Children, apprenticeship and pedagogy: Domestic crafting and obsidian core production at the Zaragoza-Oyameles source area in Puebla, Mexico

Abstract

The role of novices, which often are children, in domestic craft production and the replication of crafting knowledge is a topic that is often ignored in archaeological discussions of domestic economies. However, ethnographic and ethnohistoric examples repeatedly indicate that children played a number of roles in household economies. The presence of novice obsidian core production was identified in a domestic habitation context at the Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian source area in eastern Puebla, Mexico. Miniaturized polyhedral cores were found along side standard-sized macrocores and polyhedral cores, and all stages of core reduction debitage at a large, domestic core manufacturing site. This, coupled with evidence from experimental core replication and ethnographic examples, suggests that these miniature cores represent the detritus of craft learning. The presence of domestic core production and the role of craft learning are then contextualized within the regional economy centered on the nearby city of Cantona.