons 1979; Rosenberg
1990). Dunnell (1981:210) has pointed out that human problem solv
ing or goal directedness might lead to Lamarckian evolution only if
humans accurately defined problems and forecasted future condi
tions. This is analogous to the requirement that, for biological evolu
tion to be Lamarckian, genetic innovation (mutation) would have to
be "directed" by evolutionary needs. Clearly, DNA molecules know
nothing of future evolutionary needs or opportunities. The same
observation applies to humans who introduce innovations to solve
perceived problems or exploitperceived opportunities. To direct

evolution through innovation, humans would have to solve future
problems and exploit future opportunities, and would have to antici
pate the impact of particular solutions on conditions and events in
the more long-term future. Humans
certainly attempt to forecast
and solve problems, but, beyond months or years (or perhaps decades
in some domains, such as global warming predicted by supercompu
ter climate modeling), there are simply too many unknown contin
gencies and too many unknown causal relationships to predict how
an innovation introduced in the present will fare and what part it
will play. (Schiffer [1979:360-62] provides a useful discussion of the
limitations of human decision-making that is relevant in this con
nection.) To reiterate, by solving problems based on forecasts, hu

mans generate variation, the raw material needed for selection.
Human problem solving and inventiveness are manifestations of
human creativity, which derives from a pan-human ability to man
ufacture and manipulate symbols. From a Darwinian perspective,
symbols play a part in evolution becausethey serve as instructions
for action and thereby produce a physical manifestation, i.e., an as
pect of phenotype. In other words, variation in cultural information
(symbols) is important because it underlies the phenotypic variation
upon which selection acts in the evolution of cultural phenomena

(Rindos 1985; Boyd and Richerson 1985).
Compared with genetic information coded in DNA, symbolic sys
tems have an enormous potential for generating variation. Because
the potential for a lineage to respond to evolutionary challenges and
opportunities depends to a large degree on the raw material (vari
ation) available for selection, it can be argued that human symbolic
ability evolved in human ancestors through selection for increased
heritable variation (Rindos 1986a, 1989). Symbols may be created
and recombined in novel configurations in the process of problem
solving and
invention, as already discussed. In part, however, the
enhanced variation-generating capability of symbolic systems is due
to their complexity and ambiguity (Rindos 1985:72). Errors in mem
ory and interpretation create further variation. Importantly, the am
biguity and complexity of human symbolic systems further guaran
tee that the evolution of culture cannot be due only to the generation
of cultural variation: such an error-prone mechanism for generating
information could not possibly respond to dimly foreseen or un
known future conditions.
Without pretending that individual creativity is a well-understood
mechanism, it is easy to see, on an ad hoc basis, how creativity and
variant interpretations can give rise to novel pottery-making prac
tices. Due to accident or intention, a potter's clay mixtures may dif
fer from batch to batch; pots differ in shape and decoration; tempera
ture, atmosphere, and duration vary slightly from one firing to the
next; and what becomes of the finished pot (i.e., where it is con
sumed by the potter or by some second party through some exchange
transaction) may vary from pot to pot. If, intentionally or not, the
potter continues to employ an accidental or intentional alteration of
his/her practices, that variant becomes available for evolutionary
forces to act upon in the future.
Examples of variation generation among potters are numerous.
Hill (1977) found dramatic variations among artisans asked to make
an exact copy of a simple decorative pattern. Since the individuals
received the same instructions
and followed the same model, the
variation was due
solely to differing interpretations and differing
skills. Nicklin (1971) discusses a number of ethnographic examples
of the importance of creativity and "artistic impulses" in generating
new styles. One widely cited example is Nampeyo, a Tewa potter
148 Hector Neff
from the Hopi Mesas. At the suggestion of archaeologists, she began

to copy decorative styles exemplified by archaeological ceramics.
The combination of her own inventiveness and the stimulus pro
vided by the archaeological examples yielded several new decorative
styles that later proved popular to tourists (Nicklin 1971).
Nampeyo had definite reasons for experimenting with new decora
tive styles. As in other cultural practices, potters articulate reasons
for many of the changes they introduce. They also note correlations
between finished pots and production practices, and introduce fur
ther variation in light of these correlations. But, as already discussed,
from a Darwinian perspective, the origin of a trait and the effect of
its possession in a particular historical context are two distinct is
sues (Rindos 1989; also see Braun n.d.). The human rationale behind
a particular pottery-making innovation is independent of the part
the new trait plays in the future ceramic system. The latter is deter
mined by chance and by the opportunities and constraints that selec
tion presents in the future. As noted by Mayr (1988), evolution is a
two-step process.
2. Transmission. Darwin
suggested that evolution (descent with
modification) takes place because the flow of information governing
the characteristics of organisms may be disturbed by amultitude of
forces. Although Darwin did not know about genetics, his theory of
descent with modification implied that understanding evolution re
quires understanding how transmission occurs and how itmight be

disturbed in different kinds of inheritance systems. As Dunnell
(1980:87) observes, the empirical sufficiency of an evolutionary
theory of cultural phenomena depends on identifying units of cul
tural transmission.
Because humans learn from other humans in social situations, and
this process results in the perpetuation of information through time,
human culture must be considered one kind of inheritance system
(Boyd and Richerson 1985; Rindos 1989). However, there is a basic
difference between inheritance systems based on genetic transmis
sion and those based on cultural transmission. Whereas genetic in
formation is transmitted only to offspring in the immediately suc
ceeding generation, cultural information may be transmitted within

generations to genetically related or unrelated individuals or to re
lated or unrelated individuals of succeeding generations, includ
ing both immediately succeeding and subsequent generations (e.g.,
Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Dunnell 1989). Cultural transmis

sion is also more error-prone than genetic transmission, which aug
ments existing variation, as alluded to in the preceding section.
These distinctive properties of cultural transmission?multiple
channels and high error rates?uncouple selection from organic gen
erations and compress the evolutionary time scale.
Just as the differences between biological and cultural inheritance
imply dramatic differences in the evolutionary process, so the great

variation that exists among cultural inheritance systems suggests
that there should be variation in how cultural evolution works. Kin
based transmission in small-scale societies, a one-to-one or several
to-one phenomenon, certainly entails implications for selection
distinct from the implications of one-to-millions transmission of in
formation in video-age societies. The distinction is probably no less
dramatic in its effects on evolutionary processes than the difference
between genetic and cultural transmission, or between asexual and
sexual transmission. Other, much finer scale distinctions in mode of
cultural transmission can certainly
be identified. Explaining cultural
phenomena in evolutionary terms means describing how specific
modes of cultural transmission are disrupted in specific historical
situations (Braun n.d.). To reiterate a point made in the introduction,
Darwinian explanation does not exist independent of realized histor
ical circumstances (Braun 1990; Rindos 1989).
Because cultural transmission involves learning, a number of au
thors have stressed social learning studies as crucial in the develop
ment of a theory of cultural inheritance (e.g., Pulliam and Dunford
1980; Plotkin and Odling-Smee 1981; Cohen 1981; Jochim 1981;
Boyd and Richerson 1985). Additionally, substantial effort has been
directed toward developing mathematical models of transmission
that subsume both genetic transmission the more
and complex
modes of cultural transmission (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1973,
1981; Boyd and Richerson 1976, 1980, 1982, 1985). The basic assump
tion underlying the work of these authors is that
"the probability
that pseudo-particulate 'traits'. . .will be replicated in a focal indi
vidual is an additive function of their separate presences in that indi
vidual's 'culture
parents'" (Daly 1982:401).
Social learning and the human interactions underlying additive
transmission unfortunately are not observable in the archaeological
record. Perhaps due to the difficulty of defining units of transmission
that can be observed archaeologically, archaeologists sometimes
150 Hector Neff
downplay the importance of transmission. Rindos (1984), for exam
ple, notes that Darwin was unaware of Mendelian genetics when he

developed the
original selectionist argument, so understanding
transmission is not a necessary condition for development of the
theory. More to the point, as Dunnell (1989:41; see also Price 1982:
has "Selection . . . lacks any means to differentiate
717) observed,
traits inherited through different mechanisms." Evolution through
selection follows
automatically from the observations (or assump
tions) that(1) some mechanism of transmission exists and (2) there
is phenotypic variation in the effectiveness of transmission.
Without downplaying the importance of investigating how trans
mission occurred and what lines in specific historical
it followed
situations, it seems unavoidable that
the path toward evolutionary
explanation of archaeological phenomena must start with assump

tions about the nature of cultural transmission underlying the ar
chaeological patterns of interest. For
instance, in archaeological
studies of pottery, it is often assumed implicitly that information
flows most easily among people who live in close proximity, share a
common language, and interact on a daily basis. Furthermore, in
many spatio-temporal contexts, genetic relatives are, on average,
much more likely to fulfill thoserequirements than are nonrelatives.
These assumptions are warranted not only by common sense but by
generalization based on ethnographic data. Due in part to a desire to

evaluate the assumptions underlying certain archaeological studies
of ceramic decoration, ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological studies
have provided some important data on the transmission of cultural
instructions for making pottery in traditional societies. Much of this
information has been summarized by Kramer (1985).
The ethnographic evidence cautions against overly simplistic as
sumptions about the exact channels of information transmission

(Kramer 1985:83-87) but nonetheless supports the generalization
that pottery-making knowledge tends to flow along lines of genetic
relatedness in small-scale, kin-based societies. When production
takes place within the household, whether for the market or for in
ternal consumption only, transmission of information takes place
largely on the household level. For instance, in the traditional pot
tery-making communities the basic unit of pottery
of Guatemala,
production is the individual
household, and young female members
learn the traditional techniques from the senior potter, who usually
a
is mother, aunt, or grandmother (Reina and Hill 1978:21). The cus
toms that are transmitted the family pervade all aspects of

within
pottery production, from collecting and mixing clay to marketing.

