Craft specialization. The concept sounds easy enough; you can easily imagine people sitting around a campfire doing cross-stitch, can't you? But in reality, craft specialization is a cornerstone, or perhaps rather a keystone, on which civilizations are built.
Somewhat over-simply, archaeologists believe that hunter-gatherer societies were primarily egalitarian, in that most everyone did most everything. A recent study on modern hunter-gatherers suggests that, at least in that case, even though a small portion of the community group goes out to do the hunting for the whole, when they return, they pass the knowledge on, so that everyone in the community understands how to hunt. Makes sense--should something happen to the hunters, unless the hunting process is understood by everyone, the community starves. In this way, knowledge is shared by everyone in the community and no one is indispensible.
What Do We Do Now?
As a society grows in population and
complexity, however, at some point certain kinds of tasks became overtly time-consuming, and theoretically anyway, someone who is particularly skilled at a task gets selected to do that task for his or her family group, clan, or community. For example, someone who is good at making
spearpoints or ceramic vessels is selected, in some process unknown to us, to dedicate their time to the production of these items.
Now the reason this is a keystone to civilization is relatively complex, even for this simplistic explanation. First, someone who spends their time making pots may not be able to spend time producing food for her family. Somehow the potter must eat; perhaps a system of barter is created to make it possible for the craft specialist to continue. Secondly, specialized information must be passed on in some way, and generally protected. Specialized information = educational process of some kind. Finally, since not every one does exactly the same work or has the same lifeways, ranking or class systems might develop out of such a situation.
Identifying Craft Specialization Archaeologically
Archaeologically, evidence of craft specialists is suggested by differential concentrations of certain types of artifacts in certain sections of communities. In other words, an archaeologist might discover that in a given community, one house or section accounts for most of the broken and worked shell fragments, while at the same time, complete shell tools are found in other places. Identification of craft specialists at work is sometimes suggested by archaeologists from a perceived similarity in a certain class of artifacts. So, if ceramic vessels found in a community are pretty much the same size, with the same or similar markings or design details, that may be evidence that they are all made by the same small number of individuals.
Some Recent Examples of Craft Specialization
- Cathy Costin's research using examinations of design elements to identify how craft specialization worked among Inka groups in 15th and 16th century AD Peru [Costin, Cathy L. and Melissa B. Hagstrum 1995 Standardization, labor investment, skill, and the organization of ceramic production in late prehispanic highland Peru. American Antiquity 60(4):619-639.]
- Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth of Indiana University continue experimental replication of craft technology at the Stone Age Institute.
- Kazuo Aoyama discusses the Aguateca site in Guatemala, where an attack of the Classic Maya center preserved evidence of specialized bone or shell working.
On
page two, I've assembled a bibliography for those who wish to probe farther.
For more studies in core concepts to civilization see
Characteristics of Ancient Civilizations.
| 