Studying Technological Change: A Behavioral Approach

f o u n d at i o n s • o f • a r c h a e o l o g i c a l • i n q u i r y

Studying �Techn�ological Change A Behavioral Approach

Michael Brian Schiffer

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Studying Technological Change

STUDYInG TeChnoLoGICAL ChAnGe A BehAVIoRAL APPRoACh

Michael Brian Schiffer

The University of Utah Press

Salt Lake City

Foundations of Archaeological Inquiry James M. Skibo, series editor Copyright © 2011 by The University of Utah Press. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. The Defiance House Man colophon is a registered trademark of the University of Utah Press. It is based on a 4-ft-tall, Ancient Puebloan pictograph (late PIII) near Glen Canyon, Utah. 15╇14╇13╇12╇11â•…â•…â•…â•… 1╇2╇3╇4╇5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schiffer, Michael B. â•… Studying technological change : a behavioral approach / Michael Brian Schiffer. â•…â•… p.╇ cm. — (Foundations of archaeological inquiry) â•… Includes bibliographical references and index. â•… isbn 978-1-60781-136-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) â•… isbn 978-1-60781-989-9 (ebook) â•… 1. Technological innovationsâ•›—â•›Social aspects.╇ 2. Archaeologyâ•›—â•›Methodology. 3. Human behaviorâ•›—â•›History.╇ I. Title. â•… HM846.S35 2011 â•…303.48'3—dc22 2010052940 Printed and bound by Sheridan Books, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I f a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Le t him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Contents

List of Figures List of Tables Preface

xi xiii xv

Categories of Technology 29 Life History Models 30 Behavioral Chain 30 Flow Models 34 A Life Cycle Model 34 Invention 36 Commercialization 37 Adoption 37 Senescence 37 Discussion 38 Decision Making and Life Cycles 38 Summary 40 Notes 40

Pa rt 1 1. Introduction 3 About Technology 4 Two Perspectives: Scientific and Humanistic 5 Decision-Making Processes and �Technological Change 6 A Preview 7 Notes 8

4. Social Needs and Technological Change 43 Peer Competitions 43 Aggrandizers 44 Companies and Individuals 44 Cities and Countries 45 Social Constraints on Competition 47 Social Role Expectations 48 New Social Groups, Social Roles, and Activities 49 Maintaining a System of Status Differentiation 50 Discussion 52 Summary 52 Notes 53

2. Building a “Crap Detector” 10 Technology and Mass Media 10 Media Themes and Plots 11 Creative Anachronism 12 Progress Narratives 14 Technological Revolution 15 Cryptohistory 16 Diffusion Theory 17 Folk Theories 18 Summary 20 Notes 20 3. A Conceptual Scheme Fundamental Constructs Life History Activities and Artifact Functions Interaction Modes Performances and Performance Â�Characteristics Social Competence

22 23 23 23 25

Pa rt 2

26 28 vii

5. Some Basic Invention Processes Project-Stimulated Invention: The Cascade Model Creating Prototypes Technological Display

57 57 60 60

Contents

Demonstrating Practicality 61 Manufacture (Replication) 61 Marketing and Sales 61 Installation 61 Use/Operation 61 Maintenance 62 Discussion 62 Technological Disequilibrium 63 Remedial Projects and Compensatory Technologies 64 Continuous Change and Adaptive �Response 64 Cultural Imperatives 65 The Shirt-Pocket Radio 66 Medical Technologies 66 Mine Drainage 67 Discussion 67 Accident or Unexpected Performance 67 The Leyden Jar 68 Discussion 68 Independent Invention 69 Summary 70 Notes 71 6. Technology-Stimulated Invention 73 Material-Stimulated Invention 74 Performance Deficiencies: Ceramic Superconductors 74 Luxury Material: Aluminum 74 Comparisons 75 Contact Situations 76 Discussion 76 Component-Stimulated Invention 77 Design Tweaking 77 New Product Ideas 77 Product-Stimulated Invention 78 Knockoffs 78 Accessories 79 Consumer Experiments 80 Process-Stimulated Invention 81 Electrometallurgy 81 Invention Stimulated by Complex �Technological Systems 82 Metapatterns 83 Summary 84 Notes 84 viii

7. Development and Resource Acquisition 86 Developmental Distance 86 Convergence 89 Distributed Development 91 Social Differentiation and Social �Integration 92 Technological Traditions and the Knowledge in Technology 95 Recipes 95 Teaching Frameworks 95 Engineering Science 96 Summary 96 Notes 96 8. Development and the Design Process 98 Technical Choices, Formal Properties, and Performance Characteristics 98 Technical Constraints 100 Creating Engineering Science 102 Varieties of Engineering Science 103 Technoscience 103 Socioscience 104 Ideoscience 105 Emotive Science 105 Flawed Engineering Science 106 Design as a Social Process 108 Heterogeneous Cadenas 109 Technical and Social Constraints Require Design Compromises 110 Consumers Often Lack Social Power 112 Some Groups Can Acquire 113 Social Power The Performance Preference Matrix 115 A Research Strategy 117 Studying Design Change 117 Pithouse to Pueblo in 117 the American Southwest Summary 118 Notes 119 9. Manufacture 121 Seeking Evidence on Product Manufacture 122 Pathways to the Present 122

Contents

Seasonal Ceremonies 150 Gifting 150 Artifact Replacement 150 Commissioned Technologies 151 Competing Technologies 151 Case Study 1: Electric versus Gasoline Â�Automobiles 151 Case Study 2: Electric versus Oil Lamps in Lighthouses 154 Discussion 158 Functional Equivalents 158 “Lag in Adoption” or Differential Adoption? 159 The Researcher’s Judgment and Â�Creativity 159 Adoption Without Competition 160 Case Study: Franklin’s Lightning Â�Conductor 160 Summary 162 Notes 162

In Search of Pocket Radios with Â�Subminiature Tubes 123 Evaluating Biases: An Evidence Chart 125 Collector Data and Temporal Patterns of Production 128 Portable Radios 128 Patterns in Collector Data 128 Explaining the Portable Radio Boom of 1938–1939 130 Early Electric Automobiles 131 Changes in Manufacture Processes 133 Changes in Consumer Behavior 133 Peer Competitions 134 Shortage of Raw Materials 135 Copycat Producers and Differential Adoption 135 Discussion 136 The Manufacture Process and the Â�Archaeological Record 136 Considerations of Method 136 Anticipations of Consumer Behavior 137 Case Study: Cooking Pots in Eastern U.S. Prehistory 138 Identifying Knockoffs 139 Summary 139 Notes 139

Pa rt 3 11. Large-Scale Processes of Aggregate Technologies 167 Long-Term Competitions 167 Building the Model 168 Functions, Functional Field, and Application Spaces 168 Performance Characteristics of Aggregate Technologies 169 Case Study: Three Electric Power Systems 171 Electrostatic Technology 171 Electrochemical Technology 171 Electromagnetic Technology 172 Discussion 173 Technology Transfer and Technological Differentiation 175 A Behavioral Framework 175 Processes of Technology Transfer 176 Information Transfer 177 Experimentation 178 Redesign 178 Manufacture or Replication 178 Adoption 178 Use 178 Discussion 179

10. Adoption 141 Sources of Evidence 141 Groups and Subgroups 142 General Patterns of Household Adoption 143 The Activity-Enhancement Process 144 Ensemble Adoption 145 The Diderot Effect 145 Enabling Technologies 146 Accessories 146 Activity-Entailed Adoption 146 Sequential Adoption 147 Coerced and Imposed Adoption 148 Additional Social Processes 149 Peer Competition and Defensive �Adoption 149 Rites of Passage 149 ix

Contents

12. Reflections On Causes On Creating Narratives On the Relevance of the Past to the Present A Final Thought Notes

The Performance Requirement Matrix 179 Applying the Framework 179 Trends and Technological Saltations 180 Saltations and the “Turbojet Revolution” 180 Case Study: Passenger Steamships 181 Discussion 183 Summary 184 Notes 185

187 188 188 189 189 189

Glossary 191 References Cited 197 Index 213

x

Figures

2.1. Basic project module of a technological tradition. 13 3.1. Urquhart Castle on the shore of Loch Ness, Scotland. 24 3.2. A Bauhaus monument: the Martin Â�Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Â�Washington, D.C. 25 3.3. Making lace. 26 3.4. My ceramic sculpture, Nature Â�Triumphant. 28 3.5. Behavioral chain model. 31 3.6. Partial behavioral chain for Hopi maize. 32 3.7. Cadenas of low and high social Â�heterogeneity. 33 3.8. Generalized flow model. 34 3.9. Model of the chipped-stone industries in the Cache River Basin, Arkansas. 35 3.10. The life cycle of technologies. 36 4.1. “Biltmore,” the Vanderbilt Mansion, Asheville, North Carolina. 45 4.2. Partial interior of the York Minster, a Gothic cathedral in York, England. 46 5.1. Railroad tracks connecting Edinburgh, Scotland, to other cities. 58 5.2. Portion of the Very Large Array radio telescope, New Mexico. 59 5.3. Invention cascades. 59 7.1. Developmental distance. 87 7.2. The process of convergence. 90 8.1. A whimsical teapot made by San Â�Francisco artist Carol Wedemeyer; a ceramic cooking pot made by me. 99 8.2. A technical choice influences many Â�performance characteristics. 100 8.3. A performance characteristic is affected by many technical choices. 101

8.4. Major factors that affect performance characteristics. 101 8.5. The Gatchina Palace Fabergé egg. 104 8.6. Abridged advertisement for the Belmont Boulevard pocket radio (1945). 107 8.7. Each group on a cadena has its own performance preferences. 109 8.8. A general model of the design process. 111 9.1. The number of U.S. companies Â�producing radios, 1920–1955. 129 9.2. The number of portable radio models produced by U.S. companies, 1920–1955. 129 9.3. The number of U.S. companies Â�producing electric automobiles, 1894–1942. 132 9.4. The number of U.S. companies Â�producing their first electric autoÂ� mobile in a given year, 1894–1942. 132 10.1. Major factors affecting acquisition Â�decisions. 142 10.2. A marketing diagram. 152 10.3. Sandy Hook main light, New Jersey. 155 11.1. A functional field, the application spaces of two aggregate technologies, and the arena where they compete. 170 11.2. Major factors that determine an Â�aggregate technology’s application space. 170 11.3. A model of technological differentiation. 177 11.4. Changes in the top speed of fast transatlantic liners, 1838–1952. 181 11.5. Factors affecting trends in use-related performance characteristics. 184 xi

Tables

8.1. Performance Preference Matrix for a Small American Family Sedan. 116 8.2. Performance Preference Matrix �Comparing Pithouse and Pueblo �Dwellings of the Prehistoric American Southwest. 118 9.1. Evidence Chart Showing the �Representation of Pocket Radios with Subminiature Tubes in Various Lines of Evidence. 126 9.2. Weighting of Performance

Â�Characteristics in Late Archaic and Woodland Pottery. 138 10.1. Threshold Performance Matrix for Â�Gasoline and Electric Automobiles, ca. 1912. 153 10.2. Performance Matrix for Lighthouse Â�Illumination, ca. 1860–1899. 156 11.1. Performance Requirement Matrix for Magneto Technocommunities, ca. 1832–1870. 180

xiii

Preface

In 2007 I was revising an article for Technology and Culture, struggling to make it relevant to historians of technology. Editor John Staudenmaier encouraged me to be more explicit about how I, an archaeologist, study technological change. He counseled me to “take the reader into your workshop,” which I tried to do in a few introductory paragraphs. However, the generalizations and heuristics that I have used over the decades as a behavioral archaeologist were simply too numerous to condense for an article, much less its introduction. I had long anticipated writing a book on how to study technological change, and Staudenmaier’s prod was sufficient to get me going, for I was casting about for a new project. I dusted off a three-page outline from 2002, revised it, and set to work. Studying Technological Ch ange presents the rudiments of the behavioral framework that my colleagues and I have been building since the mid-1970s. Although fleshing out this framework remains an ongoing project, there has been sufficient progress to warrant a presentation of the basics in one volume. I have written Studying Technological Change for archaeologists and historians of technology and for others who share an interest in explaining technological change. I maintain that the processes of technological change do not respect boundaries between past and present, literate and nonliterate societies, traditional and industrial societiesâ•›—╛╉or between archaeology and history. This conviction implies that despite differences in the lines of evidence archaeologists and historians employ, which now overlap to a considerable extent anyway, certain generalizations and heuristics ought to be applicable across the board. Following StaudenÂ�maier’s workshop metaphor, I urge readers to think of

this book as a tool kit that supplies conceptual devices for framing and addressing questions about technological change, regardless of where relevant evidence may be found. Because this tool kit is incomplete, I hope that readers will add to it in the course of their own projects. Behavioral archaeologists believe that our role is to ask scientific and historical questions about people–artifact interactions in all times and all places. In keeping with this sweeping mandate, I indiscriminately mix prehistoric, historic, and modern examples and case studies, many of them drawn from my own research. This potpourri of technologies illustrates the wide applicability of the generalizations and heuristics in each chapter. Because parts of the text are adapted from my earlier publications, the reader may delve more deeply by consulting the original publications cited in the endnotes. The latter also supply a small number of references that may be most useful to readers. For virgin materials, I have furnished more complete references. Readers may be horrified by the amount of jargon between these two covers, but I make no apologies. More than a half century ago, Â�botanist and archaeologist Harold Colton expressed my position concisely: “an idea with a name is more useful than one without.”1 In every discipline, new concepts require new labels. To ease the reader’s burden, I have supplied a glossary. I hope that this book will find favor among students of technological change across the aÂ� cademy, including sociologists, economic historians, philosophers of technology, marketing researchers, sociocultural anthropologists, and practitioners of the SCOT program (social construction of technology). This book has also been designed to serve graduate and advanced undergraduate xv

Preface

s� tudents who are looking for a research project or perhaps have one in mind but need suggestions on how to proceed. For comments on one or more chapters, I thank Lars Fogelin, Linda Cordell, and Amy Margaris. James M. Skibo, longtime collaborator and friend, contributed greatly to many ideas in this book, and he also read and annotated a near-final� draft. Peter Bleed, Monica L. Smith, and an anonymous reader also commented on the �entire manuscript, which provided a host of constructive suggestions. Deborah Warner took on the Herculean job of unpacking my dense prose; she also furnished killer questions that caused me anguish and prompted much rethinking and rewriting. I thank the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Institution, Note 1. Colton 1953:8.

xvi

and especially its director, Arthur P. Molella, for giving me an institutional home away from home. The School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona furnished modest support through the Fred A. Riecker endowment. Carol Wedemeyer permitted me to reproduce her image of the teapot in Figure 8.1a. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, allowed me to include my image of the Fabergé egg (Figure 8.5). The remaining images are mine. My wife, Annette, always loving and supportive, has cheerfully endured another major project. I cannot express adequately in words my heartfelt thanks to Annetteâ•›—╛╉companion, lover, and best friend. Alexandria, Virginia August 2010

PA R T o n e

1

Introduction

In the earliest human societies, technologies mainly played a role in the food quest, with wooden spears for hunting and chipped-stone tools for butchering. From this modest Â�beginning the variety and functions of technologies expanded relentlessly. In addition to providing food, clothing, and shelter, technologies now enable us to communicate almost instantly around the planet, explore miles-deep ocean trenches, clone animals, map the topography of Titan, make devices on a molecular scale, and peer into living human brains. Technologies also form vast fields of symbols that indicate social status and sexual orientation, give clues to proper behavior in places as different as boardrooms and bars, project group and individual identities, denote religious affiliations and political beliefs, and evoke varied emotions. Our ancestors of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic (ca. 2.5 million to 40,000 years ago) practiced a successful lifeway employing only a few dozen relatively simple tools. Why during the next 30,000 yearsâ•›—╛╉in the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithicâ•›—╛╉did our forebears develop a host of new gadgets from harpoons to needles along with personal ornaments and cave paintings? Why was this diversified hunting-and-gathering lifeway superÂ�seded in many places by a Neolithic one reliant on farming and on even more varied technologies?1 We want to know how and why such changes took place in earlier societies whose members were able for so long to survive, even thrive, using only their traditional technologies. And we

want to know how and why today’s frenetic pace of technological change became the norm and why our lifeways now depend on everything from Â�diesel-╉electric locomotives to cellular phones to eyeliner. These society-scale questions are intriguing and significant, but by today’s scholarly standards the unicausal answers often supplied, such as population pressure or the supposed human propensity to strive for “progress,” are unsatisfactory. One reason for the dearth of sound explanations is that we have an incomplete scientific understanding of the many processes of technological change, particularly those affecting the life cycles (or life histories) of technologies. Although technology-scale studies abound, most researchers do not ask the kinds of general questions that can lead to scientific knowledge.2 I suggest that creating reliable generalizations about specific processes of invention, development, manufacture, and adoption can contribute to answering society-scale questions as well as illuminate technological changes in the presentâ•›—╛╉and perhaps future. Accordingly, this book prioritizes the creation and use of generalizations about life cycle processes. Although researchers in many disciplines study technological change, only archaeologists and historians of technology together have access to the entire 2.5-million-year-long record of humankind’s engagement with technology. A desultory pursuit for many decades, the history of technology became a formal discipline during the middle of the twentieth century.3 3

Chapter 1

About Technology

In Â�anthropological archaeology, interest in explaining technological change underwent a renaissance beginning in the 1970s and is pursued Â�today by people Â�allied with the major research programs, including processualism, postprocessualism, evolution and ecology, and behavioral archaeology.4 As a behavioral archaeologist, I am fortunate to have taken part in this revival. Behavioral archaeologists study the relationships between people and technology in all times and all places. And so, in addition to investigating several prehistoric technologies, I turned to evidence from the historical record on electrical and electronic technologies. I have also enjoyed a longterm engagement with modern material culture. Not surprisingly, the examples and case studies in later chapters largely reflect my diverse exposures to the material world. This book synthesizesâ•›—╛╉from a behavioral perspectiveâ•›—╛╉what I have learned about how to study any technological change in any society. The conceptual tools I find essentialâ•›—╛╉generalizations and heuristics gleaned from varied sourcesâ•› —╛╉ may also be useful to other researchers, especially students. Indeed, I welcome the reader into my workshop, where she or he may select items from the conceptual tool kit that show promise for advancing Â� a research project on a specific techÂ�nological change. These conceptual tools also help to frame general questions about change processes. Perusing the pages of American Antiquity, Technology and Culture, and other major Â�journals, we see that many researchers today study technology exclusively to learn about past social and political organization, religion, ideology, Â�social identities, and so forth.5 These studies are valuable, but too often the technologies Â�themselves, and peoples’ interactions with them, are promptly marginalized, occasionally forgotten, even though technologies are as much a product of human cognition and toil as any other cultural creation. In the course of fashioning the kinds of explanations and generalizations advocated here, we will necessarily implicateâ•›—╛╉and illuminateâ•›—╛╉sociocultural phenomena. However, these insights will be by-products of studying technological change, not the main product. Behavioral archaeologists maintain that the explanation of technological change is itself a worthy goal.

Also known by terms such as artifacts, products, material culture, objects, gadgets and gizmos, or just plain things, technology encompasses everything that people make or modify.6 Thus, all household artifacts, from incense burners to crucifixes, beads to beds, and cooking pots to paintings, are technologiesâ•›—╛╉as are neckties and nose rings. Ceremonial structures, workshops, and civic buildings, themselves technologies, overflow with artifacts ranging from holy water to toilet paper. Most domesticated plants and animals are also artifacts, for their phenotypic characteristics have been shaped by cultural selection. Less obviously, when ears are pierced, a face is painted, arms are scarified, and hair is coiffed, these body modifications become technologies. For many purposes we may consider technology to be the material culture component of activities. Any artifact may attract our interest, for there is no end to the questions that we can ask about the activities in which it took (or takes) part. A case in point: in the course of researching the history of the portable radio, I sought to understand changes in radio manufacturers and production processes. This inquiry involved, among other tasks, close examination of hundreds of actual radios and yielded an explanation about how U.S. consumer electronics companies, which used to make products at home, gave way to multinational corporations and globalized production.7 Also, in pondering the episodic spurts of inventive activities for creating pocket radios, I formulated the cultural imperative model of invention.8 Evidently, by posing behavioral questions about any technological change, we may embark on a fascinating intellectual journey that leads to specific explanations and perhaps to new generalÂ� izations. A behavioral question is one addressed to the observable (or inferable) world of human life as manifest in the people–artifact interactions that constitute activities. This emphasis on actual behavior, whether termed “social practice,” “skilled performance,” or “action,” means that we ask questions about changes that took place during the activities and processes of a technology’s life cycle. In every realm of human life, artifacts participate in virtually all activities.9 Accordingly, studies of technological change merge with studies 4

Introduction

of everything else, including religion and recreation, medicine and magic, social organization and socialization, communication and economy, foodways and trade, politics and travel, and science and art.10 Thus we can discern, for example, technologies for communication, ritual, food preparation, transportation, and politics and investigate their content, changes, and relationships over time. Because questions about technological change necessarily entail questions about changes in activities, social groups, and organizations, research on technological change is nothing less than the study of behavioral changeâ•›—╛╉and vice versa.11 Indeed, in the present framework, the terms behavioral change and technological change are almost interchangeable.12 Technological change can begin in any realm of activities. New religious beliefs and practices may call forth new ritual technologies such as structures, musical instruments, and priestly vestments. Likewise, experiments in science may lead to the construction of new instruments for making and monitoring phenomena of interest. Conversely, the adoption of a new technology, wherever it originates in a society, may alter activities in other realms, often leading to unexpected behavioral changes. Widespread adoption of the computer and Internet at home has affected activities such as learning about current events, paying bills, taking part in political campaigns, communicating with friends and relatives, and viewing risqué images, thereby rendering many kinds of writing technologies and printed materials less prevalent and less relevant. Likewise, the adoption of agricultural technologies and heavy dependence on cultigens by hunter-gatherers redounded on social organization, Â�ritual and religion, and residential mobility. Clearly, the consequences of one technological change can become the cause of other behavioral changes. Although mainly concerned with causes, later chapters occasionally mention Â�consequences.

patterns, and processes. Humanistic research creates deeply contextualized historical narratives (explanations or interpretations presented in a story-like structure), whereas sÂ� cience cÂ� reates generalizationsâ•›—╛╉i.e., constructs, theories, models, experimental lawsâ•›—╛╉and heuristics.13 Humanistic research is not atheoretical, for a scholar’s theoretical commitments influence the framing of questions, the search for evidence, and the crafting of explanations, but projects do not aspire to fashion or refine generalizations. Scientific research recognizes that contingencies generate vast behavioral variation but strives to discern regularitiesâ•› —╛╉ patterns and processesâ•›—╛╉that can be described by generalizations applicable to varied historical contexts. The same person may of course undertake humanistic and scientific research projectsâ•› —╛╉ as I do.14 Science-oriented projects are pursued by a minority of archaeologists and historians whose research is sometimes regarded suspiciously by humanist peers. I hope to allay these suspicions by presenting examples and case studies of how the conceptual tools of science may enhance humanistic research and enrich our narratives. Many humanists, however, doubt the possibility of crafting generalizations that apply to diverse societiesâ•›—╛╉simple and complex, tribal and national, traditional and industrial. On the one hand, this belief seems reasonable because industrial societies exhibit emergent processes, such as multinational corporations that parcel out technology development, manufacturing, and marketing activities among many countries. Generalizations about patterns in the behavior of multinational corporations patently do not apply to traditional societies in pre-globalization times. Likewise, the manufacture and use of chippedstone tools for daily activities are confined to nonindustrial societies, as are applicable generalizations. On the other hand, many processes common in traditional societies are also found in the industrial world. For example, even in the most “advanced” industrial countries some individuals and families, such as homeless people, move often. The degree of residential mobility and available transport technologies constrain the kinds and quantities of artifacts that a person or family can take from place to place. And so some generalizations about technology apply both to

Two Perspectives: Scientific and Humanistic

Both archaeology and the history of technology encompass humanistic and scientific perspectives. Humanism emphasizes idiosyncrasy, contingency, and the uniqueness of historical contexts, whereas science emphasizes regularities, 5

Chapter 1

mobile hunter-gatherer groups and to the urban homeless in industrial countries.15 We can, I emphasize, identify many processes that occur in diverse societies and, moreover, fashion applicable generalizations that describe behavior patterns, whether weak or strong. These are not universal principlesâ•›—╛╉a chimera at bestâ•› —╛╉ but are more modest generalizations, carefully bounded. In creating a generalization, then, we specify the boundary conditions that define or circumscribe a given process, regardless of its distribution in time and space or its occurrence across societies and historical contexts. The operation of each process is described by process-specific generalizations.16 Let us return to the example of residential mobility. We assume that it is possible to identify the presence in a society of the following boundary conditions: “individuals or groups having high residential mobility that rely on only foot transport.” Having examined varied contexts, within and between societies, that met these boundary conditions, we are poised to generalize that the technological inventory of these groups consists of few artifacts, most lightweight and some multiÂ� functional, and their shelters, if present, require minimal investments of labor and material resources.17 Process-specific generalizations may also furnish insights into technological change. Thus, when individuals and groups become sedentary, such as the indigenous Australians whose residences are tethered to water wells and governÂ� ment stations, mobility and transportation constraints are relaxed, and so we may expect changes in technologies to follow.18 However, given that the original boundary conditions do not applyâ•›—╛╉the groups are no longer residentially mobileâ•›—╛╉additional generalizations are needed to understand the new technologies and behavior patterns. Sometimes we are able to specify a family of related processes and can fashion, for each member, specific generalizations. Thus, “invention”â•›—╛╉the creation of an idea or vision for a new technologyâ•›—╛╉is a large family of processes with each member defined by particular boundary conditions. Some invention processes arise “during the course of a development project,” whereas others take place when “a group acquires a new

material.” The scientific task is to specify families of technological processes and, when possible, to formulate bounded generalizations about each of their members. Many generalizations in later chapters are bounded by the phrase “in capitalist industrial societies.” Further research may reveal whether any of these generalizations also apply to processes in other societies. Also, the boundary conditions of some generalizations are incompletely specified and so require refinement. Decision-Making Processes and Technological Change

