holmes.] CLASSIFICATION OF CERAMIC FORMS. 375 



pie. and are applied in broad, bold lines, judicative of a strong talent 

 for decoration. The forms are, to a great extent, curvilinear, and 

 embrace meanders, scrolls, circles, and combinations and groupings of 

 curved lines in great variety. Of rectilinear forms, lozenges, guillpches, 

 zigzags, and checkers are best known. 



The decided prevalence of curved forms is worthy of remark. With 

 all their fertility of invention, the inhabitants of this valley seem never 

 to have achieved the rectangular linked meander, or anything more 

 nearly approaching it than the current scroll or the angular guilloche, 

 while other peoples, such as the Pueblos of the Southwest and the 

 ancient nations of Mexico and Peru found in it a chief resource. The 

 reasons for this, as well as for other peculiarities of the decorative art 

 of the mound-builders as embodied in pottery, must be sought for in 

 the antecedent and coexistent arts of these tribes. These peoples 

 were certainly not highly accomplished in the textile arts, nor had 

 they felt the influence of advanced architecture such as that of Mex- 

 ico. The influence of such arts inevitably gives rise to angular geo- 

 metric figures. Taken as a whole, the remains of the mound-builders 

 would seem to point to a hyperborean origin for both the people and 

 their arts. 



The origin of decorative ideas, the processes by which they are 

 acquired by the various arts, and their subsequent mutations of form 

 and significance are matters of the greatest interest, and a separate 

 paper will be devoted to their consideration. 



Classification of forms. — Form cannot be made a satisfactory 

 basis of classification, yet within a given group of products, defined by 

 general characters, a classification by shape will be found to facilitate 

 description. In making such a classification we must distinguish 

 essential from non-essential features, that is to say. for example, 

 that bowls must be placed with bowls, bottles with bottles, etc., dis- 

 regarding the various fanciful modifications given to rims, necks, and 

 bodies for the sake of embellishment. To recognize these adventitious 

 features, which are almost infinite in variety, would he to greatly em- 

 barrass form classification. 



There is also another difficulty in the employment of form in classifi- 

 cation — the nomenclature is very imperfect. We cannot use Greek 

 names, as our forms correspond in a very few instances only with the 

 highly developed forms known to classic art. Our own plain terms, al- 

 though defective, are better and far more appropriate. All necessary 

 correlations of form can readily be made when the comparative study of 

 the ] tottery of the world is undertaken. 



If we take a full set of these primitive vessels and arrange them in 

 the order of increasing complexity we have an unbroken series ranging 

 from the simplest cup to the high-necked bottle with perforated foot or 

 with tripod. A partial series is shown in the upper Hue, Fig 361. A 



