Technical Traditions Research Articles

Tham Lod rockshelter (Pang Mapha district, north-western Thailand): Evolution of the lithic assemblages during the late Pleistocene

Tham Lod (Pang Mapha district, Mae Hong Son Province) is one of the rockshelters in the limestone karst of north-western Thailand. The site was excavated from 2002 to 2006 under the direction of one of us (R.S.) in the context of The Highland Archeological Project. The stratigraphical sequence of the site provided dates ranging from late Pleistocene (35 ka, TL), to late Holocene (3000 BP). Thousands of lithic and faunal remains occur throughout the sequence; ceramics and metal items appear in the upper layer (Holocene). Noteworthy are the few human burials in the late Pleistocene layers.This paper presents the lithic material from area 2, sectors S20W10 and S21W10, unearthed from the stratigraphic layers 3 to 10 (late Pleistocene). Artefacts are mostly made in locally available grey sandstone, which is overwhelming in all the layers. The lithic assemblage includes a large proportion (2/3) of rock fragments brought to the site and artificially (or thermally?) broken. These are mostly small fragments (<100 mm) while the big fragments are rare and even absent in the middle layers. Flakes are well represented in the Pleistocene upper and middle layers. Cores proper (meant to produce flakes) are extremely rare and tools proper (shaped) are less than 10% of the material, half of them being larger than 100 mm. All of them, the large and the small tools are mainly shaped on cobbles and cobble fragments and mostly with unifacial shaping. Typical sumatraliths, the signature of the Hoabinhian technical traditions, are conspicuous in the middle layers 6 to 4; they are associated with partial sumatraliths (not shaped all around), especially in the layers 6. They are much less in the lower layers and seem to be absent in the bottom layer. Conversely, the cobble tools are almost exclusively choppers in the lower layers 10 to 8. The scrapers are the major type among the small tools and they are quite constant in number throughout the stratigraphy.As some of the artefacts are definitely considered as “Hoabinhian”, the detailed technological study of the lithic industry will help in understanding this “techno-cultural” facies and in tracing how the stone artefacts were manufactured, used, maintained and finally discarded by the hunters–gatherers. Analysis of the whole sequence in Tham Lod aims at reconstructing the technical evolution in the context of the late Pleistocene climatic changes in this part of Eurasia.

Polarizing microscope observations of pottery from the Yashiro sites, Nagano Prefecture, Central Japan

Inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago historically relied on pottery constructed from clay and sand and fired at approximately 700–900 °C using fuel. This pottery was used from the Jomon to Yayoi periods (13,000 BC–250 AD) despite large cultural change between them. The workmanship of pottery largely depends on the quality of the resources. This study identifies the pottery paste of locally-made pottery and researches the relationship between Jomon and Yayoi pottery. For this purpose, pottery excavated from the Yashiro sites, located in Chikuma City of Nagano Prefecture, which was intermittently produced from the Jomon period to medieval times, was sectioned for microscopy study. The 119 samples of pottery paste were observed under a polarizing microscope and materials were qualitatively classified according to type, size, and quantity of sand fragments (rocks and minerals). Five main categories of ancient pottery were identified. Locally-made pottery in the Jomon period was mainly derived from Susobana tuff material, approximately 5 km from the Yashiro sites. However, this pottery paste was replaced in the Yayoi period by epidote-rich groups. This result suggests that the technical tradition of Jomon potters ceased, and was replaced by new pottery during Yayoi period. The altered distances to pottery resources and the advent of new large village may signify that production zone also changed between the Jomon and Yayoi periods. The new pottery may have been produced in a specific village and become widely accepted. This paper presents the first proposition to the production systems of Jomon and Yayoi pottery by examining the petrology of excavated samples at sites intermittently occupied by humans during the last 4,300 years.

Les industries lithiques moustériennes de la Baume Moula-Guercy (Soyons, Ardèche). Fouilles 1993–1999

The Moula-Guercy cave is located in southeastern France in the middle part and on the west bank of the Rhone valley, 80meters above the Pleistocene Rhone River between the Ardeche Mountains and the western part of the Alps. Excavations spanning from 1993–1999 have yielded 2595 lithic artefacts out of which over 92% are coming from the four main layers (lV, VIII, XIV and XV) corresponding to the seasonal hunting site. The stratigraphic sequence is exclusively Middle Paleolithic. Paleontological and geological analysis led to the division of the sequence into 19 layers grouped into three climatic phases corresponding to isotope stages 4 to 6. The layer XV unearthed the remains of 6 cannibalized Neanderthals: children, adolescents, and adults. The study of the lithic assemblages highlights two distinct sets corresponding to layers IV–VIII and XIV–XV. This probably indicates that the same territory was travelled by two human groups with different technical traditions ten thousands years apart in very different climatic and ecological contexts. This study is also questioning whether the discoid debitage (sensu Bordes) should be part of the Levallois philosophy.

