Social Complexity as a Multi-Scalar Concept: Pottery Technologies, ‘Communities of Practice’ and the Bell Beaker Phenomenon

Kohring, Sheila

doi:10.1080/00293652.2011.629811

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…This suggests that children’s contributions to decorative repertoires were encouraged and valued. A fired and decorated pot becomes integrated into the community through its use, and any visual or other meanings and ideologies attached to it (Kohring 2011). The artistic efforts of children would have been as visible and integral to the community as that of adults.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young Hands at Work. Using Finger Impressions to Explore the Demographic Constitution of Early and Middle Bronze Age Pottery‐making Communities of Practice

Laing

2022

Oxford J Archaeology

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Summary Fingertip impressions preserved in the surface of clay artefacts can provide demographic details about the people who manufactured and decorated pottery vessels, and by extension allow exploration of the composition of communities of practice engaged in pottery manufacture. This paper describes the development of a method of measurement and analysis of fingertip impressions which were sometimes used as decorative motifs on pot surfaces. The technique can be applied to pottery from across archaeological periods; however, the research presented here focusses on communities of practice among Early and Middle Bronze Age potters of eastern England, and assessing their demographic make‐up through analysis of fingertip impressions. The preserved fingertip impressions reveal potting communities comprised children and women, but adult men were seemingly excluded, and suggest a connection between craft activity, age and sex.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young Hands at Work. Using Finger Impressions to Explore the Demographic Constitution of Early and Middle Bronze Age Pottery‐making Communities of Practice

Laing

2022

Oxford J Archaeology

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“…Style horizons take form through a rapid process of horizontal cultural transmission that crosscuts local, regional, and interregional scales to form broad-scale communities of practice in the production of pottery (Cochrane 2004, 2008; Eckert et al 2015; Joyce 2012; Kohring 2011, 2012; Stark et al 2008; Willey 1991; Worth 2017). Communities of practice are bounded not by geography, but by shared knowledge in the production and reproduction of any cultural activity.…”

Section: Multiscalar Communities Of Practice and Mechanisms Of Horizomentioning

confidence: 99%

Pottery Trade and the Formation of Early and Middle Formative Style Horizons as Seen From Central Mexico

Stoner

Nichols

2019

Ancient Mesoam

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We explore the relationship between long-distance pottery trade and the formation of Early and Middle Formative style horizons in Mesoamerica. A sample of 1,154 ceramics mostly from Early and Middle Formative contexts in the central Mexican highlands was irradiated at the University of Missouri Research Reactor with a subsample (n = 313) for petrographic analysis. We conclude that: (1) most sites and regions display more than one process for making pottery; (2) there is a small amount of intraregional exchange among central Mexican sites, with the southeastern Basin of Mexico making the largest portion of pottery intended for trade within the region; and (3) interregional imports found at several sites likely come from the metamorphic region of southwestern Puebla with smaller numbers imported from the southern Gulf Coast, Morelos, and possibly Oaxaca. The trend over time from Early Formative to the end of the Middle Formative is one of decreasing intensity of long-distance interaction and decreasing geographic range of trade. These two trends contribute to the regional divergence of ceramic styles that peaks by the Late Formative in Mesoamerica.

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“…Over the past 25 years, key aspects of the above view on social complexity have been subject, from different perspectives, to both internal and external criticism and reformulation (e.g., Barrientos 2004;Barton 2014;Chapman 2003;Crumley 1995;DeMarrais and Earle 2017;Fitzhugh 2003;Furholt et al 2020;Kohring 2011;Kohring and Wynne-Jones 2007;McGuire and Saitta 1996;McIntosh 1999). As a result, different approaches to the problem of social complexity currently coexist, influenced by ideas from disciplinary fields as diverse as political economy, sociology, computer science, complex systems theory, evolutionary ecology, theoretical/evolutionary biology, philosophy of biology, and evolutionary anthropology.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For this, we start from a set of principles that can be summarized as follows: (1) complexity is not an exclusive property of particular human societies (i.e., those having large and dense populations, horizontal or vertical hierarchical organization, deep institutionalized inequalities in terms of access to resources and power, multiple social and economic roles implying specialization and division of labor, large stable settlements, etc. ; Barton 2014;Callhoun 2002;Dallos 2013;Darvill 2008), but a quality of all animal societies because all of them are examples of natural (as opposed to artificial) complex adaptive systems or CAS 1 (in the sense of Gell-Mann 1994, 17) (e.g., Barrientos 2004;Barton 2014;Bernabeu Aubán et al 2013;Bonabeau 1998;Eidelson 1997;Ullah et al 2015); (2) complexity is a composite and decomposable phenomenon that varies across different dimensions and scales (Heylighen 1999;McShea 1996aMcShea , b, 1997Simon 1962) ; (3) complexity is not a threshold characteristic, but a scalar one (Fitzhugh 2003;Kohring 2011) susceptible of being measured on a more or less continuous way (Heylighen 1999;McShea 1991McShea , 1996aMcShea , 1997; (4) there is not a single form of system complexity but multiple variants or types, differentiated according to well-specified parameters (McShea 1996a(McShea , b, 1997; (5) each system, defined on a specific scale, can be-with respect to any other system-more complex in one or more dimensions and less complex in other(s) (McShea 1996a(McShea , b, 1997; (6) there is no "naturally" privileged dimension in or scale at which the complexity of a system can be assessed (McShea 1996a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the Complexity of Past Social Systems: a Task Analysis Approach to the Study of Late Prehistoric Monumentality in Iberia

Barrientos

Sanjuán

2020

J Archaeol Method Theory

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In this paper, we explore the heuristic potential of a set of ideas about the structural and functional complexity of systems, proposed in the 1990s by theoretical biologist Daniel McShea. In particular, we focus on the structural aspects of the complexity exhibited by social systems organized into low-and intermediate-level functional units (i.e., groups and teams). To address this subject, we describe a methodology suited for measuring the complexity in the organization of work in such systems, which is primarily based on hierarchical task analysis. With this methodology, we approach a concrete case study: the construction of megalithic monuments in late prehistoric Iberia (ca. 3800-1800 BC). On the basis of the analysis of the three best documented, most structurally, and functionally complex monuments built within each of the three periods under study (Late Neolithic, Copper Age, and Early Bronze Age), we found that there was a trend towards less complexity in work organization related to monument building from the Late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. We discuss the importance of these results in light of the existing models of social complexity in European Later Prehistory, concluding that a more balanced view of social processes would be obtained if we look at complexity as a property of every different social system integrated into the whole society, and not as an exclusive property of the latter.

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Social Complexity as a Multi-Scalar Concept: Pottery Technologies, ‘Communities of Practice’ and the Bell Beaker Phenomenon

Cited by 14 publications

References 18 publications

Young Hands at Work. Using Finger Impressions to Explore the Demographic Constitution of Early and Middle Bronze Age Pottery‐making Communities of Practice

Young Hands at Work. Using Finger Impressions to Explore the Demographic Constitution of Early and Middle Bronze Age Pottery‐making Communities of Practice

Pottery Trade and the Formation of Early and Middle Formative Style Horizons as Seen From Central Mexico

Measuring the Complexity of Past Social Systems: a Task Analysis Approach to the Study of Late Prehistoric Monumentality in Iberia

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