Cover not available
Article published In:
Creativity, Cognition and Material Culture
Edited by Lambros Malafouris, Chris Gosden and Karenleigh A. Overmann
[Pragmatics & Cognition 22:1] 2014
► pp. 64–92

A developmental approach to ancient innovation

The potter’s wheel in the Bronze Age east Mediterranean

| University of Toronto
| Arizona State University

In this paper, we view creativity through the lens of innovation, a concept familiar to archaeologists across a range of contexts and theoretical perspectives. Most attempts to understand ancient innovation thus far, we argue, have been limited by their lack of capacity to cope with the multiple scales of innovation: Those that track widespread changes, like the beginnings of metallurgy, fail to account for the changes experiences by individual craftspeople; those that do justice to the details of the micro-scale, with ‘thick’ description, cannot well explain the regional adoption of new practices. Here we develop an intermediary position, at the meso-scale, which we hope can serve to integrate these different scales. It is based on the notions that all innovation entails learning (and hence cognitive transformations) and that learning is very often supported at this meso-scale, through ‘communities of practice’. Drawing on the ethno-archaeological literature in particular, we emphasise how learning is a process of embodied cognition. Our archaeological case study is then drawn from the Bronze Age east Mediterranean, where a striking innovation in pottery making — the use of rotative kinetic energy via the potter’s wheel — sees a very uneven uptake from region to region over the course of many centuries. We propose certain differences in community organization from one region to another that might account for such variation in the adoption of an innovation, with the island of Crete in particular seeing a much more stable trajectory of adoption than many of its neighbouring areas.

Keywords: Bronze Age, rotative kinetic energy, Potter’s wheel, innovation, invention, creativity, novelty
Published online: 10 December 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.22.1.04kna
References
Amin, A. and Cohendet, P
2004 Architectures of Knowledge: Firms, Capabilities and Communities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arthur, W.B
2009 The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O
2005 “Guest editorial: East to west—Agricultural origins and dispersal into Europe”. Current Anthropology 45(S4): S1–S3. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barnett, H.G., Broom, L., Siegel, B., Vogt, E. and Watson, J
1954 “Acculturation: An exploratory formulation”. American Anthropologist 56(6): 973–1002. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barth, F
1969 Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Bauer, A.A. and Agbe-Davies, A.S
2010 “Trade and interaction in archaeology”. In Bauer, A.A. and Agbe-Davies, A.S. (eds), Social Archaeologies of Trade and Exchange: Exploring Relationships among People, Places, and Things. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 29–47.Google Scholar
Bentley, R.A., Hahn, M.W. and Shennan, S.J
2004 “Random drift and culture change”. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences 271(1547): 1443–1450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berry, J.W
1980 “Acculturation as varieties of adaptation”. In Padilla, A.M. (ed.), Acculturation: Theory, Models and Some New Findings. Boulder: Westview Press, 9–25.Google Scholar
1983 “Acculturation: a comparative analysis of alternative forms”. In Samuda, R.J. and Woods, S.L. (eds), Perspectives in Immigrant and Minority Education. New York: University Press of America, 65–78.Google Scholar
Bettencourt, L.M.A., Lobo, J., Helbing, D., Kühnert, C. and West, G.B
2007 “Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(17): 7301–7306. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boileau, M.-C
2005 Production et distribution des céramiques au IIIième millénaire en Syrie du Nord-Est. Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de L’Homme.Google Scholar
Borgerhoff Mulder, M., Nunn, C.L. and Towner, M.C
2006 “Cultural macroevolution and the transmission of traits”. Evolutionary Anthropology 15(2): 52–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boyd, R. and Richerson, P.J
1985 Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P
1991 “Organisational learning and communities of practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning and innovation”. Organisation Science 2(1): 40–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000 The Social Life of Information. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Childe, V.G
