Gosselain-Pottery Chaines Operatoires As Historica PDF

Pottery chaînes opératoires as Historical Documents
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History

Olivier P. Gosselain
Subject: Archaeology, Historiography and Methods Online Publication Date: Dec 2018
DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.208
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date: 22 December 2018

Summary and Keywords
Technical processes—or chaînes opératoires—are heterogeneous cultural aggregates

articulating raw materials, tools, knowledge, representations, and agents. The nature and
arrangement of these elements stem from a web of social, historical, and ecological
relations that not only delineate a sociohistorical framework within which artisans
operate, but also determine how individuals shape and give meaning to their daily
engagement in the craft. Pottery chaînes opératoires have been the focus of a large body
of ethnographical studies in Africa since the beginning of the 20th century, most of them
developing within the subfield of ethnoarchaeology. Yet pottery chaînes opératoires may
also provide crucial information to historians when analyzed through an approach
inspired from historical linguistics and tentatively called “comparative technology.”
Pioneered by Haudricourt, this approach combines two levels of comparison. The first
consists in a minute comparison of different chaînes opératoires within a given field of
activity and geographical area in order to identify similarities and differences in tools,
materials, gestures, and the organization of operations. This allows for the identification
of specific “technical traditions”; that is, shared ways of doing that stem from a shared
set of knowledge. The second level of comparison implies a mapping of the technical
traditions (be it whole chaînes opératoires or particular stages or components), with the
aim of identifying and characterizing their respective spatial distributions: for example,
the effects of aggregation or disintegration, possible boundaries, or interpenetrations.
The relevance of spatial distributions in history-oriented analyses of technical processes

is twofold. First, spatial distributions compel us to explore the sociohistorical processes
from which they resulted; that is, the set of relations—social, economic, political, and
ecological—that determine how artisans interact with each other, share knowledge, use
tools and materials, cope with changing situations, or seize new opportunities. Second,
spatial distributions may reveal strong and time-enduring connections with various kinds
of social identities (e.g., languages, political factionalism, regional affiliation, gender, and
ethnicity). When the underlying mechanisms of such connections are appropriately
understood, they may be used to formulate hypotheses about past processes, including
population movements, the development and evolution of political boundaries, identity
negotiations, or socio-economical transformations. Here, chaînes opératoires may prove
especially reliable for historians since they are less easily and deliberately manipulated
than written or oral documents
Keywords: methods, sources, and historiography in African history, pottery, chaîne opératoire, technology,
material culture history, spatial distributions, social and political boundaries, apprenticeship
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What Pottery Chaînes Opératoires Are and Why

They Matter
The notion of “chaîne opératoire” pertains both to the process of transforming a single
(or several) raw material(s) into a finished product, and to the analytical tool used for
documenting such a process.1 The latter aspect is critically important. Indeed, each
technical endeavor may be envisioned as a sequence—or “chain”—of operations that
progressively alter the state of a material. However, providing an accurate description of
such chain of operations for comparative purposes is not just a matter of writing down
what unfolds under the observer’s eyes: data collection must be systematized,
hierarchized, and extended to aspects that are not necessarily visible. This is where the
analytical dimension of the chaîne opératoire becomes extremely helpful.
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Pottery chaînes opératoires
A pottery chaîne opératoire may include eight major operations, or phases (see Figure 1):
(1) clay procurement, (2) clay processing, (3) shaping, (4) decoration, (5) drying, (6)
prefiring, (7) firing, and (8) postfiring. Several of these phases can neither be canceled
nor postponed and correspond broadly to what Lemonnier calls “strategic operations.”2
Other phases are not “strategic” inasmuch as their presence and position within the
chaîne opératoire do not condition its outcome. For instance, there is generally no
obligation to prefire the vessels before firing or treat them after firing.
Whatever their status,

each phase of the chaîne
opératoire must be broken
down into smaller units for
comparative purpose:
operations and sequences.3
The operation corresponds
to an isolated action or
sequence of actions and
the sequence to an
organized set of
operations. In
Figure 1. The different phases and subphases of a southwestern Niger, for
pottery chaîne opératoire.
example, the phase of clay
Illustration by O. Gosselain.
processing may include
several sequences such as
drying, soaking, grog fabrication, and the mixing of grog and clay, that themselves involve
several operations (see Figure 2): grinding sherds with an upper and lower grinding
stone; winnowing the fragments with a basketwork for obtaining grog, kneading the
mixture of clay and grog with both hands, etc. Comparisons between chaînes opératoires
are usually made at the level of operations or sequences, the scale of analysis being
determined by the degree of precision of the available data and the research agenda (see
below). What matters is that comparisons be always made at the same analytical level.
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There is no place here to

detail the sequences and
operations involved in
each phase of the pottery
chaîne opératoire.4 Yet
some precision is needed
for the shaping phase,
which has been the focus
Figure 2. Analytical distinction between “phase,” of several history-oriented
“sequence,” and “operation.” In this example, the
clay processing phase includes a sequence of grog analyses5 and will be
fabrication, which itself is subdivided into two discussed extensively
operations: (1) grinding sherds on a lower grinding
stone with an upper grinding stone, and (2)
below. This phase should
winnowing the crushed sherds with a circular mat in indeed be divided into two
order to sort them into two sizes. subphases: (1) roughing
Illustration by O. Gosselain. out, and (2) preforming.6
During roughing out,
potters transform a lump of clay or joint clay segments in order to constitute a hollow
volume—the rough shape—whose resulting form does not correspond to that of the
finished product. During preforming, potters give the hollow volume its final geometric
characteristics through scraping and smoothing operations.
The roughing out substage sometimes proceeds in a single sequence (e.g., spiral-coiling
from bottom to top) but is more often broken down into different sequences, according to
the part of the vessel to be shaped. Thus, for example, a vessel’s lower body will be
roughed out by molding a disk of clay on a convex mold, its shoulder by adding thick coils
that are crushed internally and subsequently beaten with a wooden paddle, and its neck
by adding a ring-shaped coil subsequently thinned by pinching (see Figure 3). Following
the prevailing terminology in lithic studies, the combination of sequences is called a
method, while the operations involved in each sequence are called techniques.7
Comparisons made at that level of the chaîne opératoire should ideally focus on methods
rather than techniques, since the former are better markers of cultural differences than
the latter as we will see below.
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Figure 3. This common West African shaping

technique combines molding (1–2), coiling (3, 5),
beating (4), and pinching (6).
Photos by O. Gosselain.
Traditions versus Adaptations
Suppose that the comparison of pottery chaînes opératoires within a given region reveals,
among other things, two distinct traditions in the processing of clay materials. Suppose
also that these traditions cluster in different areas, among potters who respectably use
distinct clay sources and clay deposits. How to interpret such technical variations? Could
they correspond to sociohistorical constructions, independent from the physical and
chemical characteristics of local raw materials, and hence be used as historical
documents? Or do they stem from forced adaptations to constraints imposed by the
materials (which strongly reduces their historical potential)?
Two decades ago, most scholars would probably have opted for the second alternative,
thanks to the popularity of a series of publications that interpreted potters’ behavior in
mainly technofunctional terms.8 The prevailing ideas at the time were (1) that pottery
chaînes opératoires are fraught with dangers, which forces potters to find the right
balance between available materials and processing techniques, and (2) that changes in
techniques and materials aim primarily at improving the use performances of the vessels.
This interpretative paradigm has been increasingly challenged by ethnographical and
archaeological studies developing under the banner of “technological style”9 and
“cultural technology”.10 Ethnographical inquiries notably demonstrated that even when
potters interpret their techniques in strictly functional terms (as they generally do) and
deem it impossible to change or alter them, they could actually rely on a large palette of
alternatives. As an illustration, ethnographical fieldwork in Cameroon, combined with
laboratory analyses, showed that different raw materials could be processed in exactly
the same way or that dozens of processing recipes could theoretically be used for a given
category of material.11 Such conclusions extend to other stages of the chaîne opératoire.
For example, a systematic monitoring of firing conditions (temperatures, heating rate,
and soaking time) in Africa and Asia shows that similar results are achieved with
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contrasting firing structures and fuels.12 In other words, it is unlikely that the diversity of
technical practices observed at any level of the chaîne opératoire stems primarily from
technofunctional constraints.
The preceding does not mean that potters are free from any constraints at all. Social,
economic, political, or religious requirements notably bear on decision-making and
contribute to shape behavior at both the individual and collective levels. First and
foremost, potting practices are learned behavior, which means that they are inherited and
generally reproduced under specific circumstances and within specific social networks.
This “genealogy of practice” contributes not only to determine the overall nature of
chaînes opératoires, but also to connect individuals spatially and intergenerationally
through the sharing of specific technical traditions. Second, an array of factors may act
directly or indirectly on the distribution and evolution of technical traditions, as will be
discussed below.
Beyond Convergences
While the making of pottery vessels leaves theoretically much room for technical
diversity, options are not infinite at certain stages of the chaîne opératoire and,
depending on the analytical level, techniques may even appear monotonous. In sub-
Saharan Africa, for example, there exist only eight broad categories of roughing out
operations (e.g., coiling, molding, or drawing of a lump), seven categories of firing
structures (from bonfire to updraft kiln), and a clear preference for grog and cereal husks
as tempering materials.
The reasons beyond such lack of technical diversity probably exceed the set of natural
evolutionary principles that Leroi-Gourhan had in mind when seeking to explain what he
called “technical tendencies”;13 but whatever their origin, tendencies or convergences
may hamper historical reasoning in comparative technology. To take an extreme example,
how to interpret the fact that potters in South America, Papua New Guinea, and Central
Africa use the coiling technique to rough out their vessels? Surely not by positing the
existence of some sort of historical connection between these areas. But if such sharing
of roughing out techniques concerned potters living one hundred kilometres apart in a
region of Africa, wouldn’t it seem “natural” to envision a connection?
There are three possible ways to overcome the challenge posed by technical convergence
in comparative analysis. The first is to confine the analysis to an area that can be
explored exhaustively and where the genealogy of practice can be reasonably assessed. A
generic technique that would not be worth attention in large-scale comparisons may
indeed become locally relevant when connected to a specific learning network. In the
Inner Niger Delta of Mali or the Lake Chad area, for example, consistent
correspondences between roughing out techniques and learning networks developing
within language or ethnic boundaries allow scholars to use techniques such as coiling,
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molding, or drawing of a lump as indexes of ethnic identities.14 Moreover, their

identification in both historical and archaeological contexts allows exploring peopling
dynamics and reconstructing ancient social or political boundaries.15
The second way to overcome the problem of technical convergence is to increase the
level of details in comparative analyses. This either involves considering operations and
sequences more thoroughly or combining different elements of the chaîne opératoire. For
example, an in-depth comparison of ethnographic data collected in Southern Niger shows
that the pounding technique, used for roughing out vessels in a large portion of the Sahel
and previously envisioned as a single tradition, must actually be broken down into at least
two distinct techniques: convergent pounding and divergent pounding (see Figure 4).16
Such distinction notably allows identifying the emergence and separate evolution of
female and male pottery traditions in the central Sahel.17
Increasing the level of