One result of this highly structured system of transmission is that
each pottery-making community or localized group of communities
produces a distinctive style of pottery that is distinguished easily

from the products of other centers. Foster (1965) likewise indicates
that transmission of potting techniques in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacan
(Mexico), occurs primarily along family lines, and that techniques

are sometimes consciously kept secret. In the Yucatecan communi
ties studied by Thompson (1958), learning the potter's craft similarly
takes place within a household; young potters learn the craft from
parents, aunts, uncles, or grandparents. Arnold (1986:7) has carefully

examined the evidence for kin transmission in Ticul, Yucat?n, and
concludes, "A kin-based model thus accounts for the transmission

of the potter's craftfrom generation to generation even in amodern
peasant society in which pottery production is heavily oriented to

the tourist trade." Arnold stresses the key role of early childhood
learning in the development of the complex motor habits involved

in pottery-making, a perspective that highlights the importance of
vertical (parent to offspring) transmission.
On the other hand, some skepticism regarding kin-transmission is
warranted simply because nothing inherent in how cultural instruc
tions are communicated requires relatives to be frequent recipients.
Stanislawski and Stanislawski (1978), in a study of communication of
potters' marks among Hopi and Hopi-Tewa potters of the U.S. South
west, illustrate a clear-cut exception to kin-transmission. They find
that "information flow is a complex multistrand affair, certainly em
phasizing kinship links, but also equally links of marital and settle
ment propinquity" (Stanislawski and Stanislawski 1978:74). Graves
(1985) also notes the importance of physical proximity independent
of relatedness in the transmission of pottery-making knowledge
among the Kalinga in the Philippines.
Although cultural transmission may be completely unrelated to
genetic transmission, kin-transmission probably predominates in

most societies simply because kin usually live close by (Kramer
1985:85). In fact, because physical proximity of genetic relatives is
required for a net inclusive fitness advantage to accrue from altruis

tic behavior (Hamilton 1964), cultural transmission, considered as a
form of altruistic behavior, may have been favored by selection in
hominids precisely because it usually took place between genetic
152 Hector Neff
relatives. Now that cultural transmission has evolved in humans,

there is obviously a wide range of variation in how transmission
takes place, and that range of variation includes contexts in which
transmission between genetic relatives is not significantly more fre
quent than transmission between nonrelatives. But, throughout
most of the phylogenetic history of the human species, channels of
cultural and genetic transmission must have overlapped in large
part. The distinctiveness of human evolution compared to evolution
in species with little or no cultural transmission derives not so much
from the fact that transmission may occur between nonrelatives but
from the fact that humans can transmit instructions
for creating
human phenotypes throughout their lifetimes rather than just at the
moment of conception (Dunnell 1980:65-66). This condition opens
up the potential of transmission to nonrelatives in any human soci
ety, but in most societies throughout human history, genetic rela
tives have been the major recipients of cultural inheritance.
Cultural transmission
(including transmission of pottery-making
knowledge) always takes place at least to some extent between gener
ations, resulting in the perpetuation of cultural information through
history. This fact, coupled with variation in the effectiveness of
transmission, guarantees the applicability of selection to cultural
phenomena. But cultural transmission is not restricted to intergener
ational transfer or to genetic relatives, and great variation exists be
tween societies in the channels that cultural information follows.
This means that construction of an evolutionary theory for cultural
phenomena depends on building models transmission
of cultural ap
propriate to particular, realized historical
sequences. However, the
common heritage of all cultural transmission systems permits a
simplifying assumption: as a result of the phylogenetic history of

the human species, human offspring normally spend a long period of
time under the supervision of parents and learn much of their basic
predispositions, beliefs, and motor skills within the household.

Under such conditions, selection of cultural information may, at
least to some extent, parallel selection of genetic information. For
the investigation of ceramic evolution in the archaeological record it
is crucial that means be developed for testing and refining this as
sumption in particular historical contexts.
3. Ceramic Traditions. Inter-individual transfer of pottery-making

knowledge must produce historical phenomena that Iwill refer to as
"ceramic traditions." Shared information dictates where to find clay,

how to prepare clay, how to form and decorate pots, how to fire pots,
and other aspects of behavior related to pottery-making. Just as the
techniques employed by an individual to produce his/her distinctive
pots are determined by the pottery-making information that indi
vidual carries, so the distinctive, collective
phenotypic expressions
recognizable in particular regions, during particular time intervals,
are determined by information shared among individuals working
within a tradition. The
importance of ceramic traditions to ceramic
evolution is that
traditions, like individuals, are partitions of infor
mation concerning how to produce pottery-making aspects of pot
ters' phenotypes; because evolution results from any disruption of
information flow through time, ceramic evolution will result both
from disruptions of inter-individual transmission of pottery-making
knowledge and from disruptions that simultaneously affect the abil
ity to transmit pottery-making knowledge of all individuals working
within a ceramic tradition.
In the present, ceramic traditions may be observed directly: pot
ters can be observed to communicate conventions or customs for
making pots to offspring, other apprentices, and colleagues, and phe
notypic similarities among potters (in the techniques employed to
make pots and in their pots) can be seen to result from this process
(e.g., Arnold 1978a, 1978b, 1986; Foster 1965; Kramer 1985; Nicklin
1971; Reina and Hill 1978; Shepard 1963; Thompson 1958; see above).
Over several generations, this process yields continuity in potters'
phenotypes, that is, continuity in regionally distinctive ceramic in
dustries like that documented by Reina and Hill (1978) in highland
Guatemala. Although the vessels made within each tradition may
vary widely, commonality of cultural descent can be recognized in
distinctive forms, paste color, surface treatment, decoration, or other
phenotypic traits expressed on pottery vessels.
By analogy with regionally distinctive ceramic industries known

ethnographically, the archaeological phenomena recognizable as
"types" or "wares" may represent continuity of phenotypic expres
sion, a result of the flow of information on pottery-making within
traditions. It is important to point out, however, that archaeological
types are not isomorphic with traditions: ceramic traditions consist
of shared information about pottery-making flowing continuously
through history during some time interval; individual pots consti
tute a phenotypic expression of that tradition; and archaeological
154 Hector Neff
"types" are analytic constructs that, in some cases, represent an ar
chaeologist's attempt to group together phenotypic expressions per

taining to a single tradition.
Archaeologists may, of course, define "types" or other categories
for purposes completely unrelated to the problem of recognizing
shared information. The important point here is that, whether or
not a ceramic tradition can be recognized by archaeologists, any pot
made anywhere, at any time, represents the phenotypic expression
of inherited information about the production and use of pottery.
The information contained in a tradition at any particular time and
place, together with the potter's accidents, inventions, and responses

to perceived problems or opportunities, are the immediate determin
ants of what kinds of pots get produced. Within ceramic traditions,
new information is invented, recombined with existing information,
and eventually lost. New barriers to information flow may arise,
causing an existing tradition to differentiate into two or more daugh
ter traditions. Applying Darwinian theory to the ceramic component
of the archaeological record means identifying the processes by
which information was transmitted differentially within ceramic
traditions and by which traditions themselves persisted differen
tially in specific historical circumstances.
Differential persistence of information within ceramic traditions,
discussed in the followingsection, depends on the existence of vari
ation among individual potters working within the tradition. Indi
vidual variation is guaranteed by variation in intelligence, variation
in physical size, variation in strength, variation in learning contexts,
and myriad other sources of difference between individuals. Vari
ation in pottery-making practices gives rise to variation in pots. The
pots made by a single individual also vary as a result of variation in
intended uses, particular decisions made at the time of manufacture,
continuing refinement of techniques or learning new techniques,
etc. Some of this multifaceted variation in phenotypic expression
inevitably creates variation in how well potters communicate their
knowledge and techniques to others. Variation in the success of com
municating pottery-making knowledge gives rise to change through
time in pottery-making practices, and therefore in pots, within
ceramic traditions.
Recognizing that information about pottery-making is partitioned
on the individual and collective (tradition) levels suggests that
ceramic evolution must be a between-tradition process as well as a
within-tradition process. Between-tradition processes operate by im

posing differentials between individuals in different groups in the
success with which pottery-making knowledge is communicated.
As mentioned previously, I refer to such processes as "sorting," but
this should not obscure their Darwinian nature. A selectionist ac
count of ceramic evolution in a specific historical situation consists
of an explanation for differential persistence of information, both
between traditions and within traditions.
Differential Persistence
Ceramic evolution is expressed as shifts in the frequencies of alterna

tive states of ceramic traits, either within traditions or, on larger
scales, in the relatively abrupt disappearance or partitioning of tradi
tions. In both cases, the information available on how to make pot
tery directly determines what ceramic traits (aspects of the pheno
type) may appear at any time and place. Thus, ceramic evolution
entails disruption of cultural transmission, resulting over time in
modification of the information available for producing pottery.
To account for differential
persistence of information (the result of
differential transmission) the Darwinist invokes selection and sort
ing, two processes that may disrupt the transmission of cultural
information.
1. Selection and Fitness. The cornerstone of the Darwinian

framework is, of course, natural selection, the idea that evolution is
differential persistence of variation. Considering the centrality of
selection to a Darwinian framework, it is ironic that selection is
really nothing more than an inevitable outcome if inherited differ
ences in the effectiveness of transmission can be demonstrated or
assumed (Mayr 1988:117). For genetically inherited characteristics,
the variation that exists and the way it is configured at any particular
point in time are explained by past reproductive differentials among
individuals. Put another way, the reproductive success of individuals
or groups of related individuals determines which genetic instruc
tions increase in frequency and which decrease in frequency in the
gene pool of succeeding generations. Reproductive differentials
among individuals and among groups of related individuals are thus
the criteria by which natural selection configures future genetic vari
ation. But what determines the differential persistence of instruc
156 Hector Neff
tions for creating the cultural aspects of the human phenotype?

