The When, Where, and How of Novices in Craft Production

Ferguson, Jeffrey R.

doi:10.1007/s10816-007-9047-z

Cited by 66 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The transmission of knowledge through visual, verbal and repeated instruction is the most successful means of spreading the techniques involved, and this would require a long period of learning from specialists. Such specialists might have been itinerant, or been adopted into host communities while keeping their skills only for themselves and their descendants through the process of scaffolding [63].…”

Section: The Initial Bronze Age (1050-850 Bc)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Mun Valley and Central Thailand in prehistory: integrating two cultural sequences

Higham

Rispoli²

2014

Open Archaeology

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This paper compares the later prehistory in two regions of Thailand. The Mun Valley lies on the eastern side of the Phetchabun Range, the Lopburi Region (LR) to the west. They are linked by a major pass. While the Lopburi area is rich in copper ore, the Mun Valley has none. Quality salt is abundantly available in the Mun Valley but less so in the LR. This study explores the inter-relationships between the areas over a period of 2300 years which sharpens our understanding of both, and presents explanations and possibilities in the context of cultural transmission theories. Neolithic farmers with ultimate origins in China, arrived in the first half of the second millennium BC. Widespread exchange in prestige goods was a factor in the adoption of copper-base metallurgy in the late 11th century BC, when the LR became a producer, the Mun Valley an importer. With the Iron Age, (from about 500 BC), sites grew in size. During the course of this period, gold, silver, agate, carnelian and glass ornaments were ritually placed with dead elites. It is in these powerful and wealthy Iron Age communities that we can identify the early transition into states with population growth, agricultural intensification, conflict and increased production and competition over salt and metal for exchange.

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Section: The Initial Bronze Age (1050-850 Bc)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Mun Valley and Central Thailand in prehistory: integrating two cultural sequences

Higham

Rispoli²

2014

Open Archaeology

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“…As mentioned previously, not only do variation and change occur as a result of behavioural choices and errors, but also as a result of the ways in which potters learn technique. Ferguson (2008) states that when scaffolding is practiced, that is the integration of novices into craft production in which experts can teach, assist and intervene as much as necessary in order to ensure a successful outcome, then variability in the archaeological assemblage is limited.…”

Section: Variations Of the Mental Template And Innovative Behavioursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextualising the Neolithic Occupation of Southern Vietnam: The Role of Ceramics and Potters at An Son

Sarjeant¹

2014

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terra australis 42Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present. Dewey Number: 666.09597 List of volumes in Terra AustralisCopyright of the text remains with the authors, 2014. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.Cover image courtesy of C. Sarjeant.Back cover map: Hollandia Nova. Thevenot 1663 by courtesy of the National Library of Australia. Reprinted with permission of the National Library of Australia. The excavations at An Sơn were funded by a Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council. My own research was funded by the Australian Postgraduate Award.The analysis of the ceramic fabrics was conducted with SEM-EDX at the Electron Microscopy Unit at The Australian National University, with guidance from Frank Brink. I would also like to thank Glenn Summerhayes for teaching me the benefits and methods of SEM and the electron microprobe.There are a number of people I would like to recognise for their support over the past few years. Charles Higham has always offered advice and provided useful information over the years, even after departing the University of Otago after my Master's. Nigel Chang initially invited me to Ban Non Wat eight years ago, and allowed me to visit again to review the more recent neolithic discoveries in 2009. Fiorella Rispoli and Roberto Ciarla shared their knowledge of the neolithic in central Vietnam, and Fiorella's wealth of knowledge on ceramics has always been a reference for me. Lâm Thị Mỹ Dung opened up the ceramic collections at the University of Hanoi to me in 2009, which offered some valuable comparative ideas for this monograph. Louise Cort and Joyce White organised a workshop on Southeast Asian ceramics in Washington, DC and Philadelphia in 2010; an event from which I gained much inspiration and I feel privileged to have been a part of it. I would also like to acknowledge those individuals from afar who were interested in my research -it helped to keep the inspiration going, so thanks to Andreas Reinecke, Nishimura Masanari, and those I met at conferences over these past few years.Closer to home, I would like to thank Anna Willis for her knowledge about mortuary ritual at An Sơn. I am also grateful for the new insights into southern Vietnamese archaeology after working alongside Philip Piper at Rạch Núi. Thanks to Judith Cameron who was so supp...

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“…Production bias should be especially present and measurable among novice producers of a particular item or technology (see Ferguson, 2008), but may persist even among experts. It will be especially prevalent in social learning contexts where people attempt to produce a particular end product (i.e., emulation), but are less familiar with all the steps during production (i.e., ''imitation''; see Caldwell et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Production bias in cultural evolution: An examination of cubic dice variation in experimental and archaeological contexts

Voogt

Eerkens

Sherman-Presser

2015

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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a b s t r a c tSimilar artifact function and conformism to social norms are two models commonly proposed to explain why ancient people shared a particular form of material culture. We propose an additional model for explaining such similarity, production bias, which focuses on interactions between raw materials and the production of material culture. By way of modern replication experiments and a survey of ancient examples, we use dice to exemplify production bias and discuss how it can be recognized in the archaeological record. Although there are 15 possible configurations for cubic dice, all of equal function, only three are common in the archaeological record. Replication experiments show that one is the result of production bias, and is differentially produced by novice dice-makers. The other two are the byproduct of conformist cultural transmission processes. A similar result holds for dot patterns, or how dots are placed with respect to one another to represent a particular number.

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The When, Where, and How of Novices in Craft Production

Cited by 66 publications

References 13 publications

The Mun Valley and Central Thailand in prehistory: integrating two cultural sequences

The Mun Valley and Central Thailand in prehistory: integrating two cultural sequences

Contextualising the Neolithic Occupation of Southern Vietnam: The Role of Ceramics and Potters at An Son

Production bias in cultural evolution: An examination of cubic dice variation in experimental and archaeological contexts

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