1925 The Dawn of European Civilisation. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Collard, M., Shennan, S.J. and Tehrani, J.J
2006 “Branching, blending, and the evolution of cultural similarities and differences among human populations”. Evolution and Human Behaviour 27(3): 169–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Collard, M. and Shennan, S.J
2008 “Patterns, processes, and parsimony: studying cultural evolution with analytical techniques from evolutionary biology”. In Stark, M.T., Bowser, B.J. and Horne, L. (eds), Cultural Transmission and Material Culture: Breaking Down Boundaries. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 17–33.Google Scholar
Coward, F., Shennan, S., Colledge, S., Conolly, J. and Collard, M
2008 “The spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to Northwest Europe: A phylogenetic analysis”. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(1): 42–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crown, P.L
2001 “Learning to make pottery in the Prehispanic American Southwest”. Journal of Anthropological Research 57(4): 451–469. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Day, P., Relaki, M. and Faber, E
2006 “Pottery making and social reproduction in Bronze Age Mesara”. In Wiener, M.H., Warner, J.L., Polonsky, J. and Hayes, E.E. (eds), Pottery and Society. The Impact of Recent Studies in Minoan Pottery. Gold Medal Colloquium in Honor of Philip P. Betancourt. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America, 22–72.Google Scholar
DeBresson, C
1999 “An entrepreneur cannot innovate alone: Networks of enterprise are required”. Proceedings of the Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics (DRUID) Summer Conference on National Innovation Systems, Industrial Dynamics and Innovation Policy, Rebild, Denmark, 9–12 June 1999. Aalborg, Denmark: DRUID.
Driessen, J
2010 “Spirit of place: Minoan houses as major actors”. In Pullen, D.J. (ed.), Political Economies of the Aegean Bronze Age. Papers from the Langford Conference, Florida State University, Tallahassee, 22–24 February 2007. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 35–65.Google Scholar
Ferrari, D., Read, D. and van der Leeuw, S.E
2009 “An agent-based model of information flows in social dynamics”. In Lane, D., van der Leeuw, S.E., Pumain, D. and West, G. (eds), Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change. Berlin: Springer, 389–412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Florida, R
2008 Who’s Your City? How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gosselain, O.P
1998 “Social and technical identity in a clay crystal ball”. In Stark, M.T. (ed.), The Archaeology of Social Boundaries. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 78–106.Google Scholar
2000 “Materialising identities: An African perspective”. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 7(3): 187–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 “Mother Bella was not a Bella: Inherited and transformed traditions in Southwestern Niger”. In Stark, M.T., Bowser, B.J. and Horne, L. (eds), Cultural Transmission and Material Culture: Breaking Down Boundaries . Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 150–177.Google Scholar
Gosselain, O.P., Zeebroek, R. and Decroly, J.-M
2009 “Les tribulations d’une casserole chinoise au Niger”. Techniques et Culture 511: 18–49. DOI:
https://doi.org/
 DOI: DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gray, R.D., Bryant, D. and Greenhill, S.J
2010 “On the shape and fabric of human history”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences 365(1559): 3923–3933. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hanks, W.F. and Severi, C
2014 “Translating worlds: The epistemological space of translation”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 4(2): 1–16. DOI:
https://doi.org/
 DOI: DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hegmon, M
2003 “Setting theoretical egos aside: Issues and theory in North American archaeology”. American Antiquity 68(2): 213–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Howells, J
2006 “Intermediation and the role of intermediaries in innovation”. Research Policy 35(5): 715–728. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jeffra, C
2013 “A re-examination of early wheel potting in Crete”. Annual of the British School at Athens 1081: 31–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kardulias, P.N. and Hall, T.D
2008 “Archaeology and world systems analysis”. World Archaeology 40(4): 572–583. DOI:
https://doi.org/
 DOI: DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keller, C.M. and Keller, J.D
