Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T04:47:11.703Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Identifying Mimbres Artists

A Quantitative Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2017

Will G. Russell  and
Michelle Hegmon
Will G. Russell
Affiliation:
Arizona State University PO Box 872402, Tempe, AZ 85287-2402 (Mimbres@ASU.edu)
Michelle Hegmon
Affiliation:
Arizona State University PO Box 872402, Tempe, AZ 85287-2402 (Mimbres@ASU.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Past researchers have identified individual styles of painting in Mimbres Black-on-white bowls, leading Steven LeBlanc to recently call for the development of quantitative methods to enable and assess such identifications. We propose such a methodology here. Through a process of pair-wise, micro-stylistic comparisons, bowls painted by a single artist or group of closely cooperating artists are analytically linked in chain-like fashion. Two bowls are attributed to the “same hands” if their similarity measure is at or above 70 percent. Similarity measures are determined by comparing minute details that reflect artistic decisions. The method takes into account diachronic development of artistic skill, subject matter diversity, and the transfer of style across generations. Results can contribute to an understanding of stylistic development, craft specialization, and the role of artists in traditional societies.

Investigadores anteriores han identificado estilos individuales de pintura en cajetes Mimbres Negro-sobre-blanco (Mimbres Black-on-white), llevando recientemente a Steven LeBlanc a exhortar el desarrollo de métodos cuantitativos para permitir y evaluar dichas identificaciones. Proponemos un ejemplo de dicha metodología en este trabajo. Por medio de un proceso de comparaciones micro-estilísticas por pares, los cajetes pintados por un solo artista o un grupo de artistas cooperando cercanamente se vinculan analíticamente de una manera en cadena. Dos cajetes se consideran como pintados con “las mismas manos” si su medida de similitud se encuentra en o arriba del 70 por ciento. Las medidas de similitud se determinan comparando detalles diminutos que reflejen las decisiones artísticas. El método toma en cuenta el desarrollo diacrónico de las habilidades del artista, la diversidad del tema y la transferencia del estilo a través de generaciones. Los resultados pueden contribuir a entender el desarrollo estilístico, la especialización artesanal y el papel de los artistas en sociedades tradicionales.

Type
Research Article
Information
Advances in Archaeological Practice , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , November 2015 , pp. 358 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Beazley, John D. 1963 The Development of Attic Black-Figure. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Beazley, John D. 1984 Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, I-III.Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.Google Scholar
Berenson, Bernard 1952 The Italian Painters of the Renaissance. Phaidon Press, London.Google Scholar
Berlant, Tony 1983 Mimbres Painting: An Artist’s Perspective. In Mimbres Pottery: Ancient Art of the American Southwest, edited by Brody, J.J. Scott, C.J. and LeBlanc, S.A. pp. 13–20. Hudson Hills, New York.Google Scholar
Borgatti, Steve P. Everett, Martin G. Freeman, Lin C. 2002 UCINET for Windows: Software for Social Network Analysis. Analytic Technologies, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Bradley, Richard 2000 An Archaeology of Natural Places. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Bray, Alicia 1982 Mimbres Black-on-White: Melamine or Wedgewood? A Ceramic Use-Wear Analysis. The Kiva 47:133–149.Google Scholar
Brody, J. J. 2004 Mimbres Painted Pottery, Revised Edition. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Bunker, Milton 1963 Handwriting Analysis. Nelson Hall, Chicago.Google Scholar
Bunzel, Ruth L. 1972 The Pueblo Potter: A Study of Creative Imagination in Primitive Art. Dover, New York. Originally published 1929, Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Carr, Pat M. 1979 Mimbres Mythology. Texas Western Press, El Paso.Google Scholar
Cosgrove, Harriet S. and Cosgrove, Cornelius B. 1932 The Swarts Ruin: A Typical Mimbres Site of Southwestern New Mexico. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 15, No. 1. Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Creel, Darrell and Speakman, Robert J. 2015 Mimbres Pottery: New Perspectives on Production and Distribution. In New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology: Three Millennia of Human Occupation in the Desert Southwest, edited by Gilman, Patricia Anyon, Roger and Roth, Barbara in press.Google Scholar
Crown, Patricia L. 2001 Learning to Make Pottery in the Prehispanic American Southwest. Journal of Anthropological Research 57:451–470.Google Scholar
Crown, Patricia L. 2007 Life Histories of Pots and Potters: Situating the Individual in Archaeology. American Antiquity 72:677–690.Google Scholar
