Frederick H. Sterns and the Portrayal of Variation in Central Plains Pottery

Lyman et al.’s recent history of graphic depictions of culture change attributes the first use of bar graphs to James Ford in 1935. Ford, though, was anticipated in 1915 by Frederick Sterns, working with pottery from 27 late prehistoric Nebraska phase lodge sites in eastern Nebraska. Sterns used both tabular data summaries and divided bar graphs to show ordered variation over space in vessel neck diameter, types of appendages, and type of decoration. Underlying this analysis was a conception of these dimensions as varying independently of one another. Geographic groups within the Nebraska phase therefore exhibit clinal variation and can be characterized by differing proportions of attributes. Sterns’s work never became very well-known as archaeologists on the Central Plains turned to typological analysis for organizing pottery assemblages.