We seek to finger the causes of technological change.19 Causes, however, occur on a continuum ranging from proximate (immediate) to more distant ones to “ultimate” causes. Ultimate causes are, I judge, utterly beyond our grasp. Somewhat distant causesâ•›—╛╉the kind implicated in many explanationsâ•›—╛╉are within reach, but only if they rest on a firm foundation of proximate ones. The generalizations and heuristics provided in this book may help researchers to identify proximate causes: factors influencing the decisions of individuals and/or social groups that affect the life cycles of technologies. Groups may include families, tribal elders, committees, religious leaders, corporate executives, or government officials. The seating of proximate cause in past decision making presents difficulties because we usually lack access to people who can be asked about the factors that affected their decisions. Moreover, even when we work in the present and can interrogate decision makers, their answers may be nothing more than made-up memories or post hoc rationalizations.20 Evidently, whether our cases come from the past or the present, we require a research strategy that depends on inference. Thus, using generalizations, heuristics, and particulars f rom t he c ase at h and, w e infer t he contextual factors that likely influenced a past decision; in effect, we create a model of the decisionmaking process, which serves as the proximate explanation of the technological change. Crafting a credible model is challenging. After all, we cannot enter the minds of other people, living or dead. Even if we could, minds are messy, their inner workings inaccessible to verbal inquiries; and as individuals we cannot even fash6

Introduction

ion accurate accounts of our own decisions.21 In archaeology, explaining one person’s decision is doubly daunting because we can seldom identify individuals.22 That is why archaeologists usually discern and explain patterns of technological change that result from recurrent decisionsâ•› —╛╉ i.e., many people making the same decision. For example, why did Folsom hunters make chippedstone spearpoints having a distinctive flute? Why did Puebloans in the American Southwest build large towns during late prehistory? Why did many societies during early postglacial times develop agricultural technologies? Although historians often ask questions about singular decisions, especially when an inventor or industrialist left behind a copious documentary record (e.g., Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford), they also pose questions about behavior patterns arising from recurrent decisions, as in the following examples. How and why did mounted combat change in medieval Europe after the widespread adoption of the stirrup? Why did a handful of people independently invent dynamosâ•›—╛╉a new kind of electrical generatorâ•›—╛╉during the late 1860s? How did the adoption of so-called labor-saving appliances in the early Â�twentieth century affect women’s work in the home?23 Upon close examination, many historical questions turn on just such recurrent decisions. Thus, in explaining behavior patterns, historiansâ•›—╛╉no less than archaeologistsâ•›—╛╉model the decisions made by multiple individuals, which may have been common responses to common causal factors.24 Sometimes, the results of recurrent decisions accumulate over decades, even centuries, giving rise to distinctive patterns of long-term technological change. In modeling recurrent decisions, researchers can turn for assistance to the products of scienceâ•›—╛╉generalizations and heuristicsâ•›—╛╉that help to pinpoint shared causal factors. On that foundation we may craft a tentative explanation and seek ancillary evidence. For example, the “threshold performance matrix” is a heuristic for comparing the behavioral capabilities of two or more technologies that compete for consumers. James M. Skibo and I developed the performance matrix while studying early pottery in the southeastern United States. Modified slightly, this

heuristic helped me to model consumer decisions in two studies: electric lights versus oil lamps in Â�nineteenth-╉century lighthouses and electric versus gasoline cars in the early twentieth century.25 Although the present book focuses on the explanation of recurrent decisions, singular decisions are sometimes engaged. The creation of generalizations and heuristics is more than an esoteric exercise that indulges a few scholars’ intellectual and aesthetic penchants. Rather, these products of science may be exploited by anyone, including humanists whose sole goal is to fashion an engaging story. Needless to say, the use of scientific tools in this way cannot replace creativity, insight, experience, andâ•›—╛╉above allâ•› —╛╉ intimate familiarity with the particulars of a case. A Preview

This book is not about the history or prehistory of technology or about the history of research on technological change; nor is it a catalog of methods and techniques for inferring how specific technologies were made or used. Rather, this book supplies conceptual tools that may be used to help craft a proximate explanation of any technological c hange i n a ny s ociety. Accordingly, I employ a systematic framework that juxtaposes generalizations and heuristics with examples and lengthier case studies drawn from diverse technologies and societies, past and present. This book consists of three parts, of which Part 1 is foundational. Chapter 2 identifies cultural and social sources of knowledge about technological change that, too often, are replete with misleading or erroneous ideas that contaminate our scholarly products. An acquaintance with contaminants such as progress narratives, cryptoÂ� history, and folk theory is a prerequisite for the serious study of technological change. Chapter 3 presents the conceptual scheme that undergirds the generalizations and heuristics in the remaining chapters. Drawn from the history of technology, social constructivism, anthropology, and archaeologyâ•›—╛╉especially behavioral archaeologyâ•›—╛╉the conceptual scheme includes constructs, premises, principles, and models of considerable generality. Of particular importance are performance characteristics (a technology’s behavioral capabilities in specific activities) and life history 7

Chapter 1

models. Chapter 4 examines major social processes, including peer competitions and maintaining a system of status differentiation, that stimulate the creation of new technologies. Part 2 delves into general processes that commonly constitute a technology’s life cycle: invention, development, manufacture, and adoption. Each chapter presents process-specific conceptual tools. Chapter 5 takes in a wide range of basic invention processes found in many societies, highlighting the cascade model, which accounts for spurts of invention that occur during development projects. Chapter 6 discusses “technology-stimulated invention”: the inventive activities that may arise when a new technology, such as a material or component, becomes available. Chapter 7 introduces factors that affect the development process, focusing on the acquisition of resources, of many kinds, needed to create a target technology. The constructs of developmental distance, convergence, and distributed development are introduced. Also discussed are the effects of social boundariesâ•›—╛╉produced by social differentiation but ameliorated by social integrationâ•›—╛╉on resource acquisition. Chapter 8 contin-

ues the discussion of development by presenting a behavioral model of design that encompasses the technical and social constraints that affect a designer’s decisions. Chapter 9 examines decisions about whether to manufacture a product and on changes in manufacture processes. Sources of historical and archaeological evidence for investigating manufacture are also mentioned. Chapter 10, about the adoption of technologies, presents several general processes, including activity enhancement and coerced adoption, which treat consumer decisions. Extended case studies demonstrate how two heuristicsâ•›—╛╉the threshold performance matrix and market diagramâ•›—╛╉can be used to investigate the adoption patterns of competing technologies. In Part 3, Chapter 11 supplies models for researching large-scale processes of technological changeâ•›—╛╉i.e., long-term competitions, technological differentiation, and saltationsâ•›—╛╉along with case studies that illustrate their use. Chapter 12 is a series of reflections: on identifying the causes of technological change, on creating narratives, and on the relevance of the past to the present.

Notes 1. Overviews of world prehistory include Fagan 2006; Scarre 2005; and Wenke and Olszewski 2006. See Hayden 1981 on “gadget technologies” of the MesoÂ�lithic and New World Archaic. Ambler 1991 discusses changes in the functions and energyharnessingÂ�capabilities of technologies over the course of hominin evolution. 2. Archaeologists undertake many artifact-scale studies on everything from hand axes to the portable radio. In recent years, scholars outside archaeology have done similar studies using historical evidence, such as Petroski (1990) on the pencil and Friedel (1994) on the zipper. 3. On the questions asked by historians of technology, see, e.g., Cutcliffe and Post 1989 and Staudenmaier 1985. The major journal of this eclectic discipline is Technology and Culture, published by the Society for the History of Technology. 4. On post-1950 archaeological research programs, see O’Brien et al. 2005. LaMotta and Schiffer 2001 is an introduction to behavioral archaeology; for a more lengthy immersion, see Schiffer 2010a; the first statement of the program was Reid et al. 1975.

5. For a sample of such studies, see Habicht-Mauche et al. 2006; Lemonnier 1993; and Stark 1998. 6. See also Schiffer 1992a, 2008a:3–4; Schiffer and Miller 1999:Chapter 2. 7. Schiffer 1991:Chapters 14–15. 8. Schiffer 1993. 9. Schiffer and Miller 1999:Chapter 2 defends this proposition. Bunge 1979 furnishes an even broader conception of technology. 10. These are obviously modern Western categories that do not necessary have direct equivalents in societies of other times and places. Nonetheless, they indicate the dependence of all human activities on technologies and also correspond to scholarly disciplines and subdisciplines. 11. On the relationship between human behavior and technology, see Schiffer 1992a; Schiffer and Miller 1999; Skibo and Schiffer 2008; and Walker et al. 1995. 12. Hence the seemingly enigmatic title of Schiffer 1992a: Technological P erspectives o n B ehavioral Change. 13. I follow Nagel’s (1961) distinction between theory 8

Introduction and experimental law. A theory is highly abstract and complex and usually implicates processes or entities that are inaccessible to immediate sensory experience, such as electrons and population pressure. Theories, although testable in principle, tend to be difficult to test. More easily tested, an experimental law is usually a simple statement of relationship between two or more variables that have substantial empirical content. Models are abstract simplifications of complex systems or processes. By means of a model, the researcher can study, in the office or laboratory, the effects of specific variables that cannot be easily isolated in real-world systems. 14. Among historians of technology, Hughes has been a strong advocate “of finding patterns in the technological world” (1989:111), yet he has also crafted nuanced and engaging narratives (e.g., 1983). 15. The material life of the homeless is treated by Valado 2006. 16. Process-specific generalizations apply to “behavioral contexts” (on the latter, see LaMotta and Schiffer 2001). 17. On the technology of highly mobile peoples, see, e.g., Binford 1979; Bousman 1993; Kuhn 1994; and Nelson 1991.

18. O’Connell 1979. 19. Schiffer 1979 early on places emphasis on modeling decision making in behavioral studies of technological change. 20. These kinds of responses, labeled “commentary,” are discussed elsewhere (Schiffer and Miller 1999:╉103– 104). 21. Wilson and Bar-Anan, drawing on recent studies in social psychology, point out that “people seem to be unaware of their own unawareness, rarely answering ‘I don’t know’ when asked to explain their decisions. People freely give reasons for their preferences, even when it is clear that the reasons are confabulations and not accurate reports” (2008:1046). 22. Smith 2010 treats the agency of individuals in prehistory. 23. On the stirrup, see White 1962; on dynamos, see Schiffer 2008a:Chapters 19 and 21; on “laborsavingÂ�” appliances, see Cowan 1983. 24. Aware of “equifinality,” I do not insist that all recurrent decisions have identical causes. Shennan 1993:╉ 55–56 discusses the modeling of decision making in archaeology. 25. Schiffer 2000, 2005a; Schiffer and Skibo 1987.

9

2

Building a “Crap Detector”

According to Ernest Hemingway, a good writer needs “a built-in, shockproof crap detector.”1 A crap detector, I submit, is a tool equally necessary for people studying technological change. The reason is simple: misleading and incorrect ideas about technological changeâ•›—╛╉theories and specific explanationsâ•›—╛╉pervade modern Western societies. These knowledge claims derive from social and cultural sources, especially the mass media, and even make their way into scholarly works and discussions of technology policy. A crap detector (1) promotes a healthy skepticism toward statements and stories about technological change in all media and (2) prompts questions that can orient the search for accurate information. The task of this chapter, then, is to help the reader build a crap detector for identifying and critically assessing alleged knowledge about technological change deriving from cultural and social sources.

whom are instantly forgettable. What the viewer actually remembers is the latent messageâ•›—╛╉reinforced by images of police, ambulances, grieving relatives, and yellow tape aired ad nauseamâ•› —╛╉ that urban life is fraught with imminent danger, regardless of the infinitesimal probability that a viewer will actually become a murder victim. Political scientist Adam J. Schiffer recently remarked that “local television news stokes fear, paranoia, and racial distrust through its all-consuming obsession with violent crime.” 3 Local news takes this form, Schiffer suggests, because it is constrained by tight budgets, short deadlines, and the need to pander to viewers’ limited attention spans and pedestrian interests. Understanding how the constraints on each medium affect the information received helps us to identify latent messages and their implications. In generalizing this approach somewhat, I suggest that many mass media have common constraints that promote the same messages about technological change. These media all share limitations of time and/or space and have similar expectations about audience responses, which encourage writers to craft compact and simplistic stories, relying on a small number of characters, themes, and plots. Thus, identicalâ•›—╛╉and often erroneousâ•›—╛╉notions about technological change are found in magazines, newspapers, television reports, trade books, Web sites, and blogs. Clearly, it is incumbent upon the users of these mediaâ•› —╛╉ and of scholarly worksâ•›—╛╉to become critical consumers.

Technology and Mass Media

In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan propounded a new view of human communication, arguing that “the medium is the message.” 2 McLuhan urged readers to focus not on the content of specific messages but on how each communication medium shapes the information receivedâ•›—╛╉usually implicitlyâ•›—╛╉by its audience. Local television news, for example, reports incessantly on murders, interviewing neighbors and grieving family members, most of 10

Building a “Crap Detector”

Media Themes and Plots

inventor triumphant rather than general features of the development process. And seldom mentioned are the many development projects that end in failure, no matter how brilliant the original idea and how herculean the effort to realize it in hardware. Whether their stories are about an idea’s origin or the inventor’s struggle, the media are wont to personify the process of technological development. Thus, in seeking the origins of a technology important today, writers and reporters collect information about the inventorâ•›—╛╉perhaps the person who received the most recent patent or who enjoyed commercial successâ•›—╛╉sometimes obtaining interviews with the person so anointed. Yet most technologies lack an inventor, for they have been built on the contributions of many people, usually made over a long time in many places. As Robert Thurston put it in 1878, coincidentally the year Edison began his light and power project: “Great inventions are never...the work of any one mind. Every great invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions.” 8 Indeed, Edison’s light and power project depended on hundreds of inventions made by his team and by earlier workers. A process involving dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of mostly anonymous people making contributions over years, decades, or even centuries is not easily fashioned into a compelling story. Audiences expect to be engaged by the exertions of a named individual. Stories about technology need a human face, and so the media personify technological development and call it invention. An invention requires an inventor; a process does not. To satisfy these expectations, the media fashion a technology’s creation myth.9 Creation myths can clash when different inventors are said to be the author of the same invention. On March 8, 2009, National Public Radio (NPR) aired a 10-minute plug for Andy Babiuk’s book The Story of Paul Bigsby, which challenged Les Paul’s status as the inventor of the solid-body electric guitar. NPR led off with the following multiple-choice question: “Who invented the modern electric solidbody guitar?”10 The choices were Leo Fender, Les Paul, and Paul Bigsby. Although acknowledging that the answer is “complicated,” NPR nonetheless got the question wrong. Paul Bigsby was one of many people who contributed to the invention, development,

A common theme is that a new technology arises as a brilliant idea; everything that follows is merely the routine working out of details. Perhaps that is why so many stories juxtapose the words inventor and genius and describe the mental exertions that led to the idea. So it is said that Thomas Edison’s genius gestated the light bulb, and that is why we no longer rely on candles and gas lamps. This theme is so pervasive and powerful that images of a glowing light bulb have become a cliché for an idea’s birth. Edison himself disputed this caricature, claiming that “genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.” 4 Edison began his lighting project with a Â�decades-╉old idea that had come easily to earlier inventors in Europe and America. After all, to electrical experimenters, an incandescent lamp was an obvious application of an effect that had been known since Benjamin Franklin’s time: passing sufficient electricity through a thin wire brings it to incandescence. Indeed, dozens of incandescent lamps had been invented before Edison’s. His contribution, beyond uniquely conceiving the lamp’s crucial electrical performance requirement (a high-resistance filament), was to obtain and effectively deploy the many resourcesâ•›—╛╉human, financial, organizational, and materialâ•›—╛╉that translated the vision into a working light bulb, an electrical system and accessories to power it, and the factories to produce them both.5 Whether an idea arises easily or is hard-won, developing and bringing it to market as a new technology can be challenging, time consuming, and resource intensive. Creating a new technology is a process, not an event coeval with the emergence of an idea; invention is merely where the process begins. In the plots of more-nuanced media accounts, the inventor becomes a heroic figure, earnestly striving to overcome technical obstacles, racing against able competitors, cajoling reluctant investors, and buttressing the flagging morale of employees and supporters.6 Success is achieved only after a long struggle. Clearly, treating the inventor as a heroic figure does resonate with readers. Indeed, when writing about the first electric automobiles, I could not resist describing Edison’s decade-long adventure to perfect his nickel-iron battery.7 Although this kind of account can be informative, the audience is apt to remember the 11

Chapter 2

and manufacture of solid-body electric guitars, but the complete story is indeed complicated, too complicated for a 10-minute segment. Rigid constraints on most mass media foster technological stories that implicitly convey simplistic and misleading ideas. As a result, uncritical readers and listeners and viewers, particularly in the United States, believe that every new technology had an inventor with a brilliant idea who perhaps struggled heroically to realize that vision. These media-shaped messages divert attention from asking questions about general processes of technological change that cannot be easily personified or mythologized.

Faraday’s invention was a rotating Â�electrical device, but it was not the first such device, it was not a motor, andâ•›—╛╉most importantlyâ•›—╛╉it did not initiate the technological tradition of motor making. Following earlier researchers in electromagnetism, Faraday experimented with a wire that connected together the two poles of a battery, examining the effect of this (rather short) circuit on a nearby compass needle. He was able to affirm André Marie Ampère’s observation that the magnetic forces around the current-carrying wire were circular. To exhibit this surprising effect, he designed and had built a device in which a Â�current-╉carrying wire rotated continuously around a rod-shaped magnet. There is no inkling in Faraday’s writings that he regarded this invention as anything more than an apparatus for illustrating electromagnetic rotations. Decades later, however, perhaps in the service of British nationalism, writers began claiming that Faraday’s device was the first electric motor, a claim that is repeated today. Even the Web site of the venerable Royal Institution of London, where Faraday carried out his experiments, sports the creative anachronism that this rotating device was “the principle behind the electric motor.”14 If converting electricity into motion is the electric motor’s distinctive performance characteristic, then Faraday was a latecomer to the invention, since artifacts with that capability had been built by Benjamin Franklin and others nearly a century earlier to display certain electroÂ�static effects. Further, if by motor we mean a technology that the inventor and perhaps other people at the time believed was capable, at least in principle, of doing work beyond impelling its own motion, then Faraday’s device does not qualify. Franklin suggested that one of his motors could be used as a spit to roast a large fowl, and in the 1770s James Ferguson made cardboard models of a gristmill and a water pump driven by electrostatic motors.15 However, neither Faraday nor others foresaw such applications for his demonstration device. And, significantly, I have found no one in the 1820s who called it a motor or engine or prime mover. The most telling objection is that the first electromagnetic motors, such as the one that Joseph Henry built in 1831, which actually established the technological tradition, did not depend on a Â�current-╉carrying wire rotating continuously

Creative Anachronism

Mass media and scholars alike sometimes erroneously point to an idea or prototype as the founding invention of a technology that later became significant. This comes about when a journalist or researcher fastens on a resemblance in form or perhaps on an effect similar to one incorporated into the later technology. For present purposes, let us define invention as the cognitive process of envisioning a technology having distinctive performance characteristicsâ•›—╛╉i.e., its behavioral capabilities in specific activities. An entirely private vision, however, has no effect on the real world. Even when materialized as a drawing, prototype, or model, an invention is merely a curiosity unless it is taken up, perhaps by others, and developed further. Thus, Leonardo da Vinci’s design for a helicopter with a helical rotor was a breathtaking vision, but it did not establish a technological tradition; after all, his drawing went unpublished for almost three centuries.11 Moreover, modern heliÂ� copters and the prototypes that preceded them do not have helical rotors. Evidently, the great Â�master’s drawing is a datum in art, social, and culturalâ•›—╛╉not technologicalâ•›—╛╉history.12 Assessing claims for an invention that allegedly stood at the beginning of a technological tradition may be more difficult when it has been realized in hardware, such as Hero(n)’s firstcenturyÂ�A.D. “steam engine,” Otto von Guericke’s seventeenth-century “electrical machine,” or Michael Faraday’s 1820s “electric motor.” None of these claims has withstood modern scrutiny.13 By examining Faraday’s invention, we gain insights into evaluating such claims. 12

Building a “Crap Detector”

Figure 2.1. Basic project module of a technological tradition.

around a magnet (or vice versa). Instead, they worked on a different principle: discontinuous electromagnetic effects, achieved by alternating the electromagnet’s poles mechanically through the motor’s own motion. Called a “pole changer,” this invention was not a modification of Faraday’s device; rather, it embodied a new operating principle that others couldâ•›—╛╉and immediately didâ•› —╛╉ build on. Faraday’s invention served admirably to exhibit electromagnetic rotations and to stimulate invention of similar display devices, but it did not initiate the technological tradition leading to electric motors that could do work. A corollary of creative anachronism is the assumption that all contributors to a technological tradition strove to achieve the same vision. Thus, there is a tendency to see in the earliest efforts a foreshadowing of later ones. However, the first inventor was probably not trying to achieve the same performance characteristics that occupied the efforts of those who followed. This variety of creative anachronism can be subtle. For example, W. James King pointed out that early electrical generatorsâ•›—╛╉magnetosâ•›—╛╉were inefficient relative to later ones, requiring more mechanical power to yield the same amount of electrical power.16 The implication is that the early inventors sought high efficiency but failed to achieve it. However, the pioneering inventors merely tried to make generators that could yield specific electrical effects, such as melting wire or decomposing chemical compounds, which would be useful in their projects, not in projects that others would envision and pursue much later. Only when generatorpowered electricity was coming into widespread commercial use for arc and incandescent lighting and for electrometallurgy in the 1870s, with

many generator manufacturers competing for cusÂ�tomers, did higher efficiency become an important performance characteristic. We must distinguish between inventions that had no offspring, like Leonardo’s helicopter with a helical rotor and Faraday’s rotating device, and inventions that were at the beginning of technological traditions. In a technological tradition, there is demonstrable cognitive continuity between a series of inventions, with later ones building on the principles, effects, and hardware of earlier ones.17 Indeed, we can represent a technological tradition as a sequence of basic project modules that follow one after the other (Figure 2.1), with each invention furnishing resources for later ones (more on this in Chapter 7).18 Technological traditions usually involve continuity in time but not necessarily contiguity in space. Many technologies were invented and developed in one place and then taken up elsewhere and developed further, perhaps along a different path. Steam-driven locomotives for railroads were invented in England and put into operation around 1812. With firsthand knowledge of English locomotives, Americans replicated them and then made major design changes such as adding more wheels.19 In both countries and in others, steam railroads underwent essentially continuous development throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The fissioning or branching of a technological tradition in this manner is a common process that can be studied, for example, as a case of technological differentiation (Chapter 11). To guard against the commission of a creative anachronism, we may ask of any invention purported to be the founding ancestor of a 13

Chapter 2

Â� technological tradition: (1) What potential functions did its inventor envision? (2) How was it actually used, if at all, in the past? (3) Was there cognitive continuity between the invention and those that supposedly followed from it? (4) Did later inventors refer to the invention as the starting point for their own? (5) Did the claim for the invention’s significance arise mainly to enhance the prestige of the inventor or the organization or country where she or he worked?

and to caesarean sections, a surgery with risks to the mother that also raised medical expenses.22 The automobile, America’s “superartifact,” made possible personal mobility on an unprecedented scale, stimulated the growth of many industries from tire makers to petroleum refiners, and provided employment for millions of Americans.23 Yet it also led to ongoing expenses for car maintenance, taxes for road construction, tens of thousands of accident-related deaths annually, the unsustainable consumption of natural resources, pollution of land and sea and air, the spread of suburbs and exurbs dependent entirely on cars, miserly investments in public transportation by many cities, and so on. In view of these benefits and costsâ•›—╛╉did the widespread adoption of the automobile in America represent progress? The answer to such a question depends on who renders the judgments and whose interests the judgments serve. Our crap detector should sound the alarm every time we encounter the word progress in an account of technological change. The alarm would cue us to obtain evidence, for example, on which groups promoted and which ones opposed the technology as well as the groups that it advantaged and disadvantaged. We might then seek contextual information on how these conflicts played out during development and adoption processes and on how the exercise of social power may have affected the outcomes.24 Finally, we would closely examine the technology’s possible mid- and long-term effects. The notion of progress gained traction during the late Enlightenment and was bound up with early stirrings of evolutionary theoriesâ•›—╛╉biological and cultural. Indeed, the theme of progress is now so deeply woven into the fabric of Western civilization that expunging it entirely from discussions of technological change is difficult but nonetheless essential. The progress theme also structures stories about the “evolution” of a technology, such as copper metallurgy, canal irrigation, steam eÂ� ngine, or suspension bridge. Typically, changes in that technology are ordered chronologically, which yields a linear sequence ending in the Â�technology’s Â�latest incarnation. The implicit driver of this evolution is the supposed universal human desire to

Progress Narratives

Grand cultural themes also influence discussions of technological change. I consider two common, related themes here: “progress” and “technological revolution.” Anthropologists and historians have roundly criticized the simplistic equation of technological change with progress.20 Progress, they remind us, is a positive value judgment that a person or group applies to a particular technology or even to the grand sweep of an entire technological tradition, as in the Wright Â�Brothers’ first powered plane to the Boeing 787. But there is a problem with this perspective: some people may regard the adoption of a new technology as progress, whereas others may regard it as regressâ•›—╛╉or worse. How different are the assessments of labor-saving machinery by factory owners and laid-off or deskilled workers? An urban freeway is a godsend for long-distance commuters, but for neighbors whose communities have been sundered, and whose environment has been degraded by noise and pollution, the freeway may be an abomination. Clearly, many technologies have positive effects on some people and groups and negative effects on others. In labeling a technology as the embodiment of progress, one is taking sides in what may have been a hotly contested debate. Even if many groups in a society regarded the adoption of a new technology as Â�progressive and desirable, it may have unintended costs and deleterious consequences.21 The fetal heart-rate monitor was touted in the 1970s as a convenient technology for identifying fetal distress in time for interventions that might reduce neonatal complications. However, widespread use of these monitors during labor led to a vast increase in forceps deliveries, which can cause brain damage, 14

Building a “Crap Detector”

Technological Revolution

createâ•›—╛╉and to useâ•›—╛╉ever better products and Â�processes. Not surprisingly, manufacturers and marketing groups exploit this theme, employing it as an ideology to justify their newest products, asserting that they surely embody progress. Many times, the manufacturer modifies only the product’s appearance so that it conforms to current fashions. To probe beyond assertions of progress, we might ask the following questions. In what waysâ•›—╛╉if anyâ•›—╛╉did this product’s performance differ from those that preceded it? Was it easier to manufacture, use, maintain, repair, or reuse? Did the size or socioeconomic composition of its user groups change? Did it perform any new utilitarian or symbolic functions or perform old ones more effectively? Did its manufacture and use result in less pollution? How did its manufacturing activities affect workers? By asking these kinds of questions, we can dissect claims of progress and furnish an independent assessment of the exact ways in which changes in a product affected, or were affected by, specific groups. Indeed, we may be able to determine whether the reference to progress in promoting this technology was anything other than a ritualized appeal to a widespread cultural theme qua ideology.25 Progress narratives are common in popular culture, but they have also captivated many a scholar because of their elegance, which streamlines the research process. After all, one need not track down and account for developmental paths not taken, for versions of the technology that failed in the marketplace, and for adversely affected groups. In reality, changes in a technology proceed in fits and starts, are cluttered with failures and missed opportunities, result from myriad independently v arying c auses, a nd a ffect g roups differentially. In contrast, a progress narrative is simple and sweet and accords with our cultural beliefs about the perfectibility of people and their creations. Progress narratives do not provide satisfactory explanations, but they may still be a useful starting point for serious research, especially when copiously illustrated and referenced. Also, progress narratives may raise questions about the factors responsible for a specific trend in a product’s performance during use (Chapter 11).