The Lower/early Middle Pleistocene small débitage productions in Western Europe: New data from Isernia La Pineta t.3c (Upper Volturno Basin, Italy)

Isernia La Pineta archaeological site in Central Italy, dated to about 0.6 Ma, is one of the earliest archaeological sites of the Italian peninsula and one of the key sites for the knowledge of human behaviour during the early Middle Pleistocene in Western Europe.Several archaeostratigraphic units have been recognized and systematically excavated. Core and flake assemblages were studied as a bulk in the Eighties of last century with a typo-metrical approach, not taking into account a precise stratigraphic provenance. Here we present a review of the lithic collection from the lowermost archaeostratigraphic unit (t.3c) which is the first techno-economic analysis based on the concept of chaîne opératoire. Our results contrast with those from previous studies. Our analysis demonstrates that the technical criteria employed in small débitage are not opportunistic and unstructured as previously inferred. By contrast, they correspond to well-established mental templates that led knappers (1) to use mainly a discoid method; (2) to apply this débitage method regardless of the size and shape of the original matrix; (2) to maintain a high productivity; and (3) to produce medium-sized flakes to be turned into small tools. The new data are discussed in the framework of the Lower/early Middle Pleistocene technological complexes of Western Europe, calling into question a number of allegations about the first technical traditions that have been previously accepted without reservation.

Sustainability, culture and personal responsibility

The conclusion of the 2011 Nobel meeting in Stockholm on Sustainability (http://globalsymposium2011.org/) was unambiguous: we need a change in collective mindset to achieve our vision and goal. As an anthropologist, therefore I ask myself: ‘‘What might be the barriers to such a change?’’ About 15 years ago, I visited the highlands of Papua New Guinea as a guest to my wife, who was doing research there. In these parts, because the climate is wet and cold at an elevation of over 2000 m, people’s lives focus on a fire that is maintained at all times in a central hearth pit. It serves to heat the dwelling and to cook. In one village, we observed that the inhabitants had devised a simple and very effective tool to help in cooking: a piece of bamboo had been heated over the fire and bent to create a pair of pincers much like one finds in our culture to serve salad. Whenever the food (mainly sweet potato and taro) was cooked, they would take the tubers out of the fire with this tool. Surprisingly, in a neighboring village, not more than a day’s walk distant, they did not have such a tool, and thus they burnt their fingers every time they had to fetch food from the fire. As the people in both villages interact regularly, I asked myself: ‘‘Why don’t the people in the second village adopt the very efficient and easy-to-make tool invented in the first?’’ I think the answer lies in the fact that a cultural or technical tradition, which we commonly define in our Western scientific culture by what is included in it (tools, know-how, institutions, etc.), is actually defined not by its content, but by the things the people concerned have never thought about—their ‘blind spots’, the questions they have never asked themselves, and to which they therefore have not devised any answers. The boundaries of the known are inherently the things not known, those never seen as interesting or relevant. Why is that important in the sustainability debate? First of all, because it explains to a large extent why it has proven impossible to deal with GHG emissions by means of a worldwide, ‘top-down’ treaty such as the Kyoto treaty or the UNFCCC. Every nation, every region, has a different perception of what needs to be done and how to do it. Whereas it was possible for nations in a phase of plenty to S. E. van der Leeuw (&) School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA e-mail: vanderle@asu.edu

Statistical Analysis of Index Values Extracted from Outdoor Agricultural Workers Motion Data

We have been developing various kinds of promising applied sensing systems to resolve difficulty in achieving agricultural advancement, technical tradition (teaching), and safety issues. Existing methods and systems are not enough to analyze human motion minutely, simply, and at low-cost. For the purpose, we have also been developing Wearable Sensing Systems (WSs), including advanced devices, to secure real-time data related to worker motion by analyzing human dynamics and statistics in rice fields, meadows, and gardens. We have obtained and observed those time-line data, computed by some statistical methods, discussed about them, and make some suggestions concerning them. Our plans would make it possible for us to improve worker agricultural skills and to enhance their safety level. 

