Archaeology and Apprenticeship: Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice

1. Archaeology and Apprenticeship: Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice

1 CHAPTER ONE Archaeology and Apprenticeship Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice Willeke Wendrich As archaeologists, we study material remains to pronounce upon a wide range of immaterial aspects, from cultural identity to the internal and external dynamics of sociocultural groups. The profession has developed from a simplistic equation of material culture with “a” culture (“a pot is a people”) to understanding cultural and individual identity as a fluid and context-dependent human trait. Explicating how and why material culture has a close relation with identity in the broadest sense of the word brings us to study the sharing of characteristic material features based on a shared understanding, a tradition, born from a degree of stability that results in recognizable material patterns (Costin 1998). The relative stability of these patterns is dependent on the transfer of knowledge from one person to the other, and from one generation to the next. Defining how and why this knowledge transfer occurs, and how we can recognize it in our archaeological material, is a definite aid in developing a deeper understanding not only of the types of and motives for knowledge transfer but also of the relation between material traces and what they tell us about individuals, groups, and generations. 2 Archaeology and Apprenticeship Very limited explicit attention has been paid to the transfer of knowledge in archaeology. An excellent contribution was the special edition of the Journal of Anthropological Research (2001), edited by Jill Minar and Patricia Crown, dedicated to learning. Many of their contributors’ articles are cited by authors contributing to this volume. A resurgence of interest in the subject is exemplified by a recent volume on cultural transmission (Stark et al. 2008). Anthropological and sociological interest in the subject of learning and apprenticeship is more ubiquitous, sometimes involving a lengthy apprenticeship of the researcher (Keller and Dixon Keller 1996; Marchand 2001, 2008) and descriptions of theory and method (Coy 1989), and recently has been explicitly related to present-day educational practices or concerns (Blackmore 2010; Brown et al. 1989; Hara 2009; Lave 1988; Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998; Wenger et al. 2009). Archaeology and Apprenticeship considers various aspects of knowledge transfer: from the types and functions of knowledge to the methods of acquiring skill, experience, and the right attitude. The volume brings together authors who study knowledge transfer in a variety of cultures, ancient and modern, with the purpose to understand the domains that are directly or indirectly influencing and influenced by learning. Whether an approach to understanding teaching and learning is mostly psychological , sociological, economic, or symbolic, the transfer of knowledge implies change, and this enables us to observe the processes and relations involved. A session at the meeting of the Society of American Archaeologists in 2005 brought most of the authors together. When it was decided to bundle the contributions in a publication, interest in contributing was expressed by several scholars who could not participate in the meeting but whose research is directly relevant to the subject and provides augmenting angles (chapters 4 and 5). The volume is organized according to five broad and overlapping themes. Chapters 2–4 emphasize the social context of learning and the agency of the producers, mostly based on French traditions in social theory. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on landscape, the natural environment, and aspects of learning. Chapters 7–10 and 13 discuss the identification of traces of apprenticeship in the archaeological record. Chapter 11 outlines types of learning, while chapter 12 explores types of practical learning and the language used in apprenticeship from a perspective prevalent in Scandinavian scholarship. Chapter 13 provides concluding remarks. Some Basic Concepts and Questions Apprenticeship is broadly defined as the transmission of culture through a formal or informal teacher–pupil relation, as individuals or groups. The Body Knowledge, Identity, and Communities of Practice 3 major purposes are the development of dexterity, skill, endurance, memory , consideration, and properness, while gaining knowledge, inspiration, and/or motivation. Dexterity is defined as the physical ability to perform a required action. Skill, then, is the ability to perform the proper action in the proper sequence at the proper time, following an internalized set of rules of “how things are done.” Skill involves the right conduct of movements , timing, and organization. Endurance is the capability to perform a particular action for the required length of time, or the number of repetitions needed to finish a product or a workday...