| Abstract: |
Introduction: Ceramic change lies at the core of archaeological research, as a reflection of cultural change that leaves visible traces in the archaeological record. Ceramics are the most sensitive class of artifacts for studying prehistoric change, especially when the change occurs over a short time period. Ceramic change has been studied in the archaeological records of myriad culture areas, yet basic issues regarding rates of change and their causes remain poorly understood and require additional archaeological and ethnoarchaeological study. Ceramic change is embedded within the context of a culture's social and cognitive system (Adams 1989: 62). This is problematic for archaeologists, who recover fragmentary evidence at best for social and economic aspects of change. In spite of continuing debates over the uses of analogy in archaeology (e.g., Gould and Watson 1982
Wylie 1985), ethnoarchaeology provides one strategy for investigating the variety of factors responsible for ceramic change. Such an approach assumes a basic similarity between observed changes in contemporary material culture systems and the processes responsible for ceramic change viewed in the archaeological record (cf. Arnold 1987). Ethnoarchaeological research builds foundations for archaeological interpretation by attempting to understand the entire sociocultural context in which these ceramic changes occur. This study consists of two sections: a comparative discussion of factors behind, and manifestations of, ceramic change, and the presentation of Kalinga ceramic change as an ethnoarchaeological case study. The latter section focuses on a community in part of Kalinga-Apayao Province in the Northern Philippines (Fig. 1). Changes in the contemporary Kalinga ceramic assemblage in the last twenty-five years are described, and the dynamic sociopolitical context of the change is explored. The focus of the case study is on technical and stylistic modifications of the water jar (<i>immosso</i>) and on the emergence of a suite of nontraditional forms known as "toys" or <i>ay-ayam</i>.
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