A detailed analysis of ceramics from the Bronze Age site of Cerro de la Encina in southern Spain. Aranda addresses issues of the organisation and classification of ceramic material in general and in relation to this site, the use of typologies and the relationship between attributes of shape, content and form and the evolutionary development of these features. Typological groupings are presented for the Argaric (early) Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age material showing no particular 'genetic' relationship between them.