Organization Of Craft Production Research Articles

The Use of Balances in Late Andean Prehistory (ad 1200–1650)

Studies of balances (scales) in Europe, Asia and northern Africa have found that their use is not exclusively tied to state control or market exchange, but rather grew and evolved through interactions among bureaucrats in centralized states, merchants, artisans and local leaders. Research on balances from Andean South America can contribute to an understanding of the diverse roles and functions of balances, as they developed independently in a region where there were both exchange-based and non-market economies. This article includes data on Andean balances that reveal that they were used as early as the Late Intermediate Period (ad 1100–1400), and that there is variation in the characteristics and dimensions of the balances. Similar to other regions, balances in the Andes were likely used by different groups of specialists including merchants, bureaucrats and artisans. To understand how balances were used, they need to be understood alongside long-distance exchange practices, socio-political strategies, the organization of craft production and the possible use of currency.

Towards a Spatial Archaeology of Crafting Landscapes

Discussions of spatial relationships are persistent features of research on the organization of craft production. Despite the centrality of spatial issues, the correspondence between spatial patterning and economic organization remains relatively under-theorized, especially around questions of power and control. Drawing from the literature on craft ecology, specialization and landscape archaeology, I develop an approach that considers spatial scales of patterning, the power projection of elites and institutions and the articulation between elements of the crafting landscape. This approach recognizes the complex sets of factors affecting spatial patterning and ultimately produces a more robust understanding of how ancient economic systems were organized. These ideas are explored through a case study on Late Bronze and Early Iron Age metal production in the Caucasus, clarifying the organizational logics of the metal economy and highlighting how this industry differed in significant ways from other contemporary metal-producing regions in the ancient Near East.

Fingerprint evidence for the division of labour and learning pottery-making at Early Bronze Age Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath, Israel.

The organization of craft production has long been a marker for broader social, economic and political changes that accompanied urbanism. The identity of producers who comprised production groups, communities, or workshops is out of reach using conventional archaeological data. There has been some success using epidermal prints on artefacts to identify the age and sex of producers. However, forensic research indicates that a combination of ridge breadth and ridge density would best identify the age and sex of individuals. To this end, we combine mean ridge breadth (MRB) and mean ridge density (MRD) to distinguish the age and sex of 112 fingerprints on Early Bronze Age (EB) III pottery from the early urban neighbourhood at Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath, Israel, dating to a 100 year time span. Our analysis accounts for the shrinkage of calcareous fabrics used to make six type of vessels, applies a modified version of the Kamp et al. regression equation to the MRB for each individual print, and infers sex by correlating MRD data to appropriate modern reference populations. When the results are combined, our analyses indicate that most fingerprints were made by adult and young males and the remainder by adult and young females. Children’s prints are in evidence but only occur on handles. Multiple prints of different age and sex on the same vessels suggest they were impressed during the training of young potters. Production appears dominated by adult and young males working alone, together, and in cooperation with adult and/or young females. Vessels with prints exclusively by females of any age are rare. This male dominant cooperative labour pattern contrasts recent studies showing that adult women primarily made Neolithic figurines in Anatolia, and more females than males were making pottery prior to the rise of city-states in northern Mesopotamia.

The Identity of Potters in Early States: Determining the Age and Sex of Fingerprints on Early Bronze Age Pottery from Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath, Israel

The organization of craft production has long been a marker for broader social, economic, and political changes that accompanied urbanism. The identity of producers who comprised production groups, communities, or workshops is out of reach using conventional archaeological data. There has been some success using epidermal prints on artifacts to identify the age and sex of producers. However, while age estimates are well developed, determining the sex of ancient potters is complicated by similarities between the prints of adult women and adolescents of either sex. Forensic research indicates that a combination of ridge breadth and density would best identify the age and sex of individuals. To this end, we propose an identification framework to classify fingerprints grounded in experimental and forensic research. In this study, we classify 38 fingerprints on Early Bronze Age (EB) III pottery from the early urban neighborhood at Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath, Israel. Mean ridge breadth (MRB) and mean ridge density (MRD) are used to distinguish the age and sex of prints after accounting for the shrinkage of calcareous fabrics used to make four type of vessels. We apply a modified version of the Kamp et al. (1999) regression equation to the MRB for each individual print. The MRD data are correlated to comparable data from populations with appropriate ancestry to infer sex. When the results are combined, our analyses indicate that two thirds of the fingerprints were likely made by adult men and teenage boys and the remainder by adult women and adolescent girls. This result suggests that men or women were not exclusively making pottery at early urban centers in the Levant. This pattern contrasts a fingerprint study of post-state urban pottery production during the EB in northern Mesopotamia, which suggested women no longer made pottery after cities and states were established in the region.