Crown, Patricia L. 2014 The Archaeology of Crafts Learning: Becoming a Potter in the Puebloan Southwest. Annual Review of Anthropology 43:71–88.Google Scholar
Donnan, Christopher B. and McClelland, Donna 1999 Moche Fineline Painting: Its Evolution and Its Artists. University of California at Los Angeles Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Gilman, Patricia A. Canouts, Veletta and Bishop, Ronald L. 1994 The Production and Distribution of Classic Mimbres Black-on-White Pottery. American Antiquity 51:688–720.Google Scholar
Gilman, Patricia A. Thompson, Marc and Wyckoff, Kristina C. 2014 Ritual Change and the Distant: Mesoamerican Iconography, Scarlet Macaws, and Great Kivas in the Mimbres Region of Southwestern New Mexico. American Antiquity 79:90–107.Google Scholar
Gunn, Joel 1977 Idiosyncratic Chipping Style as a Demographic Indicator: A Proposed Application to the South Hills Region of Southeastern Idaho and Northern Utah. In The Individual in Prehistory: Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Technologies, edited by Hill, James N. and Gunn, Joel pp. 167–204. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Hardin, Margaret Ann 1977 Individual Style in San José Pottery Painting: The Role of Deliberate Choice. In The Individual in Prehistory: Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Technologies, edited by Hill, James N. and Gunn, Joel pp. 109–135. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Harrison, Wilson R. 1958 Suspect Documents, Their Scientific Examination. Sweet and Maxwell, Ltd., London, UK.Google Scholar
Hegmon, Michelle 2002 Recent Issues in the Archaeology of the Mimbres Region of the North American Southwest. Journal of Archaeological Research 10:307–357.Google Scholar
Hegmon, Michelle and Kulow, Stephanie 2005 Painting as Agency, Style as Structure: Innovations in Mimbres Pottery Designs from Southwest New Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12:313–334.Google Scholar
Hegmon, Michelle McGrath, James Russell, Will G. and O’Hara, Michael 2015 Mimbres Pottery Designs in Social Context. In New Perspectives on Mimbres Archaeology: Three Millennia of Human Occupation in the Desert Southwest, edited by Gilman, Patricia Anyon, Roger and Roth, Barbara in press.Google Scholar
Hegmon, Michelle and Nelson, Margaret C. 2007 In Sync, but Barely in Touch: Relations between the Mimbres Region and the Hohokam Regional System. In Hinterlands and Regional Dynamics in the Ancient Southwest, edited by Sullivan, Alan P. and Bayman, James pp. 70–96. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Hegmon, Michelle Nelson, Margaret C. Anyon, Roger Creel, Darrell LeBlanc, Steven and Shafer, Harry 1999 Scale and Time-Space Systematics in the Post-A.D. 1100 Mimbres Region of the North American Southwest. The Kiva 65:143–166.Google Scholar
Hill, James N. 1977 Individual Variability in Ceramics and the Study of Prehistoric Social Organization. In The Individual in Prehistory: Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Technologies, edited by Hill, J.N. and Gunn, J. pp. 57–107. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Hill, James and Gunn, Joel(editors) 1977 The Individual in Prehistory: Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Technologies. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Huse, Hannah 1976 Identification of the Individual in Archaeology: A Case Study from the Prehistoric Hopi Site of Kawaika-a. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Jeppson, Lawrence 1970 The Fabulous Frauds: Fascinating Tales of Great Art Forgeries. Weybright and Talley, New York.Google Scholar
Johnson, L. Lewis 1977 A Technological Analysis of an Aguas Verdes Quarry Workshop. In The Individual in Prehistory: Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Technologies, edited by Hill, J.N. and Gunn, J. pp. 205–230. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Kay, Marvin 1977 Wear Analysis and Unifacial Scraping Tool Morphology: Implications for Studying Individual Use. In The Individual in Prehistory: Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Technologies, edited by Hill, James N. and Gunn, Joel pp. 231–246. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Knapp, A.Bernard and van Dommelen, Peter 2008 Past Practices: Rethinking Individuals and Agency in Archaeology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18(1):15–34.Google Scholar
LeBlanc, Steven A. 2004 Painted by a Distant Hand: Mimbres Pottery from the American Southwest. Peabody Museum Press, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
LeBlanc, Steven A. 2006 Who Made the Mimbres Bowls? Implications of Recognizing Individual Artists for Craft Specialization and Social Networks. In Mimbres Society, Powell-Martí, Valli S. and Gilman, Patricia A. pp. 109–150. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
LeBlanc, Steven A. 2010 The Painters of the Pots. In Mimbres: Lives and Landscapes, edited by Nelson, Margaret and Hegmon, Michelle pp. 74–81. SAR Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
