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The contributions to this volume are introduced via a critical review of terms and concepts used in craft production studies today. Recent detailed contextual and technological analyses of artifacts from all aspects of complex societies have revealed interesting patterns that are difficult to conceptualize using a purely economic framework.
List of contents
1. "Specialized" Production in Archaeological Contexts: Rethinking Specialization, the Social Value of Products, and the Practice of Production (Rowan K. Flad and Zachary X. Hruby). 2. In Craft Specialization's Penumbra: Things, Persons, Action, Value, and Surplus (John E. Clark). 3. Associations and Ideologies in the Locations of Urban Craft Production at Harappa, Pakistan (Indus Civilization) (Heather M.-L. Miller). 4. Context and Meaning in Late Neolithic Lithic Production in China: The Longshan Period in Southeastern Shandong Province (Gwen P. Bennett). 5. Ritualized Chipped-Stone Production at Piedras Negras, Guatemala (Zachary X. Hruby). 6. The Theatrics of Technology: Consuming Obsidian in the Early Cycladic Burial Arena (Tristan Carter). 7. Rethinking the Context of Production through an Archaeological Study of Ancient Salt Production in the Sichuan Basin, China (Rowan K. Flad). 8. Knowledge and Belief in Artistic Production by Classic Maya Elites (Takeshi Inomata). 9. Thinking about Production: Phenomenological Classification and Lexical Semantics (Cathy Lynne Costin). 10. Production as Social Process (Julia A. Hendon). 11. Specialization, Context of Production, and Alienation in the Production Process: Comments and Afterthoughts (Yung-ti Li). 12. On "Rethinking" Craft Specialization: Responses by the Authors (Zachary X. Hruby, Rowan K. Flad, John E. Clark, Takeshi Inomata, and Heather M.-L. Miller). List of Contributors.
About the author
Zachary X. Hruby, Ph.D., is lecturer and research affiliate at the University of California Riverside. He received his undergraduate degree from Humboldt State University, his M.A. from Brigham Young University, and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Riverside. He specializes in lithic technology, ancient Maya writing, Mesoamerican iconography, social and economic theory, and desert archaeology of southern California. Rowan K. Flad is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from the Interdisciplinary Program in Archaeology at UCLA in 2004. His research concerns the emergence of complex societies in East Asia and his fieldwork focuses on the Three Gorges and Sichuan Basin of southwestern China.
Summary
The contributions to this volume are introduced via a critical review of terms and concepts used in craft production studies today. Recent detailed contextual and technological analyses of artifacts from all aspects of complex societies have revealed interesting patterns that are difficult to conceptualize using a purely economic framework.