Labor Costs for Prehistoric Earthwork Construction: Experimental and Archaeological Insights from the Lower Yangzi Basin, China

AbstractThis paper examines choices of earth-working tools made by Neolithic Chinese populations. In the Hemudu Culture (7000–5000 B.P.), bone (scapula) digging tools were used from the earliest times, whereas peoples in surrounding areas used stone spades. A range of experiments on manufacturing costs, durability, and use efficiency under realistic conditions show that bone and stone spades are functionally equivalent when soils are soft, but that stone implements provide significant and easily perceived advantages when working harder soils. The persistence of scapular spades in the Hemudu Culture would have constrained decisions about undertaking large construction projects under normal soil conditions. Our results show that, in addition to generalized labor for construction, labor demands for producing earth-working implements for large-scale prehistoric earthworks could have also been substantial. These findings not only help explain the processes of intensifying rice-agriculture and sedentary settlements in the Lower Yangzi Basin, but also create a solid foundation for further investigation of how the recruitment of both generalized and specialized laborers, the organization of craft production, and the relevant logistics for large-scale earthworks may have paralleled concentrations of political power in prehistory.

Questioning Craft Production at Angel Mounds Analysis of the 2006–2009 Angel Mounds Field-Schools

AbstractSeventy years of archaeological investigations at the site of Angel Mounds (12VG1) have led to a broad overall understanding of the cultural practices of the Mississippian people in southwest Indiana nearly 1,000 years ago, but have also raised ever expanding new questions. Recent field-school excavations at Angel Mounds, sponsored by the Glenn A. Black Laboratory (GBL) at Indiana University, explored magnetic anomalies in a previously unexcavated area at Angel Mounds. Analyses of features and artifacts encountered during the excavations at Unit A (the “Potter's House”), including large amounts of Mississippi Plain pottery and craft-production objects, inspired new questions on the organization of craft production at Angel Mounds and other Mississippian archaeological sites. In this article, I test whether a structure at Unit A may have been a craftproduction workshop by reviewing data archaeologists traditionally associate with workshops and examining the standardization of pottery found at the l...

Rice or millets: early farming strategies in prehistoric central Thailand

Ancient seeds from archaeological sites can provide clues that are crucial for understanding and characterizing subsistence strategies. This in turn contributes to our understanding of, and explanations for, the relationship between socioeconomic systems and organization of craft production. This article will examine the relationship between rice and millets at three prehistoric sites from a regional copper-producing center in central Thailand to provide new insights into the subsistence strategy of these communities and to better understand the relationship between these crops and their introduction and use in Southeast Asia.

CELEBRATING PLACE THROUGH LUXURY CRAFT PRODUCTION

AbstractThis paper explores the production of Late to Terminal Classic Ulua marble vases (ca. 600/650–800/850a.d.), the hallmark luxury good from the lower Ulua Valley of northwestern Honduras. Unlike other areas of the greater Maya world, no one center appears to have held political sway in the valley. Yet marble-vase production at Travesia indicates that, through the patronization of this specific artifact, the site was able to celebrate its identity at home as well as abroad. Here the long-term production of the vases is investigated through a detailed analysis of stylistic groups and corresponding stable-isotope signatures from vases and potential procurement zones. The stylistic data suggest centralized production, which is confirmed through chemical signatures of vases and one specific procurement site. We argue that longstanding traditions of carving vases from marble in the Ulua Valley guided Travesian artisans in their procurement choices. The stylistic and chemical data augment settlement and ceramic data to situate vase production in its local social and political environment. In this case, luxury production corresponds not to a rise in central political authority but, rather, to a centrally located social center. The prestige granted to these luxury vases, then, stems from local histories of social and political networks that linked, rather than fragmented, communities. The results indicate that studies of material-cultural remains should consider the relationships between distinctive local social relations and the organization of craft production as integrative, not separate, processes.