1996 Cognition and Tool Use: The Blacksmith at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Klein, R.G
2008 “Out of Africa and the evolution of human behavior”. Evolutionary Anthropology 17(6): 267–281. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Knappett, C
1999 “Tradition and innovation in pottery forming technology: Wheel-throwing at Middle Minoan Knossos”. Annual of the British School at Athens 941: 101–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 “Technological innovation and social diversity at Middle Minoan Knossos”. In Cadogan, G., Hatzaki, E. and Vasilakis, A. (eds), Knossos: Palace, City, State. London: BSA Studies 121, 257–265.Google Scholar
Knappett, C. and Cunningham, T
2003 “Three Neopalatial deposits from Palaikastro, East Crete”. Annual of the British School at Athens 981: 107–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T.S
1977 The Essential Tension: Tradition and Innovation in Scientific Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lane, D.A., Maxfield, R., Read, D. and van der Leeuw, S.E
2009a “From population to organization thinking”. In Lane, D.A., van der Leeuw, S.E., Pumain, D. and West, G. (eds), Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change. Methodological Prospects in the Social Sciences, Vol. 71. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 11–41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lane, D.A., van der Leeuw, S.E., Pumain D. and West, G
(eds) 2009b Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change. Methodological Prospects in the Social Sciences, Vol. 71. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lave, J
1988 Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lave, J. and Wenger, E
1991 Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Layton, R
1989 “Pellaport”. In van der Leeuw, S.E. and Torrence, R. (eds), What’s New? A Closer Look at the Process of Innovation. London: Unwin Hyman, 33–53.Google Scholar
Lemonnier, P
(ed.) 1993 Technological Choices: Transformations in Material Culture Since the Neolithic. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lundvall, B.-A
(ed.) 1992 National Systems of Innovation: Towards a Theory of Innovation and Interactive Learning. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
Macdonald, C.F. and Knappett, C
2007 Knossos: Protopalatial Deposits from Early Magazine A and the Southwest Houses. London: BSA Supplementary Volume 411.Google Scholar
Martin, J.L
2009 Social Structures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mellars, P
2006 “Archaeology and the dispersal of modern humans in Europe: Deconstructing the ‘Aurignacian’”. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 15(5): 167–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Méry, S., McSweeney, K., van der Leeuw, S.E. and Al Tikriti, W.Y
2004 “New approaches to a collective grave from the Umm an Nahr period at Hili”. Paléorient 30(1): 163–178. DOI: [URL] DOI: DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Méry, S., Dupont-Delaleuf, A. and van der Leeuw, S.E
2010 “Analyse technologique et experimentations: Les techniques de façonnage céramique mettant en jeu la rotation à Hili (Émirats arabes unis) à la fin du IIIe millénaire (âge du Bronze ancien)”. Les Nouvelles de l’Archéologie 1191: 52–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mesoudi, A., Whiten, A. and Laland, K.N
Towards a unified science of cultural evolution”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 291: 329–383. DOI logo
Mische, A
2008 Partisan Publics: Communication and Contention across Brazilian Youth Activist Networks. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H
1995 The Knowledge-Creating Company: How the Japanese Companies Create the Dynamic of Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nooteboom, B
2000 Learning and Innovation in Organisations and Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
O’Brien, M.J. and Shennan, S
2010 “Issues in anthropological studies of innovation”. In O’Brien, M.J. and Shennan, S.J. (eds), Innovation in Cultural Systems: Contributions from Evolutionary Anthropology. Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 3–17.Google Scholar
Padgett, J.F. and Powell, W.W
2012 The Emergence of Organizations and Markets. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Papousek, D
1989 “Technological change as social rebellion”. In van der Leeuw, S.E. and Torrence, R. (eds), What’s New? A Closer Look at the Process of Innovation. London: Unwin Hyman, 140–166.Google Scholar
Poursat, J-C. and Knappett, C
2005 Le Quartier Mu IV. La poterie du Minoen Moyen II: Production et utilisation. Paris: Etudes Crétoises 33.Google Scholar
Ray, A.J
