The IKTINIA project will be present at the 32^nd EAA Annual Meeting held in Athens from 26 to 29 August. Our session looks at both practical and theoretical aspects of knowledge transfer across various crafts, including architecture. See this page for the full book of abstracts.

Session title

Knowledge Transfer in Crafts in the Ancient Mediterranean: Practice, Theory, and Contexts (#227)

Organizers

Jean Vanden Broeck-Parant (UCLouvain) – Ann Brysbaert (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) – Alexis Gorgues (Université Bordeaux Montaigne | CNRS UMR 5607 Ausonius) – Helle Hochscheid (University College Roosevelt | Utrecht University)

Session abstract

This session looks at the practical and theoretical aspects of knowledge transfer in crafts in the Ancient Mediterranean (2nd-1st millenia BCE), considered at various scales of analysis, from cross-cultural exchanges to apprenticeship within communities and families. The social, political, and economic contexts are addressed as factors both enabling and constraining human agency, in order to shed light on the processes by which forms, skills and techniques can be adopted and adapted by new users. Approaches such as labour costs or social network analysis help model raw data, allowing to conceptualize knowledge transfer at the stages of production, distribution, and consumption, or at any stages of the chaîne opératoire. In doing so, salient aspects of knowledge transfer can be highlighted for a specific class of material culture, as well as practices common to different types of production. This is achieved by considering a wide variety of crafts such as sculpture, ceramics, architecture, metalwork, textile and fiber art, etc. Overall, knowledge transfer is regarded as a fundamental aspect of human lives (past and present), both shaped by and shaping social interactions and structures. We welcome contributions dealing with the following themes, to the exclusion of funerary contexts:

• Theoretical approaches to studying the transfer of knowledge across crafts
• Spatial, temporal and socio-economic contexts of
  knowledge transfer
• Cognitive, behavioural and cultural aspects underlying such processes
• Methodological tools and concepts to identify, collect, refine and interpret relevant data in the archaeological record

We particularly encourage papers with innovative approaches to these questions and/or addressing types of crafts and contexts that have traditionally been less studied under these lenses. Through the discussions, we aim to identify current and future lines of research that can reinforce the dialogue between crafts, periods and regions of the Mediterranean within the field of knowledge transfer studies.

Programme

14:00 Introduction

14:15 Analysing Movement and Touch in Knowledge Transfer
Willeke Wendrich (Polytechnic University Turin | University of California)

14:30 Practice, execution, implementation – what we can learn from handling textiles and clay, based (mostly) on evidence from the Aegean
Agata Ulanowska – Monika Kaczmarek (Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw) – Magdalena Przymorska-Sztuczka (Archaeological Museum in Biskupin) – Kinga Winnicka – Katarzyna Żebrowska (Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw)

14:45 Peopling the Past: Crafting Textile Communities of Practice in the Late Bronze Age Aegean
Jennifer Marks (Johns Hopkins University)

15:00 Networks of practice: knowledge transfer and the diffusion of innovations in ancient Greek monumental construction (4th century BCE)
Jean Vanden Broeck-Parant (Université catholique de Louvain)