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6
A History of the Kalinga
Ethnoarchaeological Project
Miriam T. Stark and James M. Skibo
T
he Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological
Project (KEP) is one of the longest running ethnoarchaeological proj-
ects in the world. Begun in 1973, project researchers have studied a
wide variety of topics related to ceramics and documented changes
in economic, social, and material culture spheres (Longacre, Skibo,
and Stark 1991). This chapter describes the origins of the KEP and
places this project within its historical and cultural contexts. We iden-
tify key research themes in project research and chart changing meth-
odological emphases through time. Field and analytical studies con-
tinue through the KEP, and its researchers all owe a debt to William
Longacre for beginning this research tradition. We begin by discuss-
ing the origins of the project.
Ceramic Sociology and the KEP
As other chapters in this volume illustrate, William Longacre was a
member of a pioneering group of archaeologists who initiated re-
search that would come to be known as the ‘‘ceramic sociology’’
movement (Longacre and Skibo 1994:6–7). Their precontact North
American studies focused on the cultural transmission of stylistic
microtraditions, with encouragement from Paul S. Martin (Deetz
1965, 1968; Hill 1970; Longacre 1964c, 1968, 1970a; Whallon 1968). All
assumed that pottery making lay in the hands of women, that the
transmission of technological knowledge moved through the female
line (most likely from mother to daughter [e.g., Hill 1970; Long-
acre 1970a]), and that this pattern of cultural transmission produced
94/stark and skibo
subtle but detectable design patterns that archaeologists could use to
make inferences about sociopolitical organization.
Longacre’s own work concentrated on ceramic variability at the
Carter Ranch site (Longacre 1964c, 1968; 1974:57–60]). His disser-
tation specifically examined ceramic stylistic evidence for learning
frameworks or vertical patterns of cultural transmission. If mothers
taught daughters how to make pottery, as he assumed, then a society
with matrilocal postmarital residence rules should contain geo-
graphically discrete clusters of stylistic microtraditions across a com-
munity.The young and ambitious group working with Longacre par-
ticipated in an American Anthropological Association conference
session in 1965 called ‘‘The Social Organization of Prehistoric Com-
munities.’’ The session’s papers were subsequently published in a vol-
ume, New Perspectives in Archeology (Binford and Binford 1968), in-
tended to change the course of archaeological inquiry.
Ceramic sociologists’ pioneering research on ceramic style
stimulated a generation of archaeological research worldwide that
challenged archaeologists to think beyond culture-historical uses of
style. This research also generated substantive methodological and
theoretical critiques (Hegmon 1992:518–24; Plog 1983:126–33), in-
cluding the criticism of the fundamental assumption that mothers
teach daughters how to make and design pottery. Stanislawski (1973)
for example, used research among the Hopi-Tewa to suggest that
other modes of design-style transmission from one generation to the
next were equally likely.
In response to these critiques of his work, William Longacre de-
cided to undertake ceramic ethnoarchaeological research that ex-
plored the intergenerational transmission of style (Longacre and
Skibo 1994:6–9), with a focus on ceramic decoration. The issue then
became one of selecting an appropriate field location.
Selection of a Field Location
Because his archaeological research focused on the Puebloan
Southwest, William Longacre looked first to that region for ethno-
archaeological analogues. He found little fit, however, between the
tourist- and art-market orientation of contemporary Pueblo spe-
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project / 95
cialist potters and their prehistoric predecessors (Longacre and Skibo
1994:2). He then extended his search further afield to find analogous
small-scale, tribal, and sedentary farming societies that might bear
some parallels to late precontact Pueblo societies. Selecting a society
with nonspecialist potters was essential, since southwestern archae-
ologists then believed that precontact Pueblovillages were largely au-
tonomous and manufactured their own ceramics.
During this time, Edward Dozier, a noted ethnographer of
Southwest and Philippine societies, was on the University of Ari-
zona faculty. Trained at the University of Chicago a generation before
Longacre, Dozier followed the long Chicago tradition of northern
Philippine ethnography begun by Faye Cooper-Cole in 1909 as part
of his work with the Field Museum of Natural History (Kramer 1998).
