Technical Traditions Research Articles

Modalities and characteristics of human occupations in Yemen during the Early/Mid-Holocene

Although few reference sites are known in Yemen, those found to date give good, although preliminary, chronostratigraphic sequences that demonstrate different types of lithic industries. The Hadramawt region of eastern Yemen is particularly rich in Early to Mid-Holocene sites. These sites are characterized by the appearance of laminar and especially bifacial lithic industries. The latter includes the production of flat as well as symmetrical arrowheads, and likely later manufacture of arrowheads with triangular section. The distribution of the trihedral points through southern Arabia suggests a technical tradition anchored at the beginning of the Middle Holocene. Presence of the fluting technique reinforces the impression that a true local Arabian “endemic development area” was constituted through time, without any particular external influences. Climate and geography probably contributed to settling modalities and consequently influenced diffusions, relations and movements of populations.

Arts in space: French experiences and elements of prospective

The French space adventure started more than 40 years ago. Its rich and long scientific and technical tradition made France able to occupy the place which is hers today. But what does happen to the world of arts, to which the French culture brought so much? Beyond some French artists belonging to the community of the space artists, do arts constitute a true dimension of the French space activity? Conversely, did space influence the national artistic culture? This paper proposes to tackle these questions according to a retrospective historical glance and to offer some prospective reflexions.

1304 生産技術受容者の受容動機に着目した技術伝承システムの展開(OS1-3 生産システムの国際化・情報共有)

1304 生産技術受容者の受容動機に着目した技術伝承システムの展開(OS1-3 生産システムの国際化・情報共有)

Some problems and potentials of the study of cupellation remains: the case of post-medieval Montbéliard, France

Bone-ash cupels are increasingly identified in medieval and later archaeological contexts related to the refining of noble metals in alchemy, assaying, jewellery or coin minting. These small finds may provide information on metal refining activities, the technical knowledge of different craftspeople, and the versatility of laboratory practices, which often differed from the standard protocols recorded in metallurgical treatises. This paper is centred around a late 16th-early 17th century cupel excavated in Montbeliard, France. The analytical study by optical microscopy, ED-XRF and SEM-EDS allows the cupel to be ascribed to the assaying of the silver content of an ore sample, which is supported by local historical and geological information. The manufacture of the cupel, made of a mixture of wood ash and bone ash, is also addressed, as well as the limited technical efficiency of the operation. This leads to a wider discussion of different recipes for the manufacture of cupels, documented historically and archaeologically, and involving the combination of various raw materials such as bone, wood ashes and clay. This variability raises interesting questions about the existence of diverse technical traditions, and the material properties and performance of different cupels in their specific contexts. In order to facilitate comparisons, we propose that the study of cupellation remains is most informative when it combines microscopy and microanalysis. The role of experimental approaches to these questions is also discussed.

Innovations dans les transports industriels en France : le désenclavement du bassin stéphano-ripagérien (1750-1850)

Résumé Avant l’ère du rail la majorité les transports « industriels » s’effectuent par le biais de la voie d’eau et notamment des canaux. Ces voies navigables artificielles sont le fruit d’une longue tradition technique française. Le bassin stéphano-ripagérien n’échappe pas à cette logique, les projets naissants au sein de cet espace industriel sont pour la plupart influencés par cette culture technique. Comment un espace tel que celui-ci, berceau du rail français, a-t-il adopté une innovation anglaise qui remet totalement en cause la culture technique française ? Le début du 19 e siècle marque, en France, le début de l’industrialisation et donc de l’influence technique anglaise sur le continent. Malgré cet état de fait il faudra toute la persévérance et la compétence des ingénieurs des Mines pour mener à bien ce transfert de technologie. JEL : N73, O31

Les principales étapes de l’occupation humaine en bordure de l’Himalaya occidentale

