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This chapter suggests a way Mesoamerican archaeologists can move beyond the Type-Variety system of ceramic classification. It offers evidence for a ceramic unit called the “ceramic set.” It is assumed consumers within a culture each had a similar range of serving and preparation needs and the range of formal variation found in different types of ceramics represented an effort by different producers to meet these needs. The range of forms found within one of these types a "ceramic set." Ceramic set are further defined as a series of forms that are similar in paste, slip, and surface treatment but which are used for a variety of serving needs. The chapter examines the evidence for ceramic sets in two Mesoamerica societies, the Toltec of Central Mexico (A.D. 900–1150) and the Maya of the Southern Lowlands (A.D. 700–1000) in an effort to provide a new method for identifying the nature of household activities in these societies. It also examines whether ceramic sets allow archaeologists to define evidence of innovation and competition in the production and distribution of ceramics in Pre-Columbian pottery economic systems.

I address some of the broader issues in the concluding chapter to the volume. In various ways, the chapters in this book examine the use of pottery in interpretations of the lives of ancient Maya people. Each chapter addresses issues of general method and theory related to type-variety and modal classification with specific examples derived from fieldwork. In this conclusion, I reflect upon some of the concerns that have been raised about type: variety-mode classification in this volume and elsewhere, and I consider some of the ways these may be addressed.

The ancient Maya produced a broad range of pottery, which has attracted concerted scholarly attention for nearly a century. The authors of the chapters in this volume address a range of issues around the classification, interpretation, and analysis of ancient Maya pottery linked in one way or another to the type: variety-mode approach. Given the many years of research devoted to Maya pottery, one might expect that there would be agreement over the goals and methods of the type: variety-mode approach, but this is not the case. In fact, it seems that every Maya archaeologist has an opinion on type-variety, including (and perhaps especially) those who know little about it. The authors of the chapters here also do not agree on a number of issues, and no doubt readers will have plenty to say. In the introduction, I present a brief review of each of the chapters. In the final chapter, I address some of the issues that have been raised about type: variety-mode more generally.

Urban, Schortman, and Ausec examine their use of type-variety classification to identify the Early Postclassic in three areas of Honduras. These authors stress the flexibility of type: variety-mode, which they continue to modify as new types of data are recognized and new questions are asked. While recognizing some shortcomings (particularly that type-variety alone tells us little about vessel function), they argue that type: variety-mode has been useful for the identification of spatial and temporal variation and has allowed them to deal efficiently with sherd samples that sometimes number in the millions (a prospect that makes me shudder) in a relatively small area with striking pottery diversity.

Chapter 5 provides, in summary form, the first detailed account of Chocolá’s ceramic pottery. For the first time, the wares and figurines of the ancient city are described for the benefit of other Maya and Mesoamerican researchers. This includes a type-variety system and the first tentative ceramic sequence for the ancient city.

Prudence Rice provides a concise historical and theoretical introduction to type-variety and discusses important aspects of classification in general. She highlights the difference between a positivist view of classification, in which types are defined in any number of ways depending on the questions one is asking, and what Hill and Evans (1972) have characterized as an empirical view in which types are seen to be inherently meaningful (for example, as expressions of individual and group values and norms, as in the work of Gifford and others). She links the empirical view to the “revisionist history” of Gifford’s (1976: 6) claim that type-variety is conceptually based on whole vessels and argues that type-variety was in fact intended to help manage large amounts of sherds, a task to which it is well suited.

Cassandra Bill addresses some of the integrative categories of type-variety, including ones that are commonly used (types and spheres) and others that are rarely used (such as horizons and systems). Appropriately (or perhaps ironically), Bill creates a classification of systems and spheres. Bill identifies two types of systems (which we might call regular and long-lived) and three types of spheres. Because systems as originally defined lump together types, which are typically associated with a particular time period (phase), they are not normally conceived as long-lived. Following observations by archaeologists working in Honduras, where the systems concept has been used most extensively, Bill reminds us that styles often continue through time (that is, across phases identified as ceramic complexes) and that the concept of system can thus be used to lump analogous types that continue through time (that is, stylistically similar ceramics that span multiple phases/complexes). She notes that these long-lived systems are rather like ceramic traditions without the spatial restriction characteristic of traditions, and because systems are ideally relatively circumscribed in time she suggests calling these long-lived systems “macro-traditions.”

Arlen Chase and Diane Chase’s chapter serves as a counterpoint to Bill’s because they highlight the inadequacies of type-variety. They argue for context-based approaches to Maya pottery with an emphasis on the associations of whole vessels and refitting of sherds because full or reconstructable vessels from good primary deposits are the ideal material from which to derive information about ancient Maya behaviors and beliefs. Unfortunately, this is not always possible, for any number of reasons (for example, when excavations are limited due to funding or as part of early investigations at a site). I suspect that fewer and fewer projects will have the resources to engage in the sort of intensive sampling the Chases quite reasonably advocate. The reality is that we are often forced to deal with poor samples of sherds (sometimes eroded ones) from secondary or poorly understood contexts. If the resources of the two major projects at Tikal could not solve some of these issues, one wonders how small projects could hope to do so.

John Aimers and Elizabeth Graham describe how ceramics have been approached at Lamanai, Belize. Several people are conducting multiple independent analyses of the ceramics using contextual associations of vessels, type: variety-mode classification, material science approaches, and iconographic analysis. We emphasize type-variety in the chapter, particularly the usefulness of ceramic system assignments as a preliminary stage of analysis or for sherds that lack important features diagnostic of specific types, as well as poorly preserved sherds. We also briefly indicate some of the results of combining various approaches to pottery at Lamanai.

In a chapter rich with culture-historical interpretations as well as methodological commentary, Joseph Ball and Jennifer Taschek begin with the useful reminder (via Robert Sonin) that type-variety classification is not analysis but merely a step toward analysis. Too often in Maya archaeology there is a sense that type-variety classification is standard operating procedure for pottery and if one simply “does” type-variety, then any number of interpretations on a variety of topics can then be extracted from the classification. I believe this is a part of a usually unexamined assumption that all type-variety classifications are essentially equivalent and easily comparable. On the contrary, the questions one is posing will shape how the classification proceeds (as Rice notes at the beginning of her chapter, the corollary is that classifications also limit the research questions one can address), so research questions should be defined before the classification begins. Once the questions and methods of classification are defined, classification occurs and the analysis flows from there.