Introduction: Archaeological approaches to lithic production skill and craft learning

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 1-27

  Bamforth, Douglas B ^a   Finlay, Nyree ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Ceramic sociology; Knapping; Learning; Skill

Indexed keywords

EID: 40249091915     PISSN: 10725369     EISSN: 15737764     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10816-007-9043-3     Document Type: Article

References (131)

1. Abrams, N. (1996). Measure Twice, Cut Once: Lessons From a Master Carpenter. New York: Little Brown.
2. Ahler, S. A. (1989). Experimental knapping with KRF and midcontinent cherts: overview and applications. In D. S. Amick & R. P. Mauldin (Eds.) Experiments in Lithic Technology (pp. 199-234). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series 528.
3. Andrews, B. (2003). Measuring prehistoric craftsman skill. In K. Hirth (Ed.) Mesoamerican Lithic Technology: Experimentation and Interpretation (pp. 208-219). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
4. Apel, J. (2001). Daggers, Knowledge and Power. Uppsala: Wikströms.
5. Apel, J., & Knutsson, K. (Eds.) (2006). Skilled Production and Social Reproduction. Aspects on Traditional Stone-Tool Technologies. Proceedings from an International Symposium held in Uppsala, August 20-24, 2003. Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, SAU Stone Studies 2.
6. Arnold, J. (1987). Craft Specialization in the Prehistoric Channel Islands, California. Berkeley: University of California Press.
7. Ashbee, P., & Jewell, P. (1998). The experimental earthworks revisited. Antiquity, 72, 485-504.
8. Bamforth, D. B. (2002a). High-tech foragers? Folsom and later Paleoindian technology on the Great Plains. Journal of World Prehistory, 16, 55-98.
9. Bamforth, D. B. (2002b). Evidence and metaphor in evolutionary archaeology. American Antiquity, 67, 435-452.
10. Bamforth, D. B. (2003). Rethinking the role of bifacial technology in Paleoindian adaptations on the Great Plains. In M. Soressi & D. Dibble (Eds.) Multiple Approaches to the Study of Bifacial Technologies (pp. 209-228). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
11. Beck, M. (2006). Midden ceramic assemblage formation: a case study from Kalinga, Philippines. American Antiquity, 71, 27-52.
12. Bell, M., Fowler, P. J., & Hillson, S. W. (1996). The Experimental Earthwork Programme 1960-1992. London: Council for British Archaeology Research Report 100.
13. Bettinger, R., & Eerkens, J. (1999). Point typologies, cultural transmission, and the spread of bow and arrow technology in the prehistoric Great Basin. American Antiquity, 64, 231-242.
14. Bird, C. (1993). Woman the toolmaker: evidence for women's use and manufacture of flaked stone tools in Australia and New Guinea. In H. Du Cros & L. Smith (Eds.) Women in Archaeology: A Feminist Critique (pp. 22-30), Canberra: Australian National University.
15. Bleed, P. (1991). Operations research and archaeology. American Antiquity, 56, 19-35.
16. Bodu, P. (1996). Les chasseurs Magdaleniens de Pincevent; quelques aspects de leurs comportements. Lithic Technology, 21, 48-66.
17. Bodu, P., Karlin, C., & Ploux, S. (1990). Who's who? The Magdalenian flintknappers of Pincevent, France. In E. Cziesla, S. Eickhoof, N. Arts & D. Winter (Eds.) The Big Puzzle: International Symposium on Refitting Stone Artifacts, Monrepos, 1987, vol. 1 (pp. 143-164). Bonn: Holos Studies in Modern Archaeology.
18. Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. (1985). Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
19. Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. (1993). Needs to go in here.
20. Bradley, B. (1991). Lithic technology. In G. Frison (Ed.) Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains (2nd Edn.) (pp. 369-396). New York: Academic Press.
21. Bradley, B., & Frison, G. (1987). Projectile points and specialized bifaces from the Horner site. In G. Frison & L. Todd (Eds.) The Horner Site. (pp. 199-232). New York: Academic Press.
22. Bril, B., Roux, V., & Dietrich, G. (2005). Stone Knapping: Khambhat (India), a Unique Opportunity? In V. Roux & B. Bril (Eds.) Stone Knapping: the necessary conditions for a uniquely hominin behaviour (pp. 53-71). Cambridge: McDonald Institute.
23. Brunner, J. (1976). Early social interaction and language acquisition. In H. Schaffer (Ed.) Studies in Mother-Infant Interaction. London: Academic Press.
