Renrew C & Bahn P.

,eds, Archaeology - Key Concepts, Routledge, London ,2005,

1he chane operatoire
Nathan Schlanger

Lxotic as this lrench notion may sound, the cbaive oeratoire is really a straightorward
and stimulating concept or both archaeological and anthropological research. In its basic
deinition, the cbaive oeratoire ,literally 'operational chain' or 'sequence', reers to the range o
processes by which naturally occurring raw materials are selected, shaped and transormed
into usable cultural products. 1he extraction o a lint nodule rom an outcrop-to gie an
obious example-its testing, transport, knapping and reduction into a handaxe or
butchering meat is one such process, and so is the mining o clay, its mixing with temper,
shaping into a essel, decorating and iring. 1he material traces and by-products let by these
processes can in principle be identiied and retrieed in the archaeological record. 1heir
analysis makes it possible to document the steps and sequences o bygone material
operations, and then reconstruct the dynamic links between these stages, their interlocking
causes and eects, their attending equipment and settings, their temporal and spatial
unolding, and so on. 1his in turn opens the way or addressing some o the complex social,
ecological and cognitie dimensions surrounding ancient technical actiities. As used in the
recent lrench and Anglo-Saxon literature, the notion o cbaive oeratoire can designate a
concrete occurrence o some particular technical process ,e.g. obsered in ethno-
archaeological research,, and also a generalised model or pattern o technical behaiour
inerred rom archaeological and experimental studies ,e.g. the 'Acheulean handaxe cbaive
oeratoire',. loweer, most releant or us here are the broader connotations o this term as a
practical and conceptual approach: working with the cbaive oeratoire implies a rigorous
methodological ramework or reconstructing processes o manuacture and use, and also,
as importantly, a theoretically inormed commitment to understanding the nature and role o
technical actiities in past human societies.
A brie and selectie historical oeriew will conirm the broad appeal and potential
o the cbaive oeratoire. Back in the irst decades o the nineteenth century ,long beore the
term itsel was coined,, the lrench antiquarian lranois Jouannet ound in the Dordogne
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region a range o stone axes, some perectly polished and others laked ,chipped,. lor him,
the laked axes were "rough-outs" or uninished exemplars o the polished ones, and their
study could "reeal the secret o their abrication". Challenging this interpretation, the
naturalist Casimir Picard cogently argued on statistical and morphological grounds that
laked axes were not rejects but rather inished implements, desired as such and adapted to
their unction ,c. Cheynier 1936,. \e now know that the arteacts in contention were quite
distinct, respectiely Neolithic axes and Acheulean handaxes. Neertheless, the arguments
whereby certain orms could represent interruptions in the shaping process ,and thus hae
technological signiicance,, while other orms, despite their rude or 'imperect' appearance,
could actually be intended as such ,and thus hae also chrono-stratigraphic and cultural
implications, clearly constitute important milestones in the dynamic interpretation o
arteact ariability.
Similar issues cropped up in 1890s North America, when the high antiquity of man
in the New \orld was being proclaimed on the basis o comparisons between local inds
and Luropean Palaeolithic implements ,speciically Acheulean handaxes,. Opposing this
claim, the Smithsonian anthropologist \illiam lenry lolmes conducted ethnographic and
stratigraphic inestigations at quarries sites to argue that these supposed 'Palaeoliths' were
not desired end-products but rather rejected preorms, abandoned by the natie artisan
because o laws in the material or imperect knapping. lolmes then arranged and illustrated
lithic specimens in "a series o progressie steps o manuacture" rom nodule to arrowhead,
demonstrating that the rude and the inished orms actually constituted "a unity in art and in
time" ,c. Meltzer & Dunnell 1992, Schlanger 1999,. Despite its arcane aspects, this
insightul 'natural history o implements' eectiely anticipates much o the processual
'reduction sequence' approach to lithic analysis deeloped in the 190s and later ,e.g. Bradley
195, Dibble 1995,.
\hile lolmes' work was rooted in Victorian eolutionism, the cultural technology
deeloped in lrance rom the 1930s onwards had essentially sociological and
anthropological orientations. In a series o inluential essays on techniques and their study
,notably on 'techniques o the body',, the sociologist Marcel Mauss conceied o techniques
as 'traditional eicient acts', a socially practiced and transmitted , a way o being and
doing. Approaching technical actiities in practice, as they unolded, could show how they
are at each moment materially determined and also socially mediated and eectie ,c.
Mauss 2004,. Some o these insights were taken up and expanded by Mauss' student, the
3
technologist, ethnologist and prehistorian Andr Leroi-Gourhan. In ovve et ta vatiere
,1943, 1945,, Leroi-Gourhan deeloped an ethnographic classiication o elementary means
o action on matter, as well as a distinction between generic or uniersal technical
'tendencies' and speciic 'degrees o act', which occur in particular ethnic groups. le then
drew on biological models and metaphors to reach the ery dynamics o techniques: besides
addressing the unctions they sered, he sought to grasp how techniques themseles
unctioned, how they were structured, how their dierent components and phases were
integrated and brought to play in the course o action. By the 1950s Leroi-Gourhan had
coined the term o cbaive oeratoire to describe this process, and in his 1964 masterpiece e
ge.te et ta arote he deined it in the ollowing terms, "techniques inole both gestures and