Where Cole had worked among the Tingguian, Dozier chose towork
among the Kalingas, a neighboring tribal minority group in the Phil-
ippine Cordillera Mountains (Dozier 1966, 1967; see figure 6.1).
Dozier suggested to Longacre that the Kalingas might offer a
useful controlled comparison. First, the Kalingas were a ‘‘tribal’’ so-
ciety, with relatively small permanent villages of about 250–600
people (Longacre 1981:50). Second, many Kalinga women made and
used pottery on a household basis, rather than for trade, during
the 1960s. Finally, the Kalingas had been the subject of previous
ethnographic study, which provided a cultural context for long-term
ethnoarchaeological research with the Kalingas (Longacre 1974:61–
62; 1981:50–51). The following section summarizes extant ethno-
graphic research on the Kalingas published before, during, and after
the initiation of the KEP.
Kalinga in Ethnohistoric
and Ethnographic Perspective
The term Kalinga, meaning enemy, may have been coined by fearful
Ibanag speakers (Keesing 1962:221); a Bontoc origin for the term has
also been suggested (Scott 1969:63). If any consensus exists on the
term ‘‘Kalinga,’’ it is that the Kalingas did not use this term until quite
recently and instead reckoned affiliation by drainage system (Dozier
1966: 240; Keesing 1962:221–24). The use of broad, linguistically based
Figure 6.1 A topographic map of the northern Philippines.
The Kalinga research area is located in the Cordillera Mountains and
includes Dalupa. (From the Journal of Archaeological Method
and Theory 7:295–331; reproduced with the kind permission
of Springer Science and Business Media)
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project / 97
ethnic groupings (e.g., Kalinga, Ifugao, or Bontoc) began with Span-
ish colonization, and the American colonial Bureau of Non-Christian
Tribes institutionalized the ethnic groups (Lewis 1991). This establish-
ment of political provinces generated a new ‘‘tribal’’ consciousness
(Scott 1969:165), and subsequent incursions by the Philippine gov-
ernment have strengthened this sentiment (De Raedt 1991:356; Law-
less 1978b:155–56).
Kalinga Ethnohistory
Mountain people were called Ygorrotes, and their area was renowned
for its rich gold mines (Tegengren 1964). The earliest external contact
with the Kalinga Ygorrotes began with a Spanish encomienda (land
grant) survey in 1591 of the Tanudan area, which carried the right to
levy tribute and labor service from the resident population (Wern-
stedt and Spencer 1967:123). The Spaniards labeled one population
they encountered in 1591 as Lobo (Keesing 1962:224); that commu-
nity today is located in the Kalinga municipalityof Tanudan. In 1689,
Spanish missionaries formally established their presence in Kalinga
at the Tuga Catholic Church in what is now the Tabuk municipality
(Almazan 1978:1).
Various attempts at ‘‘pacification’’ (missionization, mining, and
trade) continued through the nineteenth century (Dozier 1966:28–
36), with the primary goal of obtaining access to gold mines in the
area and to the tobacco produced by its inhabitants (Scott 1977:4).
Yet the Spanish consistently met with intense resistance from all
highland native populations, including Kalingas (Scott 1970:707).
Mountain groups were also hostile toward Philippine lowlanders,
who participated with the Spaniards in punitive expeditions in the
highlands (Jenista 1987:186). It was only in the 1880s, with the intro-
duction of the bolt-action repeating rifle, that the Spaniards estab-
lished permanent garrisons in the area (Scott 1977:274). The brief
Philippine rule between 1896 and 1900 effected no better relations
between highlanders and lowlanders: Philippine soldiers who made
their way through the mountains left a trail behind them of pillage
and plunder (Joaquin 1986; Kane 1938).
Following the Philippine-American War in 1900, the United
States established the Mountain Province as a political unit in 1908
98/stark and skibo
(Fry 1983). American administrators viewed the Kalingas as intelli-
gent but rather intractable (Worcester 1914), and relied upon tradi-
tional social institutions to encourage Kalinga participation in the
colonizing process (Magannon 1984:254; Wilson 1956). American
colonial administration constructed roads that opened highland-
lowland trade networks, established schools, and built medical facili-
ties; headhunting and tribal warfare waned under American rule
(De Raedt 1991:363). Japanese troops entered the area during World
War II, and Kalingas loyal to American forces resumed headhunting
against Japanese soldiers (Dozier 1966:205).