What constitutes "fitness" when cultural traits, such as pottery, are
the focus of analysis?
One approach of potential utility for archaeology is to shift the
focus of analysis so that selection is viewed as operating on traits
rather than on individuals. Leonard and Jones (1987), for instance,
propose a distinction between the Darwinian fitness of individuals,
i.e., reproductive success, and the "replicative success" or Darwin
ian fitness of traits. Replicative success?the differential persistence
of traits through time?is
argued to be amore inclusive criterion of
fitness than reproductive success, permitting a broadening of the
Darwinian framework to subsume cultural phenomena. Replicative
success may or may not confer reproductive success on the bearer of
the trait (Leonard and Jones 1987:214); conversely, reproductive suc
cess of individuals may lead to replicative success of traits, but this
is not necessarily the case. Success at levels above the individual?
success of communities or larger groups?may also lead to replica
tive success of traits. All characteristics of phenotypes (physiologi
cal, behavioral, or artifactual) are "equivalent phenomenological
classes, each governed by the replication criterion" (Leonard and
Jones 1987: 214-16).
One potential weakness in the replicative-success criterion pro
posed by Leonard and Jones relates to the distinction between infor
mation and its material expression. may be "change in the
Evolution
form of any frequency that
distribution
persists across generations"
(Leonard and Jones 1987:212), but information flow both provides

the cause for persistence of frequency distributions across genera
tions and creates the potential (through disruption of information
flow) for frequency distributions to change over time. Persisting fre
quency distributions of phenotypic traits reflect an underlying con
tinuity of information content, i.e., continuity in the genetic or cul

tural instructions on which phenotypic expression depends. And,
although evolution is expressed as change in the frequency distribu
tions of phenotypic traits, it is caused by differential transmission of
information, both genetic and cultural. Differential replicative suc

cess of cultural traits (such as aspects of pottery-making) implies an
underlying differential in the success of individuals at transmitting
cultural information.
The view that selection affects culturally inherited variation in
the same way that it affects genetically inherited variation (i.e.,
through differential
reproductive success of individuals) has been
proposed by a number of selectionists. Dunnell has expressed this

idea as follows:
If a given trait is heritable to a measurable degree (the mecha

nism of inheritance need not be known) and if it also affects the
fitness of organisms possessing the trait to some measurable
degree (recognizing the possiblity of neutral or stylistic traits),

then the trait must be subject to natural selection and will be
fixed in populations in accord with the biological model. (Dun
nell 1980:63, emphasis in original)
Rindos (1985) calls this "cultural selection of the first kind" or CSX.
It is distinct from natural selection only because it feeds back sys
tematically on cultural variation as well as genetic variation; the

selective criteria?reproductive differentials?are the same as for
natural selection (Rindos 1985:73). Cloak (inRuyle et al. 1977:50)
labels this thesis "the natural selection of cultural instructions."
Durham (1976:97) and Richerson (1977:14) similarly regard the inclu
sive fitness criterion of selection of cultural as a necessary
traits
implication of the observation that cultures are adaptive in the
biological sense.
Several who maintain
authors a selectionist perspective have rec
ognized that reproductive differentials among individuals alone are

insufficient to account for the evolution of cultural traits. Some
posit a second kind of "cultural selection" (e.g., Braun n.d.; Durham
1976; Rindos 1984). In Durham's (1976) scheme, cultural selection
encompasses processes of interindividual interaction in society (e.g.,
learning) that help determine the differential propagation of variants.
Braun (n.d.) similarly refers to "existing beliefs and practices" in his
discussion of cultural selection. This also seems to be what Rindos
(1985) refers to as "cultural selection of the second kind" or CS2.
Unless I have missed some subtlety in their arguments, Braun,
Durham, and Rindos seem to be making the observation that vari
ation generation and transmission are constrained by history, that
is, by the full sweep of phylogenetic and cultural history leading up
to a particular group of humans in a particular time and place. The
total system of instructions available for creating human phenotypes
in a particular time and place, a product of previous evolutionary
history, constrains the range of tolerable variation, both genetic and
cultural (O'Brien and Holland 1990); some kinds of variation, say the
158 Hector Neff
invention of the transistor, simply cannot arise in some historical

situations. Individual humans manifest these constraints on vari
ation in their problem-solving activities andin the psychological
motivations they express, as discussed above. The total system of in
structions available for creating the human phenotype in a particular
historical setting also determines how cultural and genetic informa
tion is transmitted. In sum, what Rindos calls CS2 should be viewed
as the constellation of historical on the gener
constraints
impinging
ation and transmission of cultural variation in a given time and place.
Because history constrains variation generation and transmission,
it also constrains selection. This is so because what contributes to
"fitness" depends on the evolved particulars of transmission in par
ticular times and places (Braun n.d.). On a gross level, as already
noted, the conditions that may interfere with transmission in amod
ern video-age society differ from those that will disrupt transmission
in small-scale societies in which transmission takes place predomi
nantly within small social units in a one-to-one mode. Similarly,

different marriage and early childhood socialization patterns will im
pose different constraints on the the potential for selection to effect
differentials among individuals in the success of transmission.
Because understanding selection requires understanding how
transmission works in particular cases, it is impossible to provide a
truly general discussion of selection for ceramic aspects of potters'

phenotypes. Analternative approach is to examine selection in socie
ties likely to bear a resemblance to prehistoric societies of interest to
archaeologists. As discussed previously, a reasonable starting as
sumption for many prehistoric societies is that the transmission

mechanisms underlying observed phenotypic expression are largely
one-to-one interactions that often parallel genetic transmission. In
such small-scale societies selection may act primarily on the indi
vidual level (Dunnell 1980:64-66). "Ceramic fitness" in such socie
ties must entail differentials in the success of individuals at commu
nicating their pottery-making knowledge in one-to-one interactions.

But what determines the success of individuals at communicating
pottery-making knowledge in one-to-one interactions? For one

thing,
characteristics completely unrelated to pottery may contribute to
"ceramic fitness." Again referring to situations in which cultural
inheritance is primarily along lines of genetic relatedness, even sim
ple biological reproductive success must be considered part of ce

ramic fitness because there must be potential recipients of cultural
knowledge in order for transmission to take place. Of course, alterna

tives to genetic descendents can usually be found to fill the role of
cultural descendents, but nevertheless one increases the number of
potential cultural descendents by providing his/her own genetic de
scendents. Conversely, biological inclusive fitness may depend in
part on cultural fitness (including ceramic fitness) because represen
tation of genes in succeeding generations is facilitated by successful
cultural (including pottery-making) instructions to the extent that
the phenotypic characteristics determined by those instructions con
tribute to overall life chances of members of the domestic unit. In
sum, in small-scale societies characterized
primarily by one-to-one
transmission, individuals who possess cultural instructions that help
them survive better in a given environment will transmit both cul
tural and genetic information more successfully. The crucible of nat
ural selection operating on the individual determines the frequency
of both genetic and cultural instructions in succeeding generations.
Selection for ceramic production practices in the context of a self
sufficient unit which,
domestic among other activities, makes pots
to meet its own immediate
needs of cooking, carrying, and storage is
exemplified by one of the contexts of pottery production in North
Africa described by Balfet (1965). In the North African domestic con
text, pottery typically is produced only once a year, by the female
members of the domestic unit. The infrequency of production leaves
little room for experimentation with technology and places a pre
mium on "reconstituting the chain of traditional steps" (Balfet 1965:
169). Many technological innovations would not arise among these
potters because existing technological knowledge constrains their
problem-solving strategies (in Rindos's [1985] terms, they would be
selected against by CS2, but in my terms, the generation of variation
is constrained). Other innovations might arise, but would fail be
cause of an inappropriate fit with existing technology or raw mate
rials. Assuming potential cultural descendents already exist within
the domestic unit, pottery-making knowledge that yields fewer suc
cessful pots and more wasted time is less likely to be transmitted
than is knowledge leading to successful production of the required
vessels. This is because repeated failures to reproduce successfully
the stock of vessels would not only place the cooking, storage, and
carrying needs of a family in jeopardy, but also would disrupt other
economic activities. Put another way, the unsuccessful potter's prac
tices (phenotypic traits) possess low replicative success. Then, too,
160 Hector Neff
to the extent that a young woman does not possess adequate skills
for providing the vessels necessary for a family's survival, her desir
ability as a mate may be compromised, with direct implications for
her reproductive success and for the inclusive fitness of all family
members. Lowered inclusive fitness also entails lower replicative
success of ceramic traits existing within the domestic unit. The
cumulative result of these and other forces impinging on the trans
mission of pottery-making knowledge is that selection favors main
tenance of a few simple, traditional rules for paste preparation,
forming, and firing. These simple recipes enable potters who only
infrequently practice their craft to replenish successfully the fam
ily's store of ceramic vessels.
Although selection is expected to exert strong control over tech
nology in the North African domestic context, there is no such direct

selective pressure affecting the decorating stage of manufacture.
Decoration does not affect the success of the production process or
the performance of vessels, so any decorative convention that hap
pens to be adopted by a successful potter would be permitted by
selection. Given a similar ceramic resource base throughout North
Africa, it is not surprising to find domestic production characterized
by "diversity of details against a background of fairly restricted
homogeneity of procedures and of style" (Balfet 1965:168). Of course,
decoration is not free from the control of selection because decora
tive practices of successful
potters, although perhaps randomly (or
idiosyncratically?) adopted by those potters,have higher replicative
success than do those of unsuccessful potters (see O'Brien and Hol
land 1990). Replicative success of decorative traits also may vary due
to individual variation entirely unrelated to pottery; for example, an
individual potter's gregariousness may play a large part in how
widely her decorative practices are diffused.
In summary, selection affects the information content of ceramic
traditions, thereby shaping ceramic evolution, by interfering with
the interindividual transmission through history of information
about making pots. Although successful transmission depends in
part on the relative quality of vessels produced under received tradi
tional guidelines in particular environments, it also may depend on
phenotypic characteristics entirely unrelated to pottery, even includ
ing genetically determined characteristics that pertain to biological

inclusive fitness. In Braun 's (n.d.:26) words, "Natural selection takes
place simply because cultural continuity in any historical setting
always depends on the persistence of groups through biological repro

duction and social recruitment across multiple generations." Shifts
in pottery-making aspects of potters' phenotypes may follow en
vironmental change that modifies the relative success of potters at
communicating their knowledge. Alternatively, such shifts may fol
low innovation (mutation) that opens up new opportunities for pot
ters and allows them to move into a new adaptive landscape, in
which ceramic fitness is evaluated according to new criteria.
2. Selection for Group Traits and "Sorting." The dependence of

selection on the mode of transmission has suggested the possibility
that, under some conditions, selection may guide cultural evolution