tools, organised in a chain by a eritable syntax that simultaneously grants to the operational
series their ixity and their lexibility" ,1964,164 , 1993,114, c. Schlanger 2004,. Building on
these crucial terminological and conceptual inputs, the cbaive oeratoire approach has mainly
deeloped along two interconnected directions, anthropological and archaeological.
\ith the cbaive oeratoire, anthropologists o techniques hae been exploring the links
between techniques and societies, in both modern and traditional settings. 1hey hae
notably enlisted materialist and Marxist perspectives, as well as Maussian ideas,
structuralism and semiotics. Particularly inluential has been the work o Pierre Lemonnier,
who characterised techniques as socialised action on matter, inoling implements,
procedures, and knowledge. Lemonnier urther distinguished among the components o
cbaive. oeratoire. between 'strategic tasks'-ixed operations which cannot be tampered with
or cancelled without undermining the whole project-and 'technical ariants'-lexible
choices which are arbitrary in material terms but neertheless socially and culturally releant.
1hese choices may include seemingly supericial eatures ,e.g. decoration or 'stylistic
ariations',, but also more undamental aspects regarding technical eicacy and reliability. In
the slash-and-burn agriculture practiced in Papua New Guinea, or example, some groups
irst burn the elled egetation in their orest plot, then put a ence around it, then plant it
with seeds, others irst burn, then plant, then ence, others still begin by encing, then burn,
then plant. Burning beore planting is imperatie in this gardening cbaive oeratoire, a strategic
task which cannot be deerred and which impacts on the scheduling and unolding o
subsequent operations. 1he timing o the encing operation is howeer arbitrary, a technical
choice related to the dierentiation strategies o the groups, or to their distinct social
representations o enclosure, domestication and ownership ,Lemonnier 1986, 1992,. 1he
4
productions o matter and o meaning are co-incidental, as Lemonnier puts it, and both are
enmeshed in social relations. 1he cbaive oeratoire approach can thus contribute to
contemporary material culture studies, notably by balancing a ocus on purely ideational and
symbolic considerations with the recognition o the more mundane material aspects o
eeryday undertakings. Moreoer, as cbaive. oeratoire. are essentially non-linear and
doetailing, their study can help oercome the diide between production and consumption,
and appreciate the intersecting lie-histories o objects-in-motion as simultaneously social,
technical, and symbolic accomplishments.
Although it now encompasses a broad range o archaeological materials and
problem-areas ,ceramics, metallurgy, textiles, archaeo-botany and -zoology, crat
specialisation, ethnoarchaeology,, the cbaive oeratoire approach was irst deeloped around
the study o stone arteacts, not only do they surie in abundance across the entire human
record, their physical properties make them particularly well suited or process-oriented
reconstructions. Lxperimental linknapping proides contemporary archaeologists with a
much better grasp on the material, gestures and dexterity implicated in tool production and
usage. Lqually inormatie is the method o arteact reitting, when the arious lakes and
chips detached in the course o knapping can be physically reconstructed together in their
sequence o detachment. In combination with adances in terminology and graphic
representations ,e.g. schemes which indicate directionality and sequence,, these inputs hae
done much to consolidate studies o prehistoric technology across arious research
traditions ,lrench, Anglo-Saxon, Soiet, Japanese, c. Bleed 2001,. It is now increasingly
eident that processes o manuacture must be incorporated in arteact analysis and
interpretation, and that conentional typologies, or example, will hae their chronological
or cultural utility considerably undermined i no account is taken o the ways by which
orms are reached and modiied. By situating technical actiities in their temporal and spatial
settings ,extraction, production, transport, use,, cbaive oeratoire studies can contribute to
reconstruct the dynamics o past landscapes, both natural and social. At another leel, the
possibility o inely grasping series o material operations carried out in the remote past
opens the way or an inestigation o the knowledge, know-how and skills deployed by the
prehistoric artisans. Rather than iewing lintknapping as goerned by an immutable plan or
a predetermined 'mental template' ,a standardised image o the desired end product,, or as
some adentitious blow-by-blow rock bashing, this goal-oriented actiity can be considered
as a structured and generatie interplay between mental and material possibilities, inoling
5
planning and decision making as well as more tacit or routine reactions ,Keller & Keller
1996, Schlanger 1996,. 1his in turn relates to issues o representations, transmission and
skills as addressed by cultural anthropologists concerned with cognition in practice, and also
to questions o neuro-biological and socio-cultural adaptation in the course o human
eolution, as addressed by cognitive archaeology and evolutionary psychology.
In sum, much more than a technique or reconstructing past techniques, the cbaive
oeratoire approach is a method that leads rom the static remains recoered in the present to
the dynamic processes o the past, and thus open up a range o inspiring archaeological and
anthropological questions. \ith the cbaive oeratoire, it is possible to appreciate that alongside
tools, raw materials, energy and arious physical or enironmental possibilities, technical
systems are also composed o such crucial elements as the knowledge, skills, alues and
symbolic representations brought to bear and generated in the course o action, as well
indeed as the social rameworks ,including gender, age or ethnic dierentiations, implicated
in the production and reproduction o eeryday lie.
6