Post–World War II Kalinga society lacked the strong state inter-
vention of the American colonial administration, and the Philippine
government policy of benign neglect affected local politics and so-
cial life. Tribal conflicts flared sporadically (De Raedt 1991: 363; Dozier
1966:197–215; Fürer-Haimendorf 1970), roads deteriorated, and out-
side penetration in the Kalinga area consisted of sporadic, poorly
planned capitalist ventures rather than government-sponsored pro-
grams. The ever-increasing incursion of outside interests, particu-
larly through commercial mining, logging, and hydroelectrification,
has affected cultural change and ecological degradation in the Kalinga
area (Lawless 1978a; Magannon 1984:258). Lowland Ilocanos have
also settled in areas previously dominated by Kalinga populations
(De Raedt 1991:358), including the provincial capital of Tabuk, and
Kalingas experience strong pressure to acculturate to lowland Ilocano
practices.
Kalinga Ethnography
Anthropological research on the Kalingas has been published for
more than fifty years, and the corpus of Kalinga ethnography is now
substantial. Research on Kalinga social and economic structure, both
past and present, is abundant and detailed (Bacdayan 1967; Barton
1930, 1949; Billiet 1935; De Raedt 1989, 1991, 1996; Eggan 1954; Scott
1958, 1960; Sugguiyao and Sugguiyao 1964; Fürer-Haimendorf 1970).
Scholars have also written about how others have written about the
Kalingas (MacDonald 1978; Norcini 1991; Takaki 1969).
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project / 99
Political Structure and Economics
Kalingas, considered a cultural minority by the Philippine govern-
ment, are not typical ‘‘peasants’’ like their lowland neighbors but in-
stead still live and function on the peripheries of the nation-state.
Ethnographers have traditionally assumed that Kalinga society lacks
ascribed positions of leadership and that status is defined primarily
through achievements in battle (e.g., Dozier 1966; Scott 1979). Eco-
nomic stratification of some form has a long tradition in Kalinga and
might have begun with Spanish tribute demands in the late nine-
teenth century (see Scott 1977:291). As work in the Pasil municipality
demonstrates (Lawless 1977, 1978b; Stark 1993, 1995), these economic
differences continue to grow. In fact, a new wealthy class has emerged
among college graduates and those employed by the government.
These economic trends also characterize other groups in the Cordi-
llera Central, including Ifugao (Eder 1982:110–11) and Bontoc (Voss
1987).
Kalinga leadership institutions exhibit significant temporal sta-
bility. Leaders (pangats) continue to resolve public disputes, nego-
tiate border problems with neighboring villages, and help maintain
peace pacts (Bacdayan 1967; Barton 1949; Tadaoan 1954). A lowland
overlay of governmental institutions has had remarkably little impact
on the adjudication of intra- and intercommunity disputes and in the
operation of traditional social and economic structures.
The well-codified system of custom law that revolves around a
peace pact, or bodong, system remains pivotal in Kalinga society
(Bacdayan 1967, 1969; Benedito 1994). Peace pacts link villages and
areas to one another through agreements that end tribal wars caused
by blood feuding, establish peaceful areas for trade and travel, en-
sure justice when crimes are committed by members of the peace
pact holding units, and establish alliances that permit intermarriages.
Peace pacts may be maintained for many decades; individual peace
pact holders pass their responsibility down to the next generation.
Kalinga Subsistence
Pasil Kalinga subsistence today still relies primarily on intensive farm-
ing; goods still circulate through barter as well as through village
100 / stark and skibo
stores or itinerant vendors. Swidden farming and arboriculture are
secondary specialties. Coffee cultivation has a deep history (Scott
1977 :7): the American administration also encouraged coffee produc-
tion throughout the Cordillera highlands (Keesing and Keesing 1934;
Scott 1969:64; Wilson 1956).