Mechanical Properties of Jute Composite by Spray up Fabrication Method

In this study, the jute fiber was used to fabricate ecologically friendly composite by spray up molding technique. As the primal investigation , motion analysis of spray up method process was conducted, to obtain fixed quantity of expert's skills default value which is not actualized. Furthermore, dynamic characteristics and dimensional stability measurement was carried out of a specimen, and studies about a relation with an expert's operation was conducted. Thereby, the suitable education and technical tradition to advanced management engineering and inexperienced person are attained. The results suggested that 1) expert's motion data can be feed to jute/carbon spray up robot. And it is able to minimize the errors during fabrication of jute composite panels etc., 2) it is expected that the mechanical property and working efficiency could be improved with the improve of the advanced spray up method and 3) by making the combination of the optimal materials (jute fiber, kind of resin, etc.), high productivity and good elastic modulus are realized. Finally, spray up molding equipment is very flexibility, so it can make various composites easily.

G1010703 火花試験における研削作業の定量化とデータ解析([G101-07]機械力学・計測制御一般セッション(7))

Spark test is performed to examine compositions of steel such as the amount of containing carbon, and to confirm whether different materials are not mixed. Because it takes long time to train the person who can judge the material accurately, technical tradition of the spark test is one of the severe concerns in production sites due to aging population. It is important to quantify the grinding operation for technology education and automation. We measured and analyzed feature parameters of grinding operation to quantify the spark test. In this study, we focused on press force, grinding spin count, grindstone temperature, spark length, and spark density as the feature parameters. They are measured by a force-torque sensor, a user -embedded encoder, a thermo camera, and a CCD camera. The feature parameters are derived from the measured raw data, re-sampled, and compared each other using cross-covariance. A skilled person and a beginner participated the measurement experiment. From the result, we found middle-to-high correlation among the press force, spin count, and grindstone temperature, which are related mechanically. However they does not have prominent relationship with the spark shape parameters. Also, the remarkable difference in the correlations between the skilled person and the beginner was not observed.

Les objets de Parure associés au dépôt funéraire mésolithique de GroΒe Ofnet : implications pour la compréhension de l'organisation sociale des dernières sociétés de chasseurs-cueilleurs du Jura Souabe

Personal ornaments from the sepulchral cave of Groβe Ofnet (Germany): implications for the social organisation of the last Swabian Mesolithic societies.The Groβe Ofnet head burials have been interpreted as evidence of interpersonal violence within the last Mesolithic societies of Western Europe. This study aims to characterize mobility and territoriality of the last hunter -gatherers in order to understand their social organization. We submit the personal ornaments associated with the head burial to taphonomic, archaeozoological, technological, morphometric, and functional analyses in the aim to document the variability in raw material procurement, bead manufacture, length of use, and mortuary practices. Our results indicate complex acquisition patterns of the ornaments, including multidirectional exchange networks. Homogeneity in the bead manufacture suggests contacts between contemporaneous groups that shared the same technical traditions. Distributions of ornaments associated with each skull and use-wear patterns indicate an intergenerational transmission of the beads. We conclude that the last Swabian Mesolithic groups maintained active networks by perpetuating exchanges across large areas. Previous works have interpreted hostile intergroup relationship as evidence of a decrease in their mobility. Our results highlight that, in the case of Ofnet, such a reduction in mobility can be largely counterbalanced by the perpetuation of large scale exchange networks.

Variabilité et homogénéité des modes de débitage en Chine entre 300 000 et 50 000 ans

The position of lithic industries of Chinese Paleolithic in comparison with those of other regions in the world is always a controversial topic. The typological analysis has made Chinese prehistorians reveal some variability between lithic industries of different regions of China in terms of technical tradition and industrial structure. But this recognition, based upon some morphological characters of stone artifacts, failed to define systematically the modes of production that exist in each site. To answer these problematic some new methods need to be applied. So the lithic materials from 8 Chinese sites dated from 300ka to 50ka B.P. were selected and analyzed by means of lithic technological analysis and a new approach for analyzing the structures of cores. This paper presents principally the analytical results of modes of débitage and revealed that the modes of débitage during this period were characterized essentially by system C (“simple débitage”) and E (discoid) and that the concept Levallois was absent during this period in technical systems of lithic production in China. The Chinese lithic industries between 300 ka and 50 ka B.P. saw some homogeneity in the scale of the continent and remarkable difference from those of other regions in the world. So a stable, continuous but independent even isolated evolution in comparison with those of other regions was observed in this period. In addition, despite of apparent homogeneity, some variability exists also between these industries.

