Through the last half century, the techniques used by certain historians of African art for judging the precise tribal origins of African sculptures on the basis of style have been greatly refined.
Topic
Judging the tribal origins of African art, based on their style
Frameworks
Challenge Position, Problem/Solution
Main Point
It's logistically tough (and possibly philosophically wrong-headed) for certain historians of African art to try to judge precise tribal origins of a given piece of African art, based on its style.
Summary
P1 - Common practice / Challenge to that practice The first sentence introduces a common belief / practice -- historians have been getting better at figuring out which tribe a given piece of African art comes from, based on its style.
Then we get a Purpose Pivot (but, yet, however, recently) -- One critic says this practice is real dumb-headed.
So we start thinking in terms of Frameworks like Present Debate or Challenge Position.
It sounds like the recent critic is challenging the methodology of the historians.
P2 - Why Method is Flawed - Centers of Style As we start to read this paragraph, we're wondering whose position it is advancing: the historians? the critic? the author?
It seems to be supporting the critic's position, since that was the most recent point of view activated, but there aren't any attributions like "according to the critic / the critic claims".
So we interpret that to mean that our author implicitly agrees with the critic at this point and is fleshing out her case.
It's hard to classify the tribal origin of a piece of African art, because styles don't come from just one area, and small centers of style are cranking out a ton of the art that ends up being available throughout Africa.
The final sentence is a clear Callback to the original position this passage is challenging: this leads to much confusion on the part of those art historians who attempt to assign particular objects to particular tribes based on style
P3 - Example to flesh out the point of Paragraph 2 If a paragraph started off by saying, "Furthermore" or "Moreover", then we would think about the previous paragraph being on the same level. Point 1, furthermore/moreover, Point 2.
But if a paragraph starts off by saying, "For example" or "One such case", then we think about the previous paragraph ending with a Big Idea and this new paragraph just adding Support to that prior big idea.
So we know that this paragraph will just be showing how centers of style can complicate the ability of historians to look at an object and then classify which tribe it belongs to.
P4 - Author's prescriptions for addressing Problem As this paragraph switches into the author's explicit voice, with normative claims like , we might revise our Framework and think about using a Problem / Solution framework.
The author is prescribing a new way forward, basically saying,