Reerences
Bradley B, 195, "Lithic Reduction Sequences: A Glossary and Discussion", in Swanson L. ,ed,,
tove 1oot |.e ava Mavvfactvre, 1he lague, Mouton Press, pp. 5-14.
Cheynier A. 1936, ]ovavvet, Cravaere ae ta rebi.toire, Brie, Chastrusse, Praudel & cie.
Dibble l. 1995, "Middle Paleolithic scraper reduction: Background, clariication, and reiew o the
eidence to date", ]ovrvat of .rcbaeotogicat Metboa ava 1beor,, 2,299-368.
Lemonnier, P. 1986, "1he study o material culture today: toward an anthropology o technical
systems", ]ovrvat of avtbrootogicat arcbaeotog,, 5, 14-186.
Meltzer, D.J. & R.C. Dunnell, 1992, 1be arcbaeotog, of !ittiav evr, otve., \ashington, D.C,
Smithsonian Institution Press.
Schlanger, N. 1996, "Understanding Leallois: lithic technology and cognitie archaeology",
Cavbriage .rcbaeotogicat ]ovrvat, 6,2,231-54.
Schlanger, N. 1999, "De la rdemption a la sauegarde: contenu et contexte de la technologie du
vreav of .vericav tbvotog,", in Jamard J.-L., Montigny A., & Picon l.-R. ,dirs,, Dav. te .ittage ae.
tecbviqve.. ovvage a Robert Cre..rett, Paris, l'larmattan, pp. 483-512.
Schlanger, N. 2004, "'Suire les gestes, clat par clat': la chaine opratoire de Leroi-Gourhan", in l.
Audouze & N. Schlanger ,eds,, .vtovr ae tbovve: covtete et actvatite ae eroiCovrbav, Lditions
APDCA.

lurther reading
Bleed, P. 2001. "1rees or chains, links or branches: Conceptual alternaties or consideration o
stone tool production and other sequential actiities", ]ovrvat of .rcbaeotogicat Metboa ava 1beor,,
8,101-2.
Dobres, M. and C. loman.1994. "Social agency and the dynamics o prehistoric technology".
]ovrvat of .rcbaeotogicat Metboa ava 1beor,, 1 ,211-58
Keller C. & Keller J. D., 1996, Cogvitiov ava 1oot |.e: 1be tac/.vitb at !or/. Cambridge, Cambridge
Uniersity Press.
Lemonnier, P. 1992, tevevt. for av .vtbrootog, of 1ecbvotog,, Uniersity o Michigan, Museum o
Anthropology, Anthropological Papers, No. 88.
Leroi-Gourhan, A. 1964. e Ce.te et ta Parote, ol. 1: 1ecbviqve et tavgage; ol. 2: a Mevoire et te. R,tbve.,
Paris, Albin Michel. ,1ranslated in 1993 as Ce.tvre ava eecb by A. Bostock Berger. Cambridge
,MA,, MI1 Press.,
Mauss, M. 2004, Marcet Mav... 1ecbviqve., 1ecbvotog, ava Ciriti.atiov, ,edited and introduced by N.
Schlanger,, Oxord, Berghahn Press.
Pelegrin J. 1993, "A ramework or analysing prehistoric stone tools manuacture and a tentatie
application to some early lithic industries", in Berthelet A. & Chaaillon J. ,eds,, 1be |.e of toot. b,
bvvav ava vovbvvav rivate., Oxord, Clarendon Press, pp. 302-314.
Paenberger, B. 1988, "letishised objects and humanised nature: toward an anthropology o
technology", Mav 23,236-52.