Thesauri Of Historical Periods – A Proposal For Standardization. / quote 7 of 26
Periods defined by style
Style can be used to sort and distinguish spatiotemporal cultural groups culture includes style (Hodder 1987) - by specific characteristics; through a specific shape or decoration, style represents the specific society, which produced it (Renfrew and Bahn 2001). In such cases, we regard the period to be defined by style. Hence the appearance of the respective style is the ultimate criterion for the associated spatiotemporal bounds, and not the assumed political system or whatever other phenomena a researcher may asso iate with the observation of this style. [...] In the sense of (Guarino and Welty 2002), we regard a notion like style-period as a rigid property bound to the whole existence of any of its instances. As such, it carries an identity condition, such as having the same style throughout its duration and spread. This approach allows us to objectify the discussion, if different opinions about a period are due to different definition or due to different stages of knowledge or interpretation