Craft and Technology: Knowledge of the Ancient Chinese Artisans

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Craft and Technology: Knowledge of the Ancient Chinese Artisans," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

How humans interact with their natural world is what we as archaeologists see in research of the past, but how do artisans alter nature to produce objects that represent their existence in the history of time? Through the study of artifacts, archaeologists can infer knowledge and skill of artisans. It is only through combining our discussion between different technological productions can we increase our comprehension of ancient artisans' knowledge and relationship with the material world. This session will introduce recent archaeological discoveries and research on Chinese crafts and technology while bringing forth various methods to discuss and comprehend technology as a whole. This allows for better comparison of the knowledge employed by the ancient artisans to alter their physical world.