Due to the largely ungraspable nature of skill, the academic discourse lacks a structured research method for it. Material scientists make inferences about skill in hand-made artefacts based on...Show moreDue to the largely ungraspable nature of skill, the academic discourse lacks a structured research method for it. Material scientists make inferences about skill in hand-made artefacts based on subjective judgements, despite missing the knowledge craftspeople possess. These sometimes rather unquantified inferences could lead to incorrect views on past societies and their socio-economic organisation. The craftsperson’s perspective, recently proposed by Kuijpers (2018) provides a toolbox based on perceptive categorisation for more structured skill research for archaeometallurgy. Perceptive categorisations are made of different steps in the production process, which can be used to create a technological roadmap of an archaeometallurgical assemblage. This thesis concerns a pilot study for establishing a craftsperson’s perspective for the ceramic chaîne opératoire. The focus lies on one suitable sensory aspect therein, being temper concentrations in clay. A newly devised method is introduced and tested. This method is used for investigating human tactile sensitivity for differing temper (sand) percentages in clay in direct- and indirect-comparison experiments. Through doing sensory experiments with people with different levels of experience with working with clay, it is hypothesised that a positive correlation can be demonstrated between an increased sensory attunement to a material and a higher level of skill. Conclusions about the relationship between skill and sensory attunement were not reached. However, it can be concluded that in direct comparison, sand content differences between 0 % and 2,5 % can mostly be recognised and that the sample containing more sand can be mostly correctly identified up to a 5 % difference. In indirect comparison, on average, temper (sand) percentages in clay can be perceived rather accurate. In both cases, large differences exist between individuals. Based on error analysis of indirect comparison, a perceptive categorisation for sand content in clay is proposed. The combination of such categorisations for all relevant sensory aspects of the ceramic chaîne opératoire could stand at the basis of the establishing of a craftsperson’s perspective for ceramic analysis. This perspective could be applied to ceramic assemblages to develop new ideas, and challenge existing ones, on ceramics, craft, craft organisation, skill and specialisation, and socio-economic organisation, in past and present societies.Show less