Political and economic changes in the area (e.g., Lawless 1977,
1978a, 1978b, 1994; Stark 1991b) have substantially affected Kalinga
economics and subsistence. Deforestation and mining into the 1980s
reduced the availability of game and riverine resources (see Lawless
1973; 1975:30). More recently, water buffaloes have grown increas-
ingly scarce in the Kalinga region since an epidemic in the 1990s de-
pleted the local populations.
Despite the impact of recent external influences on Kalinga life,
a traditional barter economy continues to thrive. Barter equivalents
are still essential to daily activities, and goods from village stores and
‘‘walking stores’’ (i.e., itinerant female vendors) are obtained through
barter. Property, like houses or rice fields, is still reckoned in water
buffalo or gold earring media; daily transactions for foodstuffs—in-
cluding those in local village ‘‘stores’’—often involve barter rather
than sale.
Political Traditions and Interregional Interaction
The geographic focus of the KEP lies in southern Kalinga, where
substantial previous ethnographic research has concentrated (e.g.,
Dozier 1966, 1967; Garming 1981, 1984; Lawless 1973, 1975, 1977, 1979,
1980, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1994; Magannon 1972, 1974,
1980, 1984, 1985; Takaki 1977, 1984), in part because this region is
considered the most conservative within Kalinga. Southern Kalingas
live in areas flanking the middle Chico River valley and its tribu-
taries (Dozier 1966:9, 53; Lawless 1973:85). Administratively speak-
ing, residents of four Kalinga provincial municipalities (Lubuagan,
Pasil, Tinglayan, and western Tanudan) and of the Natonin munici-
pality of Bontoc province are thus southern Kalingas (Scott 1958,
1960).
The Pasil municipality, which lies in the northern portion of
southern Kalinga, became an autonomous political unit in 1968. The
Pasil municipality consisted of fifteen communities with a population
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project / 101
of almost seven thousand residents in 1980 (Almazan 1985:6). The
municipality is ethnically homogeneous: in the late 1980s, 97 percent
of the residents were Kalingas, with small populations of Ilocano and
Tagalog (Stark 1993).
Kalinga settlement is defined by a series of geographic units, from
the provincial to the local levels (Stark 1999:35–38). At the local level,
each ‘‘region’’ (following Takaki 1977) involves individual settlements
or settlement clusters that collectively negotiate and maintain peace
pacts with other like units (Dozier 1966; Takaki 1977:27–30, 1984).
Regional population size varies, ranging from a few hundred to over
one thousand individuals. Kalingas commonly use the term ‘‘barrio’’
to refer to regions, following Spanish colonial custom.
Pasil Kalingas divide the core communities into two distinct
sociopolitical segments on the basis of drainage and elevation (fig.
6.2). Upper Pasil consists of the greater Guina-ang community (Bag-
tayan, Galdang, Pogong [Pugong], and Malucsad), Dangtalan, and
the western communities of Batong Buhay and Colayo. Lower Pasil
includes Dalupa, Ableg, Magsilay, Balenciagao, and the settlements
within Cagaluan. This Upper-Lower Pasil distinction has social, po-
litical, and economic implications (Aronson, Skibo, and Stark 1991,
1994; Lawless 1977:105–06; Longacre and Stark 1992; Stark, Bishop,
and Miksa 2000).
History of the KEP
In July 1973, William Longacre took a leave from directing the exca-
vation of Grasshopper Pueblo, then the site of the University of Ari-
zona’s archaeological field school, and conducted a several-week fea-
sibility study in the Philippines. After his arrival in Kalinga, he spent
a week in the Pasil municipality and divided his time between Dang-
talan (the site of his future research) and neighboring villages. The
Kalingas encouraged him to return to the region to study pottery,
and he returned to the United States to design his research.
