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American ethno-archaeologist William Longacre has had a long career in archaeology; he is probably best known for his early contributions to the study of ethnoarchaeology. He studied pueblo villages in the American southwest and hypothesized that you could tell matrilocality (i.e., whether women resided with their families or their husband's families after marriage) from the spatial distribution of potsherd decorative styles within a settlement. He probably took the idea a tad bit too far; but there is no doubt that the field of ethnoarchaeology took a huge leap forward with his studies. He continues to explore kinship as its expressed in artifact distributions, now primarily with the Kalinga in the Philippines.
Related Terms
• Ethnoarchaeology
• Ceramics
Human and Cultural Studies
The application of anthropology to archaeology
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William A. Longacre II [b. 1937]
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