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Skilled Production and Social Reproduction – an introduction to the subject
At the end of the 1980s, the experimental research tradition in Uppsala fad
ed out. In part, this was explained by the fact that certain key persons, for
on to new adventures. However, it is also fair to say that the severe critique
chaeology that denied the value of experimental and ethnographic analogies
in favour of historical and phenomenological approaches also was to be held
ideal generalisation” that, from a somewhat shallow point of view, lies at the
dogmatic experimentalists, this critique was aimed in the wrong direction.
The technological reconstruction that is the result of carefully conducted
experiments is an interpretative process that continuously moves from small
to large issues and back. This is due to the fact that the experimentalists do
not necessarily produce an understanding that makes objective knowledge
on natural laws. From an archaeological point of view, it might even be more
appropriate to talk about experience rather than controlled experiments (in
ologists interested in technology to widen their perspective. Ideally, this is
edge and individual practical skill and thus mimics an hermeneutical circle.
It is at the crossroads of practical mastering and understanding of the craft,
the other, that history, cultural conventions and the general way of life is
negotiated. In fact, in one of the articles in this book, it is argued that prehis
outside perspectives when actively trying to recapitulate older “forgotten”
industries in cultural reproduction (see Knutsson in this volume).
Thus, we are of the opinion that it is important to maintain and develop the
experimental tradition. Since the merging of the particular and the general is
fundamental in cultural reproduction, it is only logical that it also is present in
is striking that research on material culture, and the ways in which it affects us,
diminished during the 20 th century at the very same time that the amount of ar
tefacts that we are surrounded by in our everyday life increased considerably. It
is surprising that archaeology is one of the few subjects that actually study the
complex relationship between material culture and people. As a consequence
we consider it meaningful, from a general point of view, to investigate material
the archaeological remains of craftsmanship.
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