through the differential persistence of groups rather than individuals
(e.g., Dunnell 1989). Dunnell (1980:65) draws attention to the failure

of sociobiological explanations of complex societies as an indication
that group-level selection must be admitted for cultural
phenomena.
In Dunnell's view, cultural transmission allows the level of selection
to shift upward because (1) change can be rapid because information
(traits) can be transmitted horizontally as well as vertically, (2) groups
are functionally interdependent units, and (3) individuals no longer
carry the full "code" for producing the full human phenotype. Kirch
(1980:118) makes the same points in arguing in favor of group-level
selection. "Cultural materialists" also espouse group-level selection
because it is a necessary implication of the idea that the ultimate
criteria of selection are energy efficiency differentials (Price 1982).
Sober (1984) has clarified the meaning of "group selection," pointing
out that the relevant fitness differentials are still among individuals,
though they may derive from individuals' status as members of a
group.
Emergence of group-level pottery-production organization and

subsequent selection for group characteristics can be imagined. First,
selection might favor differentiation of functions in the pottery pro
duction process, even in domestic contexts, under some environ
mental conditions and assuming the appropriate innovations ap
peared. After
incipient functional differentiation had been fixed
by
selection, "ceramic fitness" of an individual would be determined by
the results of the pottery-making group working together. Removed
from the group, the replicative success of the individual's pottery
making practices falls to zero because the individual alone cannot
replicate the entire production process. It is important to recognize,
162 Hector Neff
however, that replicative success of traits still derives from the

ceramic fitness of individuals. Selection for ceramic phenotypic
traits operates by alteration of the ability of individuals to transmit
or receive information needed to generate those traits, whether or
not the expression of those traits depends on the existence of com
plementary traits in other membersof the production unit.
In another sense, group-level differential persistence operates
whether ceramic production is organized around individuals or
groups. The survival and replication of supraindividual partitions of

pottery-making knowledge, that is, of ceramic traditions, may be
determined by "sorting" (Eldredge 1985:203), which may operate re
gardless of ceramic fitness differentials. I emphasize that sorting,
like selection, entails the differential persistence of variation (differ
ential replicative success of traits) and therefore follows directly
from Darwinian principles.
Sorting on the level of ceramic tradition may be effected not only
by selection, but by "chance," "founder effect," or "drift." For exam
ple, when a small group of potters moves away from an ancestral
village, the entire range of pottery-making knowledge present in the
ancestral village at the time of the split is not likely to be represented
in the small, budding group. Thus, there has been a chance partition
ing of the information content of the ceramic tradition unrelated to
ceramic fitness. Given sufficient barriers to communication be
tween the parent and daughter groups, eventually there will be two
traditions where once there was just one. Addition of new informa
tion to one of the daughter traditions through contact with foreign
groups may further accentuate such a divergence. This divergence
may occur even in the absence of selection for different pottery-mak
ing practices in the two groups, merely as a result of stochastic shifts,
that is, drift.
Branching of ceramic traditions that occurs through the process
just described may be termed "allopatric divergence" in recognition
of its similarity to geographic (allopatric) speciation. Although selec
tion is not necessary for allopatric divergence, the original chance
partitioning and recombination of pottery-making information may
fortuitously open up a new portion of the adaptive landscape, in
which ceramic fitness of individuals in the budding group is evalu
ated according to new criteria. In this case, selection accentuates a
divergence that began as a chance partitioning of information in the

historical stream.
Catastrophic natural events, such as volcanic eruptions, or social
events, such as the European arrival in the New World, can eliminate
or displace human groups and thereby supersede the more gradual
process of selection-mediated change. The elimination of large num
bers of people simply removes information on ceramic production
from the historical stream, and may eliminate entire traditions.
Groups that emerge after a natural catastrophe or that are created by
forced population rearrangements may be amalgams of several pre
existing groups, and the surviving ceramic traditions may combine
aspects of several pre-existing traditions. Ifmigrations follow a natu
ral catastrophe, the remaining information within traditions may be
partitioned further. Such catastrophic events repartition information
on pottery-making without regard to ceramic fitness differentials.
Following the catastrophe, new, different opportunities for pottery
making may be available because of chance combinations of pottery

making information created by the catastrophe, which open up new
portions of the adaptive landscape for surviving potters. In addition,
environmental changes brought about by the catastrophe may im
pose new selective pressures on potters, contributing to rapid direc
tional change following catastrophes (e.g., widespread deposition of
volcanic ash during an eruption may modify the ceramic resource
base of potters over a wide area).
It is important to point out that higher-level sorting that is unre
lated to ceramic fitness may entail strong selective pressures related
to fitness differentials in other aspects of phenotypic expression. For
example, selection may favor group sizes below some maximum
number under some subsistence regimes. In such a case, the proba
bility that individuals or families leave their home community and
join or establish new communities increases as local population in
creases. The budding of human groups that results, as already noted,
partitions information about ceramic making without regard to ce
ramic fitness differentials among individuals. However, it might be
argued that fitness of the ceramic tradition is enhanced by such pro
cesses since the likelihood
of emergence of daughter traditions (re
productive success
of the parent tradition) is increased.
In much the same way that sorting may shed light on the periodi
zation of the fossil record (Eldredge and Gould 1972), so may it shed
light onarchaeological periodization. Stasis in archaeological se

quences coincides, on an intuitive level, with the often-mentioned
conservatism of traditional potters (e.g., Foster 1965; Kramer 1985;
164 Hector Neff
Nicklin 1971; Rice 1987; Shepard 1965). Stasis (or conservatism) may
be partly attributable to the fact that, in societies dominated by one
to-one transmission of cultural information within small social
units, relatively few chances exist for selection to disrupt the trans
mission process. Even with a high frequency of innovation, the over
all assemblage of vessels produced may not change much as long as
each innovation is only transmitted to a few other individuals. Con
ceivably, selection might cause rapid change, for example if an inno
vation that opens up new opportunities (in effect, opening up a new
portion of the adaptive landscape) spreads rapidly through the larger
group, or if an innovation in the transmission processes dramatically
increases the ability of some individuals to communicate
pottery
making knowledge. But, as Eldredge and Gould (1972) have argued
for the fossil record, punctuation of the periods of stasis more often
may result from allopatric divergence in peripheral groups, which
later spread throughout the area of the ancestral group. This is one
form of sorting. Catastrophic events that partition information sud
denly, on a large scale, may entail even more pervasive disruptions
of long-term stability. The likelihood that rapid ceramic change may
often be the result of catastrophic events such as population replace
ment has been noted by Graves (1985:33) and Kramer (1985:85). I
argue below that sorting processes may account for a large part of
the diversity of archaeological pottery.
The Relationship of Selectionism to

Existing Ceramic Theory and Research
Establishing that archaeological phenomena (such as

ceramics) result from Darwinian processes is only a first step toward
rewriting evolutionary theory "in terms that have empirical expres
sion in the archaeological record" (Dunnell 1980:89). Ultimately,
we must develop new methods to guide our analyses. However, in
so doing, we may not want to discard everything in our existing con
ceptual and methodological toolboxes. In this section, I identify

some concepts that probably will be discarded, show how others may
be incorporated in modified form, and present examples from the
existing literature of evolutionary approaches to archaeological
problems.
Essentialism and Ceramic Evolution
One approach to ceramic change is based on essentialism,

a view of reality in conflict with the focus on variation central to
Darwinian evolution. An example is van der Leeuw's (1984) "trans
formational view of the ceramic cycle," in which ceramic change is
considered the result of inevitable expansion of information-process
ing capability analogous to individual cognitive development. In this
model, information processing undergoes predictable development

through a series of ideal states, much as chemical reactions proceed
according to rules deduced from the nature of the elements involved.
Rice's (1981; see also Rice 1984a, 1984b) "model of the evolution
of specialized pottery production" is another effort to account for
ceramic change in an essentialist framework. It falls squarely within
the unilineal, transformational tradition of cultural evolution trace
able to the evolutionism of Herbert Spencer rather than that of Dar
win. "Evolution," in the Spencerian tradition and in Rice's model,
refers to a teleological principle driving cultures toward greater com
plexity (cf. Dunnell 1980). Rice's model of specialized pottery pro
duction consistsof generalizations about how ceramic production is
organized at different stages in the progression from simple to com
plex societies. Systematic changes in ceramic production are held to

take place as societies are transformed from one level of complexity
to another, and pottery-production systems must adapt to the pre
vailing conditions of the new level. The model can be characterized
as essentialist in that ceramic
production in a society at any particu
lar level of complexity can only conform or fail to conform to the
type of production system (the ideal state) posited for that level of
complexity. Variation holds no explanatory significance, but must
be explained away as imperfect approximation of the ideal type.
The essentialist position differs fundamentally from the view of
ceramic evolution advanced above. In the essentialist
explana mode,
tion is achieved by positing a "natural state" to which phenomena of
a particular class would conform in the absence of perturbations in
duced by external forces (Dunnell 1982, 1986; O'Brien and Holland
1990; Sober 1980, 1984). Variation is explained away, not explained,
and the focus is on ideal states. Unfortunately for the essentialist, all
possible candidates for ideal states in the domain of culture (such as
the stages of information processing capacity in van der Leeuw's
166 Hector Neff
model or the successive states of increasing specialization in Rice's

model) are empirical generalizations, not invariant natural states of
the universe. Because only invariant natural states
provide explana
tion from the essentialist viewpoint, an essentialist theory of change
in ceramic production (or other aspects if culture) is impossible. Dar
win's crucial intellectual innovation, which has yet to be fully ap
preciated by anthropologists and archaeologists, was to reject the
concept of ideal types and instead to focus on the processes by which
individual, undirected variation gets converted into variation pat
terned in space and time. This theoretical perspective is referred to
as materialism or "population thinking" (Dunnell 1982, 1986; Mayr
1982; O'Brien and Holland 1990; Sober 1980). The importance of
population thinking to Darwinian
evolution is stressed succinctly
by Mayr (1982:401): "It is quite impossible to develop an evolution
ary theory on the foundation of essentialism." Or, as Braun (n.d.:39)
puts it, "causation in this realm [transgenerational cultural phenom
ena] does not involve any crosscultural, predictive regularities."
Information, Economics, and Ceramic Evolution
Although is great diversity

there in how archaeologists currently
deal with ceramics, from a Darwinian perspective most studies can
be considered to follow one of two distinct paths, one concerned
with transmission and one concerned with selection. On the trans
mission path, archaeologists are mainly concerned with traditional
questions such as establishing chronologies or tracing cultural inter
action. Shared ceramic attributes are thought to reflect pottery-mak
ing conventions possessed in common by prehistoric people (shared
information). On the selection path, archaeologists are concerned
with the relevance of ceramics and ceramic production to the func
tional and material needs of human groups (the "ceramic ecology"
of Matson [1965]). Questions about vessel technology, function, and
the organization of production are frequently mentioned by archaeol
ogists interested in selection. From the perspective adopted in this
article, transmission and selection are the two fundamental pro
cesses underlying a Darwinian account of ceramic diversity and
change,- neither perspective alone, of course, is sufficient.
1. Some Existing Approaches to Transmission in Archaeological