Another grand theme and structuring principle is technological revolution, which has several possible meanings. First, a new technology’s design is a significant departure from its predecessors that seems to have come out of nowhere, something sui generis. It is in this sense that Edison’s first phonograph, which had no obvious antecedent performance-wise, was labeled by contemporaries as rather revolutionary even though none of its parts was novel. The phonograph was such a curiosity that President Rutherford B. Hayes summoned Edison to demonstrate it at the White House.26 Second, a new technology enables unprecedented use-related activities. Thus, some hearing-impaired people view text messaging as having revolutionized their social interactions. Third, a “breakthrough” technology that initiates a newâ•›—╛╉and highly consequentialâ•›—╛╉technological tradition, such as the Newcomen steam engine, is often called revolutionary.27 Fourth, a technology may be regarded as revolutionary if it had widespread and perhaps unanticipated effects on society. A case in point is Internet-connected computers, whose impacts extend broadly over personal, business, and national affairs. Although these examples seem compelling, it is time to beef up our crap detector. Questions we might ask include the following: (1) Does revolution pertain to a technology’s design, to its use, to its place at the beginning of a technological tradition, or to its mid- and long-term impacts? (2) Does application of the term to a particular technology serve any present-day interests, such as those of investors or Â�manufacturers? (3) Might the changes wrought by a so-called rÂ� evolutionary technology have taken place in its absence? (4) Does use of the term revolution sharpen or dull our critical faculties? In particular, does it predispose us to focus on certain aspects of a technology’s history to the exclusion of others that might have more explanatory relevance? It is easy to fall under the spell of the revolution metaphor and use it in place of a more penetrating discussion. In the final analysis, technological revolution is a concept and theme nearly as problematic and value-laden as progress. And, like progress, what qualifies as a revolutionary technology depends 15

Chapter 2

on who renders the judgment. Beyond responding with a critical attitude and pointed questions when a claim of technological revolution is encountered, we might consider abandoning its use in serious scholarship.28

lack the time and training to research technological history. Taking the path of least effort, they merely pass along the cryptohistorical claims. A pervasive factoid, one demonstrably false, is that SONY invented the first shirt-pocket radio. In fact, shirt-pocket radios had been cobbled toCryptohistory gether many times by electrical experimenters, Individuals along with social units at every and the first one to be marketedâ•›—╛╉it contained scaleâ•›—╛╉e.g., churches, corporations, towns and subminiature vacuum tubesâ•›—╛╉was offered to cities, and countriesâ•›—╛╉sometimes promote their the public by Belmont Radio in 1945. That was own interests and agendas by claiming to have the same year that SONY was founded; its earinvented an important technology. Such claims liest product was not a radio but a rice cooker. are called “cryptohistory,” which indicates that Â�SONY’s first shirt-pocket radio contained tranthe technology’s actual history is hidden but not sistors and was placed on the market in 1955â•› —╛╉ necessarily false.29 A cryptohistorical claim is one in Japan onlyâ•›—╛╉a year after the appearance of the that the reader or viewer or listener is expected first American transistor set, the Regency TR-1. to accept because the actual history is hidden or The myth that SONY invented the shirt-pocket obscureâ•›—╛╉not immediately knowable. With the radio (sometimes even the transistor radio or complicity of the mass media, cryptohistorical pocket radio) has been spread by reputable jourclaims can become widely accepted both by ordi- nalists. Diane Sawyer, in a 60 Minutes interview nary citizens and by researchers who lack an ef- with one of SONY’s founders in 1989, stated in a fective crap detector. voice-over that SONY “took an American invenManufacturers are especially adept at issuing tion, the transistor, and added a stroke of practicryptohistorical claims that serve their present-╉ Â� cal genius to produce the pocket radio.” 32 Perhaps day interests. Into the vast void of past time they she had been misled by books such as The Sony Viplace their own accomplishments, real and imag- sion, in which Nick Lyons claimed that the SONY ined, to bolster their image in the eyes of emÂ� TR-63â•›—╛╉not marketed until 1957â•›—╛╉was “the first ployees, investors, and consumers. Manufacturers ‘shirt-pocket’ radio.” 33 This myth lives today and use cryptohistory in employee newsletters to rally has made its way into scholarly works on business the troops, instilling pride in the company whose and management and has even figured in weighty people for decades have made it an enlightened discussions of technology Â�policy.34 servant of consumer needs. Annual reports proDuring the 1980s, political scientists and claim that a company is on the cutting edge of economists published ponderous volumes on the technology today, as it has been in the past, and decline of the American consumer electronics inso would be a sound investment. Advertisements dustry in the face of Japanese imports. This proimply that a company deserves a favored place cess began in the late 1950s with the shirt-pocket in the consumer’s heart because it has long been radio; and not surprisingly SONY’s mythical acan innovator. Press releases and biographies of complishment and its implications loom large company principals also tout technological ac- in the story. According to Jack Baranson, “A key complishments. ingredient in these early Japanese successes was Perhaps the largest source of corporate cryptoÂ� the lack of competition from the major U.S. conhistory today is Web sites, those maintained by sumer electronic companies.”35 Baranson and the companies themselves and by others that par- others insist that American firms did not chalrot undocumented claims. Zenith Â�Electronics, lenge the Japanese imports with competitive for example, lays claim to having made, in 1924, products because the U.S. tax structure provided “the world’s first portable radio.” 30 In fact, RCA, inadequate incentives for investing in research Â�Operadio, and Westburr brought such sets to and development. market before Zenith.31 This is a dramatic story with profound policy Nuggets of cryptohistory pervade the mass implications, but it is contaminated by erroneous media because electronic and print journalists cryptohistorical claims. Most American compa16

Building a “Crap Detector”

nies followed the Regency TR-1 to market with their own transistor sets, large and small, some of whose designs dated to the early 1950s. Moreover, dozens of U.S. models were being sold before SONY’s TR-63 arrived on American shores in 1957â•›—╛╉the first transistor radio imported from Â�Japan. Other Japanese companies sought to emulate SONY’s success and began exporting inexpensive shirt-pocket radios to America in large numbers. American companies found it difficult to compete price-wise with the imports, which had been made with cheap parts and cheap labor, but they nonetheless responded with comparable products. Some companies automated manufacturing processes, some incorporated Japanese parts into American-made sets, and some offshored radio Â� production. Meanwhile, prices of the imports continued to fall. Eventually, even offshoring the entire manufacture process proved Â�unprofitable. As a result, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, American companies one by one stopped making small transistor radios.36 Not many years later, they also abandoned the manufacture of larger Â�radios and other consumer electronic products. Initially, it was inexpensive Japanese parts and labor that contributed to the decline of the American consumer electronics industry, not the lack of competing products. Cryptohistory is insidious precisely because it enters so many works unchallenged. What might begin as a little white lie appears to become historical truth when repeated in a seemingly authoritative article, television news program, Web site, book, or monograph. These myths support far-reaching policy recommendations, as in Baranson’s proposal to revise the U.S. tax code to make it more corporation friendly. The antidote to cryptohistory is to build into one’s crap detector a distrust of all statements about technological history that lack support from sound scholarship.

of a new technology from its place of origin to adopters, often in successive waves, through the movement of either people (migration), the technologies themselves, or ideas. Diffusion theory obviously rests on a simplistic physical model, such as the ripples that emanate outward when a pebble is dropped into a pond, that is unrelated to the actual processes that lead from a technology’s inventors to its adopters. In archaeology during the 1960s and 1970s migrations fell into disrepute as an explanation of technological change. However, migrations did and do occur and may lead to technological change, and so no archaeologist today dismisses their possible role out of hand. Moreover, new analytical tools now make it possible, often, to infer migrations rigorously. Once a migration is inferred, we seek to discernâ•›—╛╉on the basis of relevant contextual factorsâ•›—╛╉how and why it affected technologies in the new community. We also acknowledge that the arrival of a technology in a new place may stimulate other technological changes when favorable contextual factors prevail (see Chapter 6). Thus, elements of diffusion theoryâ•›—╛╉the behavioral partsâ•›—╛╉have been reincorporated into modern archaeology. But much crap remains. A basic tenet of classical diffusion theory is that ideas are a necessary and sufficient cause of technological change. Inventive people are the originators, and the superiority of their technologies is evident to all who learn about them. Thus, hunter-gatherers who found out about farming would immediately put down their baskets and bows and take up plows. Yet close examination of archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic evidence tells a different story: many groups continued to hunt and gather despite living in regions adjacent to farmers. Indeed, we now believe that many groups became cultivators only after farmers had encroached on their traditional hunting-and-gathering territories, plundered their resources, or forced them into missions or colonial settlements. In other cases, huntergatherer populations were decimated by diseases and genocide and replaced by farmers. In gen eral, m ore p eople l earn a bout a t echnology than ever adopt it, whether that pertains to a single artifact or to an entire technological complex such as farming.37 Clearly, that a group

Diffusion Theory

By the end of the nineteenth century, scholars had cobbled together a theory of technological change so comprehensive and satisfying that it retains adherents today, despite having flawed premises. Diffusion theory asserts that a technological change results from the diffusionâ•›—╛╉i.e., spreadâ•› —╛╉ 17

Chapter 2

merely learned about a technology cannot explain its adoption. Instead, explanations must be sought in the decision-making processes of adopters in relation to their anticipated activities, the technology’s performance characteristics, and relevant contextual factors, including coercion by other groups (see Chapter 10).38 The idealist underpinning of diffusion theory often gets a free pass precisely because it seems so right and because it can be disguised by discourse that seems just as right. Thus, we can invoke Spanish “influence” to explain changes in the technologies of native peoples of the American Southwest, such as the adoption of new crops and domesticated animals, metalworking, and Catholic ritual artifacts. Obviously these changes came about because of the Spanish incursion, but the Spanish presence does not explain the adoption patterns. Although all groups were exposed to the new technologies, the adoptions were selective. The Hopi began to cultivate a few new crops, whereas the Navajo adopted sheep and horses and began working silver. Moreover, some adoptions were voluntary, whereas others were coerced.39 Diffusion theory cannot explain these varied patterns. Indeed, invoking a term such as influence is a rhetorical flourish that does no explanatory work. Diffusionist explanations pervade not only the mass media but also scholarly literature. Throughout the early twentieth century, diffusion theory dominated American archaeology, perhaps because large-scale patterns in time and space were the major product of research, and it still underlies many explanations.40 Today, small groups in several disciplines continue to quantify and embellish diffusion theory and accumulate case studies, but their formalisms amount to little more than elaborate descriptions of timespace patterns that homogenize both technologies and adopting groups.41 The decision-making processes that actually operate in adoption contexts are little engaged, much less clarified. I submit that time-space patterns are merely a starting point for asking questions that can be more fruitfully framed in behavioral terms. Constant vigilance is needed to avoid the allures of diffusion theory. Explanations that merely employ terms like influence or spread, assert that

an “idea was taken up,” invoke a migration, or point to the arrival of a new item without a discussion of specific adoption processes and contextual factors should immediately activate our crap detectors. Folk Theories

A crap detector also needs to be sensitive to the role that folk theories play in creating stories about technological change.42 The pervasiveness of such theories is shown by an example about early electric automobiles. When in 1990 I announced my project to look into the demise of the early electric car, friends and colleagues reacted with mild amusement. “What was the mystery?” many wondered while offering explanations for a process that had transpired decades before any of them had been born. Gradually I recognized a need to understand the sources of this apparent knowledge. The reason was simple: “commonsense” ideas about early electric cars could be making their way into automobile histories as well as influencing current discussions about this vehicle’s future in the United States. As it turns out, I was dealing with a phenomenon of some generality, for people in everyÂ�day conversations use folk theories to craft explanations and invent factoids. Co-teaching a large first-year course in 1992, I obtained a sample of responses that documented the electric car beliefs of a cross section of young Americans. I asked, “What caused the demise of the early electric carâ•›—╛╉ca. 1895–1920â•›—╛╉in the United States?” Although the 141 respondents no doubt lacked specific information on this case, all but one identified factors responsible for the electric car’s swift exit from the automobiling world. The list of factors is highly varied, although a few predominate, such as the electric car’s low speed and its limited range on one charge of the battery. Several factors are far-fetched, but most seem plausible and differ little from those proposed by my friends and colleagues. Even so, no one mentioned the causal factors that my own research had identified. The intriguing question is: Why can Americans offer plausible explanations for the history of a product that they have never encountered or 18

Building a “Crap Detector”

studied? The answer is that Americans (and no doubt others) possess folk theories about product histories. These theories are cognitive structures that people use implicitly in everyday conversations to invent explanatory factors. Such theories contribute to social competence, enabling people to take part in conversations about products, no matter how little they actually know. Like cryptohistory, folk theories can contaminate media reports as well as scholarly works. By seeking patterns in the students’ responses, I have approximated what may be the five most common theories for explaining product Â�failures. The vested interest theory maintains that socially desirable products can be prevented from reaching the market by the selfishâ•›—╛╉sometimes unsavoryâ•›—╛╉actions of powerful corporations. It is believed that corporations, acting Â�relentlessly to increase profits, will eliminate or hamstring competitive products through purchase or withholding of crucial patents, influence legislation and other public policy, engage in ruinous price-╉ cuttingÂ�, tie up distributors by insisting on exclusive agreements, and so on. As a result, products that are perhaps more consumer- or Â�environment-╉ friendly can be prevented from reaching or succeeding in the marketplace. The producer constraint theory focuses on factors that prevent or hinder manufacturers from bringing a product to market or from selling it successfully. Examples would include a lack of capital, a product not amenable to mass production, and ineffective advertising. The technological constraint theory asserts that products will fail if they depend on components having severe shortcomings. Indeed, manufacturers are expected to rapidly abandon a product saddled with flawed components such as a battery that cannot hold a charge. The societal c onstraint t heory specifies that social, cultural, or technological factors, not ordinarily under the control of producers or consumers, can cause a product to fail. Thus, society may not be “ready” for that product or may not provide the necessary infrastructure to support it; or a government declines to issue a patent or imposes stifling regulations. Consumerist theory holds that consumers determine a product’s fate. Thus, a product priced 19

higher than its competition will be shunned, as will products that perform poorly during use. This is perhaps the mostly widely held theory. People employ these theories along with whatever fragments of related information they have acquired from stories in the mass mediaâ•›—╛╉in the present case, about cars, electricity, batteries, the behavior of corporate executives, etc.â•›—╛╉to invent explanatory factors and create plausible stories. Americans must possess these theories or ones like them; otherwise, it would be impossible to account for the students’ creative responses to my query. Folk theories are apt to arise in consumer societies, especially the post–Civil War United States.43 Participation in a consumer society requires that most adolescents and adults, almost regardless of social class, gender, and ethnicity, be able to participate in conversations about the comings and goings of products. Indeed, the everchanging panorama of products furnishes inexhaustible topics for discussions among family members, friends and acquaintances, coÂ�workers, and even strangers. Folk theories, then, help members of consumer societies to project the illusion that they understand why some products have succeeded and why others have failed, regardless of the quality or quantity of information they actually possess. In consumer societies, then, folk theories enable interaction and the display of social competence. Scholars who were socialized in consumer societies also possess folk theories, which they may employ to generate explanatory factors in their research projects. This disturbing conclusion is easily confirmed by perusing scholarly works that discuss the early electric automobile. The electric car’s flaws are often said to have been slow speed, high purchase price and operating expenses, and a range of only 30 or 40 mi on one charge of the battery.44 Given these deficiencies, the electric car’s demise is made to seem plausible, even inevitable, because readers possess the same folk theories as the writers. Such explanations, I suggest, are prompted mainly by consumerist theory and depend on invented causal factors that are almost all misleading or wrong. For example, Â�gasoline automobiles of that time were also expensive to own and operate, and during the teens

Chapter 2

Summary

electric cars had a range on one charge of the battery of 100–150 mi. It is true that the electrics were slow, yet as urban vehicles they could easily surpass the speed limits in most cities at that time. Perhaps folk theories are responsible for some factual errors in product histories that we would ordinarily attribute to lapses in scholarship. How can we reach beyond explanations of product histories spawned by folk theories? This task is difficult, not only because we possess folk theories comparable to those of everyone else but also because some explanatory factors suggested by a folk theory might be relevant for creating a sound explanation. The answer is to develop process-specific generalizations about technological change as well as appropriate heuristics. In employing these conceptual tools explicitly, we pinpoint potential causal factors that may explain an instance of technological change and seek both confirmatory and contradictory evidence (the electric car case study continues in Chapters 9 and 10). Later chapters present many such conceptual tools, but this tool kit is far from complete. Indeed, more work is needed to handle the varied technological changes that we routinely encounter.

This chapter has asked the reader to consider a range of cultural and social sources of purported knowledge about technological change. These include a misplaced emphasis on the inventive act to the exclusion of all other technological processes, the construction of stories around an inventor’s heroic efforts to develop a technology, the personification of technological development, creative anachronism in identifying the origin of a technological tradition, the use of value-laden terms and themes (i.e., progress and revolution), cryptohistorical claims, diffusion theory, and the use of folk theories to invent plausible explanatory factors. These sources of received knowledge, many of which are disseminated through the media, can influence the design of scholarly projects as well as the content of the explanations. And they can make their way into weighty discussions of technology policy. A rigorous crap detector helps us to identify suspicious claims that require close scrutiny. By unloading erroneous conceptual baggage, we are poised to ask productive questions, employ appropriate generalizations and heuristics, gather relevant evidence, and craft scientific explanations of technological change.

Notes 1. Hemingway interview in Horizon Magazine (1959:╉ 135). 2. McLuhan 1964. 3. Schiffer 2008:19. 4. Thomas Edison, quoted in Rosanoff 1932:406. 5. Edison’s light and power system is discussed in Friedel et al. 1986 and Israel 1998. Friedel et al. 1986:115 lists the incandescent lamp inventions that preceded Edison’s. 6. Casting the inventor as a heroic figure may go back to Francis Bacon’s writings in the early seventeenth century (cf. Mumford 1934:56–57). 7. Carlson 1988 told this story, and we added some details (Schiffer, Butts, and Grimm 1994). 8. Thurston 1878:2–3; emphasis in original. 9. Mumford 1934:142 made similar points. 10. Babiuk 2008; http://www.npr.org/templates/story╉ /story.php?storyId=101583548, accessed August 21, 2009. Mark Harlan called my attention to this story. 11. See http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Â�Rotary╉ 20

/early_helicopters/HE1.htm, accessed November 19, 2008. 12. Bryant 1976 makes this argument for early visions of an internal combustion engine; see also Staudenmaier’s (1985:41) comments. 13. On Hero’s supposed “steam engine,” Keyser concludes that “it is not an engine. Rather, it is a successful crucial experiment criticizing Aristotle’s theory of motion” (1994:╉81). Elsewhere I have disputed Guericke’s invention as the first electrical machine (Schiffer et al. 2003:╉18–19). On Faraday’s invention, see Schiffer 2008a:╉24, 26–27. 14. See http://www.rigb.org/contentControl?action=╉ displayContent&id=00000000015, accessed October 31, 2008. 15. Eighteenth-century electrostatic motors are discussed in Schiffer et al. 2003. 16. King 1962. 17. The term technical tradition, as used by historians (Staudenmaier 1985:64–67), equates reasonably well with archaeologists’ technological tradition.

Building a “Crap Detector” 18. Evolutionists such as Basalla (1988) discuss the accumulation of modifications and continuity in technological traditions. 19. Pacey 1990:135–137. 20. This issue is discussed, e.g., in Marx 1987; Mumford 1934:182–185; Pursell 1995; and Staudenmaier 1985. Mokyr 1990 provides an analysis of the factors promoting technological “progress.” 21. Winner 1977 addresses this issue adroitly. 22. Prentice and Lind 1987. 23. On the automobile as “superartifact,” see Ascher 1974. 24. On the politics of technologies, see Winner 1986. 25. Winner’s remarks have inspired my discussion on the ideological use of progress: “utilitarian calculations have never been able to stand by themselves but have always been propped up by embarrassingly foggy notions of ‘progress’” (1977:98). 26. Israel 1998 discusses Edison’s phonograph. 27. On the Newcomen example, see Kerker 1961 and Staudenmaier 1985:66. 28. See Schiffer 1992a:Chapter 5 for a critique of “technological revolution.” 29. Additional mentions of cryptohistory can be found in Schiffer 1991.

30. See http://www.zenith.com/about/, accessed December 7, 2010. 31. Schiffer 1991:71–75. 32. Quoted in Schiffer 1991:225. 33. Quoted in Schiffer 1991:225. 34. One example: Collins and Porras 2002:51. 35. Quoted in Schiffer 1991:227. 36. For extensive discussion of this case, see Schiffer 1991, 1992a:Chapter 6, 1992b. 37. Schiffer 2008b expands on this point. 38. Acheson and Reidman 1982 offers a similar argument. 39. On the impacts of the Spanish on the Hopi and Navajo, see Spicer 1962. 40. Lyman et al. 1997 treats early-twentieth-century Â�archaeology in the United States. 41. Rogers 2003 is a compendium of modern diffusion studies. 42. For a lengthier discussion of folk theories, see Schiffer 2000:72–80. 43. Pursell 1995 furnishes a historical survey of the technological and social underpinnings of America’s consumer society. 44. Specific examples are cited in Schiffer 2000.