details may become
imperative when
researchers have specific
questions in mind. For
example, Corniquet
analyzed the minutiae of
collective firings in the
Arewa region of Niger with
Figure 4. Two variants in the shaping of pottery
vessels by pounding a lump of clay on a concave a view to identify technical
form: 1–4 shows convergent pounding, in which correlates of
potters start from the rim of the lump and progress
intracommunity affinities
toward its center; 5–8 shows divergent pounding, in
which potters start from the center of the lump and and antagonisms.18 She
progress toward its rim. notably located them in
Photos by O. Gosselain. the way in which potters
broke and placed millet
stalks (the main fuel) in the firing structure, or the order in which they stacked the
vessels. Here, seemingly trivial differences were actually invested as bounding marks
between participants; that is, as micro practices liable to be adopted or rejected by
members of firing parties, depending on changing social relations. Another example
concerns the roughing out and preforming of vessels among Ari potters of Ethiopia.
Interested in the interplay between community-based and individual-based skills, Kaneko
identified dozens of specific movements of fingers involved in the two shaping subphases,
which were either shared at a community level or developed independently by potters in
the course of practice.19 These technical idiosyncrasies (that may be likened to
“signatures”) had an impact on the weight and thickness of the vessels and, consequently,
on customers’ choices.
The third way to overcome the problem of technical convergence in comparative analyses
is to combine elements of the chaîne opératoire that are not necessarily good
sociohistorical markers in themselves but may become so when considered in association.
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In a region encompassing southern Burkina Faso, northern Togo, southern Niger, and
northern Nigeria, for example, different communities of male (and sometimes female)
potters with no linguistic or ethnic ties shape their vessels with the divergent pounding
technique, decorate them with braided strip roulettes, and fire them in earthen ovens.20
Each of these elements appears independently in other communities and, with the
possible exception of braided strip roulettes, can hardly be used alone for formulating
historical hypotheses.21 Yet their association as a “technical bundle” is certainly not
fortuitous, especially since many potters concerned are men (a rare occurrence in sub-
Saharan Africa), indicating the possible existence of a distinct learning network.22
Markers of Identity
Relying on field inquiries and a large-scale comparison of data collected across sub-
Saharan Africa, a tentative model has been proposed for explaining why some
components of pottery chaînes opératoires tend to be associated with specific facets of
social identities.23 The model sorts the phases of the manufacturing process according to
their social salience and resistance to change, through comparing their degree of
visibility on finished products and the type of skills involved.24 Three groupings are
envisioned. The first includes preforming, decoration, prefiring, and postfiring, all phases
(or a subphase in the case of preforming) whose characteristics are (1) to have an effect
on the appearance of finished products (shape, decoration, and color), and (2) to involve
unspecialized skills. Techniques associated with these phases could thus be easily
modified after initial learning and socially, politically, or symbolically invested, which
makes them potential markers of situational identities.
The second grouping of technical phases includes clay extraction, clay processing, and
firing; three phases that also involve unspecialized skills but do no leave visible marks on
the finished products—at least for untrained eyes. As potters often conduct such phases
on a communal basis and usually follow locally shared norms, techniques associated with
them may become markers of cooperation networks. A good example comes from the
Arewa region of Niger, where a dozen clay sources are exploited by some thirty villages:
field inquiries reveal that each group of villages related to a single clay source generally
displays a distinct clay processing recipe and that such situations stem from potters’
interaction and exchanges of information at the extraction site.25
The third grouping only includes the shaping phase, and more precisely the roughing out
subphase. With a reliance on specialized skills gradually acquired under the supervision
of more skilled (and often socially related) potters, a resistance to change due to the
rooting of motor habits, and an invisibility on finished products, techniques associated
with this subphase would be reliable markers of the most stable and rooted facets of
identity.26 Field observations show indeed that pottery-learning networks tend to develop
within homogeneous social boundaries, with the consequence that potters and their
apprentices usually are of similar gender, speak the same language, and share an ethnic,
clanic, and socioprofessional affiliation. Since the cost of changing motor habits is
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supposedly high, while the benefits are low—socially at least— potters are thought to
conserve their techniques when confronted with other traditions, even when integrating
foreign communities.
While the model described fits with many situations observed throughout Africa, some of
its underlying assumptions are problematic. For example, explanatory mechanisms do not
pay attention to the agency of potters or the sociohistorical contexts within which
practice and identity are produced.27 The connection between technical actions and
social identities seems indeed to develop outside the conscious experience of actors,
whose historical role is limited to the transmission and reproduction of practice.
Recognizing the problem, Gokee has reformulated the model, drawing on the semiotics of
C. S. Peirce and a conception of pottery vessels as “constellations of possible
significations” anchored in their perceptive qualities.28 In order to accentuate their
identities or render them ambiguous, people would either reproduce or transform
qualities that have become meaningful indexes of identity, such potential being related
both to the context in which steps of the chaîne opératoire are conducted (from public
performance to the intimacy of domestic workshops) and the traces left on the finished
products. Sticking with the threefold framework described, Gokee thus opposes stages
such as shaping, unlikely to be exploited in public contexts of identity negotiation (and
thus liable to be an index of shared ancestry), to stages such as decoration, liable to
“contribute substantially to the semiotic potency of the pot”.29 A good illustration of the
latter appears in Guèye’s study of Haalpularen potters of the Middle Senegal Valley. She
found that in a context of marked social hierarchies between artisans, the articulation of
matrimonial and consumption networks contributed to the use of decorative attributes
that herald the social identity of both potters and their clients.30
Gokee’s reformulation is a step in the right direction, but it does not resolve all the
problems. For instance, neither model appropriately accounts for the numerous examples
where no clear relationships can be established between specific technical behavior and
salient expressions of identity, such as ethnic affiliation or language,31 or, even more
disturbingly, where supposedly stable and bodily embedded practices such as shaping
techniques are swiftly borrowed or transformed.32 Moreover, while pottery chaînes
opératoires are “technical aggregates” whose different components may inform us about
various facets of identity, the focus remains both on a single component—shaping—and a
particular facet of identity—ethnicity—which is old hat for studies devoted to past and
present expressions of identity in Africa.33 In-depth ethnographic inquiries show that
crucial processes of identity construction and negotiation may also develop irrespectively
of ethnic or linguistic boundaries, and that they may concern any component of the
chaîne opératoire, independently of its post-manufacturing visibility or the nature of the
skills involved.34
Techniques and Identity in Relational Perspective
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Following Lave, it might be more fruitful to explore the interplay of techniques and
identity through the prism of the relations that shape the “social world of activity”; that
is, relations between persons acting and between the social and material worlds.35 These
relations do not merely delineate a sociohistorical framework within which artisans
operate, but also determine how artisans organize and give meaning to their daily
engagement in the craft: how they interact with each other, share knowledge, use tools
and materials, cope with changing situations, or seize new opportunities. This is what
Lave calls the circumstances of practice.36 Thus, instead of striving to sort the phases of
the chaîne opératoire according to their nature and capacity to materialize specific
identities, attention should shift toward the types of relations involved in knowledge
acquisition and meaning attributions, as both processes weight on the evolution of
pottery traditions.
Knowledge Acquisition
Three types of relations may be envisioned, depending on their ability to ensure a
reproduction of practice. A first category pertains to direct and sustained interactions,
which are typically associated with communities of practice within which artisans engage
mutually in a given activity.37 Although apprentices usually learn the full pottery-making
repertoire in such contexts, a long-term face-to-face interaction with experienced
individuals is mandatory for mastering specialized body techniques, such as those
involved in shaping techniques, but also tool handling or the sensorial appreciation of
materials (e.g., selecting appropriate clays according to their odor, taste, and texture). In
other words, it is only in the context of direct and sustained interactions that the most
skilled parts of a pottery repertoire can be handed down from one individual to another.
A second category of relations involved in knowledge acquisition pertains to casual

interactions, which develop in shared practice settings (such as clay sources, firing
places, or market places) or during temporary sojourns in foreign communities. In such
situations, members of distinct communities of practice have the opportunity to witness
other ways of doing and exchange information about the nature and location of raw
materials, processing recipes, or the tools used at different levels of the chaîne
opératoire. Even if these information exchanges take place outside the practice contexts
concerned, they may engender technical adjustments or contribute to the development of
“dormant repertoires” from which potters may subsequently draw. A telling example
comes from southwestern Niger, where potters from distinct communities who met at a
weekly marketplace near the capital, Niamey, swiftly modified their clay-processing
recipes—stopping to sort grog after grinding—under the influence of a handful of women
originating from the most renowned pottery village of the area.38 The reputation of the
latter, combined with the reduction of work brought forward by the new processing
recipe, ensured that mere discussions at a marketplace could engender a microregional
change in technique. It must be stressed that such knowledge transfer requires a
technical expertise sufficient enough to allow involved parties to make sense of what is
discussed, pondering its potential interest and putting it successfully into practice. Casual
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interactions thus practically impact portions of existing chaînes opératoires rather than
contributing to their reproduction.
A third category of relations involved in knowledge acquisition pertains to mediated

interactions, which correspond to situations in which knowledge is acquired through the
manipulation of objects produced outside contexts of participation. Such interactions
notably allow for a reproduction of formal attributes or ornamental motives, but force
potters who lack information about original ways of doing to draw from their own
technical repertoire. For example, some northern Cameroonian potters use a stick for
reproducing decorations made with a wooden carved roulette and deem it impossible to
do otherwise. Similarly, in the Zarmaganda region of Niger, potters who want to imitate
the polychrome water jars brought by seasonal migrants or pedlars ignore that the finer
motifs are always painted with an iron blade and use a stick instead.39 In this case, the
use of different painting tools not only demarcates communities but also interaction
modes and learning genealogies.
Meaning Attribution
While closely connected to the contexts of knowledge acquisition, meaning attribution
implies a broader set of relations and is liable to evolve throughout the life of an
individual or a community. It also concerns a wider range of preoccupations than
negotiations of identity.40 Part of this attribution derives from the work of
“imagination,”41 through which participants rely on their direct and vicarious knowledge
of the world to broaden their perception of practice (e.g., by envisioning historical
continuities, connections, or disconnections with other individuals or communities, or
possibilities for change). In contexts of direct and sustained interactions, for example,
apprentices are compelled to adopt the whole technical repertoire that prevails in the
community of practice they want to be part of. At that level, social conformism,
obedience, and a belief in technical adequateness are the main factors in meaning
attribution.
Yet as individuals subsequently redefine their position within a community of practice or

face changing circumstances (e.g., when relocating after marriages or migrations, when
frequenting new marketplaces, or when faced with new commercial demands or
opportunities), they may be drawn to alter parts of their repertoire. In the case evoked
where potters from different communities adopted a new clay-processing recipe under
the influence of members of a renowned pottery center, casual interactions in the
marketplace only created a possibility for change. Change did occur because potters
related positively to those who brought the innovation (the “best potters” in the area) and
to the innovation itself (reducing the time and energy devoted to clay processing).
Without such work of imagination, the new processing recipe would have been either
ignored or integrated in a dormant repertoire of practices.
Another process of meaning attribution is the work of “alignment,”42 through which

participants coordinate their actions with members of other communities without
necessarily engaging with or even knowing them. This form of belonging not only
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expands repertoires beyond the confines of communities of practice but contributes as

