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Bradford Andrews
At Xochicalco, excavations of the Operation H workshop have revealed a
ated with multiple activity areas (see Hirth n.d. for a detailed discussion of
these data). This context was a single large residential compound with three
conjoined patios (Fig. 4) that housed an extended family of 10 to 20 people
(Hirth 2000:tables 7.1 and 7.3). As such, both the San Martin and Operation
H workshops represent comparable social contexts of production, although
the family unit at San Martin was much larger.
Figure 4. Map of the Operation H Workshop at Xochicalco.
The Concept of Skill
Since my question addresses crafting intensity, it revolves around the con
straining because it forces workshops into two categories. Instead, I advocate
placing workshops along a continuum that allows us to rank relative levels
of labor intensity. This perspective is useful because it permits more realistic
(Andrews 2003; Costin 1991, n.d.; Tosi 1984).
The labor intensity at which specialists were involved in production can
be inferred from measures of craftsman skill (Andrews 1999, 2003). This
perspective assumes that, in most cases, more skilled craftsmen will be those
who worked most often because they were the most practiced at the tech
niques or gestures necessary for making their crafts. 3 By techniques or ges
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