Valentine Roux

Valentine Roux
French National Centre for Scientific Research | CNRS

PhD

About

92
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Publications

Publications (92)
Chapter
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In this article, we first recall on the one hand that the interpretation of lithic pieces in terms of skill level requires the use of regularities, i.e. recurrent phenomena under certain conditions, and on the other hand that only interdisciplinary studies, combining specifically archaeology, psychology and movement sciences, can lead to the unders...
Chapter
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A novel, interdisciplinary exploration of the relative contributions of rigidity and flexibility in the adoption, maintenance, and evolution of technical traditions. Techniques can either be used in rigid, stereotypical ways or in flexibly adaptive ways, or in some combination of the two. The Evolution of Techniques, edited by Mathieu Charbonneau,...
Book
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Esta guía propone a los lectores de habla hispana una introducción al enfoque tecnológico de los ensamblajes cerámicos arqueológicos. Este enfoque consiste en reconstituir las cadenas operativas puestas en obra para la fabricación de los recipientes y en caracterizar, de esta forma, las tradiciones técnicas practicadas en el pasado. El objetivo fin...
Article
The sign value of the first potter's wheels used in the southern Levant (second half of the 5th mill. BC) is explored through the production modalities of V-shaped bowls, the main category of vessels shaped on the wheel at that time. To this end, a morphometric approach is applied to V-shaped bowls from four sites through numerical methods availabl...
Article
We first describe the wheel throwing modalities according to the type of wheel. We then examine the deformation of the clay paste depending on these modalities. The goal is a) to understand the differences in the throwing process depending on the type of wheel; b) to highlight diagnostics markers specific of the type of potter’s wheel, i.e. low ver...
Article
The aim of this research is to investigate the influence of NaCl on the colours and chemical composition of Ca-rich ceramic bodies. The addition of salt to ceramics is a practice that has been observed in several potter communities where the addition of salt is explicitly intended to whiten ceramics. In order to conduct this research and characteri...
Article
While craft apprenticeship can be understood as socially mediated individual learning, the ensuing prediction of individual and cultural object traits within craft communities has not been investigated. Here we provide an assessment of vessel shape variations occurring through cultural transmission and their visual perception by the craftsmen. To t...
Article
This study explores the effects of the copying error process on material culture. The goal is to assess whether the morphometric variability of standardized vessels, generated by copying errors, can reveal both collective and individual signatures. In this perspective, we collected a corpus of 320 present-day standardized water jars, made by 23 Ind...
Article
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In this paper, I first argue that technological analysis of archaeological assemblages in terms of chaînes opératoires is a privileged qualitative approach to reconstruct technological networks, namely networks of socially linked object-makers. This is a first step before explaining dynamic phenomena such as diffusion of techniques or emergence of...
Article
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This study aims at characterising the pottery tradition of the Lower Egyptian Culture to shed new light on the sociological landscape of the Delta region at the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. The analytical method chosen to address this issue is the chaîne opératoire approach as it proved to be particularly well suited to define the local trad...
Chapter
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In this paper, I focus on two issues: (1) the variables for modeling the relational structure of a society and (2) the use of models for explaining evolutionary processes. I argue first that, contrary to stylistic traits which are the main attributes analyzed by models exploring changes in material culture through time, technological traditions are...
Article
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This study examines Ghassulian ceramic assemblages from sites located in various parts of the southern Levant using the chaîne opératoire approach. The goal is to assess whether the Ghassulian communities were loosely integrated or, on the contrary, closely connected to each other. Results show that a single chaîne opératoire was shared at the leve...
Article
https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1YUSX-JVbh4QE This work aims to improve understanding of the conditions favoring adoption of new craft traits. We investigated the cost of motor skill adaptation in asking seven expert potters to produce familiar vs. unfamiliar shapes and using a familiar vs. unfamiliar wheel. The gestural patterns of the potters (i....
Book
Full-text available
Pottery is the most ubiquitous find in most historical archaeological excavations and serves as the basis for much research in the discipline. But it is not only its frequency that makes it a prime dataset for such research, it is also that pottery embeds many dimensions of the human experience, ranging from the purely technical to the eminently sy...