well to make them fit within broader structures.43 Regarding the frequent association of
shaping techniques with deeper facets of identity, pottery learning networks tend to
develop within homogeneous social boundaries, with the consequence that the type of
interactions liable to ensure a reproduction of the most skilled parts of the chaîne
opératoire usually bring together individuals of similar gender, language, ethnicity, and
socioprofessional affiliation. Yet, rather than motor habits, it is the meaning attached to
shaping techniques that explains why artisan are less likely to modify them during their
lifetime. Mastered less casually than other steps of the chaîne opératoire and under the
supervision of a socially related person, the shaping stage is indeed often perceived as
both the heart of pottery making and a family inheritance, one of the things transmitted
by parents and ancestors in general that becomes constitutive of a person’s identity. The
stability of fashioning techniques thus often results from a deliberate conservatism of the
potters, especially in contexts where pottery making is a secondary activity, with few
considerations liable to transform a potter’s relationship with her or his techniques (e.g.,
speed and ease of manufacture, standardization, and morphological flexibility).44
Technical conservatism, combined with the social and spatial logics that weigh on the
development of learning networks, generates an intergenerational and intercommunity
alignment of shaping techniques that ultimately contribute to their connection with
macroscale social boundaries such as language or ethnic affiliation.
Of course, the same process of meaning attribution that gives rise to technical
conservatism may lead to a shift in techniques when identities collide or are
reformulated. In southcentral Niger, for example, Tuareg and Hausa communities have
coexisted for the past two centuries. Among Tuaregs, artisans belong to endogamous
subgroups whose members bear a low social status and may even be referred to as
“slaves,” while among Hausa, craft activities are theoretically open to anyone and it is
wealth rather than birth status that determines social hierarchies. Many artisans of
Tuareg origin have consequently adopted a Hausa identity, an ongoing process even in
the early 21st century. For potters, this not only meant adopting the Hausa language,
dress code, or architecture, but also shifting from the diverging pounding technique
(locally associated with Tuareg potters) to the molding technique, perceived as “truly
Hausa.” All that remains from their former identity are the names given to some of the
shaping tools. Thus, if geographical propinquity and intermarriages created appropriate
conditions for the shift to take place, it is meaning attribution that actually led former
Tuareg potters to align with a new network of potting communities.
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Documenting and Contextualizing Pottery

chaînes opératoires
The preceding illustrates the many ways in which pottery chaînes opératoires connect
with sociohistorical processes and may, in turn, serve as starting points for exploring
various aspects of the past. Emphasis has been placed on the theoretical foundations of
an interpretative framework. Yet sound interpretations cannot be achieved without good
quality data, which pertains both to their degree of detail and systematicity. This is where
a chaîne opératoire approach—understood here as an analytical tool—becomes crucial.
The chaîne opératoire Template
Each phase of the chaîne opératoire must be documented by means of a multiple-entry

template corresponding to a “checklist.” This template does not only ensure the
systematicity of the collected data (which is a prerequisite of any good comparison), but
also helps in acquiring a better understanding of technical logics and the factors affecting
the spatial and temporal evolution of technical behaviors. The main entries of this
template are summarized here.
Location
While most phases of a pottery chaîne opératoire may take place in specialized
infrastructures such as workshops or factories, they are often carried out in distinct
practice settings. Information about the location and characteristics of such settings
provides clues about the organization of the craft, social interactions, and relations with
the environment. They include:
• situation vis-à-vis dwellings and other areas of activity

• topography (size, physical features liable to be exploited, existing structures, etc.)
• ownership (individual or collective; associated with a population or a political power)
• possible sharing (with whom? occasionally or regularly?)
• relocation capacities (reasons, other sites envisioned, frequency, assessment of
adequacy, etc.)
Here, the idea is to differentiate specialized sites from sites used on the spot, whose
choice frequently depends on concerns other than pottery making.
Actor(s)
Beside master potters, who usually occupy the center stage in practice settings and
ethnographic descriptions, other actors may be implicated in technical operations whose
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commitment to the craft is highly variable.45 Each one should be properly identified,
including:
• main identity (gender, age, language, claimed ethnicity)

• socioprofessional status (possible membership in a specialist group;46 economic
importance of the income derived from the activity)
• social relations with other actors engaged in the activity (types of relationships;
possible contracts; equality, subordination, or authority)
• role (central or peripheral; occasional or regular involvement)
• level of competence (position in the process of apprenticeship)
Knowledge and Know-How

Knowledge and know-how are implicitly contained in technical actions: whether they
concern the selection of raw materials, the use of tools, sequences of gestures, or any
other transforming operations, they all draw on an expertise that takes form and becomes
perceptible in the course of practice. Documenting practice is thus the primary way of
identifying knowledge and know-how (especially since know-how often remains
nonverbalized). However, historical investigations may also benefit from information
about the genealogy of practice. Inquiries will thus aim at determining the following:
• origin of knowledge (acquired from who? how? where? when?)

• degree of specialization (is knowledge shared or not outside the domain of pottery
making?)
• existence of alternative knowledge or “dormant repertoires” of knowledge and know-
how which have been acquired but are not put into practice (acquired where and from
whom? If occasionally used: why and in which circumstances?)
Raw Materials
All materials used throughout the chaîne opératoire must be characterized according to
the following aspects:
• physical characteristics (type, composition, condition)

• origin (natural or human; raw state, by-product of another activity, or recycling; site
and conditions of acquisition [see “Location”])
• modes of selection (types of criteria [including sensory assessments] and
justifications; tolerance for variation; emic definitions of “appropriate” and
“inappropriate” materials)
• alternative choices (emic and etic identification of other potentially usable materials)
Page 15 of 41

This last aspect is crucial, for it is in determining the actual latitude of choice in materials
(as related both to personal knowledge and environmental potentials) that one may
eliminate cases of mere convergence and start investigating the underlying logics of
technical actions.
Actions
Actions combine gestures—or “elementary actions upon matter”47—and energies (of
human, animal, or vegetal origins). Besides an accurate description, field observations
should also aim at characterizing their mode of organization and their purpose.48
Tools
Besides information pertaining to the physical characteristics and modes of use of tools,49
inquiries should also provide biographical and contextual elements as follows:
• structure (material, shape, absolute and relative dimensions, weight, balance,

method of hafting, etc.)
• functioning mode (the way in which the tool is used and the resulting effect on the
material worked)
• function(s) (range of purposes of the tool’s use)
• origin (manufacturer, place of manufacture, previous users)
• status (specialized or nonspecialized use, personal or shared)
Relationships with Other Activities

This is a crucial aspect of the analysis, since envisioning relationships with other
elements of the broader sociotechnical system often helps in identifying historical,
economic, or symbolic logics.50 Relationships may not only concern the elements already
listed, but also the ways in which actions or finished products are conceived. Information
notably involves:
• actors (possible associations through status [e.g., caste] or activity (e.g., blacksmith
and circumciser; potter and midwife)
• location (other uses of the sites where technical actions are carried out; primary or
secondary use)
• raw materials (possible uses in other activities)
• tools and actions (potential borrowing from other spheres of activity; similarity of
bodily postures and functions51)
• knowledge and know-how (transfer from one activity to another)
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Organization
Two aspects should be considered: the position and status of the stage under study within
the whole chaîne opératoire, and its position within the technical system to which the
actors belong, with a focus on interrelated temporalities and the contingencies of the
technical milieu.52 One will notably seek whether the stage under study is mandatory or
elective, or whether it can be delayed or not. The stage will also be situated within the
calendric cycle of the actors (seasonality, subordination to other activities) as well as the
natural cycle (availability of certain materials, accessibility of specific locations, etc.).
Beliefs and Religious Practices

As pottery making centers on the transformation of natural materials into a cultural
product, it constitutes an efficient metaphor for explaining natural processes of
transformation and structuring cultural ones. The chaîne opératoire is consequently the
locus of a dense web of symbols and religious beliefs whose most visible manifestations
are the taboos and rituals attached to technical actions.53 Inquiries should aim at
identifying their
• nature
• scope (persons and steps of the chaîne opératoire concerned)
• temporality (onset and duration)
• purpose (in regard to the technical actions, the products, the artisan, the “natural
order,” etc.)
Specialized Vocabulary
A potter’s technical repertoire does not only include know-how, recipes, tools, or attitudes
toward materials, but also a vocabulary whose components usually range from the
specialized (i.e., words only used and understood by people familiar to the craft) to the
mundane. The “words and things” method54 used in historical linguistics may be applied
to such vocabulary, provided that it is systematically and carefully collected.55 A basic
collection should include generic terms such as “pottery vessel,” “to make pottery,” “to
ornate a pot,” “to fire pottery,” as well as the names of tools, materials, and finished
products. More detailed studies may aim at collecting words for particular actions and
gestures, or the transitory states of the materials.
Potters’ Biographies
The multientry framework as described explicitly aims at contextualizing the various

components of a pottery chaîne opératoire and, when possible, retracing their trajectory.
In regard to knowledge and know-how, for example, a part of the investigation seeks to
reconstruct the genealogy of practice: from whom it was acquired, where, in which
circumstances, etc. The same applies to specialized tools or infrastructures (ovens or
kilns) whose origin and former owners must be systematically identified. Such a
Page 17 of 41

biographical approach helps situating individual practices within a broader web of

sociohistorical relations and provides a first indication of the social and spatial
embeddedness of learning networks.56 Yet other biographical elements should also be
collected.
As the process of meaning attribution, and especially the combined work of “imagination”
and “alignment,”57 stem from the multiple relations developed by a potter throughout her
or his lifetime, it is crucial to document his or her “social space.” Shaped by historical,
social, and ecological circumstances, the social space comprises the space of experience
and the space known. The first corresponds to places frequented (and thus
“experienced”) by individuals through daily activities, social interactions, economic
exchanges, or travels, and around which a person’s sense of identity and belonging
develops together with practical knowledge and representations. The second category of
space is representational. It concerns all the places that a person knows vicariously; for
example, from kin, friends, foreigners, or even the media. Second-hand knowledge
generally reinforces a person’s sense of belonging, but also enriches her or his cognitive
repertoire.
Doing History with Pottery chaînes opératoires

There are different ways in which information drawn from an analysis of pottery chaînes
opératoires may be used in historically oriented studies. The most common pertains to
the construction of interpretative models to be subsequently applied to archaeological
contexts.58 This classical ethnoarchaeological pursuit requires a careful protocol in order
to build strong archaeological inferences.59 Another possible application is the “direct
historical approach,”60 in which modern pottery traditions are used as a baseline against
which to compare temporally controlled archaeological assemblages.61 Besides historical
inferences drawn from a diachronic comparison of pottery techniques, a crucial
contribution of the direct historical approach lies in its capacity to identify long-term
changes in pottery production and consumption and, relatedly, to demonstrate how
sensitive techniques may be to broad contextual transformations (contrarily to the
pessimistic conclusions of Adams regarding pottery decoration).62
Still another application is the comparative technology approach. Inspired by

comparative linguistics, this approach rests on a comparison of chaînes opératoires
within a given geographical area, a mapping of the various technical traditions, and an
examination of the resulting spatial distributions in order to make historical inferences.
Such a research program follows several steps whose characteristics and main
requirements are successively detailed.
Page 18 of 41

