Social Learning Frameworks
Annotated Bibliography
Hill, James N.
1970 Broken K Pueblo Prehistoric Social Organization in the American Southwest. Tucson: University of Arizona Press
This case study is a follow up to, Archaeology as Anthropology (Longacre). Here Hill looks at the social organization of a prehistoric Pueblo community in the Southwest. His focus on community activities, their patterning and the subsequent changes in organization was revolutionary when this published. Hill notes that at the time of publishing there had not been much attention paid to the processes that resulted in change and variability in social systems, and he attempted to change that by looking this prehistoric Pueblo community in evolutionary and functional terms. Hill and Longacre provide some of the earliest work done with ceramic sociology.
Stark, Miriam T., and James M. Skibo
2007 A history of the Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project. In Archaeological Anthropology Perspectives on Method and Theory. James M. Skibo, Michael W. Graves, and Miriam T. Stark, eds. Pp 93-110. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
The Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project (KEP) was started by William A. Longacre, and is one of the longest running ethnoarchaeological projects in the world. Longacre was the pioneer of the ceramic sociology tradition, and focused it in the Southwest and at the KEP. Longacre focused on ceramic ethnoarchaeological research that centered on how the intergenerational transmission of style can be seen through ceramic decoration. However, at the KEP Longacre discovered that the learning frameworks were more complex than he and other ceramic sociologists thought. The findings of the KEP have been an integral part of shaping how we examine ceramics and their implications on their makers.
Wenger, Etienne
1998 Communities of Practice:Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.
In this book Wegner uses social learning theory to redefine learning theory, calling it communities of practice. Community of practice refers to a group of people who share an interest in an activity and interact regularly with one another as they learn how to perform that activity better. This type of social learning declares, “engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we learn and so become who we are”. Though his work is most often seen in sociological texts, his work on communities of practice can be seen in new ceramic archaeological theories. His theory on learning helps us to understand ways that artisans work together to come up with new styles and technology.
Crown, Patricia L.
1999 Socialization in American Southwest pottery decoration. In Pottery and People a Dynamic Interaction. James M. Skibo and Gary M. Feinman, eds. Pp 25-43. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
This represents a pilot study undertaken by Crown, with the goal of testing a method to would determine the age in which children began to learn how to decorate pottery. Her study focused on Hohokam, Mimbres, and Salado vessels. By discovering the age in which different Puebloan groups began learning how to decorate pottery, the archaeologist is more able to determine their role in the archaeological record. Also, the age of this interaction illuminates the relationship between the socialization of pottery production and the organization of production. Crown found that different groups began learning how to decorate at different ages.
J., O'Brien, Michael.
2005 Archaeology as a Process: Processualism and Its Progeny. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
This text recounts the development of processual archaeological theory and presents a model that shows how archaeological theory has developed since the 1960’s. The authors focus on the debates and methodology of this time period, chronicling events and their own involvement. By focusing on the cultural and material processes of archaeology the authors are able to discuss the many divergent interest that span the field, and how current theories have developed from those in the past.
Crown, Patricia
2007 Learning about learning. In Archaeological Anthropology Perspectives on Method and Theory. James M. Skibo, Michael W. Graves, and Miriam T. Stark, eds. Pp 198-217. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
In this chapter of Archaeological Anthropology Perspectives on Method and Theory, Crown explores the social context of learning. Utilizing ethnographic and historic evidence, Crown delves into the mechanics of learning, which she describes as having been ignored in archaeology. Crown also looks at learning frameworks and how different patterns of change in ceramic style can result from the employment of different learning frameworks. Using a previous Southwest case study on Salado polychrome pottery, Crown presents an argument on how to identify pottery created by unskilled individuals vs. children, and the implications this would have in the changes in style.
Stark, M.T.
2006 Glaze ware technology. the social lives of pots, and communities of practice in the late prehistoric southwest. In Social Lives of Pots. Judith A. Habicht-Mauche, Suzanne L. Eckert, and Deborah L. Huntley, eds. Pp 17-33. Tucson: University of Arizona Press
In this selection Stark presents the term, communities of practice, applied to the field of archaeology. She explores the scale on which this term can be applied, as it cannot be described in social units like village or communities. Using ethnographically identified communities of practice, Stark argues that learned traditions can stretch over several villages, as the same artistic technological traditions can appear in different locations. In response to this, Stark suggests the term local system, as it can refer to several “residential clusters whose occupants share some practices” with others in those clusters. Stark uses this new understanding of the scale of application for communities of practice in order to better understand the southwest glaze wares and their producers.
Crown, Patricia L.
2002 Learning and teaching in the prehispanic American Southwest. In Children in the Prehistoric Puebloan Southwest. Kathryn A. Kamp, ed. Pp 108-124. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
In this chapter Patricia Crown explores the spread of cultural traditions through ceramic behavior and production. She discusses the way in which knowledge of certain activities and tasks are transmitted to the children who perform them. The learning frameworks involved in teaching ceramics vary throughout time and location in the Southwest. Several reasons as to why children are performing these adult tasks are seen through analysis of ethnographic studies. These studies show that work keeps children busy and out of trouble, employing the children can increase adult productivity, and these tasks provide children with opportunities “to learn in the context of doing”. She concludes that varying time periods, ware type, and cultural region resulted in variability of the teaching of craft skills.
Kamp, Kathryn A.
2002 Working for a living: childhood in the prehistoric Southwestern pueblos." In Children in the prehistoric Puebloan Southwest. Kathryn A. Kamp, ed. Pp 71-89. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Kamp utilizes ethnographic data to argue for the importance of children in the prehistoric economy. In previous archaeological reconstructions children are ignored or depicted as burdens and a drain on a community’s resources. Using archaeological evidence from Singua, Kamp demonstrates that children can produce ceramics from early ages. She argues that children begin making clay figurines and small vessels, and that this can be seen in the archaeological record through fingerprints left in the clay. This chapter provides excellent support for the need to include children in the archaeological process, as they can make up a viable portion of the ceramic manufacturing force.
Bagwell, Elizabeth A.
2002 Ceramic form and skill: attempting to identify child producers at Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico.In Children in the prehistoric Puebloan Southwest. Kathryn A. Kamp, ed. Pp 90- 107. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Here Bagwell introduces a technique to quantify the qualities used to identify skill in ceramics, with a focus on the ability of children to form vessels. This technique focuses on the motor skills obtained with regular practice of the activity, and through cognitive brain development that changes with age. Bagwell shows that archaeologists can determine the minimum age of the vessel manufacturer, as children are capable of different aspects of the vessel forming process during different cognitive developmental stages. She combined this data with the fact that as children have more practice in making vessels, those vessels will become more homogeneous in form. Through application of this technique to the Pecos Pueblo collection, Bagwell has shown how it can be applied when identifying the level of expertise of the vessel form manufacture.