7-221 学年の壁を超えたものづくり活動によるソーラーバイクレース2012 in浜松への参加 : バイクに搭載する回路の製作を通した技術伝承(オーガナイズドセッション:学生の学習活動事例-V)

7-221 学年の壁を超えたものづくり活動によるソーラーバイクレース2012 in浜松への参加 : バイクに搭載する回路の製作を通した技術伝承(オーガナイズドセッション:学生の学習活動事例-V)

انماط السيرة الذاتية - دراسة وتحليل

Studying the biography concept, the researcher finds out that most of the studies that deal with the biography belongs to two one of two main types:- the first is general " relative " considers the literary types as a manner more than as a form so it define it in the terms of its essence, aim and view to world, hence the biography may come as any of the literary types:- novel, poem, essay and so on, where the author aims, clearly or implicatively, to narrate his life, show his thoughts or drew his feelings. This type is a concept that mixes the biography, as a modern literary type with social background, technical traditions varied forms, with the objective aspects ( which is a basic attitude of the artistic expression ), these aspect are found in every literary text neglecting the type where the development of the art is a development of the artist character and feelings, yet it is not a biography otherwise , all the literary texts would be biographies which is incredible. The second type is specific " formal " looks at the literary work as a form more than as a style, so the biography is a kind of the private literature with structural characteristics where the details are narrated basing on honesty and correspondence which means it depends on the documents and witness rather than imagination, it came within an " authorized " literature that comates to say everything honestly and accurately. This indicates that the biography has a literary features rather than the total historic ones, the biographer barrows from the literary and historic features some of their techniques and devices to enter another field and to say different thing. Biography belongs to the narrative types takes some of their shapes and methods, yet it has different aspect especially the objective feature and the historic realistic honest, which means : there is no non literary biography, that the artistic space is always penetrated by the biography narration even in its historic aspects, a reader might founds a common element between the biography and the literary work even when the biographer tried to avoid literature, this common element is the reference " authority " to a real life where we found a textual sample forms a part of the literature of the biography as an independent literary type, this is the subject of the second topic.The research founds that the biography length "short biography and long biography " Depends basically on the writer ability to give information and to invest them in the written text, in addition, some writers had focused on certain aspect or aspects of a person life believing that it is important or necessary such as Al-Ghazzaly biography where the writer focused on the jurisprudential aspect as well as his life and works, and the ancient and modern opinions, other writers dealt with the person life as a whole rather briefly such as Avicenna biography where the writer followed the narrative style represented by the short stories investing Avicenna efforts in the fields of medicine, law, literature, pediatrics, psychiatry and other fields.

技術の伝承と学会の役割

技術の伝承と学会の役割

The Various Aspects Of Naga Art

The research study is an attempt to analyze the various aspects of Naga art. Why and how such practices like the feasts of merit and headhunting exist and visual forms such as the colorful textiles, woodcarving, body tattooing, weapons and ornaments produced. Among the Nagas, art and rituals are interdependent; none of them complete without the other. Everyday activities like work in the fields, hunting, fishing, birth and dead, followed minute taboos and observances. Among the Nagas adherence to the prescribed rituals and taboos was strictly observed in their art, any deviations from the technical tradition were believed to bring ill-fortune such as death, famine, sickness or defeat in war. With very limited tools at their disposal, the Naga artisan skillfully reproduced traditional styles by simply visualizing the forms and lines mentally.