Ceramic Studies. The "transmission perspective" on archaeological
ceramics underlies a considerable body of substantive research car

ried out by both traditional and "new"
archaeology. Underlying all
transmission-oriented approaches is the assumption that bodies of
information on how to make pots (which potters might call "cus
toms," "standards," "beliefs," or "habits") are transmitted among

individuals. Shared information leads to observable similarities in
behavior and the products of behavior (Boyd and Richerson 1985).
Or, as Dunnell (1978:199) notes, homologous similarity "is the result
of direct cultural transmission once chance similarity in a context of
limited possibilities is excluded." Conversely, if one proposes "re
lationships" (homologous similarity) among pots, one is suggesting

relationships of cultural descent among potters. Any conceivable
analytical framework that alludes to "relationships"
(homologous
similarities) among pots, on any conceivable level of inclusiveness,
would be impossible without the assumption that shared cultural
information led two or more potters to employ similar techniques.
This is the assumption of cultural inheritance discussed previously.
The traditional culture-historical perspective on ceramics empha
sizes information transmission on relatively large temporal and spa
tial scales. In the culture-historical approach, one assumes that the
appearance of new information, transmission of information through
space and time, and loss of information leave a record in the form of
varying similarity among the ceramic collections under study. The

seminal contribution of culture history was to establish a method
for extracting chronological order from this record (Dunnell 1982).
Working out developmental sequences, establishing historical conti
nuity, and tracing cultural relationships?culture history?virtually
defined archaeology the 1920s through the 1950s. And, despite
from
consensus rejection of culture history as an ultimate goal of archae
ology, much of the substantive product of archaeology (prehistory)
still consists of culture-historical accounts (Dunnell 1982). This is
especially true of ceramic studies as part of regional or

undertaken
site-focused projects (e.g., Demarest 1986; Lowe et al. 1982; Wether
ington 1978), but more synthetic applications of culture history also
still appear in the literature (e.g., Demarest and Sharer 1982).
One of the alternatives to culture history proposed under the ban
ner of "new archaeology" was ceramic sociology, an approach repre
sented most prominently by Longacre (1970), Deetz (1965), and Hill
(1970). Like culture history, ceramic sociology focuses on transmis
sion of pottery-making information among individuals. In seeking
168 Hector Neff
to reconstruct social organization from the distributions of ceramic

decorative attributes, proponents of ceramic sociology shifted the
emphasis to information flow within relatively small areas, usually
single settlements, and to short time spans. The central tenet of
ceramic sociology is the social-interaction theory of ceramic style,
which holds that stylistic similarity between ceramic collections
measures the intensity of social interaction groups between
(e.g.,
Braun n.d.; Hill 1985). A corollary of this proposition is that as dis
tance between groups in time or social space increases, information
flow decreases and, consequently, so does stylistic similarity. Ex
tending these assumptions to larger spatial and temporal scales pro

duces a perspective on ceramic diversity and change entirely compat
ible with the culture-historical point of view (Flannery 1976; Plog
1983).
From the evolutionary perspective outlined above, both culture
history and ceramic sociology give insufficient attention to circum
stances that may interfere with information flow. With respect to
culture history, Dunnell (1978) has suggested a possible explanation:
culture-historical methods for extracting temporal information re
quire a focus on traits resulting from the unimpeded flow of informa

tion (i.e., selectively neutral or "stylistic" traits). Given the com
plexities attending the concept of neutrality (O'Brien and Holland
1990), one may wonder whether valid conditions for application of
culture-historical methods can ever be demonstrated. S. Plog (1978,
1980) has pointed out a similar problem with respect to the assump
tions underlying ceramic sociology: under most circumstances, the
flow of decorative information probably is filtered by many factors
other than
simple social proximity. In sum, from a Darwinian per
spective, culture history and ceramic sociology are not wrong, but
rather merely incomplete frameworks for explaining the mix of ce
ramics produced at particular points in time-space (Braun n.d.; Hill
1985); both fail to consider explicitly the effects of selection.
Because information transmission to an evolutionary
is central
account of ceramic diversity and change, any reformulation of ce
ramic methods will certainly incorporate approaches similar to cul
ture history and ceramic sociology. A major goal of archaeological
ceramic analysts should be to improve the techniques used to ana
lyze transmission, that is, to recognize pots made within a single

tradition of vessel manufacture and to distinguish among different
modes of transmission. In addition, continued investigation of vari
ation in how transmission occurs in living societies may contribute

insights that can be used to refine evolutionary archaeology.
2. Some Existing Approaches to Selection in Archaeological Ce

ramic Studies. Whereas transmission-oriented approaches organize
ceramic data according to hypothesized relationships of descent and
depend on recognizing
homologous similarity, "selection-oriented"
approaches focus on functional and technological characteristics and
depend on recognizing analogous similarity. Diverse functional and
ecological research programs are included in this category. The com
mon theme uniting them is interaction between potters' phenotypes
on the one hand (including their finished pots) and, on the other
hand, the social and natural environment. Arnold (1985:231) has
clearly articulated this point of view and alluded to the contrasts
with transmission-oriented approaches such as culture history:
"The occurence of ceramic production and its evolution through
time thus does not reflect a simple culture-history model, but rather
reflects certain cultural and environmental conditions which have
favored or limited ceramic development."
This perspective is central to the Darwinian
approach to ceramic
evolution discussed above. Selection takes place in part because pot
tery-making aspects of potters' phenotypes enjoy different degrees of
success, and relative success depends in part on environmental con
ditions. Potters interact with the environment throughout the pro
duction process: materials that will make an adequate clay body
must be chosen by the potter,- he/she must employ forming and
firing practices that consistently
produce whole pots; the pots must
fulfill the cooking, carrying, storage, communication, ceremonial,
or other needs of the potter or other individuals for whom they are
intended; and, if pots are to be exchanged for other goods, they must
bring an adequate return. The total interaction between potter's
phenotype and the outside world can be thought of as a filter through
which information must pass in order to be perpetuated through
transmission to other individuals.
Different authors tend to emphasize the filtering effects of differ
ent parts of the environment in their theoretical discussions. While
Rice (1984a, 1984b) has emphasized socioeconomic and political con
ditions, S. Plog (1978, 1980) has linked boundary maintenance with
decorative variation, Bronitsky (1986) has stressed techno-functional
considerations involved in vessel manufacture, and Arnold (1985)
170 Hector Neff
has emphasized distance to resources, the necessity to schedule pot

tery production to coincide with propitious climatic conditions, and
other aspects of scheduling. The recent publications of Arnold (1985)
and Rice (1987) provide comprehensive treatment of various environ
mental variables (e.g., natural, technological, functional, social, and
economic) affecting ceramic production. Schiffer and Skibo (1987)
have introduced the concept of "functional field," which may inte
grate the various filtering effects of the environment. The functional
field is "the set of techno-functions, socio-functions, and ideo-func
tions that the artifacts in a society have to perform," and "responds
to changes in basic lifeway and social organization" (Schiffer and
Skibo 1987:598).
Explicitly or implicitly, analytical approaches that emphasize pot
ter-environment interaction usually incorporate "adaptation" as an
explanatory principle. That is, they postulate that characteristics of

ceramics observed in the archaeological or ethnographic records are
components of the human extrasomatic adaptation to the environ
ment. But adaptation itself needs explaining. By themselves, adap
tive scenarios are merely models of functional relationships, in
which adaptive needs are adduced to fit the details of an activity like
pottery-making. Even if pottery-making or another activity meets

some adaptive need, this begs the question of how the adaptive fit of
potters to particular conditions originated.
Schiffer and Skibo (1987:609) propose that "explanations . . . seek
to show technological change as a response to an altered functional
field in a larger societal context." Thus, the mechanism by which
change occurs is the "response" (in the form of experimentation) of
potters who recognize changes in the functional field. Others who
have thought the issue through (e.g., Jochim 1981) have recognized
the need for a mechanism, and have usually invoked the problem
solving activities of humans in bringing about adaptation. As argued
previously, rational problem-solving helps generate variation; but it
cannot, alone, generate the ad hoc, jury-rigged phenomena that con
stitute human adaptations. Further, how are we to explain
nonadap
tation, alternative adaptations to similar conditions, and extinction
(all evolutionary phenomena recorded in the ceramic component of

the archaeological record) within a framework that also explains
adaptation?
In evolutionary theory, adaptive features of organisms and adap
tive human cultural characteristics, together with nonadaptation,
alternative adaptations to the same conditions, and extinctions are

attributed to differential persistence of variation. Diversity of life and
culture, including "adaptive" cultural and biological characteristics,
result from an opportunistic process whereby information is config
ured over time
through differential transmission. In this framework
it does not matter whether the information was originally generated
through a mistake in copying DNA or through the conscious effort
of a master potter.
Investigating the relations between pottery on one hand and raw
materials, climate, uses, or other environmental conditions on the
other hand certainly will remain important as an evolutionary ap
proach to ceramic analysis takes shape. However, the essence of an
evolutionary approach is an integration of information transmission
(genetic or cultural inheritance) on the one hand and phenotype-en

