Abstract

Archaeologists have tended to assume that 'cultures' are holistic: they form homogeneous, bounded and totalizable social entities. These entities are identified archaeologically through 'stylistic' patterns that indicate shared learning, information exchange or symbolic manipulation. In this case study, I exam the degree that holism can be identified along the Younge Phase - Western Basin and Glen Meyer 'Iroquoian' boundary through an analysis of ceramics from the Van Bree site. Ceramic material from feature clusters identified at Van Bree not only suggests that a distinct ethnic boundary exists between Younge and Glen Meyer people, but also that Glen Meyer and Younge are each different in their degree of holism.