Defining a Comparative Framework
Before launching into a comparative analysis of pottery chaînes opératoires, the first
imperative is to choose the right analytical framework. Does the analysis aim at
examining the history of a particular population or set of populations? Do the research
questions concern a particular region or a whole portion of the African continent? Do they
concern specific components of pottery chaînes opératoires? Such questions should be
carefully pondered, since comparing chaînes opératoires not only aims at determining a
“technical content” and degree of technical homogeneity or heterogeneity within a given
social or spatial unit, but also aims at locating meaningful interruptions in spatial
distributions and evaluating their historical significance. This means considering both the
area where an element is attested and the area where it is not, paying specific attention
to where exactly the distribution stops.
Consider the following example. A comparison of potting practices in the Kadiolo region
of Mali (near the border with the Ivory Coast) led Frank to identify two shaping (i.e.,
“roughing out”) techniques among Mande-speaking potters: molding and drawing of a
lump.63 Relying on potters’ biographies, patronymic names, and the local history of
potting communities, she interpreted the former technique as “Mande” and the second as
a “foreign” tradition introduced by women who were probably taken as slaves in
neighboring populations and locally paired with craft specialists other than blacksmiths
(to whom Mande potters are often associated). These women would have diffused the
drawing of a lump technique in certain parts of the Mande heartland, thus introducing
technical diversity in a formerly homogeneous zone.
However, a comparison of shaping techniques used within the whole Mande language
area reveals that the drawing of a lump technique is found throughout the zone, but tends
to be especially associated with the eastern and southwestern Mande subgroups.64
According to linguists, these subgroups have been separated from the Mande “core” for
the longest time period and, as far as southwestern Mande speakers are concerned, have
subsequently developed few contacts with northern Mande.65 Among northern Mande
speakers, the molding technique dominates the picture and displays a spatial distribution
that coarsely corresponds to the historical boundaries of the Mali Empire, as that of the
linguistic Mande subgroup to which it is associated.66 Considering, on the one hand, that
most of the potters using the molding technique belong to caste-like socioprofessional
groupings—unlike many of those using the drawing of a lump technique—and, on the
other hand, that the development of the caste system in the Mande area could be
connected to the emergence of the Mali Empire, the drawing of a lump technique may be
interpreted as a Mande “proto-technique” (to paraphrase linguists) liable to have been
progressively replaced by the molding technique from the beginning of the second
millennium AD.67 Depending on whether one focuses on a specific Mande region or on the
whole Mande language area, the same shaping technique is thus perceived as
Page 19 of 41

“exogenous” or “endogenous,” and its historical and spatial trajectory interpreted along
very different lines.
Note that it is not always mandatory to launch into regional or macroregional

comparisons to obtain pertinent results. In his study of Dogon pottery traditions, for
example, Gallay compared data within a 100 km radius and demonstrated the existence
of a “central tradition,” of ancient origin, and several “peripheral traditions” whose
occurrences resulted from processes of acculturation or assimilation.68 Since Gallay’s
goal was mainly to explore the complex history of the Dogon population through
comparative technology, such a narrow focus was perfectly justified.
However, when the comparison aims primarily at assessing the sociohistorical

significance of an element liable to be widely shared—such as a generic technique or a
tool—and at reconstructing its trajectory through time and space, the geographical focus
should definitely be widened so as to provide sufficient analytical hindsight. Such is the
case of the roulette decoration techniques,69 whose spatial distribution only becomes
interpretable when considered at a continental level.70 While micro regional comparisons
led some archaeologists to view the sudden apparition of rouletting tools as an indication
of population movements, a broader comparison shows that such tools mainly diffused
through contacts between neighboring populations, without implying any migration
process (more below).71
Selecting and Organizing the Data
While all components of a pottery chaîne opératoire are liable to yield historical
information about those who inherit and put them into practice, they are likely to tell
contrasting stories, depending on the kind of relations required to ensure their
intergenerational or interindividual reproduction. For instance, the spatial distribution of
a specialized body technique involved in clay selection, shaping, decoration, or postfiring
is likely to stem from a (possibly long) chain of direct and sustained interactions.
Conversely, the distribution of an unspecialized ornamental tool (e.g., a corn cob) or of a
clay processing or painting recipe may stem from looser interactions and correspond to
temporary or more lasting alignments between unrelated people or communities.
If the transmission modalities of knowledge and know-how can be grossly modeled, they
cannot predict by themselves how the various components of pottery chaînes opératoires
will concretely evolve in a given sociohistorical context. Meaning attribution may indeed
create powerful filters that alter the “normal” (i.e., “mechanical”) course of their
trajectory through time and space. It is thus always safer to compare as many
components of a chaîne opératoire as possible and to avoid, from the outset, focusing on
those that supposedly provide information on contrasting sociohistorical phenomena (i.e.,
the usual opposition between the shaping and decoration stages).
Page 20 of 41

That being said, and irrespective of the nature of the components considered, some
selection and organization of the data must often be undertaken. To start with, an
isolated occurrence is rarely useful. Say, for example, that in the area under study a
single potter polishes the mineral slip applied before firing with a wristband of plastic
beads while all others use a string of baobab seeds for the same purpose: it will be
useless to include polishing tools in the comparison since the spatial distribution of the
variants identified will not provide any more information than that gathered in the field
through interviews. One should therefore prioritize those components of the chaîne
opératoire that display reoccurring rather than isolated variants.
Also, it may be useful to organize the data in such a way as to mitigate the effect of
technical convergence or prevalence. At the level of clay processing, for example,
common tempering materials such as grog, cereal husk, or dung often prove
uninformative when considered independently because their spatial distribution partially
or fully exceeds that of the geographical framework of comparison. It is consequently
more judicious to compare processing practices as a “package” at that level of the chaîne
opératoire; that is, to consider simultaneously the various tempering material that a
potter may combine as well as all other possible modifications to which the clay is
subjected. Each distinct combination of elements will then be considered as an
independent recipe (or “tradition”) in the ensuing comparison.
Similarly, roughing out techniques may prove to be poor cultural markers when
considered in generic terms (i.e., coiling, drawing of a lump, molding, etc.). A way of
overcoming such problems has been to consider them in more detail: for example,
distinguishing “convergent pounding” from “divergent pounding” or singling out the
numerous variants of coiling (e.g., spiral superposition, ring superposition, and internal
or external crushing). Another way of increasing the meaningfulness of roughing out
techniques in comparative analyses is to consider their possible arrangement within the
roughing out substage; in other words, to shift from “technique” to “method” (see above).
Technical Continuums, Discrepancies, and Filiations
Keeping in mind that one of the main goals of comparative technology is to find technical
boundaries and confront them with other kinds of boundaries, the identification of
discrete technical traditions constitutes a crucial operation. Part of its success depends
on the degree of details and arrangement of the data (see the section “SELECTING AND
ORGANIZING THE DATA”). Yet some further problems may hamper the identification and
preliminary interpretations of technical boundaries. One of them is the possible existence
of technical continuums. Although such a phenomenon has not been investigated
thoroughly in African ethnographic contexts, it is theoretically conceivable that a given
technique be slightly modified when handed down from one individual to the next, with
the result that variants observed at both ends of a learning continuum appear as
independent traditions.72 Such a phenomenon does not so much correspond to a
“standard deviation” in technical practice (to use a mathematical metaphor) as to
Page 21 of 41

correspond to the emergence of a new technical tradition through the gradual

transformation of a former one. Contrasting historical interpretations may thus be
expected, depending on whether the whole technical continuum or only a portion of it is
considered.
This brings forward the related problem of sorting out technical discrepancy from
technical filiation. In many instances, different practices can be safely considered as
unrelated traditions. This is the case, for example, when some potters use the coiling
technique for shaping the lower part of the vessel, while others use the drawing of a lump
technique. Not only do the actions diverge, but their intrinsic logics do as well, which
allows considering them as respectively independent from one another. However, a
relation or even a filiation between different technical traditions may be envisioned in
certain circumstances. In the case of the Mande shaping techniques previously evoked,
one of the elements that led the researchers to postulate a gradual replacement of the
drawing of a lump technique by the molding technique is the fact that the latter is
combined to coiling and scraping (see Figure 5) throughout the Mande language area,
while it is often combined to coiling and beating (see Figure 3) in other parts of West
Africa. Since coiling and scraping are typically associated with the drawing of a lump
technique (both inside and outside the Mande area), their local association with molding
was interpreted as a technical persistence;73 a material index of the historical encounter
between the drawing of a lump and the molding techniques.
A similar process may be

at work in the
southeastern Bantu area,
where a shaping technique
consisting of the drawing
of superimposed rings of
clay could well result from
a local combination of the
coiling and the drawing of
a single ring technique.74
Here, the interpretation
Figure 5. The upper part of a vessel whose lower rests both on the spatial
body was molded on an upturned vessel is shaped by
adding coils (1) and scraping them with fingers (2–3) distribution of the three
and a piece of calabash (4). shaping traditions (the
Photos by O. Gosselain. drawing of superimposed
rings appears broadly in
the meeting area of its putative parent techniques) and a consideration of their respective
technical logics or “grammars” (joining of the clay segments, forming the bottom,
scraping the walls, etc.).
This notion of technical grammar may be illustrated by another example. In southern

Cameroon, most potters ornate their vessels by rolling a knotted strip roulette on the wet
surface.75 In the early 1990s, some were also using hair rollers for the same purpose:
Page 22 of 41

while both tools are clearly unrelated, their functioning mode and function are strictly
identical.76 The potters thus keep on with their technical grammar while altering a part of
their “technical vocabulary.”
Mapping the Data
Having defined the framework of comparison and selected the elements to be compared,
the next step is to map them. Ideally, all information should be geo-referenced beforehand
in order to increase the accuracy of the comparison. Yet this is not always possible,
especially when using secondhand information from archives or the ethnographic
literature. In such cases, one may either attempt to locate the sites of inquiries more
precisely or position them in the vicinity of identifiable localities or landscape features.77
As discussed, various components of a pottery chaînes opératoire should ideally be taken

into consideration in the course of comparison. But while an appraisal of their respective
spatial distribution is part of the analysis, they should never be brought together on the
same map, since too large an amount of information considerably hampers the reading
and interpretation of spatial distributions. The easiest way is to make a map for each
technical component taken into consideration.78
On the maps, the points or symbols corresponding to the occurrences of specific technical
elements may be distributed randomly, dispersed (more or less regularly), or aggregated
(in which case they are considered “discrete distributions”). Rarely revelatory on their
own, such patterns of distributions may nevertheless open the way to interpretations or
at least channel the research questions. Suppose, for example, that the spatial
distribution of a particular tool or practice takes the shape of two microregional clusters
between which other variants occur. Questions to be addressed will include whether some
connections are conceivable between the two clusters, and if so, why they are currently
separated. As with linguistic geography, the spatial distribution of technical elements
sometimes provides clues about the existence and articulation of successive strata of
technical traditions.79
Identifying and Interpreting Spatial Dependencies
The core of the interpretation in comparative technology consists in identifying processes

of spatial dependency; that is, the possible overlap between the distribution of a technical
feature and that of a wide array of related or unrelated elements (see Figure 6).80 These
notably include structuring elements in the landscape: lines of communication, physical
barriers, ecological contrasts, variations in the density of human settlement, the presence
of urban centers or of markets, etc. For example, a minute comparison of clay processing
recipes in northern Cameroon revealed four technical clusters corresponding,
respectively, to areas of intense social relations (between people that do not necessarily
share the same social identity) and separated by zones of low settling density (and thus
Page 23 of 41

