After spending a few days with Juan Pedro Laporte and talking to Jon (who does type:variety in the Southeastern US, I've got to say that a big ceramics book/conference is long due.

Juan Pedro is doing amazing stuff, and manages to do ceramics like they were meant to be done, which few have managed. Here's how the type:variety system works in the Maya world--you look at surface decoration (slips, incisions, etc.) and organize them into types in specific time periods--so all of the Early Classic shiny black-slipped stuff is Balanza Black, and all of the stuff that looks like Balanza but has incisions is Lucha Incised. Both of these would be organized in the same group (Balanza group, as Balanza is the "basic" type in the group). All of the groups which have the same basic forms and slip characteristics are grouped into wares (Balanza's a part of Peten Glossy, because it's, you know, glossy. It's actually a ware that exists throughout the Classic period and began slightly before it when people started experimenting with different slip types--all of the stuff before it was waxy. In the Late Preclassic it was Paso Caballo Waxy, to be specific). The wares and forms come together in different sites and regions to different phases. So in the Central Peten the stuff from the Late Preclassic (all wares during the same time period) are called Chicanel and the Early Classic is called Tzakol.

The variety in the type:variety system is sort of a withered appendage. An appendix, if you will, that used to serve some function but has sort of gone the way of, well, the appendix. It's different "types" within the type, and can be used to distinguish temporal, spatial, functional, or surface variation. But until I saw Juan Pedro's stuff I'd never actually seen it in action. He's got varieties that actually mean something. This is most obvious in the strange phenomenon he's found with the ceramic chronology in the southeast Peten, where the Chicanel waxy ware (Paso Caballo) continues through the Early Classic and the Peten Glossy ware is only used in special contexts. The "Chicanel periphery" as he calls the stuff is still filled with continuations of Late Preclassic types, but with strange differences. My favorite is the Sierra Red:Disorden (disorden means, as you might imagine, disorder), which is more extreme than most. It's got a less waxy red slip and a wide variety of forms--from Late Preclassic to pure Early Classic. Each of the types, in fact, has different varieties to distinguish the different time periods.

Another problem in the traditional type:variety analysis is that it was originally thought of in purely evolutionary terms. So all of the types were thought to change at a regular and consistent rate. Between the Early and Late Classic all of the types changed over at pretty much the same time, or so they thought. And it's true, things do change. But after having looked at the ceramics from the main Early Classic stuff at Tikal he identified a variety of a Late Classic type that appears in the last 100 years or so of the Early Classic.

One of the best things to have come out of my trip is the discovery that I've got this variety through pretty much all of the stuff in Candelaria and a related type as well (one that I'm defining like this week).

Ceramics have come a long way since the type:variety system was started down here, and many people have given up on the system all together. It's really hard to use in other parts of the Maya world. Like the stuff from Alta Verapaz, which is a big part of my sample. The stuff erodes so easily that surface finish is normally gone, so most of the stuff ends up being indeterminate. But the same goes for other analyses--the form's normally gone as well, so you would only be able to do an analysis based on paste for a lot of the stuff, which just doesn't get that much detail.

I think that a lot of the problems that people have with the stuff would be resolved if people get together and discuss stuff and get information out there. It's a useful system for what most people want to do with it, so there's no reason to go the way of Anabel Ford and just look at forms or something. 'Cause that's just silly. I mean, you're ignoring lots of information and making classification even tougher--how do you distinguish different subtle variations in form and not ignore the stuff that Juan Pedro's doing (and that Brady has found as well--waxy slip on forms normally associated with early glossy vessels). Imagine trying to talk vessel forms at a cocktail party and try to understand what the other's saying--I've tried it and it was pretty bad.