21

3

A Conceptual Scheme

Scholars who train in a particular research tradition or program usually acquire a conceptual scheme that consists of ontological, theoretical, and methodological assumptions.1 Such a scheme influences but does not determine the choice and framing of research questions, the selection of appropriate methods for answering them, and the range of permissible results.2 In short, basic assumptionsâ•›—╛╉often unstated onesâ•›—╛╉affect the research process. During the late twentieth century, conceptual schemes in archaeology and in the history of technology underwent shifts as well as periods of competition. Despite a diversity of conceptual schemes in both disciplines, communication today between historians and archaeologists is surprisingly easy. Not only are we all concerned with past technologies, but also in recent years major conceptual schemesâ•›—╛╉both within and between the disciplinesâ•›—╛╉have been converging somewhat. This convergence stems in part from the adoption of theoretical ideas that are widespread in the social sciences and humanities, most visibly espoused in the SCOT programâ•›—╛╉the social construction of technology.3 SCOT practitioners, also called “social constructivists,” properly emphasize that social factorsâ•›—╛╉e.g., class, gender, identity, power, race, and ethnicityâ•›—╛╉affect technologies. However, SCOTinspired projects that ostensibly engage technologies sometimes pay scant attention to the artifacts themselves and to peoples’ interÂ�actions with them.4 However, if artifacts per se lose their centrality in research, then both disciplines risk

becoming mere appendages of social history. This would be unfortunate because how things are made and used mattered to people in the past and so should matter to scholars of today. It is possible, I believe, to fashion a conceptual scheme that acknowledges the importance of social factors yet engages the materiality of people–artifact interactions when carrying out contextualized research.5 Indeed, the present work calls attention to a fertile middle ground we can all cultivate. Scholars may distance themselves even further from the materiality of human life by making the idealist move of converting technologies into the ideas that they are presumed to represent. It follows, then, that changes in ideas cause changes in technologies. This logic leads to explanations that exclusively invoke, as explanatory factors, changes in knowledge, core values, cultural themes, beliefs, mental templates, and other idealist constructs, sometimes under the aegis of diffusion theory. These kinds of explanations are superficialâ•›—╛╉sometimes even tautologicalâ•›—╛╉and leave far behind the materiality of human life and thus the possibility of achieving a well-rounded understanding of technological change.6 The remedy for vulgar idealism is to employ a conceptual scheme that respects and privileges materiality, one that makes people–artifactÂ�interÂ� actions the focus of empirical inquiry while also giving adequate weight to socialâ•›—╛╉and other contextualâ•›—╛╉factors. On this foundation we strive to explain changes in the material culture component of human activities by modeling the factorsâ•›—╛╉e.g., social, political, religious, economic, 22

A Conceptual Scheme

environmentalâ•›—╛╉t hat impinged on decision Â�makers. Cognitive phenomena are of course relevant, but these can be handled without the a priori privileging or fetishizing of ideas. The conceptual scheme that follows is general enough to include all proximate causes of technological change and applies across the board to traditional small-scale societies, so-called developing countries, and the largest capitalist industrial nations. Readers are advised that the concepts and terms in the remainder of this chapter are used throughout the book.

social role or someone or some thing’s affiliation withâ•›—╛╉or differentiation fromâ•›—╛╉a social group, institution, or organization. Examples include the hairstyle of a specific age grade in a tribal ceremony, a nurse’s uniform in clinical activities, washing machines bearing company logos in a trade show, and arrow styles that indicate tribal membership during skirmishes. Sociofunctions, like technofunctions, are ubiquitous. Ideofunctions are also symbolic but mainly communicate ideology or ideas. Examples include political or religious bumper stickers in driving and parking, books and magazines in reading, a spirit-being painted on a wall mural during ceremonies, historical exhibits in a Â�museum, stop signs in walking and driving, a Star of David worn in public activities, and a palace or castle that reiterates to all visitors and passersby the occupant’s hereditary entitlement to political power and its place in history. The ruins of Urquhart Castle, on the Loch Ness in Scotland (Figure 3.1), was a medieval fortress inhabited by a succession of nobles and, eventually, by occupying English forces. Today it plays an iconic role in heroic stories about Scotland’s wars with England.8 Emotive functions evoke human emotions.9 A huge temple might inspire awe or a sense of Â�wonder; a dentist’s drill, dread or resignation; a large meal, a feeling of satiety; a Hummer automobile, envy or contempt; a gravestone, grief, regret, or nostalgia; and a new dress or pair of shoes, pleasure. The four basic functional categories can, in various combinations, also accommodate artifacts involved in aesthetics and memory. Thus, a painting or sculpture can indicate social phenomena, implicate an ideology, and evoke emotions, thereby cueing aesthetic judgments. Likewise, it is widely appreciated that artifacts play a role in eliciting and reinforcing memories. Objects that range from relics of ancestors, to Grand Canyon souvenirs, to the statue of Admiral Nelson in London’s Trafalgar Square have this capability because they make symbolic reference to people, places, or events at some temporal remove from the activity; and they may also elicit emotions. The above examples suggest that artifactsâ•› —╛╉ indeed, most artifactsâ•›—╛╉carry out multiple functions, often in the same activity. Even an object

Fundamental Constructs Life History

The most general and versatile construct is the life history framework, which is applicable to technologies at all scales, from a nuclear power plant, to a mass-produced coffee maker, to a singular sculpture. If nothing else, the life history framework reminds us that artifacts begin as raw materials and are altered and assembled, transported and exchanged, used and reused, maintained, and eventually discarded, abandoned, or ritually deposited. Variation in the content and combination of activities composing life histories is seemingly infinite, and so we employ several general models that stress patterns and processes (see below, “Life History Models”). Activities and Artifact Functions

Activities are the empirical manifestation of a society’s organization. An activity is defined as the patterned interaction among two or more interactorsâ•›—╛╉particularly people and artifacts and sometimes externs (unmodified phenomena of the natural environment such as wild plants, rocks, and streams). Artifacts in any activity may carry out technofunctions, sociofunctions, ideofunctions, and emotive functions.7 A technofunction is a utilitarian function, one directly involved in manipulating, storing, or transforming matter, energy, or both. Examples include a hammerstone chipping a flint core, a bench in sitting, a pot cooking stew, a cupboard storing food, and a flashlight illuminating a dark closet. Most activities include artifacts having technofunctions. Sociofunctions are symbolic and convey social information, such as designating a person’s 23

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1. Urquhart Castle on the shore of Loch Ness, Scotland.

that seems to have only a utilitarian function may also function symbolically.10 In the activities of a college classroom, for example, the podium supports a lecturer’s notes (technofunction), symbolizes the social role of instructor (sociofunction), and expresses a teaching philosophy or ideology about the instructor as the fount of knowledge in that place (ideofunction). However, artifacts as symbols tend to be multi- or polyvalentâ•›—╛╉i.e., they cue several meanings that differ from person to person, group to group, and activity to activity. For example, not all students interpret the podium in the same way I do or even grant that it has symbolic functions. Different people, even those participating in the same activity, can fashion varied interpretations and experience varied emotions. These responses depend on the activity context and on the p articipant’s r elational k nowledge a ccumulated over a lifetime.11 Of course shared experiences may lead to shared relational knowledge. Many Americans descended from enslaved Africans react to public displays of the Confederacy’s battle flag with anger and revulsion. The same artifact can also carry out functions of any kind in different activities. Thus, when a Wedgwood platter is used for serving food, its

technofunction is paramount, yet in display activitiesâ•›—╛╉hanging on a wall, for exampleâ•›—╛╉the plate’s decoration is performing socio- and ideofunctions such as indicating a family’s social position and, to visitors possessing appropriate relational knowledge, adherence to a certain aesthetic canon. If the plate is an heirloom, it probably has an emotive function for family members. An artifact may also serve the same function in different activities. Thus, a U.S. soldier’s uniform worn in grocery shopping, attending church, and participating in maneuvers advertises in all of them that the wearer is in the Army. An artifact’s functions can change over time. Architects in the Bauhaus tradition of the mid– twentieth century, which promoted the Â�slogan “Form follows function,” built austere, boxy structures whose principal function was to contain people and their activities (technofunction); any sort of ornamentation that might serve symbolic functions was eschewed. An example is the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in Washington, D.C., designed by famed Bauhaus architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Figure 3.2). Today, decades after Bauhaus buildings were erected, historic preservationists and architectural historians tout them as representatives of an important 24

A Conceptual Scheme

Figure 3.2. A Bauhaus monument: the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C., designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

mid-twentieth-century architectural movement (socio- and ideofunctions). Other peopleâ•›—╛╉including meâ•›—╛╉regard these very same structures as monuments that materialized a misguided philosophy of design (ideofunction). To reduce ambiguity in the application of these functional categories, we specify a reference group. The inference that a given technology has a particular function may refer to one of three groups: (1) the function was “built into” the technology by designers and manufacturers, as indicated by its function-appropriate performance characteristics; (2) the function emerges only after manufacture, permitted by its performance characteristics, and was perhaps important to Â�users; and (3) the functions, especially symbolic and emotive ones that researchers posit later, may have been recognized by neither the designermanufacturer nor users.12 When inferring functions, then, we reduce ambiguity by implicating a specific reference group. Beyond such ambiguities, the four functional categories are overgeneralized, are fuzzy around the edges, and invite simplistic applications. Even so, as a first approximation they alert us to the varied functions that artifacts may carry out during activities of their life histories. To delve more

deeply, let us examine the interactions that make up activities. Interaction Modes

An activity’s forward motion is impelled by the sequence of interactions among its interactors. There are five major interaction modes: mechanical, chemical, thermal, electrical, and electromagnetic.13 Although these modes are familiar to readers, the examples below emphasize that the materiality of activitiesâ•›—╛╉and of the functions that their interactors carry outâ•›—╛╉is manifest in varied, concrete interactions. Involving physical contact, mechanical interactions abound, making it possible, for example, to transform externs into artifacts and to assemble machines from component parts. Sound, the movement of air molecules by human vocal cords, a drum, and a foghorn, is also a mechanical interaction. Other mechanical interactions include wearing clothing and jewelry, harvesting maize, opening a drawer, and butchering a bison. Most craft activities entail highly intricate mechanical interactions learned after much practice, as in making lace (Figure 3.3). Chemical interactions pervade many activities, including an anchor rusting in moist air, Â�sniffing 25

Chapter 3

Figure 3.3. Making lace requires intricate person–artifact interactions acquired after much

practice.

a wine’s bouquet, and a plethora of domestic and industrial processes from cooking to tanning hides. In general, thermal interactions occur when one interactor warms or cools another. Commonplace examples include roasting a rabbit on a fire, snuggling in a sleeping bag or licking an ice cream cone, a hearth heating a stewpot, and countless craft and industrial processes that use heat or cold to modify materials. An ever-increasing number of artifacts employ electrical interactionsâ•›—╛╉the flow of electrons or other charge carriersâ•›—╛╉between their components, such as wires, batteries, and computer chips, and between these artifacts and others. People also interact electrically, for example, when connected to pacemakers, pain-reduction devices, and lie detectors andâ•›—╛╉inadvertentlyâ•› —╛╉ when struck by lightning or handling live wires and faulty appliances. The electromagnetic mode preceded the electrical age because electromagnetic radiationâ•› —╛╉ as lightâ•›—╛╉takes part in many interactions with people. Thus, “seeing” is an interaction between a sighted person and the light reflected from or emitted by other interactors. Many cherished possessions today, such as the microwave oven, satellite radio receiver, and iPhone, depend on radio-frequency electromagnetic interactions.

People also interact with x-rays, sunlight, and the radiant heat from a stove or fireplace. Some interactions involve more than one mode. Thus, chewing a piece of breadâ•›—╛╉so obviously mechanicalâ•›—╛╉also consists of chemical reactions between the masticated bread and salivary enzymes, as well as among the bread molecules and taste buds and olfactory receptors. Virtually any mechanical interaction involving a sighted person also includes electromagnetic interactions. The possibilities for combined interactions are endless. Further complexity arises because most activities are composed of varied interactions occurring simultaneously and sequentially. So as not to overlook essential contributions to an activity’s forward motion, we need to inquire of each activity in which the technology of interest takes part, What are the participating interactors and constituent interactions? We return to activities under “Behavioral Chain,” below. Performances and Performance Characteristics

For a specific interaction to take place, each participating interactor must carry out one or more performances.14 As an example, let us take the cooking of stew in a ceramic pot on a hearth. To keep it simple, I omit the cook and light source; 26

A Conceptual Scheme

fined with respect to actual interactors taking part in real-world activities. Material properties are, however, among the factors that influence performance characteristics (see Chapter 8). Thus, a fabric’s color obviously affects a flag’s ability to symbolize a specific country and to evoke patriotic emotions. And tensile strength has an effect on the flakeability of flint. Some performance characteristics are general, in that they can come into play in varied interactions. Thus, a scuff-resistant shoe can resist scuffing in a host of contacts, and a national flag symbolizes a country in virtually any activity. Other artifacts have a very specialized capability that permits them to take part in just one kind of use-related interaction. Examples are a battery charger that plugs into only one model of cellular phone or a secret society emblem that can be displayed only during an initiation ritual. People also have performance characteristics on the basis of their relational knowledge, skill, experience, muscular development, physiological state, and so on. A great bow hunter requires good visual acuity, upper-body strength, and quick reaction times; a rabbi must be able to read the Torah in Hebrew; and grief counselors should exhibit empathy with others. It is possible to specify families of sensory performance c haracteristics, based on the human senses of sight, touch (and pain), hearing, smell, and taste, which underlie many artifact functions and speak directly to the immediate experiences of past people.17 A sensory performance characteristic pertains to any person, artifact, or extern in relation to its interaction with a person. Visual performance characteristics include such general capabilities as an interactor’s ability to stand out from its surroundings and thus “catch the eye” of an observer, to direct the observer’s attention elsewhere, to be recognizable at a distance, or to resemble a different interactor. There are also highly specific visual performance characteristics. To wit, an object must have a cruciform shape to symbolize Christian beliefs in social activities. Tactile performance characteristics are touch (and pain) related: a shirt has to have a certain feel to perform as “silken” when touching someone’s skin, and clay must have the proper workability before it can be placed on the wheel and

thus, the relevant interactors are stew, pot, and hearth. This activity involves the following performances: the hearth delivers thermal energy to the pot; the pot contains the stew, becomes hot from the hearth, and conducts heat to its contents; and the stew gradually cooks. The performances necessary for the conduct of an activity are known as performance requirements. In order to carry out its functions competently (i.e., meet an activity’s performance requirements), an interactor must possess relevant performance characteristics. A performance characteristic is a capability, competence, or skill that could be exercised (or come into play) in a given interaction. As relational constructs, performance characteristics are specifiable only in relation to particular activity-based interactions. The concept of performance characteristic can be illustrated by revisiting the stew. To serve as a heat source, the hearth must reach a specific temperature in a timely manner and furnish the heat somewhat continuously. The cooking pot must possess ample resistance to thermal shock and thermal spalling, the ability to rest on the hearth without tipping or deforming, and adequate heating effectiveness.15 And after heating, the stew has to achieve palatability. By virtue of these performance characteristics, the hearth, pot, and stew all interact competently, which satisfies the performance requirements, and so the activity moves forward. Every activity can be specified in terms of its interactors’ performance requirements. During an artifact’s life history, performance requirements change from activity to activity. Thus, during manufacture, a piece of chert or flint should have good flakeability so that it can be knapped into a knife. During use, the knife should be able to cut cleanly. Clearly, as an artiÂ�fact passes from activity to activity during its life history, different performance characteristics come into play. Performance characteristics are commonly conflated with a related concept, material property.16 A material property is a measurable quality of a material, such as the tensile strength of flint, the hardness of porcelain, and the color of sugar, which is usually assessed in relation to a standard scale, on a specimen of particular shape and size, in a laboratory setting. In contrast, a performance characteristic is a behavioral capability de27

Chapter 3

teractors, and so its performance characteristics may be altered. Clay loses workability after drying yetâ•›—╛╉as a vesselâ•›—╛╉acquires emergent perforÂ� mance characteristics during firing, use, and maintenance; and an axe that repeatedly chops wood gradually loses its sharpness. A baseball hit and signed by a famous player has a distinctive Â�visual performance and is less affordable than a new ball. Indeed, acting through sensory performance characteristics, collectibles, heirlooms, antiques, mementos, souvenirs, “historic” buildings, and so forth may have acquired symbolic and emotive functions because of their associations during manufacture and use with particular people, places, and events. Artifacts and people compounded as a unit also exhibit emergent performance characteristics. Thus, in interactions with other people, a clothed person’s performance characteristics differ greatly from both the same individual undressed and the same clothing unworn. Likewise, an artifact compounded with other artifacts, as in those constituting a sewing machine or hafted adz, exhibits performance characteristics that none of its parts can effect by themselves. In later chapters the concept of performance characteristic is incorporated into many heuristics and generalizations, especially models. It is, after the life history framework, the most important element of the conceptual scheme.18 During more than three decades of building and using behavioral models, we have continuously broadened the definition of performance characteristic, adding even financial interactions, as in a technology’s affordability. We may also treat organizations as macro-interactors and specify their performance characteristics; after all, households, partnerships, and corporations, for example, have different capabilities that come into play in internal and external interactions. Thus, performance characteristics today denote varied competences, capabilities, and skills that enable v irtually any kind of performance by any kind of interactor.

Figure 3.4. My ceramic sculpture, Nature Triumphant, invites the caress of eyes and hands.

shaped into a pot. Acoustic performance characteristics come into play in the interactions of many artifacts. Thus, a clarinet must be able to make Â�clarinet-╉like sounds, which are relevant to interactions during purchase, practice, tuning, and recital activities. Many foods have olfactory performance characteristics that enable interactions in purchase, cooking, and eating activities. When a flounder is bought at the market and unwrapped at home, it must smell to the cook like a “fresh fish.” Finally, gustatory performance characteristics are necessary for a food to interact properly in cooking and eating activities (a food’s taste, it should be noted, is a combination of tactile, olfactory, and gustatory performances). Without delving into the physiology and psychology of emotion, we can be confident that an artifact’s sensory performance characteristics are the basis of emotive functions, which may cue specific performances and interactions. Likewise, aesthetic responses also have their basis in sensory performance characteristics, as in a sculpture’s appearance and feel (Figure 3.4). An artifact passing from activity to activity during its life history engages with different in-

Social Competence

The performance characteristics of people contribute to their display of social competence in particular activities. A person’s interactions with artifacts, people, and externs can be judged socially competent if they meet the activity require28

A Conceptual Scheme

ments as embodied in the expectationsâ•›—╛╉based on relational knowledgeâ•›—╛╉of pertinent groups.19 Thus, social competence may depend on satisfying the requirements of an activity-specific role, such as a shaman diagnosing a patient, an automobile mechanic replacing a defective alternator, and a bride at her wedding, or it may involve interacting in ways deemed appropriate for one’s family or ethnic group or social class. Judgments about social competence are often rendered by other members of the activity group and are manifest as responsesâ•›—╛╉e.g., positive and negative sanctionsâ•›—╛╉that sometimes carry over to different activity contexts, especially by families, religious bodies, and ethnic groups. Most people perform in socially competent ways in most activities; otherwise societies would simply disintegrate. In every society, avoiding negative sanctions and encouraging positive ones are strong motivators of individual behavior. Nonetheless, a person can exhibit exemplary social competence in one activity yet fall short in another. An example is a gang member “hanging out” in appropriate ways versus repeatedly disrupting a high school math class. In the former activity, other gang members judge the individual to be socially competent, whereas in the latter the math teacher draws the opposite conclusion. A person places different weights on demonstrating social competence to groups in different activities. As implied above, interactions with artifacts figure importantly in the exercise of social competence. Whether in the wearing of proper clothing or uniforms, discussing or acquiring a product, or manipulating artifacts, demonstrating social competence depends on how well these interactions meet the expectations of the relevant group. In consumer societies, these expectations are often influenced by manufacÂ�turers and marketers. Take, for example, the advice given to Americans that a man has to spend the equivalent of two months’ salary on a diamond engagement ring. Not surprisingly, this guideline is promoted by De Beers, the South African company that controls much of the diamond trade worldwide, along with jewelers and Â�media that target prospective brides and grooms. Even a man aware of this crass manipulation may go deeply into debt to avoid disappointing his Â�fiancée.

The construct of social competence can also be applied to organizations, such as the British royal family, corporations, or even universities, which often strive to demonstrate social competence to their personnel, to peers, and to others. Thus, to be judged socially competent today, companies adopt the latest marketing gimmicks to draw in customers; state universities construct enormous student unions and recreation centers to lure prospective students; and big cities build capacious convention centers to attract large meetings. Categories of Technology

We may pose research questions in relation to the following categories of technology: material, component, product, complex technological system, process, and aggregate technology. Most categories are familiar to the reader but are defined here in behavioral terms because, in later chapters, they serve in the boundary conditions of many generalizations. Neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive, the categories can be applied flexibly. A material (or ingredient) is any kind of matter that may be converted into a new material, component, or product; a raw material is an extern, prior to processing. Common examples of materials, which may be homogeneous or heterogeneous, include copper, cowhide, kaolin clay, petroleum, and Fuji apples. A material may undergo many conversions during processing, its composition, properties, and performance characteristics changing along the way. Once shaped into a component or product, however, the material acquires emergent performance characteristics that come into play in postprocessing activities. A component (or part or assembly) is a discrete object joined with other componentsâ•›—╛╉through mechanical, chemical, or thermal interactionsâ•› —╛╉ during product assembly. Familiar examples include beads on a belt, string on a bow, shoelaces, and a tumpline on a burden basket. Components have varied performance characteristics, some of which are relevant in product-assembly activities, whereas others are emergent during postmanufacture activities. A product, which may be simple or complex (the latter assembled from many different components), is a more or less self-contained artifact that has become available to the consumer. 29

Chapter 3

Simple products are a frying pan, dugout canoe, reed flute, basket, and earspool, whereas complex products include a bow and arrow, beaded belt, automobile, desktop computer, and machine tool. Products usually exhibit an array of performance characteristics in postmanufacture activities such as transport, storage, marketing, sales, use, maintenance, reuse, and disposal. A complex technological system consists of a large set of interacting components and products, such as a railroad, truck factory, cruise ship, cyclotron, and electric power plant.20 Clearly, there is a continuum between a complex product and a complex technological system, and there are no rigorous criteria for making the distinction. In order for a complex technological system to meet performance requirements in postmanufacture activities, each of its participating components and products must possess appropriate performance characteristics. These in turn make possible the system’s emergent capabilities. A process is a fairly discrete set of integrated activities that modifies a material, forms a component, assembles a product, or operates any technology. Processes take place in homes, Â�plazas, workshops, businesses, and factories and may be carried out by people and/or machines. Â�Familiar examples include size sorting of ore, grinding maize, polishing a clay pot, repairing a fishing net, applying nail polish, assembling a salad, and word processing. Discrete processes, chained together in parallel and series combinations, make possible product assembly. A process is described by its properties and emergent performance characteristics. Properties include the artifacts, people, and externs of its constituent activities along with where and when the process takes place. A process’s performance characteristics, which affect how well it articulates with other activities and processes, might include its rate of performance, cost in resources such as time or labor per unit of product, reliability, and uniformity of operation. The term process is also used in a more general sense to denote any set of related activities, as in the commercialization process (see below). And depending on its context, process may also mean a theoretical mechanism such as peer competition or population pressure that accounts for an empirical pattern.

An aggregate te chnology is a set of similar technologies whose members ordinarily do not interact among themselves.21 The following are examples of aggregate technologies: ceramic cooking pots, copper alloys, light bulbs manufactured by one company or by one set of processes, gowns made by one designer or all designers, and convertible cars or pickup trucks. Obviously, aggregate technology is a flexible category that we define on a project-by-project basis. Although an aggregate technology’s definition seems somewhat arbitrary, the members of that set may have similar or closely related manufacture processes, have similar functions, and in some cases share general performance characteristics. Aggregate technologies are especially useful for studying the cumulative decisions of producers and consumers that result in large-scale patterns of technological change (Chapter 11). Life History Models Behavioral Chain

As noted above, the life history construct is a highly versatile tool and, implicitly or Â�explicitly, informs many studies in archaeology and the history of technology. The most fine-grained model is the behavioral c hain, which is the entire sequence of activities that took place during the life history of a component, product, or complex technological system (Figure 3.5).22 A behavioral chain may represent a singular artifact, such as Renoir’s painting Luncheon of the Boating Party; a craft item, such as the rice-cooking pots made by all potters in Dangtalan, a village in the Philippines; or a mass-produced product, such as a Â�Hershey’s milk chocolate bar with almonds. One can easily indicate where other behavioral chains intersect that of the reference artifact by including convergent and divergent chain segments (Figure 3.5). Thus, in making salsa, the addition of diced onions is indicated by a convergent chain segment that joins the onion’s behavioral chain to that of the salsa. In contrast, a divergent chain segment indicates a removal, as in the formation of a by-product or waste product such as onion skins. Alternate chain segments encompass patterned variation in activities, as in the alternation between raw materials from different sources and in the varied uses of a product by different consumer groups. 30

A Conceptual Scheme

Figure 3.5. Behavioral chain with convergent chain segment (upper left) and divergent chain segment (lower right).