1974 Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Roles as Trappers, Hunters, and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660–1870. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Ray, A.J. and Freeman, D.B
1978 “Give us Good Measure”: An Economic Analysis of Relations Between the Indians and the Hudson’s Bay Company before 1763. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Redfield, R., Linton, R. and Herskovits, M.J
1936 “Memorandum for the study of acculturation”. American Anthropologist 38(1): 149–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Robb, J
2014 “Material culture, landscapes of action, and emergent causation: A new model for the origins of the European Neolithic”. Current Anthropology 54(6): 657–683. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, B
2009 “Production networks and consumer choice in the earliest metal of Western Europe”. Journal of World Prehistory 22(4): 461–481. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rogers, E.M
2003 Diffusion of Innovations. 5th ed. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Rogers, D.S. and Ehrlich, P.R
2008 “Natural selection and cultural rates of change”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(9): 3416–3420. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roux, V
2003 “A dynamic systems framework for studying technological change: Application to the emergence of the potter’s wheel in the southern Levant”. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 10(1): 1–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 “Technological innovations and developmental trajectories: Social factors as evolutionary forces”. In O’Brien, M.J. and Shennan, S.J. (eds), Innovation in Cultural Systems: Contributions from Evolutionary Anthropology. Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 217–234.Google Scholar
Roux, V. and Corbetta, D
1990 The Potter’s Wheel: Craft Specialisation and Technical Competence. New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing.Google Scholar
Roux, V. and Courty, M.-A
1998 “Identification of wheel-fashioning methods: Technological analysis of 4th–3rd millennium BC Oriental ceramics”. Journal of Archaeological Science 25(8): 747–763. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roux, V. and de Miroschedji, P
2009 “Revisiting the history of the potter’s wheel in the southern Levant”. Levant 41(2): 155–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rudmin, F.W
2003 “Catalogue of acculturation constructs: Descriptions of 126 taxonomies 1918–2003”. In Lonner, W.J., Dinnel, D.L., Hayes, S.A. and Sattler, D.N. (eds), Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, Unit 8, Chapter 8. Retrieved from [URL]Google Scholar
Schortman, E.M. and Urban, P.A
1987 “Modeling interregional interaction in prehistory”. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 111: 37–95. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shennan, S.J
2000 “Population, culture history, and the dynamics of culture change”. Current Anthropology 41(5): 811–835. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 Genes, Memes and Human History. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
O’Brien, M.J. and Shennan, S.J
2010 “Issues in anthropological studies of innovation”. In O’Brien, M.J. and Shennan, S.J. (eds), Innovation in Cultural Systems: Contributions from Evolutionary Anthropology. Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 3–17.Google Scholar
Squire, L.R
2004 “Memory systems of the brain: A brief history and current perspective”. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 82(3): 171–177. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stout, D
2002 “Skill and cognition in stone tool production: An ethnographic case study from Irian Jaya”. Current Anthropology 43(5): 693–722. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vallianou, X. and Padouva, M
1986 Ta Kritika aggeia tou 19ou kai 20ou aiona. Athens: Mouseio Kritikis Ethnologias.Google Scholar
van der Leeuw, S.E
1984 “Manufacture, trade and use of pottery on Negros, Philippines”. In Picton, J. (ed.), Earthenware in Asia and Africa: A Colloquy Held 21–23 June 1982. Colloquies on Art & Archaeology in Asia No. 12. London: University of London Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, 326–364.Google Scholar
1993 “Giving the potter a choice: Conceptual aspects of pottery techniques”. In Lemonnier, P. (ed.), Technological Choices: Transformations in Material Culture since the Neolithic. London: Routledge, 238–288.Google Scholar
1994 “The pottery from a Middle Uruk pit at Tepe Sharafabad, Iran: A technological study”. In Binder, D. and Courtin, J. (eds), Terre Cuite et Société: La Céramique, Document Technique, Économique, Culturel. Actes des XIVe Rencontres Internationales d’Archéologie et d’Histoire d’Antibes. Juan les Pins, France: Editions APDCA, 269–301.Google Scholar