Article
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In this article, we question how new technological traits can penetrate cohesive social groups and spread. Based on ethnographic narratives and following studies in sociology, the hypothesis is that not only weak ties are important for linking otherwise unconnected groups and introducing new techniques but also that expertise is required. In order...
Article
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The recent literature on “complex contagions” challenges Granovetter’s classic hypothesis on the strength of weak ties and argues that, when the actors’ choice requires reinforcement from several sources, it is the structure of strong ties that really matters to sustain rapid and wide diffusion. The paper contributes to this debate by reporting on...
Article
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At the crossroad of archaeology and experimental psychology, we addressed the issue of inter-individual variability in traditional ceramic shapes. The goal was to explore whether such variability could imply potter signatures. We setup a field experiment with five expert Nepalese potters, asking them to produce three shapes (replicated five times)....
Article
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This short introduction briefly recalls how sociological theories and formal methods for social networks can help to interpret diffusion processes of ancient cultural traits. It also provides a presentation of the selected papers. These papers focus not on the ways archaeological data can be represented in a relational format, but on the potential...
Article
In this paper, we address the question of the conditions for persistence of technological boundaries. We use field studies to test the predictions generated by a theoretical model in analytical sociology and examine the micro-processes at stake in the non-diffusion of techniques: to which extent techniques contributes to a sharp disagreement betwee...
Article
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In a provocative article published recently in Archaeological dialogues (23(2)), Olivier Gosselain proposes ‘to get rid of ethnoarchaeology once and for all, and join forces with other, more serious, disciplines’. In this reaction article, I challenge Gosselain's sweeping statements about ethnoarcaheology. In particular I argue against the notion t...
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter presents an overview of the chaîne opératoire approach and recalls its relevance as a social and transmission signal. It describes the main components of the ceramic chaînes opératoires and the principles for identifying them on the archaeological material through diagnostic attributes including both surface features and microfabrics....
Article
This article presents results obtained from experiments carried out in 1998 and 2002 at the Historical-Archaeological Center of Lejre (Denmark). The scope was to provide comparative reference data to interpret the finishing techniques and the surface treatments of the southern Levant Late Chalcolithic ceramics (2nd half of the 5th millennium BC)....
Article
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The southern Levant and northern Mesopotamia are two areas in which the potter's wheel seems to have appeared independently. New data enable us to undertake a comparison between both regions. As a result, it appears that in both regions the context of production of the first wheel-made vessels was very similar. Wheel-coiled bowls were made by craft...
Article
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The site of Tell Arqa, in Northern Lebanon, displays a continuous sequence covering the entire 3rd millennium, which attests major economic and socio-cultural changes affecting the entire plain of Akkar around 2500 BC. In order to understand whether these changes testify to a form of historical continuity or mark anthropological ruptures, related t...
Book
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L’objectif de cet ouvrage est de fournir aux archéologues, étudiants et chercheurs, un cadre théorique et méthodologique pour étudier les assemblages céramiques. Ce cadre est fondé sur l’approche technologique qui, à travers le concept de chaîne opératoire, ambitionne une lecture anthropologique des objets archéologiques. Pour mettre en œuvre cett...
Article
http://www.mae.parisnanterre.fr/articles-articulos/why-potters-have-not-borrowed-the-kiln-comparing-narratives-of-indian-and-ecuadorian-potters/
Data
El futuro de las publicaciones de Arqueología es tratado a partir del programa logicista y del proyecto Arkeotek. El primero propone nuevas formas de escritura que permiten una lectura particularmente rápida de las bases de nuestras construcciones, y una formalización de nuestro saber para la creación de bases de conocimiento. El proyecto Arkeotek...
Chapter
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La période chalcolithique soulève la question de la corrélation entre mutation sociale et émergence de techniques « discontinues », ainsi nommées étant donné le saut technique auquel elles correspondent. Cette corrélation a été soulignée par des anthropologues comme R. Cresswell. Son explica-tion peut être recherchée dans les conditions d’émergence...
Chapter
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French ethnoarchaeological studies distinguish between three main approaches, which stem from different intellectual heritages, logicism being the first approach, palethnology and experimental archaeology the second, and anthropology of techniques the third. As we shall see, these different approaches have provided invaluable regularities and insig...