Funding from the National Science Foundation enabled William
Longacre to return to the Philippines in 1975 for twelve months of
research in the village of Dangtalan. Two central goals structured
his research: (1) to develop fine scale measures for recording stylis-
tic variability in Kalinga pottery; and (2) to understand and record
Figure 6.2 The distinction between Upper Pasil and Lower Pasil. (From the Journal of
Archaeological Method and Theory 7:295–331; reproduced with the kind permission of
Springer Science and Business Media)
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project / 103
the social context of pottery making (Longacre 1974:66). Fieldwork
involved several data-collection techniques, in addition to partici-
pant observation: (1) a mapping project of the pottery-making vil-
lages of Dangtalan and Dalupa; (2) a household census in Dangtalan
and Dalupa to determine exact genealogical relationships between
and among households, and between potters; and (3) the identifica-
tion of select groups of related potters and unrelated potters in the
same work groups to analyze the degree of stylistic variability in their
vessels with respect to their social and biological relationships. These
data sources provided rich information not only on stylistic pattern-
ing but also on ceramic use life (Longacre 1981) and—to a more lim-
ited extent—on pottery distribution patterns.
This initial phase of the KEP revealed that learning frameworks
were far more complex than the ceramic sociologists had assumed
(Graves 1981, 1985; Longacre and Skibo 1994:8). The primary les-
son learned from the 1975–1976 Kalinga research was that archaeolo-
gists who make such inferential demands of the archaeological record
must first establish a set of connections (or correlates) between ma-
terial culture and human behavior. The questions that the ceramic
sociologists were asking were, in retrospect, impossible to answer
with their extant inferential tools. Longacre’s ethnoarchaeological re-
search illustrated this research strategy’s usefulness in refining ar-
chaeological method and theory.
If learning frameworks and matrilocal residence patterns at Car-
ter Ranch and Broken K did not create the patterning in the micro-
traditions, then what did? By the mid-1970s Longacre was influenced
by behavioral archaeology (Reid, Schiffer, and Rathje 1975; Schiffer
1976), which originated at his own University of Arizona. Longacre’s
1975–1976 field research on pottery design styles underscored the
importance of understanding cultural formation processes that af-
fected archaeological patterning, and prompted him to incorporate
research on these processes into the project. Consequently, Longacre
initiated a study of household pottery use life, breakage, and dis-
posal that involved not only documentation of behaviors but also test
excavations of midden areas in Dangtalan’s satellite community of
Puapo.This work was intended to develop more fine-grained models
for human behavior using archaeological ceramics.
104 / stark and skibo
The 1979–1980 Field Season
At approximately the time of William Longacre’s 1975–1976 field sea-
son, the Philippine government attempted to launch a massive hydro-
electric development project along the Chico River dams and its
tributaries in the Kalinga area (Cariño 1980:2). Construction of the
Chico IV dam would have entailed the relocation of ten thousand
people and the submersion of two settlements in the Pasil munici-
pality, where Longacre worked. Government efforts to begin dam
construction escalated tensions with Kalinga and provoked the in-
cursion of Philippine military, federal employees, and communist
guerillas (New People’s Army) into the area (Drucker 1988; Rood
1991; Winnacker 1979).
William Longacre planned to return to the Pasil municipality for
a second field season in 1979–1980 to continue his stylistic studies
through repeated pottery censuses and additional research on Ka-
linga potters. The Philippine government’s support of the Chico
River dam project by that time had generated widespread political
instability in the region. The Pasil municipality was a hotbed of com-
munist insurgent activity by the New People’s Army, which drew the
Philippine military. A garrison was briefly established east of the Pasil
municipality in the Gao Gao and Tommiangan community.
Conflict between the New People’s Army and Philippine military
disrupted local peace pacts, and Kalinga friends advised Longacre not
to undertake fieldwork at that time. Instead, two Kalinga colleagues
(Cristina Tima and Rosalina Busog) carried out the 1979–1980 pot-
tery census and provided data to William Longacre. They were able
to identify pots in households that had been recorded in 1975–1976,
to add new vessels in the inventory, and to account for pots that had
disappeared from household assemblages. This work created a unique
longitudinal database that could be used to better understand pot-
tery use life, which is a critical variable in virtually all inferences about
human behavior derived from prehistoric ceramics (Longacre 1985).
Pottery census data from the 1975–1976 and 1979–1980 field sea-
sons also yielded intriguing evidence on the organization of Kalinga
ceramic production. Michael Graves’s (1991b) analysis of this cen-
sus information suggested that only some Dangtalan households had
active resident potters, that the rate of pottery production for ex-
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project / 105
change escalated between 1975 and 1980, and that most Dangtalan
households no longer produced pottery. It also suggested that some
Dangtalan women were making and exchanging pottery to supple-
ment their households’ income.