The details of activities and their sequence in a behavioral chain are usually presented in a table. Depending on the research question(s), the Â�table’s entries for each activity may include any or all of the following elements: (1) nature of the social group conducting the activity (size, age/genderÂ� composition) and its mode of recruitment, such as family, work party, or graveyard shift in a factory; (2) participating artifacts and externs; (3) interaction-relevant performance characteristics; (4) specific interactions; (5) location of performance; (6) times and frequency of performance; (7) the relational knowledge possessed by members of the social group that makes possible skillful and socially competent interactions; and (8) intersections with convergent or divergent chain segments.23 The latter may include an “output” column, which denotes where a discarded material begins its journey to the archaeological Â�record. An abundance of historical or ethnographic evidence helps us to construct a behavioral chain. Even so, building one that encompasses every activity is feasible mainly for products composed of few materials and components. As a consequence, applications in archaeology focus on relatively simple behavioral chains such as cotton 31

and maize in traditional societies.24 Another tack is to construct a partial behavioral chain that includes only procurement and manufacture activities; this abbreviated version is sometimes called a chaîne opératoire. A behavioral chain, though usually terminating when the reference artifact itself is deposited in the archaeological record, may also include interactions in the depositional environment as well as in the activities of archaeological recovery, analysis, and curation. Figure 3.6 is a partial behavioral chain for Hopi maize; Â�rituals are omitted, and variation in most activities is greatly homogenized. In addition to forming the backbone of a design model (Chapter 8), behavioral chains allow us to create new units of societal organization. One such unit is the cadena (pronounced cahDAY-nah), from the Spanish word for chain.25 A cadena is the set of all social groups taking part in a technology’s entire life history. Cadenas vary greatly in social h eterogeneity: at the homogeneous extreme is a lone artisan who obtains and processes all raw materials, fashions a product, and uses and then discards it; at the heterogeneous extreme are dozens of groups in a handful of countries that design and manufacture a computer sold by a multinational corporation whose

Chapter 3

Figure 3.6. Partial behavioral chain for Hopi maize. Source: Schiffer 1975.

millions of users are spread around the globe. Between these extremes are the varied cadenas that archaeologists and historians are apt to encounter, ranging from two groups to ten or more (Figure 3.7). Typical examples are jade figurines carved in a queen’s workshop for her courtly activities, shell ornaments made by a dozen village artisans for exchange to hundreds of households

in their own and nearby villages, and cameras designed in one country and made in another for distribution worldwide. My 2003 Kodak digital camera has a sticker on the bottom that reads, in an almost microscopic font, “Made in China. Designed in Japan for EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY, Rochester, New York.” The behavioral chain is also an especially good 32

A Conceptual Scheme

Figure 3.7. Cadenas of low (upper) and high (lower) social heterogeneity.

thinking tool for the materially minded because chain intersections establish linkages or networks among all sorts of groups and activities and places. In principle, an entire society could be included in a diagram that shows the intersections of every behavioral chain, representing the flows of materials, components, and products and the sorting and resorting of people among its activities. In practice, that kind of exercise would be impossible for all but a very few societiesâ•›—╛╉those, like aboriginal Tasmanians, that had a tiny artifact inventory. Nonetheless, it is an intriguing way to picture a society’s organization, its material and social relationships with other societies, and its exploitation and pollution of the natural environment. Indeed, this thought exercise calls attention to the connectedness among diverse activities in different realms, which provides hints as to how a specific technological change, whether initiated by proximate or distant causes, may ramifyâ•›—╛╉in unexpected waysâ•›—╛╉throughout a society or even affect other societies.26 The use of a behavioral chain for consideringâ•›—╛╉ perhaps even forecastingâ•›—╛╉the consequences of a technological change can be illustrated by the upsurge in the production of corn (maize) ethanol for use in motor fuel in the United States. Various subsidies, state and federal tax breaks, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and the high price of gasoline encouraged farmers to plant huge amounts

of corn and stimulated entrepreneurs to establish processing plants for turning it into ethanol. As a result, fewer acres were planted in wheat, soybeans, and other cropsâ•›—╛╉and ethanol absorbed more of the corn crop. The increased demand for corn still exceeded the supply, and so, in the year ending April 2008, the price had risen by more than 50 percent. Shortages of other grains also caused their prices to spike. More expensive grain, in turn, led to price increases in cereals, bread, pastries, and so forth. In addition, corn is used as an animal feed, and so chicken and pork became more costly. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated that the production of corn ethanol was responsible for about 10–15 percent of the increase in U.S. food prices in the year 2008. Impoverished countries that import U.S. grain to feed their people were especially hard hit by the price hikes in staples. Thorough familiarity with the corn behavioral chainâ•›—╛╉especially its postharvest divergent segmentsâ•›—╛╉might have given pause to policy makers who believed that growing corn for ethanol was a socially responsible way to lower the price of motor fuel, lessen dependence on foreign oil, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.27 Any activity change, including an increase or decrease in rate of performance, the substitution of one kind of interactor for another, or the replacement of one activity by another, can 33

Chapter 3

Figure 3.8. Generalized flow model.

r� edound on distant activities and people. Clearly, knowledge of the complexity and interconnectivity of behavioral chains furnishes insights into technological changes. Evidently, behavioral chains possess some predictive (and retrodictive) capabilities. I do not want to push this too far, but it would seem that limited predictions about the consequences of an activity change are possible so long as relevant contextual factors remain �constant.

Both flow models and behavioral chains aid in identifying changes in a technology’s activities and in their organization. Any change deemed significant can become the starting point for research to uncover the causes. For example, if manufacture is streamlinedâ•›—╛╉e.g., fewer activities, fewer materials and components, fewer workers, or fewer but more automated processesâ•›—╛╉we can propose a set of explanatory hypotheses and assess them with historical and/or archaeological evidence. A streamlined manufacture process could result from decisions in response to one or more factors, including (1) increased experience and skill on the part of designers and workers, (2) decreased availability or higher costs of materials and components, (3) increased purchases by consumers, (4) cost cutting in a shrinking or highly competitive market, (5) pressure from proprietors or stockholders for higher profits, and (6) changes in the product’s use-related performance requirements. Use-alteration analysis and other lines of evidence can indicate whether a product’s use or reuse activities underwent changes.29 (Changes in manufacture processes are discussed in Chapter 9.)

Flow Models

Life histories can also be represented as flow models.28 A flow model commonly specifies a sequence of major processes such as procurement of materials, manufacture, use, maintenance, reuse, and deposition (Figure 3.8). In archaeology, a flow model sometimes describes an aggregate technology, such as the entirety of a community’s chipped-stone toolsâ•›—╛╉i.e., the set of product and by-product types related by shared manufacture processes. An example is John House’s model of the prehistoric chipped-stone industries of the Cache River Basin, Arkansas (Figure 3.9). A flow model’s content can be coarse- or fine-grained, depending on our needs and on the availability and quality of evidence. Because a flow model contains less detail than a behavioral chain, it is well suited for comparative studies that do not require attention to specific activities and interactions.

A Life Cycle Model

Another important model is that of a technology’s life cycle. These models describe stages in the life history of a particular type of technology, as it passes from inventors to consumers. John 34

Figure 3.9. Model of the chipped-stone industries in the Cache River Basin, Arkansas. Source: House 1975.

Chapter 3

Figure 3.10. The life cycle of technologies: a four-stage model.

Staudenmaier implies that only the life cycles of “successful” technologies merit sustained study.30 By successful, he means highly consequential and integral to a society’s functioning, such asâ•›—╛╉to use his examplesâ•›—╛╉the American automobile system versus dental floss. However, studying the life cycle of any technology, consequential or not, may be instructiveâ•›—╛╉even that of dental floss. As defined here, a minimally successful technology is one that has reached consumers. Moreover, fascinating stories can even be told about unsuccessful technologiesâ•›—╛╉those whose life cycles have been cut shortâ•›—╛╉such as the American nuclear-poweredÂ�aircraft, which achieved neither prototype plane nor engine. Finally it was judged technically infeasible, and President Kennedy in 1961 canceled the project after the government had spent about $1 billion.31 In previous works I have divided life cycles into three major stages or processes: invention, commercialization, and adoption, each Â�consisting of many activities that can take place in varied series and parallel combinations. Kacy L. Hollenback and I recently added a fourth stage: senesÂ�cence (Figure 3.10). This model is simple and general and invites expansion, perhaps with substages (as I did for commercialization, below). Analogous models with varying numbers of stages are employed in economics, engineering, marketing, and other disciplines.32

types, models, notes and sketches, and patent applications. The initial projections of an invention’s performance characteristics may be highly optimistic. Edison claimed that electric lighting would be much cheaper than gas lighting, but it turned out to be more expensive. Rosy forecasts may attract supporters who help to acquire resources for initiating development, but in retrospect they may appear to have been manipulative exaggerations or wishful thinking. Inventorsâ•›—╛╉the authors of an invention, not necessarily a social role or occupationâ•›—╛╉may be far more enamored with their ideas than are other people. Indeed, the history of technology teaches us that most inventions never make it past the idea or prototype stage, for few are considered promising enough to be commercialized. Invention can be likened to mutation in biological evolution because it produces variation subject to selection. However, unlike random mutations, inventions exhibit patterning that can be described by generalizations (Chapters 5 and 6).34 One source of patterning is needs or problems that provoke spurts of inventive activities. Problem solving is not the only route to invention, but it is an important one. Problems may arise in any realm of life in groups at any social scale and may lead to inventions mundane or momentous. Thus, a tribal group suffering crop failures invents new rituals, beliefs, and accompanying technologies; a chemical company is commissioned to come up with a new plastic having high resistance to UV radiation; and a magician faced with a declining audience may devise new technology-intensive illusions. A common problem is that of enhancing one or more of an existing technology’s performance characteristics, such as increasing a steam engine’s fuel economy or raising a pyramid’s emotional impact. Problems may even include satisfying a curiosity or reducing boredom, which may have impelled the creation of some technologies

Invention

Invention is the creation of an idea or vision for a technology that has performance characteristicsâ•›—╛╉often use-related onesâ•›—╛╉differing from those of other technologies.33 The idea may consist of a minor modification of an existing artifact or may be a vision breathtaking in its audacity. Often, an invention includes hints about how it might workâ•›—╛╉or be brought into existence. Inventions may be materialized in traditional societies as prototypes and in industrial societies as protoÂ� 36

A Conceptual Scheme

of science, play, sport, and hobbies.35 And, as we shall see in the next chapter, social processes create profound and sometimes persistent problems.

nologies, many of them commissioned, still go through life cycles. Commercialization requires an investment of resources, including labor and artifacts, which may be undertaken by social groups as diverse as households, clans, communities, corporations, churches, and government agencies. Technologies vary greatly in the kinds and quantities of resources needed for commercialization (more on this in Chapter 7): for some the investment is monumental, as in the Manhattan Project that designed and produced two nuclear bombs during World War II, but even traditional societies must deploy labor, skill, knowledge, materials, and tools for developing and manufacturing the simplest product.

Commercialization

Regardless of a problem’s source and apparent significance, in pursuing a solution people set in motion a commercialization project that aims to transform an invention into a technology available to consumers. In the course of a project, which may require the establishment of new organizations, people create the design for the envisioned technology, devise manufacture processes, acquire tools and space for workshops or factories, assemble workers with appropriate skills, and initiate production. Obviously, commercialization involves varied activities and processes that can be grouped or segmented in myriad ways. I employ two substages, development and manufacture. Development, which may seamlessly follow invention (especially in traditional societies), can proceed by trial and error, a formal research program, or any activity sequence that leads to a Â�manufacture-╉ ready design that ostensibly meets the technology’s performance requirements in postmanufacture activities. By manufacture is meant the technology’s production or replication, whether in a household, workshop, or factory. If commercialization succeeds, the technology becomes available to consumers through market or nonmarket exchange. By this definition, both of the following are examples: (1) an artisan in a traditional society designs and makes a new kind of shell bracelet, offering it to exchange partners; and (2) General Electric develops, manufactures, and markets a new wind turbine. Surprisingly, in industrial societies a great many technologies are commercialized in nonmarket contexts, as in the ornate bowls that a hobbyist woodworker gives to friends and relatives at Christmas or the cost-plus government contract for building a new missile system.36 And many artifacts produced today in traditional societies enter world markets as “ethnic art.” Commercialization also applies to oneoff technologies such as a homeowner’s backyard landscaping, a chief ’s war canoe, a movie star’s evening gown, a custom yacht, and the International Space Station. Indeed, these singular tech-

Adoption

Adoption is the acquisition and (usually) use of the new technology by consumers. The latter may be individuals, households and Â�communities, churches and companies, or governments. Consumers, as selective agents, winnow the offerings of manufacturers, adopting some technologies and rejecting others. In capitalist industrial societies, the vast majority of new technologies find few buyers. When a technology’s anticipated users and uses fail to materialize, creative consumers sometimes salvage the situation. The most capacious ship built in the nineteenth century, the Great Eastern (launched in 1858), was painfully unprofitable as a passenger liner but, after changing hands and refitting, managed to perform ably in laying undersea telegraph cables, including the first successful Atlantic cable in 1866.37 Senescence

The falloffâ•›—╛╉eventually to zeroâ•›—╛╉of manufacture and adoption activities is known as senescence. During a technology’s senescence, however, use may continue for a long period. A case in point is the Concorde supersonic airliner. Manufactured in Europe from 1969 to 1979, some planes remained in service until 2003. Technologies can survive even longer as conserved items shorn of technofunctions.38 The surviving Concordes, for example, reside in more than a dozen museums in the United Kingdom, France, the United States, 37

Chapter 3

and Germany and so are likely to serve symbolic and emotive functions for centuries.39 Many technologies in traditional societies have become or are becoming senescent.

sitesâ•›—╛╉as unique or very rare artifacts, including structures and other features, that fall outside existing typologies. And the refuse from work areas and workshops can be scoured for artifacts that had not been replicated. Unique items, I hasten to add, are also made by children and novices. Traces of invention and development may also be discernible if the processes were widespread and protracted. R. Lee Lyman and colleagues report that, after the appearance of the first arrowpoints in several North American regions, there was an increase in projectile point variation as people experimented for long periods with techniques to make effective hunting gear.41 Despite the challenges of studying invention and development from archaeological remains alone, we know that any technology that was manufactured is direct evidence for the specific invention(s) and development activities that spawned it. In later chapters I sometimes use commercialized or adopted technologies to indicate the occurrence of inventive activities, aware that stillborn inventions are not represented. The information potential of the historical record varies greatly across time and space, but invention, development, and manufacture are somewhat accessible to inference, whereas adoption is often less so. That is why historical and industrial archaeologists, who may have access to both kinds of records, can sometimes create lush narratives about a product’s entire life cycle. Although the information potentials of the archaeological and historical records exhibit general patterns, they are mere tendencies with many exceptions. That is why the information potential of either record has to be assessed on a technologyby-technology basis.

Discussion

Life cycle stages are somewhat arbitrary and together may appear unduly linear and oversimplified, but they do possess some behavioral integrity. To take account of greater complexity, we can easily build in feedback loops and add stages and substages. What matters in the end is whether our constructs are useful for provoking questions; orienting research; writing stories; or developing, presenting, and applying generalizations and heuristics. We should keep in mind that life cycle modelsâ•›—╛╉indeed, all scientific constructsâ•›—╛╉are merely conceptual tools that serve our research and communication needs. When a particular tool is less useful for a project, we can replace or alter it. In Chapter 5, for example, I created an eight-stage model for studying patterns of invention that arise during commercialization; and Chapter 11 presents a six-phase model for investigating technological differentiation. Different conceptual tools apply to different life cycle stages. And so, after formulating a research question, we determine which models and heuristics are applicable. Are we trying to explain a spurt of inventive activities, or the willingness or unwillingness of people to take up and develop an ostensibly promising invention, or the response of consumers to a new product? Needless to say, this part of the research process is critical: after all, models of invention do not explain adoption patterns, and vice versa; and commercialization requires its own models. Chapters 5–10 present stage-specific generalizations and heuristics. In studying a technology’s life cycle, we confront varied problems in finding and Â�assessing relevant evidence, especially because some stages are poorly represented in the archaeological or historical record. Fortunately, details about manufacture and adoption are often readily inferred from an abundance of archaeological remains. Invention and development, however, ordinarily leave scant traces unless they resulted in preserved prototypes.40 The latter may be identifiable in well-known regionsâ•›—╛╉i.e., those having very large artifact samples from many excavated

Decision Making and Life Cycles

A technology’s life cycle is moved forward (or not) through invention, commercialization, and adoption by the decisionsâ•›—╛╉singular and recurrentâ•›—╛╉of the social groups in its cadena.42 Although cadenas in traditional societies are usually small and relatively homogeneous, a technology’s life cycle is still affected by the decisions of social groups. An inventive villager may develop and manufacture a novel basket yet find that no one else wants it. In the life cycle of an industrial technology, the cadena may include inventors, instrument 38

A Conceptual Scheme

makers, scientific authorities, patent attorneys, patent examiners, courts, journalists, newspaper and magazine editors, entrepreneurs, investors, bankers, government officials, manufacturers, engineers and mechanics, corporate executives, wholesalers, retailers, consumers, repairers, and recyclers. An activity’s social group interacts with the technology itself or with Â�representations of it, as in patent drawings, company Â�prospectuses, marketing plans, legal documents, journal articles, advertisements, and magazine and newspaper accounts. Since the late twentieth century in capitalist industrial societies, it has become increasingly possible for labor unions, environmentalists, community groups, consumerist organizations, health and safety advocates, and government regulators to be part of a Â�technology’s cadena. In general, a group’s decision depends on the technology’s anticipated performance characteristics in relation to the performance requirements of that group’s own activities. Thus, a manufacturer forecasts whether the technology can be produced at all and find favor with consumers. A marketing researcher assesses its desirability to particular consumer groups defined on the basis of, for example, sociodemographic criteria. And consumers consider its likely performance in activities of use, maintenance, and perhaps reuse. If there is a poor match between a technology’s anticipated performance characteristics and an activity’s performance requirements, the group may terminate the technology’s life cycle, commonly by withholding resources. Let us take a relatively simple example, that of a sculptor seeking a patron who will underwrite ambitious works capable of catapulting her into the first rank of active artists. The sculptor disÂ�coversâ•›—╛╉sometimes quickly, sometimes after a long and dispiriting struggleâ•›—╛╉that her fate lies in the hands of the art world’s many groups, including agents, owners of elite galleries, Â�dealers, art show juries, critics, museum curators, and art magazine editors and contributors. It is these groups that proffer the judgments that create value for specific works and for the works of specific artistsâ•›—╛╉and which influence potential consumers, particularly well-heeled buyers and collectors. These groups look for stylistic novelty: works whose visual performance is easily distinguished

from similar objects. Each group forecasts how a work’s appearance is likely to affect its own activities: Will the work sell in the gallery? Will it augment a critic’s reputation for having discerning taste? Will articles about it entice and engage readers? An understanding of the many groups that might affect the life cycle of “art” objects may help us to understand an artist’s successes and failures. Perhaps an artist’s work was not distinctive enough to attract the endorsements of gallery owners, art show juries, and Â�critics. Or perhaps the artist lacked the resources or social networks needed to gain access to, and favorable judgments from, these groups. Forecasts of anticipated performance characteristics, which are not necessarily accurate, can be projected on the basis of wishful thinking or technical reports, focus groups, intuition or advertising, folk theory or scientific theory, word of mouth, or firsthand experience. Often a new technology’s anticipated performance characteristics are contrasted with those of a technology it might replace. The expected performance characteristics of the first electric lightsâ•›—╛╉arc lamps, not incandescent bulbsâ•›—╛╉were compared to those of gaslights and oil lamps in applications such as lighthouses, factories, and city squares. When such comparisons are explicit in magazines, newspapers, and books, we may be able to infer an activity’s baseline performance requirements. Anticipated and actual performance characteristics can be inferred from historical materials, including museum specimens, along with findings from modern experiments, ethnoarchaeology, and engineering science (principles relevant to, and often arising in, application-oriented contextsâ•›—╛╉see Chapter 8).43 We may be tempted to assume that all Â�cadena groups have to render affirmative decisions in order for a technology to be commercialized and adopted, but this is not always so. Occasionally an inventor has sufficient resources to move a Â�technology forward despite the negative judgments of other groups. Indeed, a wealthy individual, company, or government can underwrite the invention, development, and manufacture of a new technology and perhaps become the sole adopter. A case in point, the U.S. government has funded the creation of a breathtaking array of military technologies, such as the missile defense 39

Chapter 3

Â� system (“star wars”), which it alone commissioned against the advice of scientific authorities and other groups. Even in traditional societies, a powerful chief may commission a new kind of canoe or temple without seeking the assent of others. This discussion implies that sometimes the most consequential groups of a technology’s cadena are wealthy and powerful people who are able to supply or deny resources for commercialization. A further implication is that in some societal contexts, one groupâ•›—╛╉even one personâ•› —╛╉ can have a decisive effect on a technology’s life cycle. Individuals do sometimes matter, especially Â�leaders of companies and polities who decide how to allocate resources. In the more usual instance where accord among groups must be achieved in order to advance a technology’s life cycle, disagreements may lead to power struggles. In such cases, the decision may be strongly affected not by negotiation and compromise but by the groups’ relative social power. Thus, a company president intent on commercializing a new technology may overrule the naysaying of financial officers and the marketing department. In examining the life cycle of a technologyâ•› —╛╉ however long or shortâ•›—╛╉we infer the social groups that made up the technology’s cadena as well as each group’s performance preferences. These inferences create a framework for addressing stagespecific questions (Chapters 5–10).

move forward so long as their constituent people and artifacts (and sometimes externs) meet the performance requirements, which pertain to one or more of the basic interaction modes (mechanical, chemical, thermal, electrical, and electromagnetic). An activity’s forward motion may also be enabled by any interactor’s performance characteristics as they relate to human senses (visual, tactile, acoustic, olfactory, and gustatory). People have performance characteristics that affect their interactions and thus the judgments that others make about their social competence in an activity. Six categories of technology contribute to the delineation of boundary conditions for some generalizations in later chapters. They are material (including raw material), component, product (simple and complex), complex technological system, process, and aggregate technology. An invaluable tool is the life history framework, which can be modeled in many ways. Behavioral chains and flow models are used to denote, respectively, individual activities and Â�process-╉related sets of activities. In turn, documenting variation in life histories lays a foundation for asking questions about technological variation and change. Life cycle modelsâ•›—╛╉e.g., the stages of invention, commercialization, adoption, and senescenceâ•›—╛╉are useful for investigating how a bright idea may become, through the singular and recurrent decisions of the technology’s Â�social groups (the members of its cadena), a technology available to, and acquired by, consumers. This Summary model focuses our attention on the decisions to The constructs in this chapter compose a thumb- move a technology’s life history forward or not nail sketch of the conceptual scheme that artic- but is silent as to the contextual factors that proulates with the generalizations and heuristics mote the initiation of that life cycle and how and discussed and illustrated in later chapters. The why resources may be made available to support conceptual scheme’s foundation is the premise the technology’s commercialization. Addressing that the study of technological change depends on these issues requires an understanding of social viewing human behavior as the people–artifactÂ� processes, some of which are engaged in the next interactions that make up activities. Activities chapter. Notes 1. This is more or less equivalent to Kuhn’s (1970) most general rendering of “paradigm.” 2. Dobres 2010 applies a Kuhnian approach to the archaeologies of technology, contrasting two major paradigms: practical reason versus cultural reason. 3. On the SCOT program, see, e.g., Bijker 1995; Bijker et al. 1987; MacKenzie and Wajcman 1999. Dobres

(2000; Dobres and Hoffman 1999) is a major SCOT advocate in archaeology. Matson’s (1965) “ceramic ecology” in archaeology fully anticipated the SCOT program and continues to influence research. 4. Boivin (2008:Chapter 4), among others, makes this point forcefully. 5. I support SCOT’s goals; indeed, I championed some 40

A Conceptual Scheme tenets long ago (e.g., McGuire and Schiffer 1983), and my extended case studies are consistent with the program (e.g., Schiffer 1991, 2008a; Schiffer, Butts, and Grimm 1994; Schiffer et al. 2003). 6. Boivin 2008 presents a cogent critique of idealism in anthropology and archaeology; for an early critique, see Harris 1968. 7. The claim that artifacts are involved in all activities is defended elsewhere (Schiffer and Miller 1999). Techno-, socio-, and ideofunctions were defined in Rathje and Schiffer 1982:65–67; emotive functions are introduced in the present work. Discussions in Boivin 2008 along with a query from Nathan Crilly (personal communication 2009) provoked me to add emotive functions. 8. See http://www.electricscotland.com/historic/cas╉ tles/urquhart.htm, accessed November 2, 2009. 9. Boivin makes a compelling case that many artifacts owe their power not to symbolism but to “the fact that they are part of the realm of the sensual, of experience, and of emotion” (2008:9). 10. Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981:20–54 discusses the many symbolic functions served by objects having manifestly utilitarian ones. 11. See Schiffer and Miller 1999:55–57 on relational knowledge and Schiffer 2010a:Chapter 19 on the construction of artifact meanings. 12. An example is the many (latent) symbolic functions that Moskowitz 2004:24 imputes to silver-plate flatware in middle-class American homes. 13. Schiffer and Miller 1999:13–16 discusses interaction modes. 14. Braun 1983 introduced the term performance characteristic into archaeology, but its definition and applicability have been broadened by behavioral archaeologists (e.g., LaMotta and Schiffer 2001; Schiffer and Miller 1999:16–20; Schiffer and Skibo 1987, 1997; Skibo and Schiffer 2008:12–16). 15. Heating effectivenessâ•›—╛╉how quickly a pot heats its contentsâ•›—╛╉is discussed in Schiffer 1990. 16. Schiffer 2003 distinguishes between performance characteristics and material properties. 17. The construct of “sensory performance characteristics” was introduced in Schiffer and Miller 1999:╉ 17–18. 18. Skibo and Schiffer 2008 makes this point. 19. My usage of the term social c ompetence differs somewhat from conventional usages in psychology, sociology, and education. Folk theories and other kinds of culturally transmitted “activity-specificÂ� knowledge” contribute to a person’s ability to exhibit social competence. 20. Schiffer 2002 discusses the complex technological system, a category inspired by Thomas Hughes’s (1983) “socio-technical system.” 41

21. On the definition of aggregate technology, see Schiffer 2001. 22. Influenced by Harris’s (1964) emphasis on interactions in activities, Schiffer 1975 and 1976 introduced the construct of behavioral chain. Skibo and Schiffer 2008:9–12 discusses the behavioral chain in relation to the chaîne opératoire, emphasizing that the former includes all life history activities whereas the latter is usually confined to manufacture processes (e.g., Lemonnier 1986:149). The life history of a singular artifact is sometimes known as an “artifact biography” (e.g., Lillios 1999). 23. In previous discussions of behavioral chains (e.g., Schiffer 1975, 1976), component is used instead of element. Schiffer 1992a:Chapter 7 discusses aÂ� ctivity-╉ specific knowledge (see also Schiffer and Miller 1999). 24. For an example of a behavioral chain for cotton, see Magers 1975. 25. Schiffer 2007 introduced the term cadena. Walker and Schiffer 2006 and Skibo and Schiffer 2008:╉ Chapter 2 define cadena to include all interactors, not just social groups. In this book I employ the original definition confined to people. 26. These ideas are elaborated in Schiffer 1979, 1992a:╉ Chapter 4. 27. Data in this paragraph come from Congressional Budget Office 2009. In some estimates that take into account the clearing of land for new fields, corn ethanol is actually a worse contributor to greenhouse gases than gasoline (Charles 2009); see also Bryce’s (2008) critique of the “ethanol scam.” 28. Flow models have a long history in archaeology but were formalized and popularized in recent times (e.g., Schiffer 1972, 1976). 29. Examples of use-alteration analysis include Keeley 1980 and Skibo 1992. 30. Staudenmaier 1989. 31. Walsh 1963. 32. On the three-stage model, see Schiffer 1996a, 2001, 2008a. Hollenback and Schiffer 2010 identifies six life cycle stages: invention and innovation, experimentation and development, adoption by producers, production, consumption and use, and senescence. A somewhat different six-stage model is presented in Spratt 1982:80: (1) discovery; (2) invention; (3) development; (4) investment; (5) production, distribution, and sale; and (6) obsolescence. Some archaeologists employ a two-stage model, invention and adoption (e.g., Plog 1974; Torrence and van der Leeuw 1989). 33. The term vision is especially apt because ideas for new technologies often form nonverbally, exploiting spatial thinking (e.g., Ferguson 1977; Hindle 1981).

