Recovering and Re-Discovering Craft
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Recovering and Re-Discovering Craft Pamela B. Vandiver Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education 4210 Silver Hill Road, Suitland, MD 20746 ABSTRACT Many studies have shown that craft involves know-how, practice and problem solving that represents activities that can be recovered by study of various artifact assemblages and contexts within archaeological sites. The types of conclusions differ with nature of the research question, sample size and its variability, methods of study and organization of collecting in the field, as well as the results of areal study: ethnographic information, resource survey and landscape reconstruction. Questions generated through analysis of materials, processes and properties often generate questions that can only be answered by replicative experiments of all aspects of a chaine operatoire, only part of it or only those critical aspects about which questions remain. The integration of the laboratory/workshop results with the archaeological evidence, both objects and context, can lead to a re-discovery of craft. The conjectured details of materials composition and structure, sequence of processing, properties, performance or use essentially reverse engineer the typical way that modern materials research is conducted. This paper aims at developing a widening dialogue about craft know-how among materials scientists working in museums and artist-craftsmen. To learn about our history and the human condition is not just to analyze and preserve the objects and artifacts, but also to investigate and understand the knowledge and skills used to produce and use them-- essentially this is the preservation of intangible cultural heritage and culture history. INTRODUCTION Cyril Stanley Smith and W. David Kingery, pioneers in study of both modern and ancient materials research, both believed that the study of the structural and micro-compositional variation in objects, and the reconstruction of their materials and processes of manufacture, would lead to a critical understanding of the role of materials development in human history [1]. Technological know-how and technological insight is being recognized as an intangible cultural heritage, and recovery and continuation of traditional craft know-how is being funded by cultural agencies like the United Nations Educations, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the same way that traditional music and dance is being preserved. Such recognition has been slow to develop as a priority for they very reason that such knowledge exists only in practice that is beyond site, architecture and artifact. It resides in an individual as a respected and sanctioned master, a cultural treasure limited to a single life span, and only rarely in the modern era are such traditions concentrated in and continued by a family, work community or village. Usually the intellectual communities of archaeologists, conservators, and materials researchers have interacted in spheres separated from practicing artists and artisans [2]. However, materials kno
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