The McKern Taxonomic System and Archaeological Culture Classification in the Midwestern United States: A History and Evaluation

Abstract

In the first half of the 20th century three major archaeological culture unit classifications were formulated in the United States. The most curious one was the Midwestern Taxonomic System, a scheme that ignored time and space. Alton K. Fisher suggested to W. C. McKern in the late 1920's that the Linnean model of morphological classifi­cation, which was employed in biology at a time of pre-evolutionary thinking, might be adapted to archaeologi­cal culture classification (Fisher 1986). On the basis of this idea McKern conceived the Midwestern Taxonomic System and planned to present his concept in a paper at the Central Section of the American Anthropological Association at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in April, 1932. Illness prevented him from making the presentation.

The first public statement was before a small group of archaeologists at the time of an archaeological symposium, Illinois Academy of Science, May 1932 (Griffin 1943:327). After input from various archaeologists a formal account was prepared as a manuscript entitled "Culture Type Classification for Midwestern North American Archaeology" at the Chicago Conference, December 10, 1932. Other participants at this conference were Samuel A. Barrett, Fay­ Cooper Cole, Thorne Deuel, Carl E. Guthe, A. R. Kelly (Cole and Deuel 1937a:34) and James B. Griffin (as a graduate student, personal communication, 1986). This classification method was more fully and formally presented three years later, in December 1935, at the original Indianapolis Archaeological Conference (Guthe 1937). A more detailed history of the origins of the McKern system is provided by Griffin (1943).