Article
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This paper questions the spreading of techniques considered as advantageous when measured in terms of energetic efficiency. A present-day case study, in which techniques do not spread, is used to highlight a transmission model that can be used to understand the spread of technical systems in terms of demic or cultural processes. The model is then a...
Article
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La question de la transition entre le Chalcolithique final et le Bronze ancien I dans le sud Levant fait l’objet de nombreux debats depuis maintenant plusieurs decennies. Le volume qui lui est consacre ici est destine a faire etat de nouvelles donnees archeologiques qui permettent d’en renouveler les reponses. On rappellera au prealable les princip...
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Modi’in, localise dans le centre d’Israel, est l’un des rares sites qui offre une sequence d’occupations couvrant la premiere moitie du IVe millenaire avant notre ere. L’etude technologique des assemblages ceramiques permet de re-examiner la question delicate de la continuite et/ ou discontinuite entre le Chalcolithique fi nal et le Bronze ancien I...
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Various authors have suggested behavioural similarities between tool use in early hominins and chimpanzee nut cracking, where nut cracking might be interpreted as a precursor of more complex stone flaking. In this paper, we bring together and review two separate strands of research on chimpanzee and human tool use and cognitive abilities. Firstly,...
Article
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This study is aimed at evaluating potters’ skills according to the mechanical characteristics of the vessels they produced. It focuses on wheel thrown vessels. In a first stage, considering that the dif!culty of throwing ceramic vessels is to a signi!cant extent determined by the risk of collapse of the thrown structure, we applied the method of fi...
Conference Paper
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In this paper, we describe the DYNAMO project which defines a semantic information retrieval system.
Article
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El futur de les publicacions arqueològiques: arguments entre el suport digital i el paper imprès Valentine Roux Les reflexions presentades aquí sobre el futur de les nostres publicacions en Arqueologia se situen en el context de l'Arqueologia «logicis-ta» i es basen en una experimentació que s'està realitzant en el camp editorial. Aquesta contri-bu...
Chapter
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This chapter describes technological innovation, developmental trajectories, and modes of social organization. It addresses the technological inventions and their order and mode of development as well as the possible role of the individual in the differential occurrences of inventions. It analyzes the mechanisms underlying innovation and fixation p...
Article
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Recent discoveries at Tel Yarmuth (Early Bronze Age, c. 3500–2350 BC) enable us to revisit the question of the introduction of the potter's wheel in the Southern Levant. Two tournettes have been found which represent the typical potter's wheel of the 3rd millennium BC in the Southern Levant. Their technological analysis, as well as an analysis of t...
Article
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Ethnoarchaeology appears nowadays as a poorly formulated field. However, it could become a real science of reference for interpreting the past if it was focused upon well-founded cross-cultural correlates, linking material culture with static and dynamic phenomena. For this purpose, such correlates have to be studied in terms of explanatory mechani...
Chapter
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The evolution in the use of the potter’s wheel in the southern Levant from the 5th to the 3rd millennium BC provides the starting point for a consideration of potential irregularities that explain why, in a repeated manner, a technique that has many technicaleconomic advantages does not become the subject of transfer or borrowing. To this end, we c...
Article
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Afin d'interpréter les assemblages céramiques archéologiques en termes d'identités sociales, une méthodologie a été développée qui consiste à les classer successivement selon des critères techniques, techno-pétrographiques et morpho-stylistiques. Les classifications résultantes sont ensuite comparées à l'échelle macro-régionale. Appliquée aux assem...
Chapter
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The evolution of lithic industries is supposedly bound to the evolution of this capacity to elaborate mental schemes. It is therefore argued that since lithic industries reflect our ancestors' planning and decision-making abilities, they can be used to directly assess the latter's mental capacities or 'intelligence'. In a previous experiment with I...
Article
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Cambay is one of the very rare places in the world where the stone-knapping technique still responds to the principles of the conchoidal fracture. The technique practised is an indirect percussion by counter-blow and is used for making stone beads. This technique is a recent one in the history of techniques. It can provide, however, an appropriate...
