ABSTRACT
The study of specialist-produced crafts in South Asia has led to a number of fruitful findings including the identification of inter and intraregional interaction. Identifying technological practices common to craft specialists has also provided evidence for tracing network links. Beyond these studies, there have been a number of rich investigations into the technology of specialized craft production in South Asia. For example, ethno archaeological and archaeological research into stone-bead makers, brass specialists, ceramic specialists, steatite carvers, and stoneware bangle production has helped to elucidate the role of social organization of labor, mobility, markets, skill, and technique, as well as depositional processes of the archaeological record. Anthropologists and archaeologists have long understood that technology is historically contingent and embedded in a broader cultural context. Lithic cores are waste products discarded after the flakes and blades are produced.