Une occupation de l’extrême fin du Paléolithique dans la vallée de l’Escaut à Proville (Nord) « le Bois Chenu »

At the end of the 1960s, pedestrian surveys yielded a homogeneous lithic assemblage from the bottom of a silty slope in contact with the alluvial plain of the river Scheldt. The morpho-technological features of the industry allowed it to be assumed that it belonged to the Epi-Ahrensburgian culture, a tradition mainly represented from the Loire Valley in France to northern Germany and southern England, from the end of the Younger Dryas to the early Pre-Boreal. The surveys undertaken in 2008, on a cultivated field south of the collection site, now urbanized, revealed a series of occupations at the bottom of this slope dating from the Late Palaeolithic to recent protohistoric periods. A concentration of lithic artefacts undoubtedly belonged to the same technical tradition as the series found on the surface. The excavation campaigns in 2009 and 2010 helped to define a Final Palaeolithic spatial entity and provided elements for technological, chrono-typological and spatial interpretations. The partial refittings of some blocks contribute to a better understanding of the strategy developed for obtaining standardized blades. The careful management of the siliceous material is exclusively oriented towards the production of laminar or lamellar supports. This technical process is highly representative of the ‘ Belloisian’ tradition. The initial blocks were prepared by a specific method using a hard stone hammer (flint). Blades and bladelets were removed by a sandstone hammer according to a bipolar process and after intense preparation of striking platform edges by abrasion. The toolkit refers to a technical environment now better understood thanks to research conducted over the past 20 years with regard to this techno-complex in north-western France and despite the obvious presence of intrusive Mesolithic elements.

Community Resources for Learning: How Capuchin Monkeys Construct Technical Traditions

The developmental importance to humans of the human-constructed physical environment, including myriad modified natural objects or manufactured objects, is well recognized. The importance of the physical dimension of the constructed niche has also been recognized in nonhuman animals with respect to dwellings (e.g., beavers’ dams, birds’ nests, and bees’ hives), but has not previously been applied to technical traditions, despite the fact that enduring alterations of the physical environment left by social partners are part of the constructed niche that supports the learning of technical skills through the phenomenon of delayed social facilitation. These alterations aid learning over a longer time scale than the actions themselves. Thus, technical skills that result in enduring physical artifacts, which themselves aid learning the skills, should be both more persistent in a population and more widespread than technical skills that do not share this feature. This perspective gives us a new lens through which to understand the origins of technical traditions in nonhuman animals, and by extension, in human ancestors. Understanding the process by which traditional technical skills are acquired in nonhuman species gives us insight into the ways that the combination of social and physical niche construction can support the evolution of technical aspects of culture from modest beginnings.

G150063 モーションデータベースのためのリアルタイム動作検索手法([G15006]ロボティクス・メカトロニクス部門一般セッション(6))

In order to address the problem such as aging of workers and craftsmen, 'motion database' is considered to be important. Conventionally, motion capture or acceleration sensor is generally used for motion modeling. However, these methods can not get force information, which is important factor for motion modeling. In this research, motion search method based on hidden Markov model is proposed in order to make the 'motion database' practical. In the motion modeling, force information is obtained using motion copying system. Because the force information is include in the model, more developed motion database is expected. In addition, motion search becomes possible by using hidden Markov model. By using hidden Markov model, motions can be searched in real time. If motions were searched in real time, motion database could apply to technical tradition of craftsmen. The validity of proposed method is confirmed by experiment.

The variability of the Middle Palaeolithic on the right bank of the Middle Rhône Valley (southeast France): Technical traditions or functional choices?

The variability of technical choices in the Rhône Valley (southeast France) is discussed in relation to the age, environmental conditions, site localisation and site function. New excavations and analyses make it possible to tackle these questions by comparing a wide corpus of sites within limited chronological and geographical frameworks. The technical and typological diversity between MIS 8 and beginning of MIS 3 stem from the existence of different regional and cultural traditions which expressed without link with the seasonal management of a territory. No clear link exists with the age or the climatic context, except for the blade technology which appears at the MIS 5. The hypothesis of technical traditions over time is consistent with what is observed in other European areas.