Chapter 3 34. See Schiffer 1996a on the relationship between invention and mutation. 35. See Maines 2009. 36. On the prevalence of certain nonmarket exchanges in Tucson, Arizona, see Schiffer et al. 1981. 37. On the peculiar life history of the Great Eastern, see Beaver 1969. User perspectives are treated, for example, in Edgerton 2007; Oudshoorn and Pinch 2003; Schiffer 1991, 1992a, 2008a; Schiffer and Skibo 1997; and Skibo and Schiffer 2008. 38. Gould (1981) has written about the decline of the once-prosperous gunflint industry in Brandon, England, and on the senescence of commercial sailing ships (2001). Whittaker 2000 and 2001 furnish ethnoarchaeological studies of senescent technologies. On processes that can extend use beyond the cessation of manufacture, see Schiffer 1987:Chapter 3; on heirlooms, see Lillios 1999.

39. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde, accessed January 10, 2009. 40. For further discussion of these points, see Schiffer 2010b. 41. Lyman et al. 2008. 42. With the exception of the sculptor example, the ideas in this section are elaborated elsewhere (Schiffer 2008a:╉Chapter 1). In that work I use player instead of group; one might also use the trendy but somewhat narrower term stakeholder. Case studies in van der Leeuw and Torrence 1989 also prioritize the study of decision making in technological change. 43. For examples of ethnoarchaeology, see Arthur 2006; David and Kramer 2000; Gould 1980; Hayden and Cannon 1984; Longacre 1974, 1991; Longacre et al. 2000; and Skibo 1992. For present purposes, I follow Layton’s (1971) definition of engineering science.

42

4

Social Needs and Technological Change

People in Western countries are so accustomed to witnessing constant technological change that societies exhibiting long periods of stability, such as those reconstructed by archaeologists and described by early ethnographers, seem anomalous.1 Many modern observers believe that constant technological change is humankind’s natural condition and so surmise that stable societies were held back by environmental, racial, cultural, demographic, or other constraints.2 Yet even prehistoric tribal societies characterized by centuries of stability occasionally underwent epiÂ�sodes of rapid and far-reaching technological change. Perhaps the post-Enlightenment period of sustained and ever-accelerating change is the true anomaly.3 To account for the singularity of the modern era, some scholars have invoked distinctive cultural or social traits of Western societies, such as religious tenets that encourage good works in the present to promote redemption in the hereafter.4 Others stress the emergence of integrative organizations, which constitute an “innovation system.” 5 I believe that such explanations are unsatisfactory because they do not delineate the effects of specific social processes on decisions affecting the life cycles of technologies. The present chapter offers generalizations about several widespread, intertwined social processes that, by creating needs or problems, promote invention and the initiation of projects and so stimulate technological change.6 Many scholars believe that necessity is usually not the mother of invention.7 This view receives

apparent support from the prevalence of seemingly superfluous artifacts having only symbolic and emotive functions, from cave paintings and Venus figurines, to powdered wigs and codpieces, to bow ties and Mark Rothko paintings. The implication is that the need for such an artifact is somehow less substantial and less insistent than the need for an artifact having mainly technofunctions.8 This is mistaken, for social processes generate palpable problems whose solutions may result in new technologies capable of varied functions. And the symbolic and emotive functions of artifacts as different as Halloween masks and medieval cathedrals are enabled by performance characteristics every bit as material as those enabling their technofunctions. For our purposes, “need” is nothing more, or less, than a problem that may lead to a project. The potential solution is a n ew technology’s performance r equirements i n p articular a ctivities. Performance requirements give direction to a project but along the way may be modified. Let us now turn to some problem-generating social processes. Peer Competitions

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was a competition over which economic system and ideology would dominate the resource-rich Third World.9 Both countries poured great wealth and other resources into the Cold War and developed countless technologies, from nuclear submarines to designer �steroids. 43

Chapter 4

Whether for supremacy on the high seas or for garnering gold at the Olympics, international competitions have spawned new technologies from the time of the earliest state-level Â�societies in the Old and New Worlds. Families and even individuals also take part in technology-generatingÂ� competitions, as in the sculptors, composers, and professors who compete with peers to fashion novel products that might increase their income and renown. These examples from opposite ends of the organizational scale introduce a widespread social process known as peer competition.10 As in an arms race, peer competitors alternately foster the creation of new technologies, in a series that may continue for a long period, its duration perhaps limited by resource availability and countervailing social processesâ•›—╛╉e.g., if and when parity becomes acceptable. Competitors strive to create technologies having performance characteristics that surpass those of their peers. With such a technology, a competitor may gain an advantageâ•›—╛╉perhaps temporaryâ•›—╛╉in wooing mates or followers, accruing prestige or power of any kind, maintaining or extending territorial boundaries, obtaining materials and products, controlling trade routes, reducing manufacturing costs, attracting consumers, and earning bragging rights. My hunch is that many instances of technological change usually attributed to other processes are actually rooted in peer competitions. Indeed, competitiveÂ� ness is as characteristic of Homo sapiens as are cooperation and altruism. Aggrandizers

Brian Hayden has suggested that in societies having 200-plus members, at least one person is apt to be an “aggrandizer.”11 It follows that as a population grows beyond 200, so too does the number of aggrandizers. Populations in most chiefdoms and in all states greatly exceed the 200-person threshold, and in these societies aggrandizers abound. Aggrandizers are aggressiveâ•›—╛╉often acquisitiveâ•› —╛╉ people who gravitate toward leadership positions. In competing with their peers, aggrandizers initiate projects, often resource-intensive ones, to create technologies along with new activities that might give them an edge. Even in tribal Â�societies, aggrandizers may have promoted the development of technologies such as pottery, perhaps to 44

enable processing of plant or animal materials used in prestige-conferring activities.12 The archaeological record of chiefdoms contains many constructions, such as the stone and wood henges of Western Europe, the moai (monumental stone heads) of Easter Island, and the platform mounds of the southeastern United States, which at first may have participated in chiefly competitions. Early states were deeply invested in peer competitions, developing increasingly lethal weapons of war and technologies of transport for waging battles over territory and control of trade routes. Maya city-states exhibit a succession of new architectural technologies, perhaps developed in the course of competitions among elite aggrandizers. Peer competition is clearly one possible explanation for some technological changes in prehistory. Companies and Individuals

One does not have to venture far afield to find evidence of aggrandizer-driven competitions. Capitalist economic systems, first in Europe, then in the Americas, now in Asia, have unleashed a competitive fervor, particularly among those who build, and hold leadership positions in, corporations. My favorite example of this profit- and Â�prestige-╉driven process is the rivalry between RCA and CBS to commercialize the first color television system during the 1940s and early 1950s. This was a fierce struggle sustained in part by the outsize egos of the men who headed both companies. Beyond devising new components, circuits, and products, the development activities included lawsuits, politicking, and sparring with the Federal Communications Commission (which could approve only one system). CBS’s partly mechanical technology showed early promise and took the lead. But RCA was determined to create an all-electronic system and, despite setbacks, eventually triumphed.13 Today, as in the past, electronics firms large and small bring out novelty after novelty, hoping to grab market share before copycats enter with knockoffs, in a feverish competition that ratchets up ever faster. Competitions among companies are endemic in capitalist industrial societies. The outpouring of new products at first satisfies the needs of manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, but through skillful marketing and early adoptions by trend-

Social Needs and Technological Change

Figure 4.1. “Biltmore,” the Vanderbilt Mansion, Asheville, North Carolina.

setters, novelties may become consumer necessities.14 Through their stewardship of fabulously profitable companies, such as Microsoft, Google, and Oracle, a handful of aggrandizers have amassed wealth in the tens of billions of dollars. Many superÂ�rich people compete with each other to build, for example, ever more grandiose homes and yachts, each a one-of-a-kind technology. William Gates, cofounder of Microsoft and one of the world’s wealthiest people, commissioned a home of palatial proportions in Redmond, Washington, to house his small family and, in outbuildings, many servants. Assessed in 2008 for tax purposes at $147.5 million, the home has a unique feature that caters to the creature comforts of guests. The latter wear “pins that upon entrance of a room automatically adjust temperature, music, and lighting based on the guest’s preferences.”15 Although enormous by modern standards and larger than those of his contemporaries, the Gates homeâ•› —╛╉ excluding outbuildingsâ•›—╛╉is smaller than the Biltmore mansion in Asheville, North CaroÂ�lina (Figure 4.1); completed in 1895 for George Vanderbilt, son of railroad tycoon Cornelius, it remains the largest stand-alone house in America. Â� Paul Allen, the other Microsoft cofounder, in 2003

took delivery from the Lürssen shipyard in Germany of Octopus, a seven-deck yacht, 414 ft long. In addition to a restaurant-quality galley, dozens of rooms for sleeping and recreation, and a swimming pool, Octopus has on board two helicopters, seven boats, and a submarine.16 Other superrich people soon contracted for even larger and more lavishly appointed yachts. Although these commissioned projects can be understood as a form of peer competition among the superrich, other social processes may also be at work (see below). Cities and Countries

Intercity competitions have great antiquity. Roman cities, for example, took part in a “spirited competition” that “sparked lavish new building projects, theaters, and stadia.”17 During medieval times, cities in Western Europe that competed on a commercial basis also built taller and larger Gothic cathedrals that “represented political and economic facts as well as expressing religious aspirations.”18 The York Minster in York, England, was one of the largest (Figure 4.2). Modern cities compete to attract settlers, businesses, investors, tourists, and trade, often employing new technologies. Boosters, entrepreneurs, or civic officials commission technologies whose performance 45

Chapter 4

Figure 4.2. Partial interior of the York Minster, a Gothic cathedral in York, England.

characteristics can be touted as superior to those of their competitors. During the mid–nineteenth century, promoters in Boston built a railroad to the Hudson River in hopes of competing more effectively with New York City for trade with the west. This project included a 5-mi-long tunnel through Hoosac Mountain in western Massachusetts, whose construction also begat new technologies such as blasting with nitroglycerine.19 In the late nineteenth and twentieth Â�centuries, competitions among American cities led to the commercialization of public parks, museums, opera houses, concert halls, and other amenities. Competing cities sometimes responded by commissioning larger and more elaborate examples. During the twentieth century, the urban landscape was transformed further as boosters promoted subways, bridges, airports, and shopping centers, each project customized to meet the utilitarian, symbolic, and emotive performance requirements of the sponsoring city’s anticipated activities. In recent years, intercity competitions

have included sports complexes for baseball, football, and basketball, sometimes heavily subsidized by taxpayers. During the middle of the nineteenth Â�century, the skyline of a large American city, such as New York or Boston, was dominated by a few smokestacks and municipal buildings and, especially, churches. Many congregations strove to outdo each other by building monuments that expressed in brick and stone their religiosity and, in towering spires and steeples, a nearness to their heaven and god. A church also enabled a congregation physically and symbolically to assert the importance of its religion in the community and to instill pride in its members. Competitions to build ever more capaciousâ•›—╛╉but not necessarily tallerâ•›—╛╉churches continue to this day, as evangelical sects strive to add more sheep to their flocks. In the late nineteenth century, big-city skylines began to take on a different appearance as prosperous corporations employed architecture to proclaim symbolically their success and to one46

Social Needs and Technological Change

up their competitors. With visual performance paramount, it became necessary to erect what was for a time the tallest, most massive, most distinctive, or most sumptuous headquarters.20 It should be possible to chart the changing character and prosperity of a city’s industrial and commercial sectors by ordering skyscrapers by construction dates. New York is a case in point. Before World War II, manufacturers and retailers erected many skyscrapers, including Singer, Woolworth, Chrysler, and RCA. After the war, the financial sector dominated, as exemplified by the skyscrapers of MetLife, Bank of Manhattan, and the World Trade Center.21 The buildings in every large city should exhibit distinctive temporal patterns that reflect changes in local, regional, and perhaps national and international economies. New York’s changing skyline during the twentieth century echoes a national pattern: the transformation of the United States from mainly a manufacturing nation to one of mainly service providers and consumers. Through it all, in the downtowns of most large American citiesâ•›—╛╉Washington, D.C., Â�being an ironic exceptionâ•›—╛╉the corporate colossi now visually dwarf churches and civic architecture.22 In contrast, the skylines of towns and small Â�cities that have grown little may be dominated by churches, grain elevators, courthouses, or hotels. The competition to build the tallest skyscraper has now gone international. Countries in Asia that have prospered through oil sales, finance, or manufacturing assert their importance in the family of nations and compete among each other by erecting ever-taller buildings that receive generous media coverage in the West. When completed in 1998, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur were proclaimed the tallest buildings in the world. Just six years later the Taipei 101, in Taiwan, edged closer to the clouds. But that victory, too, was short-lived because its height was exceeded by the Burj Dubai in 2007â•›—╛╉while the latter was still under construction. Dedicated in January 2010, the Burj Dubai, renamed the Burj Kalifa, has 162 stories and reaches a half mile into the sky.23 Although the symbolic and emotive functions of skyscrapers may be paramount, these buildings must still house activities and be durable in their environments. And this requires a con-

siderable investment of resources, human and material. Indeed, building these behemoths consumes vast quantities of materials and products imported from around the globe and engages international teams of contractors, structural engineers, workers, and sometimes financiers. Yet the finished product serves mainly the interests of the one country where its distinctive appearance, which perhaps alludes to traditional cultural or geographic features, can be seen by its citizens, whose pride in their city and homeland is likely intensified, and by visitors who may spread word of the world’s latest architectural wonder and tout the modernity of the country where it was built. Social Constraints on Competition

Social constraints sometimes inhibit �technology-╉ based peer competitions. In some traditional societies, such as mobile hunter-gatherers, aggrandizers have avenues other than �developing new artifacts for acquiring prestige, such as story� telling, and face negative sanctions for competing on the basis of technologies. In states and empires, an occasional ethnic or religious enclave, such as the Amish in America, may discourage experiments with new technologies as a way of maintaining its distinctiveness and rigid social boundary. In societies where the government owns or controls manufacturing in a particular industry, competing companies may be excluded. Moreover, government policies such as the granting of monopolies, patents, or charters may limit some kinds of competition. In professional sports, where one might expect unrestrained competition, governing bodies enforce detailed regulations covering everything from the material and length of baseball bats to the displacement of NASCAR engines. These regulations minimize differences in technology so that winners and losers are decided largely by human skills. However, if some latitude is given to the design of equipment in sports with large markets, as in tennis and golf, there is a constant stream of inventions, many of which are commercialized quickly because manufacturers know that players are always looking for equipment that might give them an edge. And amateurs follow their lead, enlarging the potential market for every new product. If professional baseball were suddenly to allow bats to vary greatly, there would 47

Chapter 4

be an immediate profusion of new designs that players would rush to try out. Long-running peer competitions consume resources that might be channeled into other activities and technologies. It could be argued, for example, that Cold War expenditures in the United States on armaments and so forth were made at the expense of investments in infrastructure, preventive medicine, and alternative energy technologies. A few research questions come to mind. Which social groups have developed �mechanisms that constrain competitions? Under what conditions did these constraints arise? Have any societies or countries developed mechanisms to moderate the excesses of peer competitions? Did any competitions eventually become self-limiting�because even the ablest competitors could not muster the resources for taking the next step? Did any peer competitions become so taxing that they resulted in the collapse or slow decline of social groups or entire societies? In light of these questions, we might reexamine historical materials that have been analyzed by economists and political scientists.

technologies. However, the precedent goes back at least to the immediate wake of the Gilded Age. When the superrich role came to include the expectation of philanthropic activities, Andrew Carnegie’s wealth underwrote the design and construction of hundreds of public libraries. Bill Gates’s house and Paul Allen’s yacht indicate that the superrich also commission self-indulgent technologies. Although not among the superrich, retired American presidents solicit funds and commission libraries to house their papers and memorabilia. Each library is a unique monument tailored to the performance requirements of anticipated activities such as document storage, research, and tourism. No one can fulfill the role expectations of an ex-president without a distinctive library. In order to achieve elite status in the art world, artists are supposed to create new styles, new genres, or at least tangibly distinctive works. The artist whose creations are judged to lack sufficient novelty and distinctiveness will not acquire prestige, prizes, sales, and lucrative commissions. However, most artists do not belong to the elite stratum in their fields but toil in the shadows, perhaps painting ad nauseam the same scenes of Venice and other places they have never visited, which are destined to adorn dentist offices and motel rooms. Commercial artists, architects, industrial designers, engineers, and others find employment in corporations and in polities precisely because they can invent technologies that serve the needs of their employers, who may be engaged in peer competitions. Likewise the professoriate: from classicists to rocket scientists, we are expected to obtain grants and create new works, which contribute to a university’s bottom line and enhance its luster among peer institutions. Indeed, a young scholar would have difficulty achieving tenure in a research university today without having garnered grants and published a book and many articles. And a surgery professor may be expected to devise new instruments and procedures. People in less exalted professions may still exhibit social competence in everyday work by fashioning new technologies. Thus, hairdressers come up with new coiffures; chefs, new dishes; tattoo artists, new images; and florists, new arrangements. These novel technologies may help to sat-

Social Role Expectations

Every social role in every society entails specific activities and their associated artifacts. Thus, the shaman role as manifest in healing rituals may require the use of crystals, fossils, and parts of plants and animals. A shaman who lacks these things would betray a stunning lack of social competence. If a heart surgeon entered an operating room without mask and gown and Â�sterile gloves, the surgery could not proceed and the hospital would investigate. Beyond our understanding that people employ artifacts to play their roles competently, expectations for some roles include the creation of new technologies. The earliest examples of this social process may have been the craft specialists attached to patrons such as chiefs or kings. In the service of a patron, perhaps one engaged in a peer competition, the artisan was expected to fashion new temple facades, watercraft, sculptures, frescoes, or other works having transcendent symbolic and emotive significance. Among other things, today’s superrich people may be expected to commission all sorts of new 48

Social Needs and Technological Change

technologies. Many archaeologists believe that an important driver of this process is population increase, and this belief is supported by ample evidence.25 Indeed, anthropologists have shown that organizational complexityâ•›—╛╉defined here as the number and variety of social groups, roles, and New Social Groups, activitiesâ•›—╛╉increases with the size of a communÂ� Social Roles, and Activities ity’s population.26 This is not a linear relationship; When a new social group forms or an existing rather, it appears that population size grows arithone begins to conduct new activities, its members metically while organizational complexity grows must come up with technologies possessing ap- geometricallyâ•›—╛╉as does the variety of new artipropriate performance characteristics. In a tribal facts.27 Conveniently enough, however, societies society, the founding of a ceremonial group even- with larger populations contain more aggrandiztuates in new and visually distinctive ritual tech- ers and perhaps a greater range of resources to nologies such as masks, shell or bone ornaments, draw on for invention and commercialization. and perhaps a dedicated structure. The establishWhen feudalism began to break down in ment of a manufacturing company is marked by Western Europe and towns started to grow the development of equipment to make its prod- around marketplaces, there was an explosion of ucts, the construction (or remodeling) of a factory, commerce, manufacturing, and other Â�activities and the creation of a logo and other identity-╉ that generated still more social groups, roles, and proclaimingÂ�artifacts. And to perform its admin- activitiesâ•›—╛╉and new artifacts. Likewise, when istrative, legislative, judicial, military, and ritual prehistoric pueblo villagers in the Â�American activities, a new country cÂ� ommissions everyÂ�thing Southwest began aggregating into towns, some from postage stamps to army u Â� niforms. We could having populations in excess of 1,000, new groups study such developments in emerging states by appeared, many of them contributing to social cataloging and comparing the technologies com- integration. As a result, new kinds of structures missioned by the former French and British col- and places were created for holding large feasts onies liberated during the Â�twentieth century or and performing the rituals of new ceremonial the countries founded in the wake of Yugoslavia’s groups, and portable artifacts were developed disintegration. that could symbolize ideologies and cue emotive Likewise, when a new social role and its related responses.28 activities arise, new technologies are needed. Not surprisingly, population decline often Thus, the first shaman had to assemble a tool kit leads to a reduction in the variety of social roles, whose functions in healing activities were mainly activities, and eventually technologies. The symbolic and emotive. The first potter in a tech- Â�millennia-╉long archaeological record of Â�Tasmania nological tradition had to devise processes and is a suggestive case, recently engaged by Â�Joseph tools for preparing, shaping, and firing clay. Henrich. He argues that the postglacial rise in Projects may also be provoked by changes in sea level, which cut off Tasmania from mainland the performance requirements of an ongoing ac- Australiaâ•›—╛╉thus reducing the effective size of the tivity. After an attempt on the life of Pope John largest interacting groupsâ•›—╛╉led to the likely losses Paul II in 1981, “popemobiles” were made with of the more complex technologies such as “bone special enclosures surrounded by bulletproof tools, cold-weather clothing, hafted tools, nets, glass.24 fishing spears, barbed spears, spear-throwers, In short, technologies are developed to meet and boomerangs.”29 A reduction in social comthe performance requirements of new activities plexity may have led to the senescence of these when the latter are carried out by new groups, technologies.30 are performed in conjunction with new social Long archaeological records, such as that of roles, or have simply changed. It follows that as Tasmania, reveal marked trends in artifact varithe number of groups, social roles, and activities ety: some tend upward, perhaps until there is soin a society increases, so too does the variety of its cietal collapse; some exhibit episodic increases; isfy job requirements and perhaps contribute to peer competitions. Such projects tend to depend mainly on the person’s skill in creating new arrangements of existing materials and components and perhaps devising new processes.