lower interactions).81 A plausible explanation is that unpeopled areas created a rupture in

social interactions networks and, consequently, in the circulation of knowledge pertaining
to clay processing.82
Another form of
dependency concerns
social boundaries:
languages, ethnic and
geographical affiliations,
social status,
socioprofessional
affiliations, gender, age
groups, etc. Such elements
are the focus of most
comparative analyses of
Figure 6. Identifying possible correlations between
the spatial distribution of technical practices and
pottery chaînes
that of the claimed identity of potters in southern opératoires. For example,
Niger: (a) incising motives with a comb made of
the authors of a
thorns inserted in a clay pellet; (b) adding natron to
the mineral slip; (c) Kanuri (Manga and Mober); (d) comparison of firing
Hausa “Beri Beri” (i.e., Hausa-ized Kanuri). Both techniques in southeastern
pottery techniques are clearly associated with the
Kanuri sphere in an area that corresponds broadly to
Botswana state that their
a former province of the Kanem-Bornu empire. Their “research question is
presence outside this area is partially explained by
whether differences in the
the migration of individual potters.
technique of firing ceramic
Illustration by O. Gosselain and A. Livingstone Smith.
vessels reflect the
different language groups
to which the potters belong. Alternatively, or additionally, do they reflect other social
groupings of potters?”83 Examining both the techniques actually used by potters and
those to be used “under ideal circumstances” (which is a reminder of the importance of
documenting “dormant repertoires” during field inquiries) and relying on statistical
analysis, they conclude that firing techniques do not relate to language groups, gender, or
belief systems (as defined by the observance or nonobservance of rituals and taboos) and
are only weakly correlated with age groups and learning networks. The determinant
factor seems to be the geographical location of the potters. The authors follow the same
analytical protocol for other components of the chaîne opératoire, with contrasting
results.84
Meaningful historical results do not necessarily entail a matching between technical

behavior and specific facets of social identity. For example, a continental comparison of
the roulette decoration technique reveals that the two broad categories of tools used in
Africa—fiber roulettes and carved roulettes—are distributed in a continuous way over a
large portion of the continent, irrespective of any social boundary.85 Such a pattern of
distribution clearly stems from a peer-to-peer diffusion process in which casual
interactions between potters ensured the gradual propagation of rouletting tools. A
subsequent examination of archaeological data confirms this scenario and opens the way
Page 24 of 41

to other historical implications.86 For instance, the fact that only a limited portion of
Bantu-speaking potters use rouletting tools in the early 21st century means that their
remote ancestors did not use them when living in northwestern Cameroon, the place of
origin of Bantu speakers: if not, rouletting tools would be found throughout the Bantu
language area. It also means that if the Bantu expansion involved population movements,
these movements must have occurred before the arrival of rouletting tools in
northeastern Cameroon and adjacent areas; that is, before 2500–2000 BP.
In other circumstances, an absence of spatial dependency between technical traditions

and social boundaries may result from a process of social assimilation or mixing—as in
the case of the Mande and Dogon potters87—from individual movements in space,88 or
from more or less large borrowing processes.89 All these situations are obviously
interesting from a historical point of view.
Whether spatial dependencies are identified or not, the last, and more arduous, step of
the analysis consists in identifying underlying logics. This step is where the data collected
by means of a chaîne opératoire approach prove essential. First, one should determine
whether such logics directly or indirectly pertain to technical factors. For instance, an
uneven distribution of raw materials or the existence of marked ecological contrasts can
directly affect the distribution of technical behaviors. Regarding postfiring treatments,
and specifically the coating of vessels with organic mixtures, the fact that no potters in
the Sahel area use the bark of Parkia filicoidea or Syzygium rowlandii for preparing the
mixture is merely because both tree species grow in wet evergreen or semideciduous
forests. In the latter environments, the use or nonuse of such tree species necessarily
involves factors other than ecological ones. Economic and functional considerations may
also directly affect technical behaviors. For example, some scholars interpreted the large-
scale diffusion of the pounding technique (used for shaping vessels) in relation to the fact
that it is fast and allows for the making of light, thin-walled pots—two factors that
supposedly ensured its swift adoption.90 Another example concerns microregional
processes of technical standardization around commercial centers where artisans and
customers from diverse backgrounds meet and interact with each other.91 In all these
examples, pottery chaînes opératoires are the main components affected by an element of
the surrounding context, and changes and continuities in technical practice depend on
the agency of the potters.
Yet underlying logics often pertain to indirect relations. To make sense of a particular
configuration of technical traits, one must therefore identify the elements liable to impact
the potters’ social world of activity and, ultimately, their behavior. Such elements
potentially concern a vast array of domains, and notably religious or symbolic ones.92 In
southcentral Niger, for example, male Hausa potters stopped tempering clay with
crushed donkey dung at the turn of the 21th century as a response to the preaching of a
new generation of Muslim clerics who condemned donkeys (and their excretions) as
“impure”. Although potters still perceive donkey dung positively in strictly technical
terms, both their religious faith and their fear of alienating local Muslim clients led them
to abandon a tradition inherited from previous generations of potters. In this case, new
Page 25 of 41

Muslim orthodoxy and the condemnation of donkeys developed independently from

potting practice, but they impacted the potters’ social world of activity, leading artisans to
ultimately abandon a part of their technical repertoire.
Other examples of indirect relations may concern political boundaries. As an illustration,

Livingstone Smith shows that the ancient polities of the Katanga Province (southeastern
Democratic Republic of the Congo) could have had an influence on the local distribution
of extant pottery traditions.93 He indeed observes a spatial correspondence between the
geographical distribution of five pottery repertoires (defined according to roughing out
and decoration techniques) and that of the putative boundaries of Katanga kingdoms
around 1800 AD (see Figure 7).94 The question, of course, is how these polities—which
notably controlled the exploitation of salt and copper mines, and whose actual boundaries
remain much debated—could have had an impact on the circulation of potting knowledge;
that is, on the dynamics of a female sphere of activity much remote from political
struggles, warfare, or long-distance trade. Livingstone Smith’s answer is to consider each
technical area as the product of a long-term aggregation of individual social spaces.95 If
we conceive the social space as a combination of spaces experienced and known and,
more broadly, as a constellation of places where concrete relations take place between
persons, things, materials, representations, and the environment, it is not difficult to
envision how (or a least why) they should be shaped by historical, social, and ecological
circumstances.96 Likewise, since the ancient polities of Katanga must have impacted the
space of experience and the space known of the people living in the area (including
female potters), it is only understandable that they would have also impacted their
circulation and, among many other elements, the circulation of pottery knowledge.
Page 26 of 41

This example brings

forward a last crucial
element pertaining to the
comparative technology
approach: the fact that the
spatial distribution of a
given technique or
tradition sometimes
constitutes an afterglow of
past historical processes.
Indeed, the ancient
political boundaries of
Katanga did not survive
the socioeconomic
disruptions of the 19th
century and the colonial
Figure 7. The spatial distribution of pottery
repertoires based on roughing out and decoration era; yet, as stated by
techniques (capital letters) as a putative afterglow of Livingstone Smith, the
ancient political boundaries in southcentral Africa.97
These political boundaries partially match that of the “mesh of relationships”
main salt mines (black dots) and their distribution linked to the social spaces
zones (shaded areas). Arrows indicate the post-
they contributed to shape
learning mobility of individual potters long after the
disappearing of ancient polities. “may have survived for
Map by A. Livingstone Smith. other purposes or, more
surreptitiously, linger in
98
words, gestures or tools.” The irony here is that a mundane element such as pottery
making, a priori unrelated to the political sphere, can ultimately become a key element
for approaching the tangible reality of political boundaries.
As with historical linguistics, this persistence of the past into the present is one of the
main assets of pottery chaînes opératoire and the raison d’être of comparative
technology.
Discussion of the Literature

The comparative technology approach described in this article is one of the founding
principles of the French “Techniques & Culture” research program.99 Its potential in
historical analyses remains largely unrecognized, despite promising results.100 Most
technological comparisons carried out by anthropologists are indeed synchronic, aiming
at characterizing the techniques and technical systems of given societies and at
untangling their underlying logics. In such instances, the chaîne opératoire primarily
Page 27 of 41

serves as an analytical tool: a template allowing the systematic collection of technical

data and their ordering in view of subsequent analyses.
Pottery manufacturing processes started to be documented in Africa by the turn of the

20th century.101 When published, information appeared either as curios, specific sections
in ethnographical monographs, complementary data for museum collections, or reference
material intended for the interpretation of archaeological materials. The latter grew in
importance after the 1950s—together with the development of ethnoarchaeology102—
until becoming the primary reason for documenting pottery production and consumption
in Africa. Yet even if archaeologists carry out most inquiries and remain the principal
beneficiaries, they rarely consider the historical dimension of the practices they
document, some going as far as denying its relevance for ethnoarchaeological
purposes.103 Unsurprisingly, early attempts at approaching local pottery traditions in a
diachronic perspective104—or at drawing historical conclusions from a regional or
continental comparison of technical “traits”105—were made by other specialists, among
whom were anthropologists, art historians, and historians. These contributions remained
scarce and were occasionally undermined by methodological weaknesses.106
It is only during the last decades of the 20th century that pottery chaînes opératoires
started to be more consistently exploited as historical documents, mainly among
researchers engaged in direct historical approaches.107 This change arose concomitantly
with a shift in the interpretative paradigms of pottery techniques, and especially with an
awareness that there were consistent relationships between techniques and identities
(language, ethnicity, gender, intravillage groupings, etc.). Such relationships are the focus
of most diachronic comparisons of pottery chaînes opératoires in Africa, the quest for
technical markers of identity developing as a reaction to the “information exchange
theory”108 that viewed style as residing only in the most visible parts of the vessels—
especially decoration—and stemming from a deliberate expression of ethnic belonging
aimed at foreign groups.109 Long-term ethnographic studies reveal not only that style may
correspond to a reification of worldviews aimed primarily at those who make and use the
vessels,110 but also that various forms of identity belonging may be read at different
levels of the artifacts, including chaînes opératoires.
The explicit or implicit implementation of direct historical approaches centered on

pottery chaînes opératoires has clearly improved our understanding of archaeological and
historical contexts in different parts of the African continent.111 Yet the potentials of
comparative technology in which extant pottery traditions are not exploited as baselines
against which to compare archaeological data, but as actual historical sources (inasmuch
as they are shaped by a web of sociohistorical relations), still remain underexploited. This
article aims at redressing this imbalance.
Page 28 of 41

