NYSAA Bulletin No. 26 — Croton Point Midden Excavation — Passage 4 (part 4)

[Louis A. Brennan et al. (1962)] A further general workshop was scheduled for October 27. A suggestion by Dr. Ralph Solecki that a representative Hudson River Valley sampling would be desirable for the Metropolitan Chapter, to be housed at Columbia University, Brennan reported, had led him to the conclusion that a group effort at classification and synthesis would be necessary to make such a sampling meaningful. Present available classification systems were inadequate for independent use, he declared, because of their tendency to associate points with site finds primarily and to confuse locality of finding, in itself perhaps accidental, with the larger problem of age, distribution, and typical characteristics. A system developed on an objective basis from the artifacts themselves in which the emphasis was placed on the outline, the description, and the features with the local or personal name used only as reference would, Brennan asserted, make it possible to classify and interpret new finds promptly and without confusion.

Such a system would first show the artifact in line outline on a grid, would give it a code number for overall references, would provide an appropriate name, would describe its shape in generally agreed-upon terms, would indicate its variety features of technique, materials, and so forth, and would be completed with references to the names and cultures and locations associated with it as a type.