49

Chapter 4

some remain unchanged for long periods and then undergo a surge; and some exhibit varying combinations of these trends. After identifying a trend, we may evaluate the hypothesis that changes in organizational complexityâ•›—╛╉perhaps fostered by population growth or declineâ•›—╛╉were responsible. It should be kept in mind that population growth may itself be a response to prior activity and technology changes, such as the adoption of a sedentary lifeway, scrupulous sanitary practices, immunization against communicable diseases, and a more productive or reliable subsistence base. And, of course, other processes may contribute to increases in artifact variety. We can also monitor changes in the varieties of a single artifact type, as defined by its technofunction. For example, during the early and mid1920s, hundreds of different radio models were brought to market in the United States. This spurt of variation marked the founding of many dozens of radio-manufacturing companies in response to the first widely publicized broadcasts in 1920.31 Similarly, changes in the variety of uniforms can monitor the number of sports teams in a league. Whenever there is an increase in the number of distinct social groups, there will be a corresponding increase in the variety of artifacts indicating group identity. By charting changes in the variety of artifacts aggregated at one or more scales, we can tease out trends and parlay them into provocative questions.

whose membership criteria may be rooted in wealth, income, occupation, race, ancestry, place of birth, or place of residence.33 Class-based strata crosscut other hierarchies. Thus, a five-star general is not necessarily a member of the uppermost social class. Ideologies of equality notwithstanding, every state-level society has social classes, which may not be named or acknowledged by its members. And the social inequality between the uppermost and lowermost classesâ•›—╛╉as represented by dramatic contrasts in wealth and possessionsâ•›—╛╉can be enormous, especially in capitalist industrial societies.34 In unchanging hierarchies and class systems, every status has distinctive, perhaps exclusive, material correlates, including dwelling, furnishings, food, and clothing.35 These artifacts, which visually convey social information in public and semipublic activities, are commonly called “status symbols.” This term implies that their functions are entirely symbolic, but that is mistaken, for they often have important technofunctions as well. Thus, a military uniform and its ornamentation denote a rank but also cover and protect the wearer’s body. Clearly, status symbol is a misleading term. Because the vast majority of artifacts have both utilitarian and symbolic functions and some include emotive functions, let us employ the neutral term status marker. To maintain status hierarchies and class systems, status markers must be able to represent status differences. To function best, then, a status marker exclusively denotes a particular status, an association that can be disrupted, for example, if people acquire status markers to which they are not entitled. To prevent unqualified people from obtaining a status marker of a superior rank or class, sumptuary rules or laws may come into existence. In medieval and Renaissance societies, sumptuary laws in principle (but not always in practice) prevented peasants from adopting the diet and dress of highly ranked people. Thus, certain clothing materials, such as silk and satin and the finest furs, were reserved exclusively for the elite.36 Sumptuary laws, although often absent or ineffective in the class systems of modern urban societies, are nonetheless rigidly enforced in some hierarchies. In U.S. military organizations, an enlisted person caught wearing an officer’s uniform

Maintaining a System of Status Differentiation

Another process that can lead to increases in artifact variety is status system maintenance. Every chiefdom and state-level society has hierarchies of ranked persons and social strata. Many church organizations have ranked clergy, as in the Anglican hierarchy of archbishop, bishop, and priest. And military organizations have named ranks. Corporations, government agencies, and similar bureaucratic organizations by definition have internal hierarchies, which have been extensively studied, for example, by sociologists and anthropologists.32 In all hierarchies, individuals occupying a higher rank or status have more privileges and exercise power over more people than individuals of lower rank. Many social strata in states are based on class, 50

Social Needs and Technological Change

on base could be charged with a federal crime. Study of police departments, hospitals, corporate offices, and so on would disclose similar sumptuary laws or rules, but they might be less formal, and enforcement may vary. In stable hierarchies with vigorously enforced sumptuary rules, no internal processes favor change in status markers (unless social roles or activities change). However, if external factors, such as economic growth and a vast expansion in the variety of social groups, lead to a loosening of sumptuary rules, status distinctions may become blurred, which creates ambiguities in social interaction and the potential for conflict. These conditions, I suggest, tend to foster technological change. In the absence of sumptuary laws, status ambiguity prevails when the members of lower classes enjoy increasing wealth and thus gain access to different status markers. Thus, in modern America and many other affluent countries, elite products lose their exclusivity when members of the middle classes begin buying them in abundance. A 3,000-ft2 home or Mercedes automobile no longer marks elite status, for these items have become almost commonplace. As a result, the elite have to purchase more expensive and prestigious status markers. This process was described more than a century ago by Georg Simmel in his “trickle down” theory: as status markers trickle down to lower classes and thus become symbolically ambiguous, upper classes must replace them.37 Simmel’s theory has been amended many times to include lateral and upward movement of status markers between classes, such as the co-optation of lowerclass punk and gangsta clothing and accessories by groups of middle-class youth. But all versions of the theory retain the premise that if status distinctions are to be maintained, then ambiguous status markers require replacement. This process can be generalized still further: whenever the status markers of any group become ambiguous through the loss of exclusivity, members are disposed to acquire new ones. Accordingly, in preference to “trickle down,” I label this process status system maintenance because it subsumes downward, upward, and lateral movements of markers. Status system maintenance has important implications for technological change. Although

people at the middle and lower levels of a hierarchy or class system may be able to appropriate the status markers of people at higher levels, those at the top usually need new ones.38 Existing manufacturers may initiate projects to satisfy this demand, but the wealthiest and most powerful people can, as noted above, also commission technologies, such as one-of-a-kind yachts and homes. Status markers for the superrich may not trickle down, but they can become more widespread among the superrich; this has the same effectâ•›—╛╉loss of symbolic potencyâ•›—╛╉because these people aspire to ultimate exclusivity. And so new kinds of superstatus markers are commissioned in a process indistinguishable from peer competition. Owing to America’s considerable wealth and lack of sumptuary rules in its somewhat fluid class system, many individual artifacts and even small sets of artifacts employed as status markers by the middle and working classes quickly develop ambiguous status referents. Thus, only a large configuration of varied artifacts has much symbolic salience. However, because status-associated configurations tend to be in constant flux, many people are on a consumption treadmill, striving to acquire more new things. Assemblages of new products in themselves become status markers, regardless of their other symbolic and emotive meanings. Manufacturers and marketers understand that new products can feedâ•›—╛╉but never satiateâ•› —╛╉ the appetite for novelty because, at least in the short run, status ambiguity and anxiety never abate. Thus, the incessant demand for new status Â�markers is matched by an incessant outpouring of new products. The anxieties relating to status ambiguity are fostered and exploited by manufacturers that change models annually, by marketing strategies that promote luxuries as necessities and desires as needs, and by advertising-dependent media. Although people do become dependent on many new artifacts for their technofunctions as well as their symbolic and emotive ones, the pressure to develop an unending stream of new consumer products is partially rooted in status system maintenance, augmented by competition among companies. A rise in real income as well as changes in manufacturing processes can intensify status ambiguity by making status markers 51

Chapter 4

more affordable. Clearly, mass production and mass consumption are linked in a positive feedback loop that perhaps only economic or social collapse can sunder. Status system maintenance and runaway consumerism are now becoming entrenched in many countries, including China and India, where rigid hierarchies and class systems are giving way to greater social mobility, traditional sumptuary rules are being relaxed, and a growing middle class is becoming wealthier. The result is that many countries are becoming consumer �societies, aspiring to emulate American and European consumption patterns.39 Status system maintenance is not confined to the twentieth century, but its manifestation in the modern capitalist world is somewhat extreme. Although other social processes can promote invention and commercialization, status system maintenance should be considered a likely cause whenever a society experienced economic transformations that increased the affordability of status markers in the absence of rigid sumptuary rules. Future research may reveal whether any past societies reined in this process, perhaps slowing the rate of technological change.

the proliferation of groups requiring new status markers and increases the number of aggran� dizers who can foment peer competitions. In addition, changes in manufacture processes such as mass production along with increases in real income can render status markers more affordable, thereby accelerating status system maintenance. Moreover, positive feedback loops among demographic, economic, and social processes can further intensify the formation of groups dedicated to commercializing new products. Because of such interactions, we may have difficulty identifying the somewhat distant cause(s) of a particular technological change. This problem may be ameliorated if we frame the research question narrowly around proximate processes and causes, for these can be established rigorously in cases where generalizations exist and where relevant evidence is plentiful. However, a proximate explanation by itself may yield a stunted story that is intellectually and aesthetically unsatisfying (see Chapter 12). To overcome this limitation, we may use the discussion of proximate causes to anchor a narrative pinpointing more distant ones. Obviously, different researchers are apt to invoke different distant causes, depending on their conceptual schemes, theories du jour, and aesthetic sensibilities. These very differences encourage controversies that, over time, may lead to the unearthing of new evidence and, perhaps, the creation of new generalizations and heuristics for ruling out some explanations. In any event, the remaining chapters in this book are intended to help the researcher to identify the proximate causes of decisions that affect the life cycles of technologies.

Discussion

Social processes, especially peer competition and status system maintenance, can produce rapid and sustained technological change. However, I emphasize that every process is reversible. For example, if a city’s population declines, which reduces the number of social groups, social roles, and activities, no new technologies are called for, and some older ones may become senescent. Moreover, peer competitions may encounter constraints and come to a halt. It may be instructive to focus on periods when these social processes have slowed down and perhaps reversed. The reader has no doubt surmised that the social processes discussed above are intertwined. Indeed, they may feed into and on each other, multiplying the problems that new technologies are needed to solve. Thus, peer competitions and status system maintenance create needs for new products having important symbolic and emotive functions, whose commercialization in turn fosters the emergence of new groups and new social roles. Population growth also contributes to

Summary

Most people who study technological change today do so in capitalist industrial societies where constant change prevails. This has, I suggest, created the impression that technological change is the natural human condition, perhaps a corollary of some inherent drive for “progress,” or is only characteristic of “enlightened” Western societies. In this view, stability in a society’s technologies is anomalous. We might begin instead with the contrary assumption: technologies tend toward stability but are changed as people solve problems presented by altered societal and envi52

Social Needs and Technological Change

ronmental factors. In particular, the appearance of new social “needs” is a major driver of technological change. This chapter has presented several social processes that may stimulate invention and commercialization. In peer competitions, groups at any scale compete with peers on the basis of new technologies. In another common process, social role expectations, people playing certain social roles are expected to develop new technologies. The emergence of new social groups, social roles, and activities creates a demand for new technologies, particularly those that can mark a group’s boundaries, identify its members, and permit its activities to proceed. Finally, there is status system maintenance. In societies lacking sumptuary

rules and possessing sufficiently wealthy middle and working classes, the “trickling down” (and up and laterally) of status markers stimulates demand for new ones that can replace those whose symbolism and emotional impact have been diminished by widespread adoption. These four social processesâ•›—╛╉and no doubt many othersâ•›—╛╉can work in varied combinations to promote invention and commercialization. In many societies today these processes are so prevalent and so insistent that they contribute greatly to unremitting technological change. But we should not forget that these processes were present in many traditional societies, operate at varying rates, and are eminently reversible.

Notes 1. Stability in this sense does not imply homeostatic regulation; it is merely stasis, which may be transitory in the face of active social processes (cf. Roux 2003:15). 2. For a modern racist argument, see Gilfillan 1971:81. 3. See Palmer 2010 for a related argument. 4. White 1978 highlights the role of Western Christianity in promoting technological development. Winner 1977:Chapters 2–3 offers thoughtful assessments of explanations offered by Max Weber, Jacques Ellul, Lewis Mumford, and others. 5. Thomson 2009:7 offers the construct of “innovation system.” 6. Explanations of the onset, attenuation, or cessation of specific social processes, which may invoke distant causes, cannot be dealt with systematically here. Researchers who are adept at computer simulation should regard this chapter as an invitation to craft these models. In archaeology, Dobres (2000) and Miller (2007), among others, have strongly argued that social processes affect the development of technologies. 7. Basalla (1988), for one, downplays the role of necessity. 8. In a misleading move, Dunnell 1989 has labeled such artifacts as “waste.” 9. On the Cold War, see, e.g., Westad 2000. 10. The peer competition model is forged from elements of Hayden’s (1998) aggrandizer model and the concept of peer-polity interaction (e.g., Renfrew and Cherry 1986); for a preliminary consideration of peer competition, see Schiffer 2010b. 11. The aggrandizer model is detailed in Hayden 1998.

12. On pottery as a prestige technology, see Hayden 1995; Rice 1999 treats the origins of pottery. 13. On the commercialization of color television, see von Schilling 2003. 14. Wilk 2001. 15. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates%27_ house, accessed April 1, 2009. 16. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht), accessed April 1, 2009. 17. Kotkin 2005:33. 18. Billington and Mark 1984:42. 19. On the Hoosac Tunnel project, see Schiffer 2008a:╉ 131–134. 20. Nye 1994:96–97 points out that the offices at the top of a skyscraper were perquisites of top executives, who could gaze at the city below. 21. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_ buildings_in_New_York_City, accessed July 18, 2008. 22. A useful source on changing skylines is Attoe 1981. Among other height restrictions, no building in Washington, D.C., may be taller than the Capitol. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heights_of_ Buildings_Act_of_1910, accessed October 15, 2009. 23. See http://architecture.about.com/library/bltall╉ .htm, accessed July 18, 2008. I have glossed over the controversies surrounding the measurement of skyscraper heights. Information on the Burj Dubai is from http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/2009╉ /05/May.html, accessed July 3, 2009. Its height is 818 m. On the renaming, see http://featuresblogs╉ .chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2010/01/the-burj╉ -dubaiburj-khalifa-name-change-better-change╉ 53

Chapter 4 -those-tshirts-and-caps-in-the-gift-shopand-a-wh╉ .html, accessed January 11, 2010. 24. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popemobile, accessed July 18, 2008. 25. Boserup 1981 shows long-term correlations between population size and technological change. However, I suggest that population size or pressure is a somewhat distant cause whose effects are mediated, in particular cases, through specific processes such as those discussed in the present chapter. 26. This generalizationâ•›—╛╉an old idea that dates back to Spencerian cultural evolution of the nineteenth centuryâ•›—╛╉is supported by analyses in Carneiro 1967 and Carneiro and Tobias 1963. I have taken some liberties by formulating the generalization in behavioral terms. 27. With apologies to Thomas Malthus. Other factors also affect organizational complexity, such as a community’s role(s) in regional, national, and transnational systems, but on a worldwide scale population size seems most influential. 28. Adams 1991, Crown 1994, Lipe and Hegmon 1989, and Skibo and Walker 2002, for example, discuss new integrative technologies. 29. Henrich 2004:197. 30. The evolutionary process of drift also could have caused this trend, as when highly skilled specialists are lost through population reduction caused by disease, accidents, warfare, etc. (cf. Hollenback and Schiffer 2010). 31. On radio manufacturers of the 1920s, see Douglas 1988, 1989, 1991.

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3 2. E.g., Rossides 1997 and Sahlins 1958. 33. The Indian caste system is a special case, not considered here. Cox 1970 furnishes a useful discussion of caste and class systems. 34. Kriesberg 1979. 35. Woodward 2007. 36. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law, accessed July 6, 2009. 37. The trickle-down theory is discussed in McCracken 1988. I have reduced it to essentials expressed in behavioral terms. In a fascinating and nuanced work, Mintz (1986) describes the social and economic processes by which sugar in England, which began as an elite product, perquisite of kings, gradually became a necessity among the working classes. His attention to the varied and changing functions of sugar is exemplary. 38. Indeed, more than three decades ago, I suggested that status system maintenance is a potent driver of technological change in modern America (Schiffer 1976:╉Chapter 13). In that work I used different terminology, but the process was described. 39. A consumer society is one having “technologies, organizations, and ideologies that facilitate the mass production, mass distribution, and mass consumption of goods.... [It is] organized around the provisioning of its membersâ•›—╛╉particularly those of the middle and working classesâ•›—╛╉with a seemingly limitless array of ever-changing products serving diverse utilitarian and symbolic functions” (Majewski and Schiffer 2001:27).

PA R T T WO

5

Some Basic Invention Processes

the following one identify a sample of common invention processes that may help us to account, in a proximate fashion, for the very first stage in the life cycle of many technologies. And we shall see that some of these processes were also present in traditional societies.

The previous chapter discussed several interrelated social processes that in specific societal contexts can create needs for new technologies. It appears that a combination of these processes had begun to favor intensified technological development in some societies of the West as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. According to this scenario, demand for new technologies accelerated industrializationâ•›—╛╉i.e., quantity or mass production enabled by somewhat standardized components and partial mechanization.1 Moreover, industrialization created forms of capital not tied to land, which helped to underÂ�write new communication and transportation technologies, including telegraphs, canals, steamboats, and railroads (Figure 5.1). These technologies accelerated commerce at local, national, and international scales. Also, by lowering the real prices of goods, industrialization increased the accessibility of status markers, which in turn created needs for new ones. By the end of the nineteenth century, largely unconstrained social processes, abetted by population growth, had helped to establish the conditions for increasingly rapid technological change in several European countries and in the United States. During the twentieth century, these conditions intensified in the West and also appeared elsewhere. People in many countries have plentiful incentives to initiate projects, which can be pursued by exploiting a growing variety of resources. Given this general context, we now turn to invention processes themselves. This chapter and

Project-Stimulated Invention: The Cascade Model

While pursuing a commercialization project, people learn about the resources needed. When a necessary resource is unavailable, it has to be invented through a process called project-stimulatedÂ� invention.2 The subject of the cascade mo del, Â�project-╉stimulated invention is a potent source of inventive activities. Indeed, perhaps most inventions in most societies occur during commercialization. The cascade model does not explain how or why a particular project is initiated; rather, it accounts for subsidiary projects and the resultant invention cascades.3 Let us begin with Thomas P. Hughes’s model of “reverse salients” and technological development.4 According to Hughes, during the development of a complex sociotechnical system, certain components lagâ•›—╛╉performance-wiseâ•›—╛╉behind others, presenting problems that must be solved if the target technology is to meet its performance requirements. Thus, the people who were building the first large-scale electric power networks learned that existing generators were unable to meet demand and that power poles were vulnerable to lighting strikes. Accordingly, new components were invented. With a little tinkering, we 57

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1. Railroad tracks connecting Edinburgh, Scotland, to other cities.

can generalize Hughes’s model to include all resources, performance problems large and small, and the entire gamut of technologies from stonetipped spears to the Very Large Array radio telescope (Figure 5.2). The cascade model posits that a succession of problems will arise during a project owing to faulty performances of its resources. Thus, the inability of people in project groups to coordinate their activities calls for a change in organization, and insufficient electricity to power the equipment requires additional circuits. And when a project is about to run out of money, more financial resources are needed. The recognition of a problem results in the specification of performance requirements for a new resource. If such a resource has already been commercialized, then the problem may be easily solved. Otherwise, the group has to engage in or commission inventive activities, underwriting a subsidiary project to create the new resource. After one problem is solved, the original project resumes until it encounters another one. Complex projects meet numerous problems and often pursue many subsidiary projects simultaneously. By acquiring appropriate re-

sources as well as inventing and commercializing others, the project may eventually reach its target technology (Figure 5.3). The first modern automobiles are a case in point. Inventors in the 1890s generated a host of prototypes powered by steam, electricity, gasoline, compressed air, or springs.5 Each motive power spawned a host of subsidiary projects, which created components such as ignition and cooling systems in gasoline automobiles, batteries and controllers in electrics, and boilers and condensers in steamers. These required aspiring automakers to contract with other manufacturers or build their own factories, create a hierarchical organization, recruit employees possessing needed skills and engineering science, purchase components from outside vendors, establish a sales network, create marketing materials, and so forth. Only companies that solved all these problems competed well in the early twentieth century. In capitalist industrial societies, independent inventors and specialty firms may, on their own, initiate subsidiary projects in response to a widely known problem. This pattern commonly shows up in patent records in the form of a temporal 58

Figure 5.2. Portion of the Very Large Array radio telescope, New Mexico.

Figure 5.3. Invention cascades: the proliferation of subsidiary projects.

Chapter 5

cluster of purported solutions. A case in point is the plethora of technologies invented to replace the dangerous crank starter of early gasoline cars. Many people took up this challenge, but it was Charles F. Kettering, an independent inventor, who devised the electric lighting, starting, and ignition system that made gasoline automobiles safer and easier to drive. Carmakers gradually incorporated Kettering’s system into their products, beginning with the 1912 Cadillac.6 And it was Thomas Edison’s “invention factory” that came up with the nickel-iron battery that gave electric automobiles a longer range on one charge.7 Development projects usually result in a series of invention cascades, of which there are several kinds. First, an invention cascade is generated by the entire set of subsidiary projects. Second, a cascade occurs when a subsidiary project produces possible solution after possible solution, until one is found that meets the performance requirements. And third, multiple cascades may arise when independent groups take on projects to commercialize the same kind of technology. In addition, a subsidiary project often generates its own subsidiary projects, leading to additional cascades. A technology’s life history helps us organize the search for, and description of, subsidiary projects and invention cascades. After all, stages or phases or activities in the target technology’s entire life history are the immediate contexts in which performance problems emerge. Problems are encountered, obviously, during development and manufacture and less obviously in postcommercialization activities, as in feedback from the first users. In studying invention cascades, then, we divide a technology’s life history into a series of potentially useful and manageable categories. The initial idea for many technologies, even complex technological systems, is often obvious to people familiar with particular technological resourcesâ•›—╛╉i.e., “the state of the art.” Thus, to electrical experimenters of the early nineteenth century, the idea of an electrical telegraph was obvious.8 Indeed, it occurred to many people in many places, some of whom set out to realize this vision. The American Morse-Vail telegraph shows us how a simple and obvious idea may lead to a project that generates many subsidiary projects and invention cascades. Although subsidiary

projects can invent any kind of resource, the telegraph example is tilted toward the technological. The telegraph’s life history is divided into eight stages, which may apply generally to complex technological systems in capitalist industrial societies.9 Archaeologists may collapse these into fewer stages or devise new ones more appropriate for technologies in traditional societies. Creating Prototypes

Captivated by the vision, the inventor or project group makes prototype after prototype, hoping to achieve the technology’s performance requirements at a level adequate to convince the inventor (and perhaps kin, friends, associates, and financiers) that such a system is technically possible. Samuel F. B. Morse’s early telegraph prototypes included, at a minimum, components that met the following basic use-related performance requirements: (1) a transmitter for encoding information into electrical signals; (2) a receiver, employing an electromagnet, for decoding the signals and presenting the resultant information visually or acoustically; (3) a battery for supplying electricity to activate the electromagnet; (4) one or more wires for connecting the transmitter and receiver; and (5) a codebook that enabled translations at both the sending and receiving stations. In collaboration with Alfred Vail and others, Morse established a partnership to support development. Drawing on the human and material resources of a machine shop owned by Vail’s father, Morse and Vail continued working on the hardware, discarding old designs and coming up with new components. Indeed, as the telegraph’s performance requirements became more demanding during the project’s early stages, shortcomings became apparent in Morse’s original equipment. But invention cascades furnished alternative designs, several of which proved to be serviceable. Technological Display

Promising prototypes may attract the first backers, but deep-pocket capitalists, potential manufacturers, governments, and the public (perhaps tempted by stock offerings) often need a convincing demonstration. Because the technology must impress mainly nontechnical people, the components’ sensory performance characteristics become critical, for they contribute symbolically 60

Some Basic In vention Processes

and emotively to demonstrating the inventor’s expertise. The Morse telegraph’s first major show-andtell took place in Washington, D.C., before a group of onlookers that included members of the House Commerce Committee, heads of executive branch departments, and President Martin Van Buren.10 These men witnessed the transmission of information through two spools of wire, each 5 mi long, between committee rooms in the Capitol. Â� In preparation for this display, Vail had given the electrical parts a finished appearance. Â�Moreover, for the first time the telegraph used dots and dashes, which were recorded by a fountain pen bobbing up and down on a spring-driven, papercovered drum. It was a most impressive electrical, visual, and acoustic performance.

selves may undergo design changes to enhance, for example, ease of manufacture. As new telegraph companies came on line, demand surged for telegraph components. New companies were founded to manufacture transmitters and receivers, and existing makers of wire, electrical instruments, and so on scaled up their operations.12 In companies old and new, manufacturers generated countless inventions that might promote rapid and effective production. For example, to make wire to demanding specifications and in unheard-of quantities required new production machinery. Diverse machines were also invented for applying insulation to wires and for winding wire on electromagnets. These firms constituted an electrical manufacturing industry that furnished resources for the later development of light and power systems.

Demonstrating Practicality

Marketing and Sales

Even after a successful show-and-tell, questions may remain about the system’s performance under real-world conditions. And so a large-scale demonstration may be needed to convince others that the system is “practical.”11 Impressed by the technology’s exhibition in the Capitol, Congress provided Morse with $30,000 to build a line connecting the Capitol to the railroad depot in Baltimore, Marylandâ•› —╛╉ about 40 mi away. After solving a host of problems, which occasioned many subsidiary projects, Morse, Vail, and their laborers got the demonstration line up and running. This functioning telegraph allowed assessment of transmission rates, operating costs, and other use-related performance characteristics under realistic conditions. Observers judged the line a rousing success, and Morse was able to raise capital from private investors to build other lines. To enable these activities, Morse and his colleagues formed corporations and hired people with organizational and administrative experience.

Marketing activities, both wholesale and retail, require ideas for brochures, demonstration devices, tokens, and other items having symbolic and emotive functions. For decades, telegraph companies and component makers used these kinds of objects to hawk their wares at electrical exhibitions and world’s fairs. Likewise, offices where people could send messages had to be furnished not only with telegraph equipment and new writing technologies (such as forms) but also with unique signs and furniture that allowed people to distinguish a telegraph office from other places of business. Installation

Installation-related inventions may be generated to solve recurrent problems and to routinize work, reduce labor requirements, and conserve materials. To assist in installing aboveground telegraph lines, machines were developed that could stretch the wire to the correct tautness between poles. Achieving good insulation where wires attach to poles led to dozens of insulator designs, in which inventors strove to increase electrical resistance, durability, and ease of installation.