Lithic industries attest that Western Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Pamir as well as the sub-Himalayan belt that is the Siwalik range, were inhabited during the prehistoric times. However, in thin transition zone between plains and high mountains, distinction is to be kept between low-middle altitude regions and high altitude regions (above 2000 m). In the former regions, the first human occupation tenuously appears around 2 Ma. In the Middle Pleistocene, the Lower Palaeolithic industries belong to two technological facies, the Acheulian and the Early Soanian. In the North-Western Siwaliks, the Soanian occurs in plenty on the river terraces, which were all built after 0.4 Ma, and the Acheulian appears between 0.5 and 0.7 Ma. The Middle Palaeolithic is still rich in cobble tools and therefore named Late Soanian. The Upper Palaeolithic is missing, perhaps due to climatic factors and the Neolithic is characterised by polished axes/adzes, but actually many of the cobble tools usually considered as Early Soanian may well belong to the cobble tool technical tradition common in South-East Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. In the north of the mountain range, the entire Palaeolithic sequence yielded by the loess in Southern Tajikistan is characterised, right from the late Lower Pleistocene, by lithic industries mainly compose of flakes, sometimes with cobble tools. In the high altitude zones, prehistoric sites are unknown before the Holocene and therefore they are contemporaneous with the Neolithic but some technological facies display particular features. The question is to know whether the originality of the industries, observed at different periods of time, is linked to techno-cultural adaptations to particular environments or to the isolation of the mountain populations.

3201 生産技術の伝承・共有化システムの構想(OS3-2 情報共有・教育)

At the spot of the production of a thing, in order to perform a make lump of better quality continuously, the next generation (technical acceptance person) is asked for handing down technology, and maintaining and raising technical capabilities. However, many engineers retirement problem, and automation and laborsaving of production progressed so that a problem may see in the 2007 fiscal year, and the problem of technical tradition is discovered from potentiality of manufacturing technique know-how etc. On the other hand, as for the method of coping with these problems, neither rationality nor consistency is accepted in a focus or a route on the spot in many cases. Based on such the actual condition, it can progress with the technical tradition which heightens manufacturing technique power, and the view of sharing, and a direction is examined based on a case of the operation.

Traditions techniques et savoir-faire céramiques au Néolithique récent dans le Centre-Ouest de la France : le cas des sites d’habitat attribués au Vienne-Charente

During recent years the excavations of several causewayed enclosures of western-central France dating from the Recent Neolithic have yielded original ceramic assemblages, attributed to the Vienne-Charente cultural group, previously known only in funerary contexts. This study proposes a technological analysis of four series from these sites with the aim of characterizing these ceramic assemblages in technological terms. The recognition of two main technical traditions confirms the existence of two groups of distinct producers, corresponding to the Vienne-Charente and Peu-Richard cultures. The Vienne-Charente ceramic production seems to have been occasional and lacking in care while the Peu-Richard production bears witness to sophisticated know-how and raises the question of the provenance and the status of these vases. The use of the same exogenous clay material (marl with Nanogyra virgula) for the shaping of the majority of the Vienne-Charente ceramics from Diconche and Authon-Ébéon could indicate a special function or cultural value for these vases.

Traditions and transitions in Korean bronze technology

Metallurgical examination of Korean bronze artifacts shows that a technical tradition based on casting and use of leaded high-tin alloys was established in Korea at the early stages of bronze use. After the subsequent discovery of quenching methods that suppress formation of the brittle δ phase, new thermo-mechanical techniques were introduced between the 7th and 10th centuries AD. Lead-free alloys were used, and tin contents near that of the peritectic point in the Cu–Sn phase diagram were chosen. Leaded high tin alloys continued in use, but only in cast objects, and with significant composition variation. The unique conditions during the time of innovation suggest that the transition to new metallurgical techniques was gradually achieved through domestic technical innovation inspired by external influences.

Les premiers peuplements d'Asie du Sud : vestiges culturels

The first settlements in South Asia: cultural remains. South Asia had a relatively stable climate during Lower and Middle Pleistocene; only the Himalaya piedmonts recorded periglacial conditions. The chronological setting of Palaeolithic assemblages is becoming more accurate in the last two decades as the dating methods improve and volcanic ash layers are identified in relation with sites. The first indication of human activity is recorded at around 2 Ma, in the northwestern sector of the Siwalik range, and the Acheulian starts before 1 Ma, in the Southwest of Indian Peninsula. It seems that Acheulian technological stage is not preceded by pebble/cobble tool industries, neither in the Peninsula, where such industries are unknown, nor in the Siwaliks, where they occur in abundance (Soanian technical tradition), but are probably later than the middle of Middle Pleistocene. To cite this article: C. Gaillard, C. R. Palevol 5 (2006) .

Ceramics from Islamic lands

1. Islamic Pottery: Art, Archaeology and Collecting 2. Making and Designing 3. Ceramic Families and Technical Traditions 4. Islamic Pottery to ad 1000 5. Islamic Pottery ad 1000 - 1400 6. Islamic Pottery from AD 1400 7. Restoration and Faking of Islamic Ceramics: Case Histories The Catalogue Table of Concordance of Inventory Numbers and Catalogue Numbers Bibliography, Glossary & Index.