Oldest human expansions in Eurasia: Favouring and limiting factors

On November 26e28, 2008, an International Conference wasorganised at theMuseum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France.The topic was the oldest human expansions in Eurasia under theaspect of the factors which could favour or limit the humansettlements.While fossil human remains are scarce in Eurasia, lithicassemblages suggest at least two phases of human settlement or/and techno-cultural spread from Africa to Eurasia. Thefirst one,attested by Mode 1 lithic industries, is observed at Dmanisi(Georgia) at 1.8 Ma, in Asia (in China and Pakistan around 2 Ma),and in Europe (for example in Spain since 1.2e1.4 Ma at Orce,Atapuerca), in Italy (Monte-Poggiolo,ca.1 Ma, Pirro-Nord, at least1.3 Ma) and in France (Pont-de-Lavaud, Le Vallonnet around 1 Ma).Some dates in China and Indonesia support the idea of earliersettlements in continental and island Asia than in Europe, while theoldest tool kit in Africa dates to 2.6 Ma (Kada Gona, Ethiopia).A second phase is marked by the appearance of new tools,especially handaxes and cleavers. These large tools do occur inAfrica around 1.6e1.7 Ma (Konso, Ethiopia; Kokiselei, Kenya) andaround 1.4e1.2 Ma in the Middle-East (Ubeidiya, Israel). They areconsidered as thefirst indicators of Acheulian tradition (or Mode 2),consisting in shaping large tools onflakes or blocks. These toolsappear outside Africa with different time lags according togeographical areas. In Asia, thefirst ones occur around 1.2 Ma(Isampur, India) and then become more significant, with anincreasing number of sites around 800 ka in eastern Asia (e, China)and south-eastern Asia (Ngebung, Java). In western and southernEurope, Acheulian sites onlyappear around 600e700 ka, as attestedby the recent discoveries in Centre Region, France (La Noira, in CherValley), and they become more numerous from 500 ka onwards, inSpain (Atapuerca Galeria, Ambrona), in Italy (Visogliano, Castel diGuido), in northern and southern France (Somme River terraces,Caune de l'Arago). In the European continent, assemblages withbifaces characteristic of Acheulian only occur in a geographical areastretching from southern Europe to Great-Britain. However, theyare lacking in Central Europe, and the Rhine River is considered asa frontier; but they do exist in the Caucasus, near the Central Asianborder, while they are unknown further east, in Tadjikistan.These two waves of populating probably include numerousarrivals, and we do not know whether these arrivals led each timeto a permanent settlement, particularly if the hominin groups weresmall and geographically dispersed.This time lag between Asia and Europe regarding the peoplingphases and their consequences is debated today within the scien-tific community: what could be the migratory paths (from Africa toboth Asia and Europe; or from Africa to Asia then to Europe); whomoved:Homo antecessor,Homo heidelbergensis;were there somecontacts between distinct human groups rather than shiftingpopulations? These questions also concern the diffusion modalitiesof technical traditions and the effect of climatic and environmentalconditions on human movements. The latter could explain chro-nological lags and restriction of human settlements to some areasonly. However, it has to be kept in mind that convergencephenomena could also happen at a regional scale in the tool kits(this may be the case for Acheulian people).The present state of knowledge on the Earth's climatic storyduring the last two million years shows local phenomena combinedto global changes: for example increase of glaciations around800 ka, when climatic cycles shifted to the 100 ka periodicity, as theeccentricity parameter of terrestrial orbit became more importantthan the obliquity of Earth's axis (earlier periodicity of 41 ka). MIS20, characterised by strong marine regression, took place at thesame time as the MatuyamaeBrunhes geomagnetic inversion,780 ka, and is considered as an accurate chronological marker.Recent results of various research teams contribute to builta more complete and precise picture of the past. The betterknowledge of the palaeoenvironment allows a new appraisalregarding the spread of technical behaviours in relation to theenvironmental context, highlighted by new issues concerningAfrica.Somemajor questions were discussed during the conference:1) The geographical dispersal of each type of lithic industry,2) The chronological gaps in the hominin settlements in thevarious areas of Eurasia,3) The periods when climatic or topographic variations had animportant role, favouring or limiting the human expansion insome regions,

Western technical traditions of pottery making in Tang Dynasty China: chemical evidence from the Liquanfang Kiln site, Xi'an city

This study is based on the SEM-EDS and LA-ICP-AES analyses of a sample of twenty-nine Tang sancai sherds unearthed from the Liquanfang site, Xi'an city. The results indicate that ceramics with yellowish bodies are calcareous and those with red bodies were made of ferruginous clays. The use of calcareous clay in Tang sancai bodies is otherwise unknown in Chinese history, which suggests that the technique of Tang sancai making at this site might have been influenced by ceramic technology from the Near East or Central Asia. The paper therefore argues that the traditional approach of treating calcareous clay as the main characteristic of pottery made in the ancient Near East or Central Asia is not necessarily accurate. It is likely that some calcareous Tang sancai ceramics were made in the capital city of the Tang dynasty.