Ceramic Wares in the Maya Area: a Clarification of an Aspect of the Type Variety Sistem and Presentation of a Formal Model for Comparative Use

Abstract

The concept of ware has often been neglected in ceramic studies within the Maya area. Even when it has been used, this ceramic concept, which is an important part of the taxonomic hierarchy of the type-variety system (see Smith, Willey, and Gifford 1960), has been employed in a vaguely defined manner “to make inferences about economic features such as manufacturing centers and trade” (Culbert 1967, p.92). In relation to ware, the majority of the members of the Conference on the Prehistoric Ceramics of the Maya Lowlands felt “that the primary use of the ware concept should be at the level of integration and functional analysis, with wares abstracted from completed type definitions