vironment interaction (selection) on the other hand. The nature of
any adaptation or nonadaptation is determined by historical con
straints?the particular configuration of information available,
through transmission or innovation, in a particular time and place?
and by the mechanisms of differential persistence inherent in the
interactions between individuals and the environment. Real prog
ress in ceramic analytical methods will depend on integrating selec
tion-oriented investigations such as those discussed above with
transmission-oriented research such as culture history and ceramic
sociology. The selection perspective alone, like the transmission per
spective alone, is incomplete.
3. Integrating Transmission and Selection. Integration of the trans

mission and selection
perspectives within an evolutionary frame
work is exemplified explicitly in recent discussions of ceramic
"style" (esp. Braun n.d.; Hill 1985). As noted above, criticisms of the
social-interaction theory (Braun 1985; Braun and Plog 1982; S. Plog
1978, 1980), ceramic sociology's central tenet, center on the conten
tion that stylistic information does not flow passively, as implied by
the ceramic sociologists. The alternative theory of ceramic style,
labeled the "information theory (Hill 1985), holds
exchange" that
ceramic style, like other of characteristics
human groups, is shaped
along particular developmental lines because itmust meet the adap
tive needs of people who create the stylistic characteristics. In par
ticular, information exchange theorists focus on needs for group
identification, boundary maintenance, and communication. As Hill
172 Hector Neff
(1985) and Braun (n.d.) recognize, the two theories of style are not
contradictory; rather, the contrasting perspectives implied by the
two theories are complementary aspects of a Darwinian theory of
ceramic evolution. As argued by proponents of the social-interaction
theory of style, people certainly communicate, so information about
"style" must be shared within local groups. On the other hand, as
argued by information exchange theorists, the diverse conditions of
human existence will favor communication of particular "stylistic"
rules over others; now and then, boundary maintenance, group iden
tification, or communication may be among the conditions affecting
transmission of "stylistic" rules. Social interaction is part of the
transmission domain, while information exchange is part of the
selection domain.
Selected Examples of Ceramic Evolution
The recent discussionsof "style" (Braun n.d.; Hill 1985) indicate that
archaeologists are beginning to conceive of ceramic diversity as an
aspect of human phenotypic diversity, governed by descent with
modification. But, as Braun (n.d.) emphasizes, an evolutionary ap
proach to ceramic style is vacuous unless it is tied to specific histor
ical sequences within which information on how to make pots was
reconfigured through time. Abandoning the search for cross-cultural
regularities in favor of population thinking and historical specificity
is perhaps the most fundamental methodological shift entailed by a
Darwinian approach to the archaeological record (see Braun's [n.d.]
discussion of cross culturalregularities). In recognition of this
methodological requirement of Darwinian evolution, I devote the
remainder of this article to a discussion of specific historical se
quences in which ceramic diversity and change have been recorded.
One implication of the examples presented below is that ceramic
diversity in most historical settings probably stems from differential
persistence of information on several levels. Sometimes, new oppor
tunities introduced through innovations (mutations) or environmen
tal change and attendant shifts in selective pressures may provide a
sufficient account. Often, however, diversity and abrupt ceramic
change observable in the archaeological record seem difficult if not
impossible to account for with individual selection alone, and sort
ing processes fostering differential persistence on a level above the
individual must be invoked.
1. Vessel Performance in the Context of Domestic Manufacture and

Use. For many archaeological sequences, reasonable starting assump
tions are that pottery-making was just one of several domestic activi
ties undertaken as adjuncts to subsistence and that transmission took
place largely within the household. Under such conditions, selection
may act much as it does in the North African domestic context dis
cussed previously (Balfet 1965). To reiterate, the ceramic attributes
that are the most likely targets of selection are those that affect a
pot's ability to perform the basic cooking, carrying, and storage needs
of the social unit within which it is made and used. Selective pres
sures on pottery-making may stem from changes in the uses to which
vessels are put or from key technological innovations that alter the
relative efficiencies of a whole complex of ceramic
technological
practices. Approaches that focus on the covariation of ceramic-per
formance characteristics (e.g., Braun 1983, 1987; Bronitsky 1986;
Bronitsky and Hamer 1986; Dunnell and Feathers 1986; Feathers
1989; Schiffer and Skibo 1987) offer potential for measuring selection
in assemblages of pottery produced within such domestic contexts.
Braun (1983, 1987) has made a particularly detailed argument for
a relation between subsistence shifts and evolution in Woodland
period pottery (ca. 600 b.c. to a.d. 900) from western Illinois and
eastern Missouri (see discussion in O'Brien and Holland 1990). Using
ceramics from radiocarbon-dated features, five temporal trends in
wall thickness were identified. Together, the individual trends pro
duce a curve of initially increasing, then decreasing vessel wall thick
ness (Braun 1987). Each trend is argued to reflect either a shift in
cultural demand on technology or an innovation that the potters
found advantageous, or both (Braun 1987:164). The strongest trend is
a long-term demand for thinner vessel walls
(Braun 1987). This trend
coincides with a complex of changes in cooking vessels, including
decreasing size of added temper and a shift from flat basal shapes to
globular shapes. Braun
(1983:125) suggests that cooking vessels were
being made for use under increasingly thermally stressful conditions
brought about by increased reliance on cultivation of native starchy
seeds, which require boiling for long periods at relatively high tem
peratures for best palatability and digestiblity. The other trends
counterbalance or reinforce to varying degrees the long-term trend
toward decreased vessel wall thickness.
Braun's analysis suggests that vessel wall thickness in the Middle
Woodland sequence was responding to a complex of selective pr?s
174 Hector Neff
sures relatedto demographic and subsistence shifts (O'Brien and Hol

land 1990). More specifically, it implies variation and differential
transmission (differential replicative success) of techniques that af
fected wall thickness over a long period of time. For example, with
respect to the long-term trend toward thinner walls, Braun's analysis

implies that new cooking requirements entailed a slight deficit in
success of transmission among potters practicing paste preparation
and forming techniques leading to relatively thicker vessels. At any
particular time, a variety of techniques and corresponding paste tex
tures and wall thicknesses existed. Coarser pastes and thick walls
along with a relatively wide range of thicknesses were acceptable
early on, when boiling seeds was relatively less important as a die
tary practice. As boiling for long periods of time increased in impor
tance, selection favored increasing thermal conductivity and resis
tance to thermal shock, performance characteristics that increase as
vessel walls decrease in thickness. This directional selective pres
sure led to a decrease in average wall thickness and a decrease in the
standard deviation of wall thickness values (Braun 1983:118-19,
figure 5.1). Thus, over time, selection related to subsistence and de
mography channeled variation in culturally inherited techniques of
vessel manufacture along lines that led to an overall decrease in wall
thickness.
Dunnell and Feathers (1991) attribute
changes associated with in
troduction of Mississippian shell-tempered ceramics on the Maiden
Plain, southeast Missouri, to a new set of selective pressures that
were introduced when Late Woodland people discovered how to exert
better controlover firing temperature and atmosphere (see discus
sion in O'Brienand Holland 1990). Dunnell and Feathers argue that
similarities between Barnes (LateWoodland) and Big Lake (Mississi
pian) pottery suggest continuity and in situ development within a
single tradition rather than replacement of Woodland people by Mis

sissippian people. At sustained temperatures above 700 degrees C,
CaC03 in shell decomposes to CaO, which tends to hydrate upon

cooling, causing pottery to disintegrate if substantial shell temper is
present in the paste. Among potters unable to maintain tempera
tures below 700 degrees, high proportions of shell temper would lead
to high failure rates, thus entailing large deficits in success of trans
mission of the
shell-tempering trait. Sometime between a.d. 600
and a.d. 800, Barnes tradition potters apparently discovered how to
keep firings below 700 degrees consistently, and the selection against
shell temper was then relaxed. Under the new pyrotechnology, the
replicative success of shell was greater than sand temper because,
although softer, shell-tempered pottery does not break as easily as
sand tempered pottery. Replicative success of the complex of new
technological traits was further increased by lower fuel costs asso
ciated with lower firing times
and temperatures.
The interpretation suggested by Dunnell and Feathers (1991) has
the advantage of accounting for another change, interior red slipping,
normally considered to be a decorative change functionally unre
lated to shell tempering. The oxidized shell-tempered pastes of Big
Lake ceramics were much more porous than earlier, sand tempered
paste, and this contributed to greater permeability. Interior slips, for
merly a minor stylistic variant, suddenly increase to a frequency of
over 80% in Big Lake ceramics, perhaps as a result of selection as
sociated with the greater porosity of shell tempered ceramics. Later,
around a.d. 1000, more dense shell-tempered pastes became possible
with the advent of reduction firing, and red slips returned to a selec
tively neutral status.
2. Convergent Evolution in Ceramic Production. Mayr (1988:137