Craft specialization, the reorganization of production relations and state formation

Since the late 1970s, archaeologists have been concerned with the origins and development of craft specialization in early civilizations. More recently, some have examined the organization of production, the identities of artisans, the use and consumption of the goods they produced, and the cultural and social meanings of those objects. Much of this literature is rooted in the conceptual framework of societal evolutionism, which was formulated by eighteenth-century theorists, who were attempting to account for the rise of capitalist agriculture rather than the development of precapitalist forms of craft production. This article examines the premises of the conceptual framework as well as the political-economic and ideological context in which societal evolutionism was formulated. It suggests that a theoretical framework derived from Marx’s writings after 1857 provides insights into the organization of craft production and an alternative explanation of the role specialization played in the rise of civilization.

The Secrets of the Craft Production of Scandinavian Late Neolithic Flint Daggers

ABSTRACTNew electron micro-probe analysis of residues found on the median “stitched seams” of Scandinavian flint daggers dating to the late Neolithic are presented and linked to previous work on the mode of production of this artefact type. Analysis suggests that previous interpretation of the production sequence requires revision with consequences for the understanding of social organization of craft production in Southern Scandinavia.

Craft Production and Social Identity in Northwest Mesopotamia

This paper examines the relationships among the high demand for specialist‐produced goods in early urban society, the roles of those goods in negotiating social identities, the organization of craft production, and the status of craft workers. Textual and archaeological data from mid‐third millennium B.C. northwest Mesopotamia provide insights into three categories of craft goods that were produced by specialists: pottery, textiles and metal objects. Results suggest that the organization of production varied, depending on factors such as the scarcity of the raw materials, the degree of skilled labor required, and the social and political uses of the goods. Similarly, the status of craft workers was highly variable, depending on factors such as who they worked for and the kinds of crafts they produced. The high demand for specialist‐produced craft goods in early urban society, stemming from the importance of goods in negotiating social identities, gave craft workers a vital role in the political economies of early urban societies.

Middens, Construction Fill, and Offerings: Evidence for the Organization of Classic Period Craft Production at Tikal, Guatemala

The production of artifacts of stone, shell, and bone at Tikal, an important center in the Southern Maya Lowlands, created quantities of durable waste, referred to as debitage. Yet debitage is not a reliable indicator of production area because of the spatially flexible nature of Prehispanic technology and site-maintenance activities that shifted manufacturing debris into secondary contexts. Nevertheless, debitage, even in secondary context, provides important information on the organization of craft production at Tikal, particularly during the Classic Period (ca. A.C. 250–850). Most crafts were organized as household industries, carried on by independent, part-time specialists living in the central area that surrounded the monumental core of the city. The elite probably supported some full-time production to satisfy their demands for status goods and tools for construction projects. Expedient production by nonspecialists, using locally available materials such as chert and bone, occurred at all times.Production waste was recovered from the construction fill of public and residential architecture and from household middens, mixed with domestic trash. The largest concentrations, however, were found exterior to elite chamber burials and within cached offerings. The delayed identification of debitage from ritual contexts exemplifies the reflexive nature of the way archaeologists classify material culture and their interpretations of the contexts from which it is recovered.

The Organization of Craft Production at Vijayanagara, South India

This article examines the production of two classes of goods, textiles and ceramics, in the medieval South Indian empire of Vijayanagara. A general model for the organization of specialized craft production is presented in which productive organization is linked to political/administrative regulation of product manufacture, distribution, and use. Three modes of productive organization are defined: administered production, centralized production, and noncentralized production. Historic documentation is used to examine Vijayanagara textile production, and a centralized productive organization is proposed. Vijayanagara ceramic manufacture is assessed through archeological and ethnographic data, and a noncentralized production system is proposed.