The 1987–1988 Field Season
The 1987–1988 project represented a radical departure from Long-
acre’s earlier Kalinga research. Although he continued his household
ceramic inventory research in Dangtalan, this field season Longacre
brought with him a team of graduate students from the University
of Arizona, the University of the Philippines, and staff archaeologists
from the National Museum of the Philippines. Substantial changes
had occurred in the Pasil ceramic traditions during the project’s
eleven-year hiatus, including a steep decline in Dangtalan potters’
manufacturing activity, and the acceleration of pottery manufacture
in Dalupa (Stark 1991a; Stark and Longacre 1993). Only a few Dang-
talan potters continued to manufacture pottery regularly, because
alternative economic sources (mining in particular) in the late 1970s
and early 1980s had lessened their need to supplement household in-
come through ceramic manufacture.
The 1987–1988 KEP members were based in three Pasil commu-
nities from October 1987 to June 1988. Graduate research was char-
acterized by eclecticism rather than by a single unified framework,
perhaps following Paul Martin’s mentoring philosophy that Longacre
knew from his graduate student days. At various points in the field
season, as manyas eleven project members pursued various research
projects in six different communities throughout the municipality.
Three communities, Dangtalan, Dalupa and Guina-ang, formed the
core focus of project research, and project members lived and worked
within these communities. More limited fieldwork was also under-
taken in three additional Pasil villages (Cagaluan, Malucsad, and Po-
gong) under the direction of Miriam Stark and Brian Trostel.
Part of the 1987–1988 Kalinga project research concentrated on
aspects of ceramic production. Several kinds of information, using
identical data-collection strategies and survey instruments, were col-
lected from all three principal communities: (1) a village map; (2) a
household pottery census; and (3) a household economic profile.
106 / stark and skibo
Household pottery censuses and village maps were produced for Ma-
lucsad and Pogong, but Cagaluan elders requested that the project
refrain from mapping theircommunity because of their previous fric-
tion with the Philippine government.
Data from the household pottery censuses extended the project
focus on stylistic variability and cultural transmission by including
not only ceramic media (Stark and Longacre 1993; Stark 1999) but
also basketry (Silvestre 1994, 2000). Project members also followed
Longacre’s early ceramic studies (Longacre 1981) with research on
technological aspects of the production sequence (Aronson, Skibo,
and Stark 1991, 1994; Stark, Bishop, and Miksa 2000) and on pro-
duction scale and organization. Monitoring daily ceramic produc-
tion rates in Dalupa provided information on scale and organization
(Stark 1991a, 1995).
Some research also focused on ceramic standardization
(Kvamme, Stark, and Longacre 1996; Longacre, Kvamme, and Koba-
yashi 1988). These 1987–1988 data were then compared against data
from 1975–1976 to study potential changes in product standardization
that might have accompanied the organizational shift to part-time
specialization. Cultural anthropologists working in southern Kalinga
had previously documented sources of, and factors behind, changes
in the region (e.g., Lawless 1973, 1978a, 1978b). Accordingly, project
members examined historical changes as reflected in the ceramic pro-
duction and use systems (Stark and Longacre 1993; Skibo 1994; Stark
1991a, 1991b). Since Longacre’s 1975–1976 field season, Dalupa pot-
ters had developed an entirely new repertoire of decorative ceramics
intended for sale rather than barter, and many women had become
part-time specialists (Stark 1993, 1995).
Other research in 1987–1988 concentrated on aspects of ceramic
distribution with a focus on Dalupa, the more active ceramic pro-
duction village (Stark 1991b, 1994). Circulation mechanisms were
documented using pottery transaction logs and through a series of
structured surveys administered to Dalupa and Dangtalan potters
to document the range of pottery exchange networks (Stark 1993).
These techniques signified a significant expansion in Dalupa potters’
ceramic distributional network since Longacre’s 1975–1976 field sea-
son (Stark 1994), which paralleled trends identified by Graves (1991b)
in his study of previous Dangtalan data. Related research explored
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project / 107
the economic and organizational implications of part-time special-
ization in Dalupa (Stark 1995).
