Abstract
Ethnographies of Native North America document an abundant and diverse array of directional color systems, yet archaeology has contributed little to the understanding of the historical development of such systems. Given a rekindling of archaeological interest in color, this paper reviews and organizes the ethnographic data in order to pose historical and functional hypotheses susceptible to archaeological evaluation.
Acknowledgements
John Clark, Joyce Marcus, Ekaterina Pechenkina, Timothy Pugh, Sara Stinson, and Paul Tolstoy shared thoughts and references. The tentacled result is my own doing.
Notes
Warren R. DeBoer is Professor of Anthropology at Queens College, The City University of New York. His research deals with the prehistory of lowland South America, ceramic ethnoarchaeology, and, most recently, Ohio Hopewell.
Full documentation for both binary and quaternary schemes is available by writing the author (please, no e-mails).