Introduction

This book presents the reader with 10 chapters about people, technologies and social networks. The geographical, chronological and methodological approaches employed in all chapters weld them together into a single research theme. The effort reflected in these chapters demonstrates, first, that all authors saw the beauty in employing, to a greater or lesser degree, the combined methodology of the chaîne opératoire and cross-craft interaction, both formalised separately some time ago (see e.g. Leroi-Gourhan 1943; 1945; McGovern et al. 1989), but not employed combined until fairly recently (Brysbaert 2007; 2008). Therefore, having been invited to employ this combined and holistic methodology, most people expanded their views and scopes in approaching their material. Second, because this endeavour encouraged cross-craft interaction approaches, most authors also crossed over into each other’s chapters by reviewing at least one other chapter of this volume and by having been in contact with each other for discussions over their contributions to this book. This resulted in what I hoped for: looking for cross-craft interaction in past settings, while our contemporary lives would also intertwine with cross-fertilised ideas, as the outcome. Observing and participating in this process helped us to understand even better how such interactions may have taken place in the past. This multi-authored volume thus brings together 10 scholars who write on their main topic of expertise while broadening this out with a holistic approach to materials and technology studies in the Aegean. It is, therefore, the theoretical underpinnings that allow this volume to cross the strict Aegean boundaries, and that open it up to wider anthropological and archaeological interests in pre-industrial technologies.