Primary Sources
Given the variety of profiles of those who collected information on pottery production in
Africa since the beginning of the 20th century, data are scattered in a wide range of
publications. Up to the 1970s, interested scholars should especially peruse journals and
monographs in the fields of anthropology and ethnology; from then on, they will probably
find more materials in archaeological, art history, and museum publications. Since the
1980s to 1990s, master’s theses achieved in the humanities departments of African
universities also provide reliable firsthand data.
While most published studies document chaînes opératoires in a limited number of

potting communities, there exists some broader comparisons or compilations of data,
developing either at a continental, subcontinental, or regional level.112 None of the data
compilations should be considered exhaustive or definitive, however, especially since
dozens of new studies are liable to appear each year. Researchers should also be aware
that published data are only the tip of the iceberg as far as pottery making (and any other
craft) is concerned. Besides public and private pottery collections, whose close
examination may provide technical information, there exists a large body of gray
literature, especially in museums associated with the colonial enterprise. Much remains
to be done as regards the inventory and exploitation of such material.
Links to Digital Material

Salamou 1969.
African Pottery Forming and Firing.
The Hands of the Potter: Tombo Monyanga, Congo, Central Africa, November 1985.
Zulu Pottery.
Nigerian Pottery.
Further Reading
Bromberger, Christian, and Alain Morel. Limites floues, frontières vives. Des variations
culturelles en France et en Europe. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de
l’Homme, 2001.
Frank, Barbara E. Mande Potters and Leatherworkers. Washington, DC: Smithsonian

Institution Press, 1998.
Page 29 of 41

Gosselain, Olivier P. “A Tradition in Nine Maps. Un-layering Niger River Polychrome

Water Jars.” In Balkan Dialogues. Negotiating Identity Between Prehistory and the
Present. Edited by Maja Gori and Maria Ivanova, 85–108. London: Routledge, 2017
Langlois, Olivier. “Distribution des techniques actuelles de façonnage céramique au sud

du bassin tchadien: un outil pour la recherche historique régionale.” Journal des
Africanistes 71, no. 1 (2001): 225–256.
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Lemonnier, Pierre. Elements for an Anthropology of Technology. Ann Arbor: Museum of

Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1992.
Mayor, Anne. “Ceramic Traditions and Ethnicity in the Niger Bend, West Africa.”
Ethnoarchaeology 2, no. 1 (2010): 5–48.
Sall, Moustapha. Traditions céramiques, identités et peuplement en Sénégambie.

Ethnographie comparée et essai de reconstitution historique. Oxford: Bar International
Series, Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 63, 2005.
Smith, Alexandre Livingstone. “Pottery and Politics: Making Sense of Pottery Traditions in
Central Africa.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 26, no. 3 (2016): 471–491.
Sterner, Judy, and Nicholas David. “Action on Matter: The History of the Uniquely African
Tamper and Concave Anvil Pot‐Forming Technique.” Journal of African Archaeology 1, no.
1 (2003): 3–38.
Notes:
(1.) Jean Lave, “The Practice of Learning,” in Understanding Practice. Perspectives on

Activity and Context, ed. Seth Chaiklin and Jean Lave (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 3–32; Heather Lechtman, “Style in Technology. Some Early
Thoughts,” in Material Culture. Style, Organization, and Dynamics of Technology, ed.
Heather Lechtman and Robert S. Merrill (Saint Paul, MN: West Publishing Company,
1977), 3–20; and Pierre Lemonnier, Elements for an Anthropology of Technology (Ann
Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1992).
(2.) Lemonnier, Elements, 21.
(3.) Hélène Balfet, ed., Observer l’action technique. Des chaînes opératoires pour quoi
faire? (Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1991), 12–17.
Page 30 of 41

(4.) Regarding Africa, readers will find details in Dietrich Drost, Töpferei in Afrika:
Technologie (Leipzig: Akademieverlag, 1967); Olivier P. Gosselain, “Ceramics in Africa,”
in Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western
Cultures, ed. Helen Selin (New York: Springer, 2014), 464–477; Anne C. Lawton, “Bantu
Pottery of Southern Africa,” Annals of the South African Museum 49 (1967): 1–434; and
Alexandre Livingstone Smith, Chaînes opératoires de la poterie. Références
ethnographiques, analyse et reconstitution (Tervuren, Belgium: Musée Royal de l'Afrique
Centrale, 2007).
(5.) Barbara E. Frank, “Reconstructing the History of an African Ceramic Tradition.

Technology, Slavery and Agency in the Region of Kadiolo (Mali),” Cahiers d'Études
Africaines 33, no. 3 (1993): 381–401; Barbara E. Frank, Mande Potters and
Leatherworkers (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998); Alain Gallay,
“Sociétés englobées et traditions céramiques: le cas du Pays dogon (Mali) depuis le 13e
siècle,” in Terre cuite et société: la céramique, document technique, économique,
culturel, ed. Françoise Audouze and Didier Binder (Juan-les-Pins, France: Editions
APDCA, 1994); Alain Gallay, Youssouf Kalapo, and Elisée Guindo, “Les traditions
céramiques Dogon,” Etudes Maliennes 65 (2006): 127–144; Olivier P. Gosselain, “Poterie,
société et histoire chez les Koma Ndera du Cameroun,” Cahiers d'Études Africaines 153,
no. 39 (1999): 73–105; Olivier P. Gosselain, “Ethnographie comparée des trousses à outils
de potiers au sud du Niger,” Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française 107, no. 4
(2010): 667–689; Olivier P. Gosselain, “Roads, Markets, Migrants. The Historical
Trajectory of a Male Hausa Pottery Tradition in Southern Niger,” in The Distribution of
Technological Knowledge in the Production of Ancient Mediterranean Pottery, ed. Walter
Gauß, Gudrun Klebinder-Gauß, and Constance von Rüden (Vienna: Sonderschriften ÖAI,
2015), 277–296; Olivier P. Gosselain, “A Tradition in Nine Maps. Un-layering Niger River
Polychrome Water Jars,” in Balkan Dialogues. Negotiating Identity Between Prehistory
and the Present, ed. Maja Gori and Maria Ivanova (London: Routledge, 2017), 85–108;
Eric Huysecom, “Iron Age Terracotta Pestles in the Sahel Area: An Ethnoarchaeological
Approach,” in Interregional Contacts in the Later Prehistory of Northeastern Africa, ed.
Lech Krzyzaniak, Karla Kroeper, and Michal Kobusiewicz (Poznan, Poland: Archaeological
Museum, Studies in African Archaeology 5, 1996); Alexandre Livingstone Smith, “Pottery
and Politics: Making Sense of Pottery Traditions in Central Africa,” Cambridge
Archaeological Journal 26, no. 3 (2016): 471–491; Anne Mayor, “Ceramic Traditions and
Ethnicity in the Niger Bend, West Africa,” Ethnoarchaeology 2, no. 1 (2010): 5–48; Anne
Mayor, Traditions céramiques dans la boucle du Niger: ethnoarchéologie et histoire du
peuplement au temps des empires précoloniaux (Frankfurt am Main: Africa Magna
Verlag, Journal of African Archaeology Monograph Series 7, 2011); Anne Mayor,
“Impressions de vannerie et technique du martelage sur forme concave: anthropologie et
histoire d’une technique dans la boucle du Niger,” Azania. Archaeological Research in
Africa 46, no. 1 (2011): 88–109; Bruno Pinçon and Dominique Ngoie-Ngalla, “L’unité
culturelle Kongo à la fin du XIXème siècle. L’apport des études céramologiques,” Cahiers
d’Études Africaines 118, no. 30–32 (1990): 157–178; and Moustapha Sall, Traditions
Page 31 of 41

céramiques, identités et peuplement en Sénégambie. Ethnographie comparée et essai de

reconstitution historique (Oxford: Bar International Series, Cambridge Monographs in
African Archaeology 63, 2005).
(6.) Valentine Roux, “La technique du tournage: définition et reconnaissance par les
macrotraces,” in Terre cuite et société. La céramique, document technique, économique,
culturel, ed. Françoise Audouze and Didier Binder (Juan-les-Pins, France: Editions
APDCA, 1994), 45–58, 46–47.
(7.) For example, Marie-Louise Inizan, Michèle Reduron, Hélène Roche, and Jacques
Tixier, Technologie de la pierre taillée (Meudon, France: Cercle de Recherches et
d’Etudes Préhistoriques, 1995).
(8.) For example, David P. Braun, “Pots as Tools,” in Archaeological Hammers and
Theories, ed. James A. Moore and Arthur S. Keene (New York: Academic Press, 1983),
107–134; Prudence M. Rice, Pottery Analysis: A Sourcebook (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1987); and Michael S. Tite, “Pottery Production, Distribution, and
Consumption. The Contribution of the Physical Sciences,” Journal of Archaeological
Method and Theory 6, no. 3 (1999): 181–233.
(9.) Lechtman, “Style in Technology.”
(10.) Lemonnier, Element.
(11.) Olivier P. Gosselain, Poteries du Cameroun méridional. Styles techniques et rapports

à l'identité (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2002); and Alexandre Livingstone Smith, “Processing
Clay for Pottery in Northern Cameroon: Social and Technical Requirements,”
Archaeometry 42, no. 1 (2000): 21–42.
(12.) Alexandre Livingstone Smith, “Bonfire 2. The Return of Pottery Firing

Temperatures,” Journal of Archaeological Science 28, no. 9 (2001): 99–117.
(13.) André Leroi-Gourhan, L’Homme et la matière (Paris: Albin Michel, 1971 [1943]).
(14.) Alain Gallay, Eric Huysecom, and Anne Mayor, Peuples et céramiques du delta
intérieur du Niger (Mali): un bilan de cinq années de missions 1988–1993 (Mainz,
Germany: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Terra Archaeologica 3, 1998); Mayor, “Ceramic
Traditions and Ethnicity”; Mayor, Traditions céramiques; and Olivier Langlois,
“Distribution des techniques actuelles de façonnage céramique au sud du bassin
tchadien: un outil pour la recherche historique régionale,” Journal des Africanistes 71, no.
1 (2001): 225–256.
(15.) See especially: Mayor, Traditions céramiques; and Mayor, “Impressions de

vannerie.”
Page 32 of 41

(16.) Huysecom, “Iron Age Terracotta Pestles”; Judy Sterner and Nicholas David, “Action
on Matter: The History of the Uniquely African Tamper and Concave Anvil Pot‐Forming
Technique,” Journal of African Archaeology 1, no. 1 (2003): 3–38; and Gosselain,
“Trousses à outils.”
(17.) Gosselain, “Roads, Markets, Migrants.”
(18.) Claire Corniquet, “Cadres de pratiques et circulation des connaissances chez les
potières de l’Arewa (Niger),” Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines 51, no. 201 (2011): 87–114; and
Claire Corniquet, Ancrage social, ancrage spatial. Circulation des savoirs céramiques
chez les potières de l’Arewa et du Kurfey (Niger) (Brussels: Université libre de Bruxelles,
unpublished PhD diss., 2014).
(19.) Morie Kaneko, “Variations in Pottery Making by Ari potters in Southwestern

Ethiopia: Analysis of the Finger Movement Patterns Used in Forming Pots,” Nilo-
Ethiopian Studies 11 (2007): 1–15.
(20.) See Anne Haour, Katie Manning, Noemie Arazi, Olivier P. Gosselain, Sokhna Guèye,
Daouda Keita, Alexandre Livingstone Smith, Kevin MacDonald, Anne Mayor, Susan
McIntosh, and Robert Vernet, African Pottery Roulettes, Past and Present. Techniques,
Identification and Distribution (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2010), 70–74.
(21.) Mayor, Traditions céramiques; Mayor, “Impressions de vannerie.”
(22.) Although this case requires further consideration, it seems probable that male
itinerant potters contributed to the current distribution of this ‘technical bundle’ in pre-
or early colonial times, as they did in Niger and Nigeria; see Gosselain, “Roads, Markets,
Migrants.”
(23.) Olivier P. Gosselain, “Materializing Identities: An African Perspective,” Journal of

