Cultural Correlates of Ceramic Styles

Abstract

In 1961, John L. Fischer employed a cross-cultural analysis to demonstrate that art styles correlated with social hierarchy and postmarital residence patterns. He suggested that with further work, these correlations might be developed into useful predictors of variation in social hierarchy and postmarital residence in archaeologically known societies. This article is a step in that direction. It replicates Fischer's original study using ceramic data, and proposes several ways archaeological ceramics might be used to predict social characteristics of extinct societies.