LeBlanc, Steven A. and Henderson, Lucia R. 2009 Symbols in Clay: Seeking Artists’ Identities in Hopi Yellow Ware Bowls. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Vol. 84. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Meskell, Lynn 1999 Archaeologies of Social Life: Age, Sex, Class et cetera in Ancient Egypt. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Moore, David S. and McCabe, George P. 1999 Introduction to the Practice of Statistics. W.H. Freeman, New York.Google Scholar
Moulard, Barbara 1984 Within the Underworld Sky: Mimbres Ceramics in Context. Twelve Trees Press, Pasadena, California.Google Scholar
Munson, Marit K. 2011 The Archaeology of Art in the American Southwest. AltaMira Press, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Nelson, Margaret C. 1999 Mimbres during the Twelfth Century: Abandonment, Continuity, and Reorganization. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Nelson, Margaret C. and Hegmon, Michelle(editors) 2010 Mimbres Lives and Landscapes. School of Advanced Research Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Peeples, Matthew A. 2015 The Demographic Context of Social and Ecological Change: An Example from the Mimbres Region of New Mexico. Manuscript on file, the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR), Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Powell-Martí, Valli S. and James, William D. 2006 Ceramic Iconography and Social Asymmetry in the Classic Mimbres Heartland, AD 970–1140. In Mimbres Society, edited by Powell-Martí, Valli S. and Gilman, Patricia pp. 151–173. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Redman, Charles 1977 The “Analytical Individual” and Prehistoric Style Variability. In The Individual in Prehistory: Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Technologies, edited by Hill, James N. and Gunn, Joel pp. 41–54. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Russell, Ian Alden and Cochrane, Andrew (editors) 2014 Art and Archaeology: Collaborations, Conversations, Criticisms. Springer, New York.Google Scholar
Russell, Will G. 2015 Social Inequality in the Mimbres Region of the U.S. Southwest, ca. 550–1150 CE. Manuscript on file, Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Shafer, Harry J. 2003 Mimbres Archaeology at the NAN Ranch. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Shafer, Harry J. 2006 Extended Families to Corporate Groups. In Mimbres Society, edited by Powell-Martí, Valli S. and Gilman, Patricia A. pp. 15–31. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Shafer, Harry J. 2013 Possible Archaeological Evidence for Classic Mimbres use of Tesquino at the NAN Ranch Ruin, Southwest New Mexico. In Collected Papers of the 17th Biennial Mogollon Archaeology Conference, edited by Ludeman, Lonnie pp. 109–117. Las Cruces, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Shafer, Harry J. and Brewington, Robbie L. 1995 Microstylistic Changes in Mimbres Black-on-White Pottery: Examples from the NAN Ruin, Grant County, New Mexico. The Kiva 61:5–29.Google Scholar
Smith, Watson 1962 Schools, Pots, and Potters. American Anthropologist 64:1165–1178.Google Scholar
Speakman, Robert J. 2013 Mimbres Pottery Production and Distribution. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.Google Scholar
Speakman, Robert J. Little, Nicole C. Creel, Darrell Miller, Myles R. and Iñañez, Javier G. 2011 Sourcing Ceramics with Portable XRF Spectrometers? A Comparison with INAA Using Mimbres Pottery from the American Southwest. Journal of Archaeological Science 38:3483–3496.Google Scholar
Spielmann, Katherine A. 2002 Feasting, Craft Specialization, and the Ritual Mode of Production in Small-Scale Societies. American Anthropologist 104:195–207.Google Scholar
Thomas, Jonathan T. McCall, Grant and Lillios, Katina 2009 Revisiting the Individual in Prehistory: Idiosyncratic Engraving Variation and the Neolithic Slate Plaques of the Iberian Peninsula. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19:53–72.Google Scholar
The Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) 2013 Ethics and Permission to Access MimPIDD. Electronic document, http://core.tdar.org/document/381421/ethics-and-permission-to-access-mimpidd, accessed May 18, 2015.Google Scholar
The Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) 2015 Mimbres Ceramic Database. Electronic document, https://core.tdar.org/collection/22070, accessed May 18, 2015.Google Scholar
Trowbridge, Meaghan 2006 Maker’s Marks on Chacoan Black-on-White Ceramics. Pottery Southwest 25(3):14–20.Google Scholar
Van Keuren, Scott 2000 Ceramic Decoration as Power: Late Prehistoric Design Change in East-Central Arizona. In Alternative Leadership Strategies in the Greater Southwest, edited by Mills, Barbara J. pp. 79–94. University of Arizona Press Tucson.Google Scholar
Walter, Paul A.F. 1925 Pit Houses of Cameron Creek. El Palacio 9(8):173–177.Google Scholar
Whittaker, John 1987 Individual Variation as an Approach to Economic Organization: Projectile Points at Grasshopper Pueblo, Arizona. Journal of Field Archaeology 14:465–479.Google Scholar
Yu, Q. I. U. 2009 On Pissarro’s Influence to the School of Impressionism Landscape Painting. Journal of Gansu Lianhe University (Social Science Edition) 2:030.Google Scholar