24. Callahan, E. (2006). Neolithic Danish Daggers: an experimental peek. In J. Apel & K. Knutsson (Eds.) Skilled Production and Social Reproduction. Aspects on Traditional Stone-Tool Technologies. Proceedings from an International Symposium held in Uppsala, August 20-24, 2003 (pp. 115-137). Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, SAU Stone Studies 2.
25. Clark, J. (2003). Craftmanship and craft specialization. In K. Hirth (Ed.) Mesoamerican Lithic Technology: Experimentation and Interpretation (pp. 220-233). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
26. Cobb, C. R., & Pope, M. (1998). Sixteenth-century flintknapping kits from the King Site, Georgia. Journal of Field Archaeology, 25, 1-18.
27. Cobb, C., & Ruggiero, D. (2003). Lithic technology and the Spanish Entrada at the King Site in northwest Georgia. In C. Cobb (Ed.) Stone Tool Traditions in the Contact Era (pp. 13-28). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
28. Cordell, L. (1997). Archaeology of the Southwest. New York: Academic Press.
29. Coy, M. (1989). From theory. In M. Coy (Ed.) Apprenticeship: From Theory to Method and Back Again (pp. 1-11). Albany: State University of New York Press.
30. Cross, J. R. (1983). Twigs, branches, trees, and forests: problems of scale in lithic analysis. In J. A. Moore & A. S. Keene (Eds.) Archaeological Hammers and Theories (pp. 87-106). New York: Academic Press.
31. Cross, J. R. (1993). Craft specialisation in nonstratified societies. Research in Economic Anthropology, 14, 61-84.
32. Crown, P. (1999). Socialization in American Southwest pottery decoration. In J. Skibo & G. Feinman (Eds.) Pottery and People: A Dynamic Interaction (pp. 25-43). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
33. Crown, P. (2001). Learning to make pottery in the Prehispanic American Southwest. Journal of Anthropological Research, 57, 451-469.
34. Crown, P. (2007a). Life histories of pots and potters: situating the individual in archaeology. American Antiquity, 72, 677-690.
35. Crown, P. (2007b). Learning about learning. In J. Skibo, M. Graves & M. Stark (Eds.) Archaeological Anthropology: Perspectives on Method and Theory (pp. 198-217). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
36. Custer, J. F., Rosenberg, K. R., Mellin, G., & Washburn, A. (1999). A Re-examination of the Island Field Site (7K-F-17), Kent County, Delaware. Archaeology of Eastern North America, 18, 145-212.
37. David, N., & Kramer, C. (2001). Ethnoarchaeology in Action. New York: Cambridge University Press.
38. Deboer, W. (1990). Interaction, imitation, and communication as expressed in style: the Ucayali experience. In M. Conkey & C. Hastorf (Eds.) The Uses of Style in Archaeology (pp. 82-104). New York: Cambridge University Press.
39. Deetz, J. (1965). The Dynamics of Stylistic Change in Arikara Ceramics. Illinois Studies in Anthropology 4. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
40. Dumond, D. (1977). Science in archaeology: the saints go marching in. American Antiquity, 42, 330-349.
41. Eerkens, J. W. (2000). Practice makes within 5% of perfect: visual perception, motor skills and memory in artefact variation. Current Anthropology, 41, 663-668.
42. Eerkens, J. W., & Bettinger, R. L. (2001). Techniques for assessing standardization in artifact assemblages: can we scale material variability? American Antiquity, 66, 493-504.
43. Ericsson, K. A., & Lehmann, A. C. (1996). Expert and exceptional performance:evidence of maximal adaptation to task constraints. Annual Review of Psychology, 47, 273-305.
44. Fash, W. (1991). Scribes, Warriors, and Kings: The City of Copan and the Ancient Maya. New York: Thames and Hudson.
45. Finlay, N. (1997). Kid-knapping: the missing children in lithic analysis. In J. Moore & E. Scott (Eds.) Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeology (pp. 203-212). Leicester: Leicester University Press.
46. Fischer, A. (1989). A late Paleolithic "school" of flint-knapping at Trollesgave, Denmark: results from refitting. Acta Archaeologia, 60, 33-49.
47. Fischer, A. (1990). On being a pupil of a flintknapper of 11,000 years ago. In E. Cziesla, S. Eickhoof, N. Arts & D. Winter (Eds.) The Big Puzzle: International Symposium on Refitting Stone Artifacts, Monrepos, 1987, vol. 1 (pp. 447-464). Bonn: Holos studies in Modern Archaeology.