Studies of the Dalupa distribution helped researchers identify
changing patterns of exchange relationships as potters moved be-
yond the boundaries of their own river valley and closest personal
relationships (Stark 1992). This research, however, also illuminated
material manifestations of social boundaries that complemented pre-
vious work on scalar aspects of Kalinga social boundaries (Longacre
1991) and other work incorporating ceramic design (Graves 1994a,
1994b). Such research on social boundaries, and how such boundaries
might be reflected in ceramic forms among Kalinga potters, provided
insights on archaeological patterning (Stark 1998b). Various studies
focused on choices during the manufacturing process that generated
formal variability, from selection of raw materials (Stark, Bishop, and
Miksa 2000) to vessel-forming techniques (Stark 1999).
Ceramic consumption formed another basic component of field
research through the 1987–1988 KEP. Research in Guina-ang, a com-
munity of pottery consumers rather than pottery producers, con-
centrated on ceramic function (Kobayashi 1994, 1996; Skibo 1990,
1992b). Much of this research merged ethnoarchaeological and ex-
perimental approaches in what Longacre (1992) calls a ‘‘perfect mar-
riage.’’ One aspect of this research linked pottery-use activities with
use-alteration traces (absorbed residues, carbon deposits, and attri-
tion) to establish archaeological correlates. These findings were also
combined with experimentation to better understand processes of
use alteration such as the deposition of carbon or the absorption of
organic residues (Skibo 1992b).
Research was undertaken on consumer preferences regarding
Dangtalan versus Dalupa pottery by adding data from the pottery-
consuming community of Guina-ang (Aronson, Skibo, and Stark
1991, 1994). Researchers combined field data with experimental ar-
chaeological research on performance characteristics to examine why
Guina-ang households had higher frequencies of Dangtalan than Da-
lupa pottery, when most Dangtalan potters were no longer active in
the craft. The answer lay in a complex set of factors that did not privi-
lege functional concerns (vessel strength) over social relations. Pot-
tery census data from two pottery consumer communities of Pogong
and Malucsad were also incorporated into a study of intravalley pat-
108 / stark and skibo
terns in ceramic consumption (Longacre and Stark 1992). Findings
from this study suggested that the representation of Dangtalan ver-
sus Dalupa pots in two Kalinga consumer villages reflected broader
political and social alliances.
Other research focused on economic and nutritional anthropol-
ogy. Brian Trostel examined the relationship between pottery con-
sumption and household wealth to test the strength of ceramics as
a proxy indicator in archaeological assemblages (Trostel 1989, 1994).
This study, based in Dangtalan, combined information from eco-
nomic questionnaires, inheritance patterns, and architectural fea-
tures that are closely related to household wealth. Trostel found a
strong correlation between household size and both the number
and the average size of ceramic vessels (1994:223). Caren Quimpo-
Casteneda (1990) examined traditional food taboos of pregnant and
lactating Kalinga women.
Part of the 1987–1988 project research continued to focus on ce-
ramic assemblage formation and particularly on ceramic use life.
Using pottery censuses from the three field seasons, demographic
data from Dangtalan, and ceramic breakage data collected in 1987–
1988, Tani (1994) examined the relationship between household size
and vessel breakage rates. In one study, Neupert and Longacre (1994)
examined methodological issues related to the study of ceramic
assemblage formation. In another, by comparing use-life data in
Kalinga household ceramic inventories since 1975 against ceramic
breakage data, Tani and Longacre (1999) identified biases that affect
use-life estimates and recommended revisions. Although a substan-
tial literature on the nature and quality of informant-derived infor-
mation existed in cultural anthropology (e.g., Bernard et al. 1984;
Nachman 1984), little systematic research had previously been con-
ducted to investigate the quality orcontext of informant-derived data
that are incorporated into most ethnoarchaeological models (but see
Schiffer 1978).
