Learning and Craft Production: An Introduction

Abstract

Understanding the process by which technological skills are learned provides a means of recognizing the result of manufacturing activities by different segments of a society. It may also provide useful clues to social organization and even the recognition of group interactions. Understanding how the producers of material culture become who they are may help anthropologists understand continuity and change in material culture. Various, sometimes conflicting, theories about the process of learning combined with ethnoarchaeological and experimental approaches are used to explore some specific cases in which learning appears to affect the production and distribution of material culture attributes.