48. Fish, S. (1999). How complex were the Southwestern great towns' polities? In J. Neitzel (Ed.) Great Towns and Regional Polities in the Prehistoric American Southwest and Southeast (pp. 45-58). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
49. Flenniken, J. (1978). Reevaluation of the Lindenmeier Folsom: a replication experiment in lithic technology. American Antiquity, 43, 473-480.
50. Frison, G. & Bradley, B. (1999). The Fenn Cache: Clovis Weapons and Tools. Santa Fe: One Horse Land and Cattle Company.
51. Gero, J. M. (1991). Genderlithics: women's roles in stone tool production. In J. Gero & M. Conkey (Eds.) Engendering Archaeology (pp. 163-193). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
52. Gibson, E. (1982). Upper Paleolithic flintknapping specialists? The evidence from Corbiac, France. Lithic Technology 11, 41-49.
53. Goody, E. (1989). Learning, apprenticeship, and the division of labor. In M. Coy (Ed.) Apprenticeship: From Theory to Method and Back Again (pp. 233-256). Albany: State University of New York Press.
54. Greenfield, P. (1984). A theory of the teacher in the learning activities of everyday life. In R. Rogoff & J. Lave (Eds.) Everyday Cognition (pp. 117-138). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
55. Grimm, L. (2000). Apprentice flintknapping: relating material culture and social practice in the Upper Palaeolithic. In J. Soafer Derevenski (Ed.) Children and Material Culture (pp. 53-71). London: Routledge.
56. Gunn, J. (1975). Idiosyncratic behaviour in chipping style: some hypotheses and preliminary analysis. In E. Swanson (Ed.) Lithic Technology: Making and Using Stone Tools (pp. 35-61). The Hague: Mouton Publishers.
57. Gunn, J. (1977). Idiosyncratic chipping style as a demographic indicator: a proposed application to the South Hills region of Idaho and Utah. In J. N. Hill & J. Gunn (Eds.) The Individual in Prehistory: Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Technologies (pp. 167-204). London: Academic Press.
58. Hayden, B. (1982). Interaction parameters and the demise of Paleoindian craftsmanship. Plains Anthropologist, 27, 109-123.
59. Hayden, B., & Cannon, A. (1984). Interaction inferences in archaeology and learning frameworks of the Maya. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 3, 325-367.
60. Henrich, J. (2004). Demography and cultural evolution: how adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses-the Tasmanian case. American Antiquity, 69, 197-214.
61. Henrich, J. (2006). Understanding cultural evolutionary models: a response to Read's critique. American Antiquity, 71, 771-782.
62. Hill, J. (1970). Broken K Pueblo: prehistoric social organization in the American Southwest. University of Arizona Anthropological Papers 18. Tucson: University of Arizona.
63. Hill, J. (1978). Individuals and their artifacts: an experimental study in archaeology. American Antiquity, 43, 245-257.
64. Högberg, A. (1999). Child and adult at a knapping area: a technological flake analysis of a manufacture of a Neolithic square sectioned axe and a child's flintknapping activities on an assemblage excavated as part of the Öresund fixed link project. Acta Archaeologica, 70, 79-106.
65. Howe, M., Davidson, J., & Sloboda, J. (1998). Innate talents: reality or myth? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21, 399-407.
66. Ingold, T. (1993). Tool-use, sociality and intelligence. In K. R. Gibson & T. Ingold (Eds.) Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution (pp. 429-445). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
67. Johnson, R. (1976). Time and flint needed to acquire secondary thinning bifacial reduction skills. Lithic Technology, 5, 26-27.
68. Keller, C., & Keller, J. (1996). Cognition and Tool Use: The Blacksmith at Work. New York: Cambridge University Press.
69. Kramer, C. (1985). Ceramic ethnoarchaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 14, 77-102.
70. Krause, R. (1985). The Clay Sleeps. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
71. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
72. Layton, R. (1974). Technology as knowledge. Technology and Culture, 15, 31-41.
73. Levins R. (1966). Strategies of model building in population biology. American Scientist, 54, 421-431.
74. Lewis-Johnson, L. (1978). A history of flint-knapping experimentation 1838-1976. Current Anthropology, 19, 357-372.
75. Lingren, C. (2004). Människor och kvarts. Sociala och teknologiska strategier under mesolithikum i östra Mellansverige. Stockholm Studies in Archaeology 29. Stockholm: Stockholm University.
76. Longacre, W. (1970). Archaeology as Anthropology: A Case Study. University of Arizona Anthropological Papers 17. Tucson: University of Arizona.