The 2001 Field Season
Analytical research on the Kalinga collections (now housed at the
Arizona State Museum in Tucson) has continued since 1987 (e.g.,
Stark, Bishop, and Miksa 2000), and several project members have
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project / 109
visited Kalinga at least once since that time. However, the KEP has
not launched another large-scale field season since 1987. Fieldwork
has, however, continued through the doctoral research of Margaret
Beck (2003). Beck’s February–July 2001 field season in Dalupa con-
centrated on formation process issues and ceramic deposition (Beck
and Hill 2004; this vol.). This work combined ethnoarchaeological
fieldwork with archaeological excavations in Dalupa middens to ex-
amine the relationship between midden ceramics and household as-
semblages.
From Carter Ranch to KEP and Beyond
What William Longacre instigated in his efforts to refine interpreta-
tions from the Carter Ranch and Broken K studies blossomed into a
multifaceted ethnoarchaeological research program. Archaeologists
working globally have incorporated findings from the KEP using Ka-
linga research methodologies (Arthur 1997, 2002; London 1991) or
comparative data generated by project members. This is particularly
clear in formation processes research. Studies of pottery use life have
frequently incorporated Kalinga data into comparative studies of use
life (Nelson 1991; Shott 1996), as has accumulations research (Varien
and Mills 1997; Varien and Potter 1997). Kalinga research on pottery
use-alteration has been explored in detail by other ethnoarchaeolo-
gists (Arthur 2000, 2003; Beck and Hill 2004), and applied to pre-
historic archaeological collections (Arthur 2000, 2001; Beck and Hill
2004; Reid 1990; Skibo and Blinman 1999).
Models and datasets from the KEP have also been used to ex-
plore the organization of ceramic production and ceramic distribu-
tion. Several studies have incorporated Kalinga metric morphologi-
cal datasets (Crown 1995; Junker 1999) to examine these issues for the
prehistoric North American Southwest. The Kalinga ceramic produc-
tion and distribution system has also served as a comparative model
for understanding late prehistoric and early historic period South-
east Asia (White and Pigott 1996).
The KEP members have now explored diverse archaeologically
relevant issues through fieldwork and the use of multiple analyti-
cal techniques. Just as archaeological methods and interests have
changed in the last thirty years, so too have the topics investigated
110 / stark and skibo
through the KEP. Its breadth of research focus crosscuts theoretical
frameworks. The project’s longitudinal nature, caused as much by
historical accident as by design, provides a less distorted lens for ar-
chaeologists studying material culture than do the short-term studies
that characterize much of the extant ethnoarchaeological literature
(David and Kramer 2001:50–51). Many American and international
students of William Longacre have participated directly or indirectly
in the KEP, and we are grateful for his support and guidance through
our research. The project generated insights that have contributed to
the realm of archaeological interpretation, and the broader commu-
nity of archaeologists has thus also benefited from his work.
acknowledgments
The KEP has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (soc
75-19006, bns 87-10275, bns 89-01 797, bns 89-15359, bcs-0002904), by Sigma Xi (the
Scientific Research Society), and by the Smithsonian Institution postdoctoral fel-
lowship program. Our research since 1975 was accomplished through the kind and
patient assistance of many Kalinga colleagues: Roberto and Cristina Tima, Rosalina
Busog, Bini Bulawit, Brenda Dumayag, Avelina Baguiyon, and Josie Alwod (Dang-
talan); Josephine Bommogas, Amy Awing, NarcissaWagawag, Vicki Cayag, Reselda
Cayag, Margelyn Pinading, Rebecca Pinading, and Aggie Awing (Dalupa); Amboy
Lingbawan, Joseph Abacan, Nancy and Edita Sugao, Judith Sagayo, Iya Lubuagon,
Thomasa Dawagon, and John and Delia Sawil (Guina-ang); and Ben Blaza (Ableg).
We also extend our thanks for the hospitality of our Kalinga friends: Roberto and
Cristina Tima (Dangtalan), Lucas and Apinan Gayudan (Dangtalan), Roberto and
Pia Awing (Dalupa), Osias and Josephine Bommogas (Dalupa) and Solono Law-
tawan (Guina-ang). We also thank the archaeology division of the National Museum
of the Philippines, and the faculty and students of the Department of Anthropology
at the University of the Philippines.