Traditional Japanese Sword Making from a Tatara Ingot As Estimated from Microstructural Examination

This paper has examined the progressive development of microstructures in the iron and steel samples taken at several different stages in the traditional Japanese sword making from a Tatara ingot. The results show that the use of a particular input material, Tatara steel, and the adoption of the manufacturing technique, repeated cycles of forging and folding, may be the major factors characterizing the sword making. The undesirable aspects of both the heterogeneous Tatara ingot and the labor-intensive forge/fold operation are found complemented in their combination. It is shown that this combination provides an effective control over the compositional and microstructural variations inherent in the Tatara steel while it is shaped into a sword. The finished sword comes thereby to achieve fairly uniform structures, at least, macroscopically with the earlier variation still retained in the form of fine layered microstructures. The present study shows that the key role of forging in achieving the desired effects can be understood only if the dynamic evolution of microstructure from one stage to another is carefully examined because majority of the structural developments in the forging process have only a transient existence. Besides, they often hold crucial information relating the Japanese sword making to the general technical traditions of East Asia where cast iron has been playing an important role since the inception of iron-working. This article will detail the continuous microstructural development in the entire process of the traditional Japanese sword making, without which its technical and historical facets cannot be properly recognized.

THE ISLAMIC GLASS BEAKER WITH WHEEL-CUT DECORATION FROM RAYA, SOUTH SINAI

More than ten thousand pieces of Islamic glass were found from the fort of Raya in the five excavations between 1987 and 2001 by the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan (directed by Dr. Mutsuo Kawatoko). An intact flaring beaker with the pseudo-script design by cut technique which was found in the upper part of Room No. 12-6 in the fifth excavation in 2001 is worthy to be called a masterpiece among them.As a result of the examination, I have reached the following conclusions. 1) The flaring beaker excavated from Raya can be dated to the second half of the tenth century by the composition of high potassium, the peculiar shape and style of decoration. 2) The close relationship between the flaring beaker and the long-necked bottle with cut decoration for the set of drinking vessels can be pointed out. Both of them were traded over a wide area, but unearthed in limited sites in local powerful cities of the Islamic period. On the other side, a cylindrical beaker and a coarse large bottle in pale bluish-green were used for practical use. 3) The Iraqi influences under the Abbasid dynasty and the technical traditions of Syro-Palestine can be seen in the Raya finds, so it is worth noting that this beaker related to the Fatimid dynasty of the latter half of the tenth century appeared under these circumstances. This suggests that some power changes or changes of trading system occurred right in Raya.

La pintura mural hispano-musulmana. ¿Tradición o innovación?

It is generally thought that in Western Europe and at the end of the medieval period, tempera paint with oil as a medium was applied to dry plaster walls because the Roman technique for painting on wet plaster (al fresco) had been forgotten. Texts such as the Libro dell'Arte by Cennino Cennini discuss the recovery of the fresco technique by some of the founding painters of the Italian Renaissance, such as Giotto. From Renaissance Italy, it is argued, the technique expanded to the rest of Europe. However, in medieval Hispanic monuments with Islamic iconography there is evidence of painted fresco decoration dated prior to the fifteenth century. This paper studies the sources of this technical tradition by analysing examples of Iberian, Roman, Islamic, Mudejar and Morisco mural painting.

Practice in Critical Times

Inclusive of activist and socially engaged approaches, the term “critical” signifies a broad range of art making. Sometimes object- or display-oriented, sometimes interactive or performative, sometimes consisting of curatorial work, a critical practice may draw from multiple formal and technical traditions, even within the confines of a single work or project. The linking of representational value to a given project's social impact (either opposed or in addition to its visual impact) has led critics and artists to reach for new descriptive terms for these ways of working: relational aesthetics and service art.1 What critical practices share is a fundamental aspiration: to present questions and challenges about the way the world is, the ways we perceive it, and the ways in which we can act in it. These questions or challenges might be presented in general terms or with respect to a particular social detail or situation. This aspiration can be described as inherently critical, because the inescapable implication is that a world with different social arrangements, behaviors, or both is possible. Thus, critical practices are always in a basic sense politicized, irrespective of topical specificity.