Archaeological Method and Theory 7, no. 3 (2000): 187–217.
(24.) For a visual rendition of the model, see Ken D. Fowler, “Zulu Pottery Production in
the Lower Thukela Basin, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa,” Southern African Humanities 20
(2008): 477–511, 484.
(25.) Corniquet, “Cadres de pratiques.”
(26.) Dean R. Arnold, “A Model for the Identification of Non-Local Ceramic Distribution:
View from the Present,” in Production and Distribution: A Ceramic Viewpoint, ed. Hilary
Howard and Elaine Morris (Oxford: BAR International Series 120, 1981), 31–44.
(27.) For example, Diane Lyons and Andrea Freeman, “I’m Not Evil: Materialising
Identities of Marginalised Potters in Tigray Region, Ethiopia,” Azania: Archaeological
Research in Africa 44, no. 1 (2009): 75–93. 
Page 33 of 41

(28.) Cameron Gokee, “Shapen Signs: Pottery Techniques, Indexicality, and Ethnic
Identity in the Saluum, Senegambia (ca. 1700–1950),” in Ethnic Ambiguity and the
African Past, ed. François G. Richard and Kevin C. MacDonald (Walnut Creek, CA: Left
Coast Press, 2015), 55–86.
(29.) Gokee, “Shapen Signs,” 63.
(30.) Sokhna Guèye, “Dis-moi quel pot tu as et je te dirai qui tu es! Matérialiser les
identités sociales dans les décors céramiques de la moyenne vallée du fleuve Sénégal
(nord du Sénégal),” Azania. Archaeological Research in Africa 46, no. 1 (2011): 20–35.
(31.) See, for example, Maria Dores Cruz, “‘Pots Are Pots, Not People’: Material Culture
and Ethnic Identity in the Banda Area (Ghana), Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,”
Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 46, no. 3 (2011): 336–357; Scott A.
MacEachern, “Scale, Style, and Cultural Variation: Technological Traditions in the
Northern Mandara Mountains,” in The Archaeology of Social Boundaries, ed. Miriam
Stark (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998), 107–131; and Phenio C.
Thebe and Karim Sadr, “Firing Pots in Contemporary South-Eastern Botswana,”
Ethnoarchaeology 9, no. 2 (2017): 146–165.
(32.) Agnès Gelbert, Ceramic Traditions and Technical Borrowings in the Senegal Valley
(Paris: Editions de la MSH & Editions Epistèmes, 2003); and Olivier P. Gosselain, “The
World Is Like a Beanstalk: Historicizing Potting Practice and Social Relations in the Niger
River Area,” in Knowledge in Motion: Constellations of Learning Across Time and Place,
ed. Andrew P. Roddick and Ann Brower Stahl (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016),
36–66; see note 23, Sterner and David, “Action on Matter.”
(33.) MacEachern, “Scale, Style, and Cultural Variation”; and Innocent Pikirayi,
“Ceramics and Group Identities. Toward a Social Archaeology in Southern African Iron
Age Ceramic Studies,” Journal of Social Archaeology 7, no. 3 (2007): 286–301.
(34.) Ingrid Herbich, “Learning Patterns, Potter Interaction and Ceramic Style among the
Luo of Kenya,” The African Archaeological Review 5 (1987): 153–204; Fowler, “Zulu
Pottery Production”; Frank, “Reconstructing the History”; Frank, Mande Potters; Lyons
and Freeman, “I’m Not Evil”; Thebe and Sadr, “Firing Pots”; Phenio C. Thebe and Karim
Sadr, “Forming and Shaping Pottery Boundaries in Contemporary South-Eastern
Botswana,” African Archaeological Review 34 (2017): 75–92; and Nathalie Tobert,
“Potters of El-Fasher: One Technique Practised by Two Ethnic Groups,” in Earthenware in
Asia and Africa, ed. John Picton (London: Percival David Foundation, 1984), 219–237.
(35.) Lave, “The Practice of Learning”; and Jean Lave, Apprenticeship in Critical
Ethnographic Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
(36.) Lave, Apprenticeship, 143.
Page 34 of 41

(37.) Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral
Participation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991); and Etienne Wenger,
Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning, and Identity (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998).
(38.) Gosselain, “The World Is Like a Beanstalk,” 55.
(39.) Gosselain, “A Tradition in Nine Maps,” 94–95.
(40.) See notably Liza Gijanto, “Exchange, Interaction, and Change in Local Ceramic
Production in the Niumi Commercial Center on the Gambia River,” Journal of Social
Archaeology 11, no. 1 (2011): 21–48.
(41.) Wenger, Communities of Practice, 175–178.
(42.) Wenger, Communities of Practice, 178–181.
(43.) Wenger, Communities of Practice, 174.
(44.) See examples in Gelbert, Ceramic Traditions.
(45.) Corniquet, Ancrage social, ancrage spatial.
(46.) Ismail Rashid, “Class, Caste and Social Inequality in West African History,” in
Themes in West Africa’s History, ed. Emmanuel K. Akyaempong (Oxford: James Currey,
2006), 118–140; and Tal Tamari, “The Development of Caste System in West Africa,”
Journal of African History 32, no. 2 (1991): 221–250.
(47.) See details in Leroi-Gourhan, L’Homme et la matière, 43–113.
(48.) For example, Kaneko, “Variations in Pottery Making.”
(49.) François Sigaut, “Quelques remarques sur la nomenclature des outils,” in Outils
aratoires en Afrique. Innovations, normes et traces, ed. Yves Marzouk, Christian
Seignobos, and François Sigaut (Paris: Karthala, 2000), 369–375.
(50.) Lemonnier, Elements; Marie-Claude Mahias, Le barattage du monde. Essai

d’anthropologie des techniques en Inde (Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de
l’Homme, 2002).
(51.) Amanda L. Logan and M. Dores Cruz, “Gendered Taskscapes: Food, Farming, and
Craft Production in Banda, Ghana in the Eighteenth to Twenty-First Centuries,” African
Archaeological Review 31 (2014): 203–231.
(52.) Logan and Cruz, “Gendered Taskscapes”; and André Leroi-Gourhan, Milieu et
technique (Paris: Albin Michel, 1973 [1945]).
Page 35 of 41

(53.) Nigel Barley, Smashing Pots. Feats of Clay from Africa (London: The British Museum
Press, 1994); Per Ditlef Fredriksen, Material Knowledge, Thermodynamic Spaces and the
Moloko Sequence of the Late Iron Age (AD 1300–1840) in Southern Africa (Oxford: BAR
International Series 2387/Cambridge Monograph in African Archaeology 80, 2012);
Olivier P. Gosselain, “In Pots We Trust. The Processing of Clay and Symbols in Sub-
Saharan Africa,” Journal of Material Culture 4, no. 2 (1999): 205–230; and Malcolm D.
McLeod, “Akan Terracotta,” in Earthenware in Asia and Africa, ed. John Picton (London:
Percival David Foundation, 1984), 365–381.
(54.) For example, Birgit Riquier, “The ‘Words and Things’ Method,” in Field Manual for
African Archaeology, ed. Alexandre Livingstone Smith, Els Cornelissen, Olivier P.
Gosselain, and Scott MacEachern (Tervuren, Belgium: Royal Museum for Central Africa,
Documents on Social Sciences and Humanities, 2017), 261–263; and David L.
Schoenbrun, The Historical Reconstruction of Great Lakes Bantu Cultural Vocabulary
(Cologne: Ruediger Koepp Press, 1997).
(55.) Koen Bostoen, “What Comparative Bantu Pottery Vocabulary May Tell Us About
Early Human Settlement in the Inner Congo Basin,” Afrique & Histoire 5 (2006): 221–263.
(56.) As advocated by Igor Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commodization

as a Process,” in The Social Life of Things, ed. Arjun Appadurai (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1986), 64–91.
(57.) Wenger, Communities of Practice.
(58.) See a particularly fruitful application in Barbara van Doosselaere, Le roi et le potier.
Etude technologique de l’assemblage céramique de Koumbi Saleh, Mauritanie (5e/6e – 17e
siècles AD) (Frankfurt am Main: Africa Magna Verlag/Reports in African Archaeology 5,
2005).
(59.) Diane Lyons, “Ethnoarchaeology,” in Field Manual for African Archaeology, ed.
Alexandre Livingstone Smith, Els Cornelissen, Olivier P. Gosselain, and Scott MacEachern
(Tervuren, Belgium: Royal Museum for Central Africa, Documents on Social Sciences and
Humanities, 2017), 270–274.
(60.) Ann B. Stahl, “The Direct Historical Approach,” in Field Manual for African
Archaeology, ed. Alexandre Livingstone Smith, Els Cornelissen, Olivier P. Gosselain, and
Scott MacEachern (Tervuren, Belgium: Royal Museum for Central Africa, Documents on
Social Sciences and Humanities, 2017), 250–252.
Page 36 of 41

(61.) See, for example: Leonard B. Crossland and Merrick Posnansky, “Pottery, People and
Trade at Begho,” in The Spatial Organisation of Culture, ed. Ian Hodder (London:
Duckworth, 1978), 77–89; M. Dores Cruz, Shaping Quotidian Worlds: Ceramic Production
and Consumption in Banda, Ghana c. 1780–1994 (PhD diss., Binghamton University
[SUNY], 2003); Kwaku Effah-Gyamfi, “Traditional Pottery Technology at Krobo Takyiman
(Techniman), Ghana: An Ethnoarchaeological Study,” West African Journal of Archaeology
10 (1980): 103–116; Fredriksen, Material Knowledge; Tom N. Huffman, “Shona Pottery
From Pumula Township, Bulawayo, Rhodesia,” South African Archaeological Bulletin 27
(1972): 66–81; Mayor, Traditions céramiques; Alice Mezop Temgoua-Noumissie, “Pottery
and Oral History in the Faro (Northern Cameroon),” in Field Manual for African
Archaeology, ed. Alexandre Livingstone Smith, Els Cornelissen, Olivier P. Gosselain, and
Scott MacEachern Tervuren, Belgium: Royal Museum for Central Africa, Documents on
Social Sciences and Humanities, 2017), 275–279; and Ann B. Stahl, Making History in
Banda: Anthropological Visions of Africa’s Past (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2001).
(62.) William Yewdale Adams, “On the Argument From Ceramics to History: A Challenge
Based on Evidence from Medieval Nubia,” Current Anthropology 20, no. 4 (1979): 727–
744.
(63.) Frank “Reconstructing the History”; Frank, Mande Potters.
(64.) Nicolas Nikis, Louis Champion, and Els Cranshof, “Putting Together the Mande
Puzzle. Mapping Pottery Techniques and Identities in West Africa” (unpublished paper
presented at the Society of Africanist Archaeologists 21st Biennial Meeting, Toronto,
Canada, June 20–23, 2012).
(65.) Claire Grégoire and Bernard de Halleux, “Étude lexicostatistique de quarante-trois

langues et dialectes mande,” in Africana Linguistica XI (Tervuren, Belgium: Musée Royal
de l'Afrique Centrale, Annales du MRAC, Sciences Humaines 142, 1994), 53–70.
(66.) Georges E. Brooks, Western Africa to c. 1860 A.D.: A Provisional Historical Schema
Based on Climate Periods (Bloomington: African Studies Program, Indiana University,
Working Papers no. 1, 1985).
(67.) Brooks, Western Africa; Frank, Mande Potters; and Tamari, “The Development of
Caste System.”
(68.) Gallay, “Sociétés englobées”; and Gallay et al., “Traditions céramiques Dogon.”
(69.) Haour et al., African Pottery Roulettes.
(70.) Gosselain, “Marterializing Identities”; and Alexandre Livingstone Smith, “Histoire

du décor à la roulette en Afrique subsaharienne,” Journal of African Archaeology 5, no. 2
(2007): 189–216.
Page 37 of 41