38) has pointed out that phenotypic convergence between distant
lineages faced with similar opportunities and constraints provides
some of the
strongest evidence supporting the theory of natural
selection in organisms. In a similar vein, Campbell (1965:42) has
suggested that convergence may permit "triangulation" on the selec
tive forces producing culturally inherited characteristics of the
human phenotype. Convergence should be of interest to archaeologi
cal ceramic analysts as a tool for fleshing out the details of the evolu
tionary process in particular ceramic sequences, as illustrated by the
examples discussed below. Analysis of convergence resulting from
common selective pressures should not be confused with a search
for cross-cultural regularities arising from internal developmental
dynamics. The latter search is associated with essentialistic frame
works and is incompatible with evolutionary theory, as mentioned
above.
Two ethnographic case studies by Arnold (1975, 1978a, 1978b) il

lustrate convergent evolution under similar environmental challen
ges. Arnold documents the appearance of a semi-specialized potter
farmer niche in response to competition over agricultural land in
Ayacucho, Peru, and the Valley of Guatemala. In Peru, part-time
176 Hector Neff
specialist potter-farmers occupy a distinct microzone characterized

by severe erosion and relatively low soil moisture content. These
features of the natural environment limit
agricultural production to
a single annual crop that does not meet subsistence needs. The same
conditions are favorable for ceramic production because clay beds
are readily accessible in deeply dissected ravines and because the dry
season in agricultural
lull activities coincides with the most favor
able meteorological conditions for pottery production. Similarly in
the Guatemalan case, part-time specialist potters occupy agricultur
ally marginal land with diverse and abundant ceramic resources (Ar
nold 1978a, 1978b).
Convergence on a similar part-time specialist potters' niche in
Ayacucho and the Valley of Guatemala suggests the inference that
similar selective pressures have shaped pottery production in the two
cases. First, the incipient part-time specialist potters have to be at a
competitive disadvantage with respect to agricultural resources. This
condition is met in both Peru and the Valley of Guatemala. Second,
there must be opportunityin the form of a group of agricultural pro
ducers who forego production of other goods (e.g., pots) and instead
obtain them by trading agricultural goods. This condition is also met
in both Peru and Guatemala. Both conditions may be present wher
ever an area has been filled by sedentary agriculturalists, since natu
ral variation in soil fertility and other relevant environmental
characteristics inevitably leads to variation among groups in the re
turns from
different productive activities. In this model, a broad
range of trade or marketing systems may be consistent with selec
tion for specialization. The only necessary assumption is variation
among groups in the returns from different productive activities.
Among potters who obtain part of their
living by exchanging pots
for other goods, selective pressures favoring stability or change origi
nate at least partly in the nature of the market for their pottery. The
selective pressures related to market demand associated with tour
ism have yielded convergence among numerous pottery-making
groups during the twentieth century (Foster 1965; Mossman and Sel
sor 1986;Nicklin 1971;Reina andHill 1978).The key feature in these
cases is that outsiders (tourists or urban dwellers) are consuming
increasing proportions of local pottery output; techniques that en
hance the desirability of pots and marketing strategies that make
those pots readily available to outsiders are likely to be practiced
more often and, as a result, stand a greater chance of being trans
mitted to cultural descendents. The particular innovations that be

come fixed among a group of potters depend on resources available,
historical constraints inherent in traditional pottery-making and
marketing techniques, and the chance effects inherent in the creative
impulses and problem-solving activities of individuals. Nonetheless,
because foreign interest in a group's pots is likely to be focused on
unique decorative effects rather than functional characteristics, cer
tain kinds of innovations are more likely to be favored by selection
under conditions of increasing foreign demand. In particular, unique
surface characteristics, miniaturization, and effigies are nearly ubi
quitous features of tourist pottery. For example, in response to grow
ing tourism and stable or declining local demand, the potters of San
Bartolo Coyotepec, Oaxaca, Mexico (Shepard 1963; Van de Velde and
Van de Velde 1939), Chinautla, Guatemala (Reina and Hill 1978), and
Agost, Spain (Mossman and Selsor 1986) have developed new styles
that include enhanced versions of traditional vessels, new vessel
shapes, miniatures, applique decoration, painting or other surface

enhancements, and a variety of effigies, many depicting Christian
religious themes (Neff 1989b, 1990). New marketing strategies are
adopted for the innovative vessels, while background tradition ves

sels continue to be marketed through traditional channels.
The role of selection is well illustrated by the Zapotee pottery
making town
of Coyotepec. Traditionally, Coyotepec potters sup
plied mescal jars, water carrying jars, and canteens for a large part of
the Valley of Oaxaca. Innovative decorative techniques that later be
came hallmarks of the Coyotepec tourist style had appeared in the
family of Juventino and Rosa Nieto by the 1930s (Van de Velde and
Van de Velde 1939). Tourism, which began in the 1930s, combined
with the availability of alternative containers (metal and plastic),
produced a strong selective pressure in the environment of Coyo
tepec potters. Under conditions prevailing since the 1930s, produc
tion techniques yielding aesthetic effects desirable to tourists are
practiced often and therefore tend to be disseminated rapidly to fam

ily members and other apprentices (the replicative success of such
techniques is high). Alternative techniques necessary only for utili
tarian production are practiced with decreasing frequency, and are
disseminated more slowly. The replicative success of traditional
modes of paste preparation and firing has remained high because
they yield a shiny, fine-paste gray ware that is distinctive and particu
larly attractive to tourists; these traditional practices constitute
178 Hector Neff
"exaptations" (Gould and Vrba 1982; O'Brien and Holland 1990)

under the selective pressure of increasing tourism. The cumulative
phenotypic consequence of differential transmission is that the
Coyotepec blackware tradition is now dominated by enhanced ver
sions of traditional vessels, vessels with incised decorations, ga
drooned vessels, miniatures, and effigies depicting Christian reli
gious themes. Selection has also favored marketing to tourists from
roadside stands and/or studios. In metaphorical language, the Coyo
tepec potters have moved to a new adaptive peak in the past 40 to 60
years. The genetic (and cultural) descendents of the original in
novators exemplify the selection-driven change that has taken place:
Nieto family artisans
produce and market masterpieces of tourist
art from a large studio/living quarters in Coyotepec.
The archaeologically documented case of rapid emergence of a
fancy incised and style of Mesoamerican
effigy Plumbate pottery
(called "Tohil" Plumbate) out of a pre-existing "background tradi
tion" may represent convergence with the above-described modern
cases of change in production and marketing practices associated
with the rise of the tourist industry (Neff 1989b, 1990). Technological
and compositional studies have helped establish historical con
tinuity of the Plumbate tradition on the Pacific slope of southern

Mesoamerica from Late Classic through Early Postclassic times
(Neff 1984, 1989a, 1989b, 1991;Neff and Bishop 1988; Shepard 1948).
The Tohil stylistic changes, which occured late in the tradition's his
tory, included effigies depicting central Mexican religious themes,
elaborate new incised decorative motifs, and the introduction of
miniatures. Further, available
chronological evidence (Lowe et al.
1982) suggests rapid fixation of the Tohil innovations, perhaps over a
period comparable to the 40 or so years involved in the emergence of
the Coyotepec tourist industry. I do not mean to suggest that prehis
toric were responsible
tourists for the profound changes in Plumbate
production. However, these changes did occur around the beginning

of the Postclassic period (around a.d. 950), a time when commer
cialism associated with cosmopolitan elites was on the rise through
out Mesoamerica. The introduction of innovations that parallel mod
ern responses to external demand (from tourists in the modern case)
suggests that foreign demand was the directional selective
pressure
favoring innovations in the modern cases and in the Plumbate case
(Neff 1989b, 1990). An external market, whether consisting of tour

ists, urban dwellers, or visiting Toltecs (as suggested by Lee [1978]

for the Plumbate case) favors characteristics such as transportability
and incorporation of widespread religious themes likely to appeal to
foreigners (Christian themes in the modern case, Tlaloc and other
diety effigies in the Plumbate
case).
To summarize, it appears likely that comparative analysis of his
torical sequences will remain an important aspect of ceramic analy
sis under selectionist archaeology. Phenotypic convergence, which
provides some of the strongest empirical evidence for natural selec
tion in organisms (Mayr 1988), can be observed among ceramic as
pects of human potters' phenotypes. Convergence is manifest in
ethnographically measurable behavior, such as increasing emphasis

on pottery-making as an economic behavior (Arnold 1975), but,
perhaps more important for archaeologists, it is also observable in
phenotypic characteristics measurable in pottery assemblages. For

example, despite differing histories and differing environments,
groups of potters subject to increasing demand from foreigners tend
to converge in a number of production practices related to decora
tion. The convergence in decorative and marketing practices be
tween pottery-making communities subjected to tourist demand
during the twentieth century seems to have a parallel in the prehis

toric development of Mesoamerican Plumbate ware. Although only
tentative direct evidence exists for selection in the Plumbate case,
the phenotypic convergence with ethnographically observed cases is
most parsimoniously attributed to parallel selective pressures that
shaped variation in pottery-making practices along similar lines. The
possibility of identifying convergence between ethnographic and ar
chaeological cases provides one means of enhancing the detail of
evolutionary sequences recorded in archaeological data, as exempli
fied by the Plumbate case.
3. Higher-level Historical Processes.Within-tradition selection may

favor stability, as reflected in the frequent ethnographic characteriza
tion of potters as conservative (Foster 1965; Rice 1987). As discussed
previously, one-to-one transmission in domestic contexts is consis
tent with long-term stability. Specific adaptive changes in pottery
making industries are produced by selection associated with specific
environmental changes or by selection for efficient exploitation of
new adaptive landscapes opened up by key innovations. But the great
180 Hector Neff
diversity and abrupt changes evident in some archaeological se

quences are difficult to account for if the only process admitted is
selective retention of individual variation.
Inmany abrupt change and ceramic diversity may be attrib
cases,
utable to sorting mechanisms that operate despite individual ce
ramic fitness differentials. In other words, the archaeological record
may be partly a record of differentiation of one tradition into two or
more traditions, displacement of traditions, and elimination of tradi
tions, all of which can be conceived of as taking place independently
of differentials in "ceramic fitness." As discussed previously, selec
tive retention of information above the individual level (sorting) may
result from budding of human groups, natural catastrophes, and
other events that partition ceramic information in the historical
stream without regard to individual ceramic fitness and adaptation.
Subsequent selection may reimpose stability on each new partition
(each subtradition), but,

having initially incorporated different as
pects of the information in the parental tradition, and possibly hav

ing incorporated new elements by chance during the partitioning,
the new traditions diverge. If the daughter traditions face distinct
environmental constraints, such as new raw materials or new cook
ing, carrying, and storage needs, selection favors further divergence.