Article
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The logicist programme, advocated by J. -C. Gardin, proposes to model the architecture of our constructs in the form of schematisations. These schematisations are arborescences composed of the main components of our constructs, i. e. a data base, conclusions and intermediary propositions linking the first group to the second. When they are played u...
Article
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Two major features have emerged lately in the communication patterns of archaeological research: (a) an increasing use of the Web as a channel of information transfer, to complement or occasionally replace printed publications; (b) an exploration of new forms of archaeological discourse related to that trend. The Arkeotek project combines the two a...
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The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between metric variability of ceramic vessels of a single type and intensity of production. This relationship is examined on the basis of vessels made by Indian and Spanish potters whose rates of production vary from low to high. Results are compared with Filipino data to embrace different cultur...
Article
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The dynamic systems framework may be considered an alternative to traditional approaches that study technological change. The benefits of this framework are simultaneously methodological and metaphorical. Methodologically, the framework provides a coherent analytic process for studying empirical data to explain the complexity of technological chang...
Book
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« Pourquoi s'intéresser à un geste technique ? » Cette question a été largement débattue par les grands anthropologues français, en particulier, Mauss et Leroi-Gourhan. Néanmoins, bientôt un siècle plus tard, les études anthropologiques sur le geste n'ont donné lieu qu'à très peu de travaux. Il faut se tourner vers les sciences du mouvement ou l'er...
Book
Full-text available
« Pourquoi s'intéresser à un geste technique ? » Cette question a été largement débattue par les grands anthropologues français, en particulier, Mauss et Leroi-Gourhan. Néanmoins, bientôt un siècle plus tard, les études anthropologiques sur le geste n'ont donné lieu qu'à très peu de travaux. Il faut se tourner vers les sciences du mouvement ou l'er...
Article
Full-text available
Sillar, B., and Tite, M. S., 2000, The challenge of ‘technological choices for materials science approaches in archaeology, Archaeometry42, 2–20. Livingstone Smith, A., 2000, Processing clay for pottery in northern Cameroon: social and technical requirements, Archaeometry42, 21–42. Sillar, B., 2000, Dung by preference: the choice of fuel as an exam...
Article
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In Oriental Asia, during the 4th–3rdmillenniumBC, clay vessels were not wheel-thrown but wheel-shaped. This technique, which combines coiling and wheel-shaping, can be achieved by four methods. These methods are not constrained by technical factors. They may represent cultural behaviour and their identification is potentially an aid towards underst...
Article
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Au 4e millenaire avant J.-C, dans le Levant-Sud, apparait une nouvelle categorie morpho-technique de recipients ceramiques : les bols au profil en « V». Ces bols sont presents dans les niveaux superieurs du site d'Abu Hamid. Une analyse technologique, portant simultanement sur les macro-traces et les micro -fabriques, permet de reconstituer la chai...
Article
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L'étude des habiletés motrices et cognitives mises en jeu dans les techniques du passé représente une approche anthropologique particulièrement heuristique. Les habiletés sont étudiées, en contexte actuel, selon les méthodologies développées par la psychologie expérimentale. Le but est de dégager des principes universels de fonctionnement afin d'in...
Article
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Skills involved in the knapping of Harappan long carnelian beads are studied in order to assess their value as well as knappers’ socio‐economic status. Skills are studied by reference to present‐day bead knapping in Khambhat, India. They are examined from the way actors are able to handle the complexity of the task and achieve it. They are analyzed...
Article
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Wheel throwing has long been identified in archaeology on the basis of specific surface features as well as internaldiagnostic structures detected by radiographic techniques. On the basis of an experimental study, this paper proposes to re-examine the criteria of ceramic forming processes. Interpretation of the physical reaction of clay to hydric a...
Article
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Specialisation technique, economique et sociale de la taille des pierres d'agate et de cornaline : analyse de la chaine de production, de la technique elle-meme, de la differenciation des produits en trois groupes qui correspondent a trois groupes specifiques d'artisans. Competences, performances, apprentissage; le degre de technicite est lie au te...
Book
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The book comprises two ethnoarchaeological studies whose aim is the construction of a reference knowledge for interpreting archaeological data, according to the principles of verification against empirical data. The first study deals with the concept of craft specialization. This is a commonly encountered concept since it describes the emergence of...

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