(71.) For example, Christiane Desmedt, “Poteries anciennes décorées à la roulette dans la
Région des Grands Lacs,” The African Archaeological Review 9 (1991): 161–196; for a
critical discussion, see Kearsley A. Stewart, “Iron Age Ceramic Studies in Great Lakes
Eastern Africa: A Critical and Historiographical Review,” The African Archaeological
Review 11 (1993): 21–37.
(72.) Except for some experiments made under dubious conditions; for example, Hélène
Wallaert, “Learning How to Make the Right Pots. Apprenticeship Strategies and Material
Culture: A Case Study in Handmade Pottery From Cameroon,” Journal of Anthropological
Research 57 (2001): 471–493.
(73.) Nikis et al., “Putting Together the Mande Puzzle.”
(74.) Alexandre Livingstone Smith, “Pottery Traditions in Katanga (DRC). A Comparative

Examination of Roughing Out Technologies,” Anthropos 105, no. 1 (2010): 179–190; and
Livingstone Smith; “Pottery and Politics.”
(75.) Haour et al., African Pottery Roulettes, 62–68.
(76.) After Sigaut, “Quelques remarques.”
(77.) With the use of free websites such as GeoNames.
(78.) See Gosselain, “A Tradition in Nine Maps.”
(79.) For example, Hannah J. Haynie, “Geography and Spatial Analysis in Historical
Linguistics,” Language and Linguistics Compass 8 (2014): 344–357.
(80.) Christian Bromberger and Alain Morel, Limites floues, frontières vives. Des
variations culturelles en France et en Europe (Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences
de l’Homme, 2001).
(81.) Smith, “Processing Clay for Pottery.”
(82.) Other examples of the way in which structuring elements in the landscape weigh on
the evolution of pottery traditions are given in Gosselain, “The World Is Like a Beanstalk,”
and Gosselain, “A Tradition in Nine Maps.”
(83.) Thebe and Sadr, “Firing Pots,” 153.
(84.) Thebe and Sadr, “Forming and Shaping Pottery”; Phenio C. Thebe and Karim Sadr,
“Pottery Decoration in Contemporary Southeastern Botswana,” Azania. Archaeological
Research in Africa 52, no. 3 (2017): 305–323.
(85.) Haour et al., African Pottery Roulettes; their spatial distribution does indeed
crosscut that of three language families and a dozen of their respective subdivisions,
without ever matching them entirely (see Gosselain, “Materializing Identities,” 199).
Page 38 of 41

(86.) Livingstone Smith, “Histoire du décor à la roulette.”
(87.) Frank “Reconstructing the History”; Frank, Mande Potters; Gallay, “Sociétés
englobées”; and Gallay et al., “Traditions céramiques Dogon.”
(88.) Gosselain (2002), Poteries du Cameroun méridional; Gosselain, “Roads, Markets,

Migrants”; Huysecom, “Iron Age Terracotta Pestles”; Livingstone Smith, “Pottery
Traditions in Katanga”; and Livingstone Smith, “Pottery and Politics.”
(89.) Agnès Gelbert, “Ethnoarchaeological Study of Ceramic Borrowings: A New

Methodological Approach Applied in the Middle and Upper Valleys of the Senegal River,”
in Ethnoarchaeology and Its Transfers, ed. Sylvie Beyries and Pierre Pétrequin (Oxford:
BAR International Series 983, 2001), 81–94; and Gelbert, Ceramic Traditions.
(90.) Sterner and David, “Action on Matter”; note, however, that other factors are
conceivable here, notably the long-distance migrations of specialist potters, population
movements, and/or marriage prescriptions within the socioprofessional subgroups
concerned (see Gosselain, “Roads, Markets, Migrants”; Huysecom, “Iron Age Terracotta
Pestles”; and MacEachern, “Scale, Style, and Cultural Variation”).
(91.) Gosselain, “The World Is Like a Beanstalk”; Gosselain, “A Tradition in Nine Maps”;
and Guèye, “Dis-moi quel pot tu as.”
(92.) See examples in Barley, Smashing Pots; Gosselain, “In Pots We Trust.”
(93.) Livingstone Smith, “Pottery and Politics.”
(94.) According to a map published by Jan Vansina, Les anciens royaumes de la savane
(Léopoldville: Université de Lovanium, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales,
1965).
(95.) Livingstone Smith, “Pottery and Politics,” 15.
(96.) Gosselain, “The World Is Like a Beanstalk.”
(97.) After Livingstone Smith, “Pottery and Politics,” 15.
(98.) Livingstone Smith, “Pottery and Politics,” 16.
(99.) Robert Creswell, “Transfert de techniques et chaînes opératoires,” Techniques &

Culture 2 (1983): 143–163; Lemonnier, Elements.
(100.) Bromberger and Morel, Limites floues; and André-Georges Haudricourt, La

technologie science humaine. Recherches d’histoire et d’ethnologie des techniques (Paris:
Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1987).
(101.) For a historiography of pottery studies in Africa, see Olivier P. Gosselain and
Alexandre Livingstone Smith, “A Century of Ceramic Studies in Africa,” in The Oxford
Page 39 of 41

Handbook of African Archaeology, ed. Peter Mitchell and Paul Lane (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), 117–129.
(102.) Nicholas David and Carol Kramer, Ethnoarchaeology in Action (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2001).
(103.) Valentine Roux, “Ethnoarchaeology. A Non-Historical Science of Reference

Necessary for Interpreting the Past,” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 14,
no. 2 (2007): 153–178.
(104.) For example, A. C. Quarcoo and Marion Johnson, “Shai Pots. The Pottery Industry
of the Shai People of Ghana,” Baessler-Archiv, Beiträge zur Völkerkunde 16 (1968): 47–88;
and Enid Schildkrout, Jill Hellman, and Curtis A. Keim, “Mangbetu Pottery: Tradition and
Innovation in Northeast Zaïre,” African Arts 22, no. 2 (1989): 38–47.
(105.) Drost, Töpferei; and Lawton, “Bantu Pottery.”
(106.) See especially Drost, Töpferei.
(107.) For a presentation of the method and a good case study, see Ann B. Stahl, Making
History in Banda: Anthropological Visions of Africa’s Past (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2001).
(108.) Martin H. Wobst, “Stylistic Behavior and Information Exchange,” in For the
Director: Research Essays in Honor of James B. Griffin, ed. Charles E. Cleland (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology [Memoir 13], 1977), 317–342.
(109.) Ian Hodder, “Economic and Social Stress and Material Culture Patterning,”
American Antiquity 44 (1979): 446–454; and Ian Hodder, Symbols in Actions.
Ethnoarchaeological Studies of Material Culture (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1982).
(110.) Nicholas David, Judy Sterner, and Kodzo Gavua, “Why Pots Are Decorated,”
Current Anthropology 29, no. 3 (1988): 365–389; and Judy Sterner, “Who Is Signalling
Whom? Ceramic Style, Ethnicity and Taphonomy Among the Sirak Bulahay,” Antiquity 63
(1989): 451–459.
(111.) Examples include: Crossland and Posnansky, “Pottery, People and Trade at Begho”;
Cruz, Shaping Quotidian Worlds; Effah-Gyamfi, “Traditional Pottery Technology at Krobo
Takyiman”; Fredriksen, Material Knowledge; Huffman, “Shona Pottery”; Mayor, Traditions
céramiques; Mezop Temgoua-Noumissie, “Pottery and Oral History”; and Stahl, Making
History in Banda.
(112.) Drost, Töferei; Gosselain, Poterie du Cameroun méridional; Gosselain, “Ceramics in

Africa”; Haour et al., African Pottery Roulettes; Huysecom, “Iron Age Terracotta Pestles”;
Page 40 of 41

and Sterner and David, “Action on Matter”; for example, Gallay et al., Peuples et
céramiques; Lawton, “Bantu Pottery”; and Mayor, Traditions céramiques.
Olivier P. Gosselain
Centre d'Anthropologie Culturelle, Université Libre de Bruxelles
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Pottery chaînes opératoires as Historical Documents

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History

date: 22 December 2018

Summary and Keywords

Technical processes—or chaînes opératoires—are heterogeneous cultural aggregates

The relevance of spatial distributions in history-oriented analyses of technical processes

date: 22 December 2018

What Pottery Chaînes Opératoires Are and Why

date: 22 December 2018

Pottery chaînes opératoires

Whatever their status,

date: 22 December 2018

There is no place here to

date: 22 December 2018

Figure 3. This common West African shaping

Traditions versus Adaptations

date: 22 December 2018

date: 22 December 2018

molding, or drawing of a lump as indexes of ethnic identities.14 Moreover, their

Increasing the level of

date: 22 December 2018

date: 22 December 2018

Techniques and Identity in Relational Perspective

date: 22 December 2018

A second category of relations involved in knowledge acquisition pertains to casual

date: 22 December 2018

A third category of relations involved in knowledge acquisition pertains to mediated

Yet as individuals subsequently redefine their position within a community of practice or

Another process of meaning attribution is the work of “alignment,”42 through which

date: 22 December 2018

expands repertoires beyond the confines of communities of practice but contributes as

date: 22 December 2018

Documenting and Contextualizing Pottery

The chaîne opératoire Template

Each phase of the chaîne opératoire must be documented by means of a multiple-entry

• situation vis-à-vis dwellings and other areas of activity

date: 22 December 2018

• main identity (gender, age, language, claimed ethnicity)

Knowledge and Know-How

• origin of knowledge (acquired from who? how? where? when?)

• physical characteristics (type, composition, condition)

date: 22 December 2018

• structure (material, shape, absolute and relative dimensions, weight, balance,

Relationships with Other Activities

date: 22 December 2018

Beliefs and Religious Practices

The multientry framework as described explicitly aims at contextualizing the various

date: 22 December 2018

biographical approach helps situating individual practices within a broader web of

Doing History with Pottery chaînes opératoires

Still another application is the comparative technology approach. Inspired by

date: 22 December 2018

Defining a Comparative Framework

date: 22 December 2018

Note that it is not always mandatory to launch into regional or macroregional

However, when the comparison aims primarily at assessing the sociohistorical

Selecting and Organizing the Data

date: 22 December 2018

Technical Continuums, Discrepancies, and Filiations

date: 22 December 2018

correspond to the emergence of a new technical tradition through the gradual

A similar process may be

This notion of technical grammar may be illustrated by another example. In southern