2008 “Agency, networks, past and future”. In Knappett, C. and Malafouris, L. (eds), Material Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach. New York: Springer, 217–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van der Leeuw, S.E. and Papousek, D.A
1992 “Tradition and innovation”. In Audouze, F., Gallay, A. and Roux, V. (eds), Ethnoarchéologie: Justification, problèmes, limites. Antibes, France: Editions APDCA, 135–158.Google Scholar
van der Leeuw, S.E. and Torrence, R
(eds) 1989 What’s New? A Closer Look at the Process of Innovation. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Wallaert, H
2008 “The way of the potter’s mother: Apprenticeship strategies among Dii potters from Cameron, West Africa”. In Stark, M.T., Bowser, B.J. and Horne, L. (eds), Cultural Transmission and Material Culture: Breaking Down Boundaries. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 178–198.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, I
1976 The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Warnier, J.-P
2007 The Pot-King: The Body, Material Culture and Technologies of Power. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “Les technologies du sujet: Une approche ethno-philosophique”. Techniques et Culture 52–531: 148–167. DOI:
https://doi.org/
 DOI: DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wendrich, W
2012 “Archaeology and apprenticeship: Body knowledge, identity, and communities of practice”. In Wendrich, W. (ed.), Archaeology and Apprenticeship: Body Knowledge, Identity and Communities of Practice. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1–19.Google Scholar
Wenger, E
1998 Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, A
2008 “The making and unmaking of ethnic boundaries: A multi-level process theory”. American Journal of Sociology 113(4): 970–1022. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, W.C. and Griesemer, J
2007 “Reproducing entrenchments to scaffold culture: The central role of development in cultural evolution”. In Sansom, R. and Brandon, R. (eds), Integrating Evolution and Development: From Theory to Practice. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 227–323.Google Scholar
Winch, G.M. and Courtney, R
2007 “The organization of innovation brokers: An international review”. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management 19(6): 747–763. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 10 other publications

Abell, Natalie
2020. Rethinking Household-Based Production at Ayia Irini, Kea: An Examination of Technology and Organization in a Bronze Age Community of Practice. American Journal of Archaeology 124:3 ► pp. 381 ff. DOI logo
Choleva, Maria
2020. TRAVELLING WITH THE POTTER'S WHEEL IN THE EARLY BRONZE AGE AEGEAN. The Annual of the British School at Athens 115 ► pp. 59 ff. DOI logo
Diachenko, Aleksandr, Ray John Rivers & Iwona Sobkowiak-Tabaka
2023. Convergent Evolution of Prehistoric Technologies: the Entropy and Diversity of Limited Solutions. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 30:4 ► pp. 1168 ff. DOI logo
Hutchence, Laurie & Christopher Scott
2021. Is Acheulean Handaxe Shape the Result of Imposed ‘Mental Templates’ or Emergent in Manufacture? Dissolving the Dichotomy through Exploring ‘Communities of Practice’ at Boxgrove, UK. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 31:4 ► pp. 675 ff. DOI logo
Knappett, Carl
2020. Aegean Bronze Age Art, DOI logo
Knappett, Carl
2021. The emergence of infrastructure in later prehistory: technique, wonder, and convergence. World Archaeology 53:1 ► pp. 78 ff. DOI logo
Lawall, Mark L.
2021. Aegean Transport Amphoras (Sixth to First Centuries BCE): Exploring Social Tension in a Path Dependency Model. In The Critique of Archaeological Economy [Frontiers in Economic History, ], ► pp. 205 ff. DOI logo
Lorenzon, Marta
2023. Earthen Architecture as a Community of Practice: A Case Study of Neolithic Earthen Production in the Eastern Mediterranean. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 33:4 ► pp. 601 ff. DOI logo
Moffett, Abigail J., Simon Hall & Shadreck Chirikure
2020. Crafting power: New perspectives on the political economy of southern Africa, AD 900–1300. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 59 ► pp. 101180 ff. DOI logo
Thér, Richard & Tomáš Mangel
2024. Introduction of the potter’s wheel as a reflection of social and economic changes during the La Tène period in Central Europe. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 16:1 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.