77. Longacre, W. (1991). Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
78. Longacre, W., & Skibo, J. (1994). Kalinga Ethnoarchaeology. Washington: Smithsonian Press.
79. Marzke, M., Toth, N., Shick, K., Reece, S., Steinberg, B., Hunt, K., Linsheid, R., & An, R. (1998). EMG study of hand muscle recruitment during hard hammer percussion manufacture of Oldowan tools. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 105, 315-332.
80. McClure, S. (2007). Gender, technology, and evolution: cultural inheritance theory and prehistoric potters in Valencia, Spain. American Antiquity, 72, 485-508.
81. Milne, S. B. (2005). Palae-Eskimo novice flintknapping in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. Journal of Field Archaeology, 30, 329-345.
82. Minar, J., & Crown, P. (2001). Learning and craft production: an introduction. Journal of Anthropological Research, 57, 369-380.
83. Moran, A. (1996). The Psychology of Concentration in Sports Performers: A Comparative Analysis. Hove: Psychology Press.
84. Nichols, J., & Allstadt, D. J. (1978). Hinge fracture rates of novice flintknappers. Lithic Technology, 7, 1-2.
85. Nunn, G. R. (2006). Using the Jultand Type IC Neolithic Danish Dagger as a model to replicate parallel, edge-to-edge pressure flaking. In J. Apel & K. Knutsson (Eds.), Skilled Production and Social Reproduction. Aspects on Traditional Stone-Tool Technologies. Proceedings from an International Symposium held in Uppsala August 20-24, 2003 (pp. 81-113). Uppsala: Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, SAU Stone Studies 2.
86. Olausson, D. (1997). Craft specialization as an agent of social power in the south Scandinavian Neolithic. In R. Schild & Z. Sulgostowska (Eds.) Man and Flint: Proceedings of the VIIth International Flint Symposium (pp. 269-278). Warsaw: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology.
87. Olausson, D. (1998). Different strokes for different folks. Possible reasons for variation in quality of knapping. Lithic Technology, 23(2), 90-115.
88. Pelegrin, J. (1990). Prehistoric lithic technology: some aspects of research. Archaeological Review Cambridge, 9, 116-125.
89. Piaget, J. (1972). The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books.
90. Pigeot, N. (1987). Magdaléniens D'Etiolles: Economie de Debitage et Organisation Sociale (L'Unite d'Habitation U5), 25th suppl Gallia Préhistoire. Paris: CRNS.
91. Pigeot, N. (1990). Technical and social actors: flintknapping specialists at Magdalenian Etiolles. Archaeological Review Cambridge, 9, 126-141.
92. Roux, V., & Bril, B. (Eds.) (2005). Stone Knapping: the necessary conditions for a uniquely hominin behaviour. Cambridge: McDonald Institute.
93. Proctor, R. W., & Dutta, A. (1995). Skill Acquisition and Human Performance. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
94. Read, D. (2006). Tasmanian knowledge and skill: maladaptive imitation or adequate technology. American Antiquity, 71, 164-184.
95. Rogoff, B. (1995). Observing sociocultural activity on three planes: participatory appropriation, guided participation, and apprenticeship. In J. Wertsch, P. del Rio & A. Alvrez (Eds.), Sociocultural Studies of Mind (pp. 139-164). New York: Cambridge University Press.
96. Rogoff, B., & Gardner, W. (1984). Adult guidance of cognitive development. In R. Rogoff & J. Lave (Eds.) Everyday Cognition (pp. 95-116). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
97. Root, M. (2000). The Archaeology of the Bobtail Wolf Site. Pullman: Washington State University Press.
98. Roux, V. (1990). The psychosocial analysis of technical activities: a contribution to the study of craft specialization. Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 1, 142-153.
99. Roux, V., Bril, B., & Gilles, D. (1995). Skills and learning difficulties involved in stone knapping: the case of stone-bead knapping in Khambhat, India. World Archaeology, 27(1), 63-87.
100. Saville, A. (1990). Hazleton North, Gloucestershire, 1979-82: The Excavation of a Neolithic Long Cairn of the Cotswold-Severn Group. London: English Heritage.
101. Schiffer, M. (1972). Behavioral Archaeology. New York: Academic Press.
102. Schiffer, M. (1987). Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
103. Sheets, P. (1975). Behavioral analysis and the structure of a prehistoric industry. Current Anthropology, 16, 369-378.