Evolutionary novelty introduced by the repartitioning of informa
tion may open up new opportunities for potters in one of the daugh
ter traditions, also leading to further divergence.
Sorting mechanisms are sometimes documented by oral and writ
ten history, as in the case of migration of Hopi people following a
drought and smallpox epidemic between 1777 and 1781. A number of

Hopi families lived for a time with relatives in the villages of Zuni,
Acoma, and Zia, later returning to Hopi (Adams 1981). The pottery
produced on the Hopi mesas after this interval showed striking
changes, including replacement of unslipped tan or orange surfaces
with white slips typical of Zuni and Acoma and renewed use of Span
ish-introduced forms. Abundant archaeological evidence of abandon
ment and reoccupation suggests that such migrations or dispersals
of people may have been an important source of ceramic diversity
throughout Southwestern prehistory (Cordell 1984:356).
Viewing patterns of ceramic variability in the archaeological rec
ord as mainly due to selective retention of information above the
individual level may shed light on the problem of archaeological
phases?and the tendency of archaeologists to lump change into the
dividing lines between phases. If sorting mechanisms operate in the

manner suggested, the dividing lines between phases in many cases
may represent those slices of time when
higher-level historical
events rearranged human groups and repartitioned information on
ceramic production without regard to individual ceramic fitness;
they are the points in time when the ceramic evolutionary bag was
shaken up.
One may interpret the archaeological record spanning the Late For
mative to Late Classic Period in southern Mesoamerica as an exam
ple of the evolutionary consequences for ceramic traditions of supra

individual sorting. During the Late and Terminal Formative Periods
(approximately 500 b.c. through a.d.
250), striking typological uni
formity in ceramics characterized an area encompassing Pacific coas
tal Guatemala, the central highlands of Guatemala, and eastern El
Salvador (Demarest and Sharer 1982; Demarest 1986). Composi
tional evidence produced by neutron activation analysis also demon
strates continuity of ceramic resource procurement patterns within
the Guatemalan portion of the region (Neff, Bishop, and Arnold 1988;
Neff, Bishop, and Bove 1989). Dramatic changes occurred around a.d.
250. Terminal Formative Miraflores (200 b.c. to a.d. 250) diag
sphere
nostics disappeared abruptly, and, during the subsequent Early
Classic Period (a.d. 250 through a.d. 600), local traditions showing
few or no obvious connections with the earlier Formative traditions
emerged within the various
subregions. These local traditions were
well established by the Late Classic Period (a.d. 600 through a.d.
950), when large volumes of regionally distinctive, easily recogniza
ble pottery were produced.
The ceramic evidence alone suggests some kind of historical bot
tleneck or filter, in effect a drastic reshuffling of the pottery-making
information present within the various ceramic traditions of south
ern Mesoamerica in the time period immediately after a.d. 250.
Dahlin et al.
(1987) interpret linguistic evidence as suggesting a
period of rapid diversification of Maya languages around a.d. 250,

thus providing further evidence of some kind of major historical
event. Several possible triggers can be cited. One is the eruption
of Ilopango Volcano in western El Salvador, an event dated to a.d.
260 ? 114 (Sheets 1979). Another possibility is intrusion of foreigners
from Teotihuac?n, as suggested by Teotihuac?n-style pottery on the
Guatemalan coast and by Teotihuac?n-style architecture and pottery
in the Valley of Guatemala, especially at Kaminaljuy? (e.g., Sanders
182 Hector Neff
and Michels 1977). The point here is not to argue that one or the
other historical event was more important, but rather to show that
the general time period of interest witnessed several significant his
torical that may have triggered, alone or in combination,
events the
kind of reshuffling of human groups that could have arbitrarily repar
titioned and reconfigured pottery-making information. Working on
the unique local partitions of information that passed through the
historical filter at a.d. 250, selection eventually produced locally
adapted traditions responsible for the distinctive regional pottery
types of the Late Classic Period.
Most phase boundaries do not entail changes as drastic or far
reaching as the Formative-Classic transition in southern Mesoamer

ica. However, given the ease with which archaeologists normally
find dividing lines in ceramic
sequences, it is at least a plausible
hypothesis that many of the phase boundaries recognized in the ce

ramic chronologies of the world are placed at roughly the points in
time when historical sorting mechanisms truncated continuous
local ceramic development. In this view, many phase boundaries
may not
be solely artifacts of archaeologists' need to impose arbi
trary dividing lines on a continuous sequence. Careful attention to
chronological control and to the nature of change?i.e., differential

persistence of information?across phase boundaries will yield evi
dence pertinent to this hypothesis.
Conclusion
That cultural aspects of the human phenotype evolve ac

cording to principles first articulated by Darwin follows necessarily
from two simple observations: (1) cultural information is trans
mitted, so culture constitutes an inheritance system; and (2)humans

vary in how effectively they transmit cultural information. Evolu
tionary archaeology concerns differential transmission of informa

tion that underlies production of material aspects of the human
phenotype. Doing evolutionary archaeology means devising methods

for measuring two processes, transmission and selective retention.
Archaeological ceramic analysts already measure transmission

and selective retention, but the tendency has been to emphasize one
domain or the other. Whereas culture historians and ceramic sociolo
gists focus on relationships of common descent, analysts interested

in technology, function, and ceramic ecology focus on conditions
promoting selective retention of variation. One insight gained from a

Darwinian perspective is that ceramic diversity at any point in time
is generated by mechanisms residing in both domains. From this
perspective, progress in the methodology of archaeological ceramic

analysis requires development of techniques for simultaneous mea
surement of both processes.
The examples presented in the second section of this paper suggest
some of the elements of an evolutionary approach to archaeological
ceramics. Clearly, technical developments will
be particularly con
ducive to further progress. Three specific points can be stressed in
this connection: (1) compositional approaches can identify continu
ity or discontinuity of resource use, evidence that bears on the issue

of continuity of information transmission; (2) objective measures of
performance characteristics (e.g., Bronitsky 1986; Bronitsky and
Hamer 1986; Feathers 1989; Schiffer and Skibo 1987) may often
translate into measures of variation that have selective significance;
and (3) continued development and more widespread use of tech
niques of absolute dating, both of archaeological contexts and of the

actual ceramic artifacts, will help solve problems associated with
contemporaneity, rates
of evolutionary change, and rates of di
vergence. It also bears repeating that comparative analysis of histori
cally unrelated traditions will be important sources of insight into
selective pressures that may not be measurable directly. In general,
because the plausibility of our adaptive or developmental scenarios
will be directly proportional to the range of observations they are
capable of explaining, we must seek to make innovative observations
that provide an additional testing ground for the evolutionary ac
counts we propose. Descriptions of technological and compositional
variation in archaeological ceramic assemblages may help distin
guish between competing scenarios that appear equally probable
based on standard typological or functional analyses.
Acknowledgments
I thank David Braun, Robert

Dunnell, Robert Leonard,
Michael O'Brien, Michael
Schiffer, and several anonymous reviewers
for their extremely thorough and constructive comments on earlier
drafts of this paper. For advice, critique, and/or encouragement at
184 Hector Neff
various stages during the development of the paper, I thank Dean

Arnold, Ron Bishop, Val Canouts, James Feathers, Melissa Hagstrum,
Emlen Myers, Patrice Teltser, and Barbara Voorhies. While acknow
ledging the contributions of these individuals, I absolve them of
any responsibility for the use or misuse Imay have made of their
suggestions.
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Ceramics and Evolution

Author(s): Hector Neff

Over the past decade, American archaeologists have ar

and the framework for many archaeological se

ing are shaped by Darwinian processes, thereby providing grounds for

logical record themselves can be viewed as shaped by Darwinian

processes. My basic argument is that ceramic evolution is differen

eventually lost. I suggest that the mix of ceramic traits observable at

any point in time-space results from differential persistence of infor

plications of Darwinism for ceramic analysis. Clearly it is important

(i.e., the contents of the archaeological record, in this case, ceramics).

Darwin's theory of variation and selective retention has

Rindos 1984, 1985, 1986a, 1986b, 1989). A key innovation promoting

lationship to anthropology and paleontology's relationship to biology

(Alland 1975; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Dunnell 1982; Flan

accidental innovations of individuals. Both new and old information

cessfully tend to become more common, while characteristics that

evolution consists of (a)mechanisms for generating and transmitting

In this section, I discuss variation generation and transmission, the

tinuous, spatially bounded entities responsible for the perpetuation

1. Variation. The beliefs and practices of potters of any tradition ulti

perceived problems or exploitperceived opportunities. To direct

nection.) To reiterate, by solving problems based on forecasts, hu

upon which selection acts in the evolution of cultural phenomena

from the Hopi Mesas. At the suggestion of archaeologists, she began

quires understanding how transmission occurs and how itmight be

ceeding generation, cultural information may be transmitted within

Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Dunnell 1989). Cultural transmis

imply dramatic differences in the evolutionary process, so the great

downplay the importance of transmission. Rindos (1984), for exam

ple, notes that Darwin was unaware of Mendelian genetics when he

explanation of archaeological phenomena must start with assump

generalization based on ethnographic data. Due in part to a desire to

sumptions about the exact channels of information transmission

toms that are transmitted the family pervade all aspects of

pottery production, from collecting and mixing clay to marketing.

produces a distinctive style of pottery that is distinguished easily

(Mexico), occurs primarily along family lines, and that techniques

parents, aunts, uncles, or grandparents. Arnold (1986:7) has carefully

concludes, "A kin-based model thus accounts for the transmission

peasant society in which pottery production is heavily oriented to

learning in the development of the complex motor habits involved

Although cultural transmission may be completely unrelated to

genetic transmission, kin-transmission probably predominates in

required for a net inclusive fitness advantage to accrue from altruis

relatives. Now that cultural transmission has evolved in humans,

simplifying assumption: as a result of the phylogenetic history of

predispositions, beliefs, and motor skills within the household.

sumption in particular historical contexts.

3. Ceramic Traditions. Inter-individual transfer of pottery-making

"ceramic traditions." Shared information dictates where to find clay,

phenotypic traits expressed on pottery vessels.

By analogy with regionally distinctive ceramic industries known

"types" are analytic constructs that, in some cases, represent an ar

chaeologist's attempt to group together phenotypic expressions per

place, together with the potter's accidents, inventions, and responses

within-tradition process. Between-tradition processes operate by im

Ceramic evolution is expressed as shifts in the frequencies of alterna

1. Selection and Fitness. The cornerstone of the Darwinian

tions for creating the cultural aspects of the human phenotype?

(Leonard and Jones 1987:212), but information flow both provides

tinuity of information content, i.e., continuity in the genetic or cul

information, both genetic and cultural. Differential replicative suc

proposed by a number of selectionists. Dunnell has expressed this