Practice in Critical Times: A Conversation with Gregory Sholette, Stephanie Smith, Temporary Services, and Jacqueline Terrassa

a broad range of art making. Sometimes objector display-oriented, sometimes interactive or performative, sometimes consisting of curatorial work, a critical practice may draw from multiple formal and technical traditions, even within the confines of a single work or project. The linking of representational value to a given project's social impact (either opposed or in addition to its visual impact) has led critics and artists to reach for new descriptive terms for these ways of working: relational aesthetics and service art.' What critical practices share is a fundamental aspiration: to present questions and challenges about the way the world is, the ways we perceive it, and the ways in which we can act in it. These questions or challenges might be presented in general terms or with respect to a particular social detail or situation. This aspiration can be described as inherently critical, because the inescapable implication is that a world with different social arrangements, behaviors, or both is possible. Thus, critical prac-

Early Italy and the colonization of Western Europe

The early phases of human occupation in Italy are considered in the context of discussions on the chronology and patterns of hominid dispersal out of Africa and into Western Europe. This paper is therefore a synthesis and an evaluation of new data on three, interrelated topics: (a) the question of direct contacts between Italy and North Africa in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene through the Sicilian Channel; (b) the evidence for the successive dispersal in Western Europe of two different technical traditions; and (c) the nature and chronology of the earliest human occupation of Italy. Interpretations of bifaces and biface industries are discussed, as they are an important aspect of Out of Africa models. Hominid presence in Italy is documented at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, their route of entry apparently not through Sicily but from the north. In contrast to the `Ubeidiya and Gesher Benot Ya'aqov assemblages in Israel, the earliest-dated biface assemblages in Italy — with a preliminary date at about 640±70 ka — show no specific characteristics that would tie them to the African Acheulean. Evidence for a precedence of core-and-flake over handaxe industries is ambiguous; their interpretation as designating different groups of hominids lacks a sound archaeological basis. Since faunal exchanges with continental Europe are documented throughout the Pleistocene, the hypothesis of multiple episodes of human migration into Italy should be considered; however, we can neither support it or refute it because the archaeological assemblages do not inform us on specific migration events.

A Trading City: Ugarit and the West

Ugarit belongs to the world of the Near East by virtue of its language, its cultural and technical traditions, and its history. But because of its geographical position, which influences climate, vegetation, and cultivation, the coastal plain of Ugarit belongs as well to the same Mediterranean world as the shores of Cyprus or Greece. Yet Ugaritic epigraphy only mentions one actual location to the west, the Island of Alashiya, or Cyprus. No written documentation exists with which to gauge clearly trade and relations with other islands of the eastern Mediterranean and beyond with mainland Greece.

HOW TO ENSURE THAT MEDICINE INCORPORATES THE BEST OF SCIENCE

Medicine had its origins in prehistoric times, when a technical tradition expressed in practical skills by craftsmen developed alongside a spiritual tradition perpetuated by magical and priestly cults. [T]hese twin streams of craftsmanship and have run all through history, and it is only within comparatively modern times that technical advances and their philosophical implications have been merged to form a unitary body of Science. 6 Although all Science results from humankind's exploration of our environment, it is the biological sciences that are more particular to us as doctors. Medicine's role is not only to apply the fruits of biological scientific adventure for the benefit of humanity, with the mix of art or magic appropriate to each individual patient, but to guide biological scientists to try to address questions relevant to human welfare. Ideas are wonderful and scientific proof is exciting, but application at the service/clinical level is the final essential step. Otherwise, in terms of helping individuals and communities, all scientific advance is for nought.

The Clactonian Question: On the Interpretation of Core-and-Flake Assemblages in the British Lower Paleolithic

In recent years, the nature, significance, and validity of the British core-and-flake assemblage known as the Clactonian have come under close scrutiny. More traditional ideas, which see the Clactonian as the product of a distinct, non-handax-making technical tradition, are being challenged by notions of a single European knapping repertoire in which the proportion of handaxes varies according to factors such as activity facies, local raw material potential, and landscape use. Furthermore, recent technological studies which show a basic technological parity between the Acheulean and the Clactonian, including claims for rare atypical bifaces within the Clactonian, have been argued as eroding the very rationale for seeing the Clactonian as a separate entity. These challenges have gained widespread acceptance, despite a lack of empirical support in some cases, questionable conclusions, and hints of a widely ignored, yet intriguing chronological recurrence. A review of the empirical basis and interpretation of the Clactonian, in both recent years and the recent past, suggests that the Clactonian is in danger of being explained away, rather than explained.