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Studying Technological Change A Behavioral Perspective
Studying Technological Change A Behavioral Perspective
World Archaeology
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http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwar20
To cite this article: Michael Brian Schiffer (2004): Studying technological change: A behavioral perspective,
World Archaeology, 36:4, 579-585
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0043824042000303755
580
A case study
The case study, abstracted from a work in preparation, is about the adoption of electricarc lamps in nineteenth-century lighthouses, a process that endured for about four
decades. An arc lamp produces light from the gap between two carbon rods connected to a
source of high-current electricity i.e. a battery or electrical generator. Generators put in
motion by steam engines powered the arc lamps installed in lighthouses.
Lighthouses enjoy iconic status in electrical history because they represent the rst
practical application of electric lighting (e.g. King 1962). However, beyond calling
attention to the earliest adoptions in England and France during the 1860s, previous
histories neither describe the entire adoption process over time and space nor attempt to
explain it.
I found that the arc lamp actually displaced few oil lamps in established lighthouses;
and, in the hundreds of new lighthouses built in the decades after the early 1860s, the vast
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majority had oil lamps. Thus, as of 1896, most nations had no electric lighthouse; a few
nations, including the United States, had just one or two (Findlay and Kettle 1896).
Curiously, France and England together had around twenty. Indeed, France had
electried about one-third of its rst-order lighthouses these were the brightest lights,
spaced widely along the coast at prominent locations. And England had seven electric
lights, also in rst-order lighthouses. After the mid-1890s, the number of lighthouses with
arc lamps declined. (When other electric lights eventually became dominant in the
twentieth century, they were based on dierent technologies.) This is an intriguing pattern
of dierential adoption that calls for explanation, particularly since the electric lamp
furnished by far the brightest, whitest light.
Adoption decisions, in the present case vested in governmental or quasigovernmental lighthouse boards, embody the interplay of myriad contextual factors
utilitarian, economic, political and so forth. The performance matrix (along with the
life-history framework) lays a behavioral foundation for identifying these potentially
relevant causal factors and for evaluating their probable inuence on adoption
decisions.
A performance matrix is a table with which the investigator can visually compare two or
more competing technologies in this case oil and electric arc lamps in relation to a set
of behaviorally relevant performance characteristics. Employing the expansive denition of
performance characteristics presented above, one can compare seemingly incommensurable factors qualitative and quantitative from symbols to dollars and cents. In this way
the archaeologist can handle the multifactorial nature of adoption decisions and seek
patterns that implicate past behavioral realities.
Using a performance matrix involves no a priori assumptions about whether decisions
were based on optimizing any specic performance characteristic(s). Indeed, the
performance matrix merely makes evident any major and minor patterns in the
performance characteristics of competing technologies. On the basis of these patterns,
the investigator can construct explanations that invoke any number or kind of causal
factors. On the other hand, a performance matrix could also be used deductively in testing
a hypothesis drawn from a theory or previous explanation.
The life history framework guides the search to identify behaviorally relevant
performance characteristics and also organizes the performance matrix. I divide the life
history of the competing illuminating technologies into three gross processes: (1)
acquisition and installation of components; (2) functions utilitarian and symbolic
during use; and (3) operation, regular maintenance and repair. For each process, the
investigator delineates the activities and social groups involved and assesses the relevant
performance characteristics. Needless to say, these research activities require the
archaeologist to draw upon diverse lines of evidence.
In general we expect social groups, especially those participating in dierent activities in
a technologys life history, to have dierent performance preferences (McGuire and
Schier 1983; Schier 1992; Schier and Skibo 1997). For example, lighthouse keepers
might prefer lights that are easy to operate and require few repairs, whereas mariners
would favor lights that permit navigation in conditions of limited visibility. Every
technology has a unique mix of performance characteristics; usually no one technology
can achieve every groups preferences. Each adoption decision, then, potentially entails
582
Electric
Oil
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Electric
Oil
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Electric
Oil
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components needed for electric lamps; and oil-lamp systems were readily available in the
marketplace. However, electric lighting systems were much more expensive. Installation
activities also highlight the electric lights performance deciencies, for much roofed space
was needed to house the generators, steam engines, fuel and water, and extra workers.
Clearly, the rst costs of an electrical system were vastly greater than those of oil lights
(Elliot 1874).
584
Yet France and England electried more than a token number of lighthouses, and a
handful of nations adopted one or two, even after the electric lights serious performance
deciencies had become widely known. The minor pattern in the performance matrix
electric lamps excelled in symbolic performance characteristics helps us to understand
these costly adoptions. As a beacon of modernity the electric light could advertise a
nations commitment to safe maritime commerce as well as its expertise in cutting-edge
science and technology. Nations with only one electric lighthouse had at least a token of
technological progress that could be readily identied at sea by merchant sailors, navy
men and well-heeled passengers on excursions.
France had been the acknowledged leader of lighthouse illuminating technology during
the nineteenth century (Heap 1889). The adoption of some electric lights, beyond the early
demonstration projects, perhaps would have underscored Frances continued preeminence
in that arena, and advertised her leadership role in electrical science and technology at a
time when other nations, including her traditional adversaries Germany and England, as
well as the United States, had become signicant and prolic contributors. England added
several electric lighthouses, investing in a few conspicuous emblems of national pride,
perhaps to keep pace with the French.
Although patterns in the performance matrix of lighthouse illumination are unusually
clear cut, investigators could erect varied narratives upon this behavioral foundation.
However, the major pattern is highly robust, and so constrains the construction of
alternative explanations: utilitarian and nancial factors, evident in the major pattern, do
seem to have held sway in the vast majority of decisions. In contrast, the minor pattern
invites many alternative interpretations, for the meanings of symbols are always
contestable in the past and in the present. Although we may not agree on the meanings
of the electric lighthouse to various past groups, it is likely that adopting nations,
especially England and France, employed arc lights as a political technology to symbolize
national pride in science and technology and to elicit foreign admiration in an increasingly
competitive international eld. The arc lights visual distinctiveness unsurpassed
brightness and whiteness rendered it ideal for performing such symbolic functions.
The lighthouse case study has indicated that the performance matrix (used in
conjunction with the life history framework) is a useful tool for comparing competing
technologies in studies of adoption processes. The kinds of performance characteristics
potentially relevant for making such comparisons are limited only by available evidence
and by the investigators knowledge, experience and creativity. The behavioral framework
seems capable of handling well the entire range of factors that processualists and
postprocessualists, for example, invoke to explain technological change.
Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson
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