104. Shelley, P. H. (1990). Variation in lithic assemblages: an experiment. Journal of Field Archaeology, 17, 87-193.
105. Shennan, S. (2002). Genes, Memes, and Human History. London: Thames and Hudson.
106. Shennan, S., & Steele, J. (1999). Cultural learning in hominids: a behavioral ecological approach. In H. Box & K. Gibson (Eds.) Mammalian Social Learning (pp. 367-388). New York: Cambridge University Press.
107. Shott, M. (1997). Transmission theory in the study of stone tools: a Midwestern example. In G. Clark & C. Parton (Eds.) Rediscovering Darwin: Evolutionary Theory in Archaeological Explanation (pp. 193-208). Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 7. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association.
108. Smith, E. (2000). Three styles in the evolutionary analysis of human behavior. In L. Cronk, N. Chagnon & W. Irons (Eds.) Adaptation and Human Behavior (pp. 27-46). New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
109. Stafford, M. (1998). In search of hindsight: experiments in the production of Neolithic Danish flint daggers. Antiquity, 72, 338-349.
110. Stanislawski, M. (1978). If pots were mortal. In R. Gould (Ed.) Explorations in Ethnoarchaeology (pp. 201-227). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
111. Stark, M. (1998). The Archaeology of Social Boundaries. Washington: Smithsonian Press.
112. Stark, M. (2003). Current Issues in Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research, 11, 193-242.
113. Stout, D. (2002). Skill and cognition in stone tool production. An ethnographic case study from Irian Jaya. Current Anthropology, 5, 693-722.
114. Stout, D. (2005). The Social and Cultural Context of Stone-knapping Skill Acquistion. In V. Roux & B. Bril (Eds.) Stone Knapping: The Necessary Conditions for a Uniquely Hominin Behaviour (pp. 331-340). Cambridge: McDonald Institute.
115. Stout, D., & Chaminade, T. (2007). The evolutionary neuroscience of toll making. Neuropsychologia, 45, 1091-1100.
116. Stout, D., Toth, N., Schick, K., Stout, J., & Hutchins, G. (2000). Stone tool-making and brain activation: Positron Emission Tomography (PET) studies. Journal of Archaeological Science, 27, 1215-1223.
117. Terkel, S. (1974). Working. New York: Pantheon Books.
118. Titmus, G. L. & Woods, J. C. (2003). The Maya Eccentric. Evidence for the use of the indirect percussion technique in Mesoamerica from preliminary experiements concerning their manufacture. In K. G. Hirth (Ed.) Mesoamerican Lithic Technology: Experimentation and Interpretation (pp. 132-146). Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.
119. Torrence, R. (1986). Production and Exchange of Stone Tools: Prehistoric Obsidian in the Aegean. New York: Cambridge University Press.
120. Wallaert-Petre, H. (2001). Learning how to make the right pots: apprenticeship strategies and material culture, a case study in handmade pottery from Cameroon. Journal of Anthropological Research, 57, 471-493.
121. Washburn, D. K. (2001). Remembering things seen: experimental approaches to the process of information transmittal. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 8(1), 67-99.
122. Weedman, K. (2002). On the spur of the moment: effects of age and experience on hafted stone scraper morphology. American Antiquity, 67, 731-744.
123. Whittaker, J. C. (1987). Individual variation as an approach to economic organisation: projectile points at Grasshopper Pueblo, Arizona. Journal of Field Archaeology, 14, 465-979.
124. Whittaker, J. C. (1994). Flintknapping: Making and Understanding Stone Tools. Austin: University of Texas Press.
125. Whittaker, J. C. (2004) American Flintknappers: Stone Age Art in the Age of Computer. Austin: University of Texas Press.
126. Whittaker, J., & Stafford, M. (1999). Replicas, fakes, and art: the twentieth century stone age and its effects on archaeology. American Antiquity, 64, 203-214.
127. Winfrey, J. (1990). An event tree analysis of Folsom point failure. Plains Anthropologist, 35, 263-272.
128. Winterhalder, B. (1980). Optimal foraging strategies and hunter-gatherer research in Anthropology: theory and Models. In B. Winterhalder & E. Smith (Eds.) Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Strategies (pp. 13-35). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
129. Wood, D., Brunner, S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 66, 181-191.
130. Wynn, T. (1993). Layers of thinking in tool behaviour. In K. R. Gibson & T. Ingold (Eds.) Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution (pp. 429-445). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
131. Young, D. E., & Bonnichsen, R. (1984). Understanding Stone Tools: A Cognitive Approach. Maine: Centre for the study of Early Man.