Bodies of Clay: Idoloplastic Production in Early Neolithic Thessaly
Corps en argile : la production idoloplastique de la Thessalie au début du Néolithique
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to examine the main characteristics of manufacturing Thessalian clay figurines during the Early Neolithic period (6500-6000 BC). This study proposes an anthropological reading of the miniaturized representations, considering the technical processes as social processes. Identifying the chaînes opératoires used for the manufacture of the figurines will allow us to emphasise the technical choices of their producers and the operational sequence involved, which consists of transforming raw materials into finished products. Each chaîne opératoire corresponds to distinct technical behaviours that involve specific gestures and cognitive skills developed during the learning and repetition of these actions.
This study adopts an interdisciplinary analytical methodology combining macroscopic, radiographic, and chemical analyses, with the aim of distinguishing different norms, trends, or technical traditions. It is based on a corpus including 433 figurines from the sites of Prodromos and Achilleion, both located in the western plain of Thessaly, to sketch out the physiognomy of idoloplastic production and better understand its technical, material, and social aspects. The paper will first focus on the intra-site level, describing the idoloplastic production developed within each settlement and emphasizing local technical traditions and communities of practice. Secondly, by comparing the figurines of the two settlements, it will explore phenomena of exchanges and interactions between the groups of figurine-makers identified.
The technological study allowed us to identify certain fundamental elements of the idoloplastic production of the two settlements. First of all, the production of figurines at each settlement involves different manufacturing methods (shaping from lumps of clay, clay-core shaping, hollow shaping), which possibly fall under more global/regional Thessalian traditions of figurine-making. Significant morphological
and technological variability thus seems to govern the total production of figurines, indicating a relatively unstandardized and highly diversified activity, therefore favouring the personal expression of the manufacturers, in other words the idiosyncratic appropriation of idoloplastic norms. Each figurine, although following well-established conventions and being an integral part of a precise morpho-technological tradition, presents a singular and individual character. Therefore, despite a real aesthetic resemblance, one often gets the impression that each piece is unique, the product of an interpretive imitation of general prototypes.
This morpho-technological malleability indicates that different ways of making figurines can be employed simultaneously by producers.
The diversity of the clay’s chemical groups, distinguished at each site, and hence the use of different clays or clay recipes for the production of figurines, contributes to the idea of an embedded technological pluralism in manufacture. However, the coexistence of different manufacturing methods within the production indicates a lack of standardization of technical behaviours at the scale of the settlement. If we accept that each manufacturing method involves a set of learned and acquired skills, specific to each community of practice, we could legitimately assume that this variability reflects an activity carried out in parallel by different producers or groups of producers with their own habits and know-how. Moreover, the technological pluralism observed within the same chaîne opératoire (in terms of clays, decoration, surface treatment, and firing), implies the craft activities of figurine-makers who, despite their training in the same technical tradition, have developed different skills and habits. In other words, each community of practice is likely characterized by local, or even individualized, ways of learning and transmitting a technique.
The question of the transmitting and learning idoloplastic techniques is very rarely addressed by research, and if so, only indirectly and with regards to the so-called ‘poor quality’ figurines. In this context, the criteria most often used, depending on the case, are clumsy modelling (an imperfect reproduction of the shape, resulting in asymmetrical and roughly produced objects), the use of coarse-grained clays with many inclusions or badly sorted, and bad firing. However, several clarifications are needed. First of all, the lack of quality of certain figurines does not necessarily mean unskilful producers, children, or apprentices whose lack of experience leaves its traces in the material. Instead, one could consider them deliberate morpho-technological choices. In this case, the “badly made” figurines would be witnesses of a distinct idoloplastic tradition, characterized by the embedded technical habits of the producers and possibly by the deliberate expression of an ‘indifference’ to the visual appearance of the figurine. In the context of this type of manufacturing, wherein the technical process itself constitutes the goal of the production, the quality of the construction or the morphological perfection of the object seem not to be the primary intention. On the contrary, the emphasis is placed on the fundamental representational properties of the figurine, its aesthetic aspects then being less significant.
However, it should not be excluded that the aforementioned morpho-technological characteristics are, in fact, indicative of specific learning processes and ‘phases’ of apprenticeship, and therefore of an apprentice’s activity. Whatever the answer, the involvement of children in the idoloplastic production should not be considered exclusively in relation to objects showing evidence of unskilful producers.
As this paper will demonstrate, the production of ‘beautifully’ crafted figurines could equally be considered as objects produced by the hands of children. The idea of a “child production” opens up new avenues of reflection concerning both the learning of idoloplastic techniques and the social role that this production could have had within communities of practice. The technical dimension and the acquisition of motor and cognitive skills could be thus considered as only one aspect of a dynamic learning and transmission system by means of which the children are introduced to a whole know-how, gradually incorporating symbolic connotations and appropriating cultural norms through the manufacture of figurines.
L'objectif de cet article est d'examiner les caractéristiques principales de la fabrication des figurines thessaliennes durant le Néolithique ancien (6500-6000 av. J.-C.). Cette étude s'inscrit dans la volonté de procéder à une lecture anthropologique des représentations miniaturisées, considérant les processus techniques comme des processus sociaux. La reconstitution des chaînes opératoires de la fabrication des figurines a permis de mettre en évidence les choix techniques de leurs fabricants et les séquences d'opérations consistant à transformer les matières premières en produits finis. Chaque chaîne opératoire correspond à des comportements techniques concrets qui mettent en oeuvre des gestuelles spécifiques et des habiletés cognitives développées durant l'apprentissage et la répétition de ces actions. À travers une approche analytique interdisciplinaire (macroscopique, radiographique et chimique), nous tentons de distinguer des normes, des tendances ou des traditions techniques différentes. Nous nous sommes appuyés sur un assemblage de 433 pièces provenant de Prodromos et d'Achilleion, deux sites situés dans la plaine occidentale de la Thessalie, afin d'esquisser la physionomie de la production idoloplastique et de mieux comprendre les aspects techniques et matériels qui la caractérisent. L'analyse technologique détaillée de cette production nous a conduit à examiner les processus sociaux et culturels qui la sous-tendent. La question de l'organisation de la production amène à s'interroger sur qui étaient les fabricants et quelles pratiques étaient développées à l'intérieur de chaque agglomération. De plus, la variabilité morpho-technologique au sein des chaînes opératoires identifiées nous a permis d'aborder la question des traditions ou des statuts différents, des préférences individuelles et des habitudes locales. Dans ce cadre, nous avons discuté plus en détail la question de l'apprentissage et de la transmission des savoir-faire idoloplastiques, les considérant comme des pratiques sociales qui font partie intégrante de la fonction globale des représentations miniaturisées.
Origin | Explicit agreement for this submission |
---|---|
Licence |