Manufacture (Replication)

During manufacture, new activities arise for producing multiple instances of the technology’s components. In turn, these activities have performance requirements that may necessitate new tools and machines, sometimes even specialized workshops or entire factories. In addition to these cascades, the technology’s components them-

Use/Operation

As experience accumulates, especially through prototypes and early installations, new performance requirements may emerge and lead to 61

Chapter 5

Discussion

Â� design changes. For example, people discovered quickly that lightning could wreak havoc with the telegraph, and so protection devices were invented: some lightning conductors were attached to insulators; others were emplaced on poles or telegraph stations. Activities of use can involve different social groups, such as telegraph operators and customers, each with its own performance preferences. Growth of the system also generates invention cascades. As telegraph lines accommodated more users and a greater intensity of use, performance characteristics such as transmission rate were degraded. These problems could be solved by building more systems identical to the original and also by devising new components to increase capacity. Both solutions provoked invention cascades as demand for telegraph service rose sharply. EdiÂ� son and other inventors contrived, for example, duplex and quadruplex equipment that could handle multiple messages simultaneously on a single line. Organizational changes were also needed to accommodate the larger systems and increased traffic. Indeed, the telegraph (and railroads) invented America’s first large-scale corporate bureaucracies, which became models for later businesses.13

After breaking down a technology’s life history into a series of stages, we delineate the problems, performance requirements for resources, and subsidiary projects along with any resultant invention cascades. Researching the life history of the most complex technological systems with their seemingly endless cascades is a tall order. A slimmed-down research project may seek to understand one major subsidiary project and its cascades. In studying the steam-powered railroads of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, we might focus on cascades accompanying the development of refrigerator or tanker cars. After completing the research, we fashion a narrative. It is easy to structure the story as the promoter’s heroic journey to assemble, create, and deploy the many necessary resources. Avoiding the worst features of heroic narratives, the well-crafted biography of a technology can contextualize commercialization, illuminate its main features, and be reader friendly. A stellar example is Edison’s Electric Light by Robert Friedel, Paul Israel, and Bernard Finn.14 What makes this story so compelling is the skillful way in which the authors focus on the light bulb and its invention cascades while discussing other subsidiary projects of the Edison light and power system, such as generators, meters, and transmission cables, in less detail. We can also create alternative narratives using themes built around a project’s changing organization, its articulation with the legal system, or the exploitation of communication and transportation resources. In such stories, cascades related to the privileged resource are treated in detail, while those related to other resources receive more limited coverage. This kind of structure also lends itself to crafting comparative, deeply contextualized stories. Taking a cue from Hughes’s comparison of the contexts of early electrification in Germany, England, and the United States, we could research a different complex technological system, examining variation and changes in the project’s organization in relation to those of comparable projects and to available organizational models.15 I emphasize that we enjoy great flexibilÂ� ity in crafting stories. Apart from laying a story’s foundation, the

Maintenance

Functioning systems require varied maintenance activities; some are easily predicted or become apparent quickly, but others may not arise until the system has been working for a while. Both highand low-frequency maintenance requirements can generate invention cascades. Refurbishing the battery was a predictable, high-frequency activity that entailed replacing electrodes and renewing the acid. This messy and dangerous job fostered the creation of many batteries that could be more easily maintained. Infrequent maintenance activities, such as repairing damage to poles and lines after an ice storm, also provoked invention. In particular, the need to locate breaks in the line and to troubleshoot malfunctioning equipment yielded new electrical instruments as well as standard units for measuring voltage, current, and resistance. These, too, became invaluable resources for the later development of electric light and power systems. 62

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cascade model is a potent antidote to diffusionist explanations of technological change.16 This has been shown recently by Jeanne Arnold in her rebuttal of a diffusionist explanation for the appearance of the tomol, the oceangoing canoe of the Chumash, a traditional society in southern California.17 In this instructive case, Arnold argues that even if foreign mariners had arrived in canoes that had been made across the Pacificâ•› —╛╉ a point she does not concedeâ•›—╛╉the Chumash still would have had to invent tools, experiment with local materials, and acquire skills for making their own versions. This development process, she maintains, would have taken some time, requiring inventive spurts to solve emergent performance problems. Likewise, employing the cascade model, Joyce C. White and Elizabeth G. Hamilton have reassessed the adoption of bronze technology in Southeast Asia, casting doubt on the prevailing explanation that it simply diffused from China.18 In general, the transmission of information about, or examples of, a technology made elsewhere cannot account for the invention-laden development process, with its organization of people, artifacts, and other resources, needed to commercialize the technology locally.19 This conclusion is uncontroversial when applied to the “reverse engineering” that takes place in industrial technologies, which begins with disassembling a product to learn how it was made and then copying the production processes. However, researchers often drastically underestimate the problems encountered when people in a traditional society try to reproduce an introduced technology, and so may lapse into diffusionist explanations (see also “Independent Invention,” below). Sometimes a critical performance problem resists all solutions, and so the project is abandoned or changes direction. After nearly a year of experiments, Edison could not make his Â�platinum-╉ element light bulb work; he finally gave up on platinum in favor of a carbon filament.20 A more recent example is the National Compact Stellarator Experiment. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and pursued at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, this project’s target technology was a fusion reactor of radical design. However, the resources needed to create and manu63

facture the components, including electromagnet coils of a convoluted shape, were vastly underestimated. In 2001, the project was budgeted for $58 million and five years. After several cost and time overruns, with myriad subsidiary projects far from success, in 2008 the Department of Energy cut off funding.21 The comparative study of aborted projects, especially in industrial societies where relevant documentary and oral history evidence might be accessible, may yield interesting findings and fascinating storiesâ•›—╛╉and perhaps new generalizations. Technological Disequilibrium

Nathan Rosenberg has identified a common source of invention that he calls technological disequilibrium.22 Let us assume that a complex product or complex technological system is functioning reasonably well. At some point, a new component might become available that, if substituted for an existing component, would enhance one or more of the technology’s performance characteristics. However, merely replacing the old component with the new one can create a problem because the components of any technology are in a kind of equilibrium, their performance characteristics compatible with each other so as to enable effective interactions. If a component with quite different performance characteristics is substituted, this equilibrium may be disturbed. Consequently, it would be necessary to acquire and sometimes to invent components that match up better with the new one. Rosenberg’s example is the advent of highspeed steel drills in the nineteenth century. In principle, the use of these drills in a machine tool could accelerate production. In practice, however, existing machine tools could not exploit this capability because they were too slow or too fragile. And so it was necessary to develop new “machine tool component[s]â•›—╛╉the structural, transmission, and control elements,” which could accommodate the high-speed drills.23 Indeed, the resultant invention cascades led to the complete redesign of machine tools. We can easily envision disequilibrium affecting any technology when one of its components is replaced by another kind. In capitalist industrial societies, with their ceaseless outpouring of

Chapter 5

new components, this process leads to myriad invention cascades. An example close at hand is the mismatch created by new computer software and existing machines, which necessitates the development of new hardware (and vice versa). Technological disequilibrium is also apt to occur in traditional societies; we just have to look for it. The converse of this process, equilibrium, may work against the adoption of new components. If people anticipate that substituting a new component for an old one will disrupt the operation of an existing technology, requiring further replacements, they may not adopt it. Examples may be found in the attempts by Western agencies to furnish new technologies, such as plant varieties, to people in traditional societies. These introductions have often been resisted, perhaps because the targeted people expected the new technologies to have unwelcome effects on their extant technologies and activities. In analyzing such a situation, we could use behavioral chains to make explicit the intricate linkages among artifacts and activities that might otherwise be opaque to an outsider.24

cant human contribution to global warming. As a result, projects are under way in many academic, private, and government laboratories to devise technologies for sequestering the carbon dioxide, such as injecting it into favorable geological formations for long-term storage. Another approach is to gradually replace coal-fired plants with green technologies such as solar voltaic, wind, and geothermal power.26 But once these technologies are commercialized in large numbers, other problems may arise that, in turn, generate new remedial projects and compensatory technologies. We are all aware that compensatory technologies have helped to alleviate some pollution problems of power plants, automobiles, and so forth. Beyond these newsworthy cases are a great many household and personal technologies whose study may reveal that they, too, created unforeseen problems of use, maintenance, or disposal, which stimulated remedial projects. In some industrial countries, later generations of some products and complex technological systems have built-in compensatory technologies, such as commercial buildings with automatic sprinkler systems for fire suppression and infant clothing made of fire-retardant materials. We may ask the following questions of compensatory technologies. How were a commercialized technology’s unanticipated problems first recognized? Did manufacturers learn about problems early on but cover them up, as in the health effects and addictiveness of tobacco products? What groups disseminated information about the problems, and through which media? Did government agencies or other groups advocate or require compensatory technologies? Which groups, if any, undertook inventive activities to solve the problem?

Remedial Projects and Compensatory Technologies

After a technology has reached consumers and been in use for a while, unintended, Â�unanticipated, and sometimes unwelcome consequences can arise. The recognition of such effects may lead to remedial projects for creating compensatory technologies. The widespread adoption of coal-fired generating plants spawned many pollution problems.25 In addition to producing mountains of ash, the burning of coal spews out heavy metals and sulfur dioxide, which poison the atmosphere and surrounding terrain. Many decades after the proliferation of coal-fired plants, environmentalists and health agencies highlighted these pollution problems and called for solutions. Projects were undertaken to invent compensatory technologies, one of whichâ•›—╛╉smokestack scrubbersâ•› —╛╉ made it to market and has enjoyed increasing adoptions. Smokestack scrubbers remove much of the sulfur dioxide but allow carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas, to pass unimpeded. In recent years, carbon dioxide emissions from power plants have been recognized as the most signifi-

Continuous Change and Adaptive Response

In capitalist industrial societies experiencing rapid change over long periods, a technology sometimes undergoes a succession of invention cascades lasting many decades or even �centuries. During the twentieth century, for example, �radios, televisions, refrigerators, automobiles, telephone systems, and many industrial processes have changed almost continuously. The question is, In 64

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which kinds of societal contexts are apparently continuous invention cascades likely to arise? Such patterns may occur in several contexts, especially long-term peer competitions. Thus, we might handle products such as televisions, refrigerators, and automobiles by examining competitions among manufacturers. A company’s engineers and designers, under the spur of managers and marketing executives, strive year in and year out to concoct inventions to enhance a technology’s advertising-, showroom-, and consumerrelated performance characteristics in response to, or in anticipation of, changes in competitors’ offerings. In traditional societies, ongoing competitions for prestige among artisans might lead to gradual changes in ceramic serving vessels and other products having important Â�visual performance characteristics. Competitions among superÂ�rich consumers may also provoke continuous invention cascades. According to Robert Friedel, a relentless cultural drive toward “improvement” may also promote protracted invention cascades. In The Culture of Improvement, a masterful synthesis of the last millennium of technological change in the West, Friedel presents a version of this mode of explanation that avoids the worst pitfalls of Â�progress-╉based narratives.27 As a theme, the culture of improvement works well to tie together technologies as diverse as cathedrals and atomic bombs. But an omnipresent culture-wide drive toward improvement does not pinpoint the specific contexts that bring about the invention cascades of particular technologies. I suggest that we take a second look at cases where a technology’s constant changes are explained by the culture of improvement. Perhaps we will find, lurking in the background, a peer competition or other social process. The culture-of-improvement explanation raises additional questions. For example, which of a technology’s performance characteristics were enhanced and which ones were degraded by particular changes? Which groups in the cadena were advantaged and disadvantaged by particular performance changes? And was a consideration of these downstream effects part of the redesign process? Another processâ•›—╛╉adaptive responseâ•›—╛╉may be equally pertinent for explaining continuous in-

vention cascades. When external conditions alter a technology’s performance requirements, manufacturers may attack the resultant problem with an invention cascade. In principle, changing conditions in any realm of society or its environment can affect a technology and lead to an adaptive response. As an example, let us take the American automobile. A commercial product since the 1890s, American automobiles have given rise to many invention cascades. Beyond cosmetic changes driven mainly by competing manufacturers, some invention cascades in body styles, ornamentation, and interior furnishings responded to changes in driving activities, the gender/age composition of user groups, and the automobile’s symbolic and emotive functions.28 Other cascades were stimulated by changes in fuel costs and road design and the advent of pollution and safety regulations. The modified conditions affected performance requirements relating to fuel economy, resistance of tires to puncture and wear, permissible quantities of exhaust chemicals, and corporate organizations’ handling of new regulations. Because these contextual factors changed rapidly, automakers responded with many subsidiary projects and invention cascades in order to remain competitive. It can be inferred that certain technologies in traditional societies, such as canal irrigation systems, also experienced long-term invention cascades in response to recurrent floods or droughts, population growth or decline, changes in crops, new planting and harvesting technologies, and salinization of fields. Peer competitions, a culture of improvement, and changing contextual factors may all contribute to a technology’s long-term invention cascades. In constructing an explanation, the researcher strives to sort out how these processes interacted through time, affected performance requirements, and spurred invention. Cultural Imperatives

A cultural imperative is an imagined technology believed by a groupâ•›—╛╉its constituencyâ•›—╛╉to be desirable and inevitable, its realization merely awaiting appropriate technological resources.29 In capitalist industrial societies, constituencies may range from a handful of technically savvy people, to hundreds of corporations, to a large segment of 65

Chapter 5

the population. The desired technology is usually visualized in terms of performance requirements, specific or fairly diffuse, which can be matched against any new technological resources. When promising resources become available, peopleâ•› —╛╉ sometimes from the constituency, sometimes notâ•›—╛╉initiate projects to fashion the technology. These inventions may be developed further, manufactured, and adopted.

experimenters and several companies, including Raytheon, devised a handful of shirt-pocket Â�radios employing these Lilliputian tubes. Raytheon went further, not only developing its own set but also manufacturing it through a subsidiary company, Belmont Radio, in late 1945. In an interview with Norman Krim, the Raytheon engineer who was involved in this project, I learned that he had been a member of the shirt-pocket radio constituency, avidly read hobbyist magazines during his youth, and became the principal advocate for this invention at Raytheon. The Belmont “BouleÂ� vard,” which played only through an “earplug,” was entirely self-contained (for more details on this case study, see Chapter 9). Because transistors, which became available in the early 1950s, had vastly better battery economy than vacuum tubes, experimenters used them to make the first solid-state shirt-pocket radios. In 1954, Texas Instruments fashioned one with a built-in speaker; it was developed further by an Indiana company (I.D.E.A.) and marketed as the Regency TR-1.32 Within a few years, as this radio genre began to enjoy robust sales, competition among manufacturers resulted in countless shirt-pocket radios.

The Shirt-Pocket Radio

The shirt-pocket radio is a good example of a cultural imperative.30 Beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, this product was envisioned by a constituency of mostly young, male electrical enthusiasts. The vision of a radio receiver small enough to carry around and play in a shirt pocket was perpetuated in hobbyist and electronic trade magazines and in science fiction. This publicity recruited people to the constituency, alerted members to new components that might be exploited, and conferred bragging rights on the makers of the cleverest one-off “home brew” radios featured in articles. As new electrical components came along in later years, the constituency’s members episodically developed a flurry of new prototypes. Thus, when crystal detectors became available in the first decade of the twentieth century, hobbyists immediately used them to build tiny radios, sometimes in the empty case of an old pocket watch. Because these radios needed an antenna and ground connection, they were far from fully portable and could not be tuned. The large vacuum tubes brought to market in the 1920s were unsuitable for making shirt-pocket radios, thus many inventors resorted to building coat-pocket radios as well as sophisticated crystal sets. Some of the latter had rudimentary tuning, but they retained those pesky wires for antenna and ground connections and so failed to satisfy the cultural imperative.31 The first sets that met  all performance requirements incorporated subminiature vacuum tubesâ•›—╛╉about 3–4 cm long and about .5–.8 cm in cross section. Originally developed by Raytheon for hearing aids, these tubes saw extensive adoptions during World War II for use in the proximity fuses of bombs and artillery shells. After the war,

Medical Technologies

As a cultural imperative, the shirt-pocket radio was well defined by specific performance requirements. Some cultural imperatives, however, are more diffuse, such as those leading to trials of treatments for common ailments. Thus, when a promising new technology becomes available, people are apt to try it out, perhaps for treating headaches, skin irritations, digestive disorders, and so forth. In traditional societies such remedies can become routine practice. This is also one process by which pharmacopoeia in Western societies have grown enormously during the past few centuries. The development of new instruments in physics and chemistry has often led quickly to the invention of diagnostic and therapeutic technologies because of long-standing cultural imperatives to image, monitor, and repair internal organs. In particular, physicians and equipment makers are eager to experiment with new technologies that might be able to view tissues, organs, and foreign 66

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objects nondestructively. X-rays, nuclear magnetic resonance (MRI scans), ultrasound, and positron emission tomography (PET scans) are familiar examples, all of which originated in the physical sciences but have formed the basis of medical inventions. In earlier centuries, technologies that could furnish electricity to the human body such as electrostatic generators, Leyden jars, electrochemical batteries, and magnetos were tried out almost immediately in sundry healing activities, which led to specialized electromedical technologies. Fascinating studies await the researcher who focuses on a new physical science instrument and seeks evidence for early experiments, which might have resulted in a new medical technology.

mercial success despite consuming large quantities of coal in relation to the work accomplished. Late in that century Watt-type engines appeared; with their separate condensers, they operated more efficiently and came closer to satisfying the cultural imperative. Additional technologies for mine drainage were invented during the nineteenth and even twentieth centuries. Discussion

The cultural imperative model assumes the existence of a constituency that persists over time, whose members hold dear the visionâ•›—╛╉well defined or diffuseâ•›—╛╉of a technology satisfying certain performance requirements. The constituency may consist of potential consumers, inventors, manufacturers, or any combination of groups. Cultural imperatives are apt to be most effective and most prevalent in societies where new technologies appear often, supplying a near-steady stream of resources that might be tried out. When seemingly appropriate technological resources become available, people may initiate projects for inventing, developing, and perhaps manufacturing the technology. Judiciously applied, the cultural imperative model may account for certain patterns of inventive activities in industrial societies. Whether cultural imperatives occur widely in traditional societies is an issue that invites investigation.

Mine Drainage

Cultural imperatives also arise in industrial activities. An example comes from the mining industry in premodern and early modern Europe, particularly in the British Isles.33 When diggings reached the water table, mining had to cease unless means were found to continuously drain the water. Thus, a widely applicable drainage technology that could operate safely, quickly, reliably, and cost-effectively became a cultural imperative, especially among a constituency of mine owners and invention-minded mechanics. The drainage problem was encountered often and led to many inventions, some of which were commercialized. The earliest technologies employed human labor to fill and haul out buckets of water; people also devised a plethora of hand-driven pumps; later came pumps powered by windmills, waterwheels, and horses; and there were also diverse drainage canals and tunnels. Adoptions were spotty, owing to technology-specific performance shortcomings that limited applicability or effectiveness. Consequently, the cultural imperative was sustained, as mine owners and inventors awaited new technologies. Beginning in the seventeenth century this insistent cultural imperative fomented the invention and sporadic employment of steam engines. Indeed, mine drainage drove the creation of steam engine varieties for more than two centuries, including Newcomen-type engines in the eighteenth century, which enjoyed some com-

Accident or Unexpected Performance

It is well known that many inventions came about through serendipity, accident, or chance. These sources of invention are quintessential examples of contingency rather than regularity and thus would appear resistant to generalization. Nonetheless, our conceptual scheme can handle them. An invention can arise by accident when an activity’s interactions produce an unexpected performance. People who notice such a performance may engage in the cognitive process known as a bisociative act. An invention takes place when, in a bisociative act, a person links the observed performance to an imagined technology that could exploit it in an ongoing or anticipated activity.34 Often, the exact same phenomenon had been observed many times before, but no one made the bisociative act. 67

Chapter 5

The Leyden Jar

generator, perhaps with a metal chain, the container acquired a charge. Subsequent discovery of the stored charge, as a smart shock, merely required the person holding the container to touch the chainâ•›—╛╉still in contact with the waterâ•›—╛╉with the free hand. This inadvertent contact, I suggest, was highly probableâ•›—╛╉indeed, inevitableâ•› —╛╉ in view of the hundreds of electrical experimenters in the eighteenth century. If Cunaeus had not done it, others would have in short order. Indeed, a German experimenter reported the effect at about the same time, but his muddled description was ignored.

A celebrated case of accidental invention is the Leyden jar, which was the first capacitor, a component that can store electrical charge. The Leyden jar made possible a host of new experiments, including those by Benjamin Franklin that contributed to his theory of the positive and negative states of electricity.35 The Leyden jar takes its name from the laboratory of famed eighteenth-century natural philosopher and instrument maker Petrus van Musschenbroek of Leiden University. A frequent visitor to Musschenbroek’s laboratory was Andreas Cunaeus, a lawyer captivated by electrical experiments. One day in 1746, seeking to repeat at home a common experimentâ•›—╛╉electrifying waterâ•›—╛╉Cunaeus held a jar of the liquid in his hand and placed it in contact with the prime conductor of an electrostatic generator. Testing the charge on the water with his other hand, Â�Cunaeus found that it was horrifically greater than he expected. Informed by Cunaeus of this surprising performance, Musschenbroek tried the experiment several days later, employing a glass globe in place of the jar. The result was the same: the great professor received a severe jolt and was still shaking hours later. After Musschenbroek published his findings, electrical enthusiasts throughout the West repeated and embellished the experiment. Generalizing from the Leyden jar, Â�researchers framed the essential design features of any capacitor: a thin insulator sandwiched between two conductors. In a typical Leyden jar of the late eighteenth century, the insulator was a glass jar and the two conductors were pieces of metal foil that covered the jar’s interior and exterior surfaces (replacing water and the human hand). Employing this design template, Benjamin Franklin and other electrical inventors devised many kinds of capacitors by substituting different materials and altering their shapes, sizes, and configurations. We could explain the invention of the Leyden jar by simply invoking an accident and leave it at that. Then again, we might want to dig a little deeper, for it was an accident waiting to happen. In showing that water could be electrified, many experimenters had in their laboratories a waterfilled glass vessel. When the experimenter, vessel in hand, connected the water to an electrostatic

Discussion

I suggest that every accidental invention had a certain probability of occurring that, in Â�principle, might be estimated today.36 We would need to consider necessary conditions, such as the kinds of places where the requisite technologies were present together, how many such places there were, and the complexity of the interactions needed to produce the performance. Also relevant is the prevalence of people who, by virtue of training and experience (i.e., possessing the proverbial “prepared mind”), could make the bisociative act. By merely taking these conditions into account without doing actual calculations, we could in practice assess, for example, which inventions were more or less likely to happen by accident than others. It would be most instructive to identify inventions that occurred accidently even though they were highly improbable. The explanation of such an invention would properly emphasize the uncommon conditions that were conducive to the accident. However, merely invoking an accident to explain a highly probable invention such as the Leyden jar, where the necessary conditions abounded, would not be very insightful because the invention would have occurred anyway. In either case (probable or improbable accident), we would want to identify the factors that predisposed people to attach significance to the unexpected performance. A story about an accidental or serendipitous invention has a compelling plot and sometimes a spectacular climax. Because we can tell exciting stories about such inventions, there is a temptation to do so even when the evidence is inconclusive. Thus, researchers might want to scrutinize 68

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an accident- or serendipity-based narrative to learn if the performance was really unexpected. An example of an accident-enhanced narrative comes from a celebrated electrical Â�invention that took place in Vienna in 1873 during the International Exhibition.37 On exhibit were the dynamos developed by Zénobe Gramme. In the story’s conventional telling, a worker by chance connected together the output wires from two dynamos. When steam power was delivered to the first dynamo, the second one’s armature, fed current from the first one, began to rotate rapidly, for it had become a powerful motor. Gramme immediately exploited this “accident” by adding a new feature to the display: a dynamo, receiving current from another dynamo located nearly a mile away, was employed as a motor to drive a pump that delivered water to a small waterfall. I doubt that this event was an accident. It is unlikely that such major modifications of the exhibit could have been made so easily in the absence of advanced preparations. In addition, there was nothing novel about a generator’s performance as a motor. By the 1840s, electrical Â�experimenters knew that motors and generators were Â�reversible; if this had been learned by accident, it was long before 1873. However, electric motor design had languished during the intervening decades, and so the Gramme exhibit did usefully demonstrate that powerful and reliable motors were now at hand. My hypothesis is that the accident story was cooked up to publicize Gramme’s arresting exhibit. Clearly, we need to critically assess claims that an invention arose by accident. Many did, but others were merely packaged that way because accidents make for dramatic stories. Accident or serendipity is one of many contexts that can lead to multiple inventions of the same technology. “Independent invention” is the general term applied to such contexts.

were sometimes ludicrous, as in Smith’s attributing the practice of mummification in South America to diffusion from Egypt. Less extreme diffusionists accorded humans a more generous measure of inventiveness, willing to believe that relatively simple technologies could arise in different places. The archaeological literature is rife with acrimonious but fruitless debates between advocates for the independent invention or the diffusion of specific technologies. As the example of the oceangoing tomol (above) suggests, people who ponder the fact that different groups use similar technologies may arrive at the wrong question. Framing the question as being about invention conflates life cycle stages, for in tomol-like cases we should instead be seeking explanations of development, manufacture, and adoption. In addition, the archaeological record seldom furnishes strong evidence on where and when an idea originated, for a vision may leave no material trace and prototypes are rarely found. And the historical record may lack detailed evidence. Another problem is that seemingly identical technologies usually participate in different activities and thus have different interaction patterns and performance requirements. For example, the “same” material technology, such as pottery making, might have arisen to solve problems of heating ritual substances in one context, storing seeds in another, and cooking stew in a third. Though all are made from clay, vessels for these activities would necessarily differ in capacity, thermal shock resistance, and accessibility of contents. Moreover, the performance requirements of these vessels’ manufacturing and maintenance activities would also vary. In a detailed examination, we can expect to find that similarâ•›—╛╉even apparently identicalâ•›—╛╉technologies differ in some performance characteristics. It should sometimes be possible to infer, on the basis of contextual factors, when and where supposedly identical inventions arose. For example, the cascade model suggests that groups pursuing the same target technology are apt to engage in subsidiary projects that devise similar, but by no means identical, components and products. Thus, the earliest developers of telegraphs in England, the United States, and Germany, for example, had to invent insulators. Yet from Â�country to Â�country

Independent Invention

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, “hyperdiffusionists” such as Grafton Elliot Smith assumed that people were not very inventive.38 Hyperdiffusionists explained the occurrence of the “same” technology in different societies as the result of contact, perhaps migration or the spread of ideas. Often based on superficial similarities in technologies, these explanations 69

Chapter 5

these insulators exhibit differences in specific manufacture- and use-╉relatedÂ�performance characteristics. Relatively simple technologies, such as telegraph insulators or bone awls, were no doubt invented many dozensâ•›—╛╉if not hundredsâ•›—╛╉of times. But the invention and development of nuclear weapons, space shuttles, and fusion reactors are so daunting, with resource needs so huge, that given the opportunity, copycats would strive to exploit resources produced by previously successful projects. Even so, copycats may still confront many problems that have to be solved largely with local resources. A good example of such a project is the Soviet space shuttle program, Buran.39 The Soviet Union established the Buran program in 1974 to keep pace with the United States, which was already well along in creating a reusable orbital vehicle. Despite the obvious similarities in the appearance of the two spacecraft and in their glider mode of landing, the differences were profound. For example, the Soviet shuttle craft itself did not have engines; rather, it was coupled to the enormous Energiya rocket (undergoing simultaneous development), which provided the thrust needed to reach low Earth orbit. The idea for the Buran had clearly come from the American space shuttleâ•›—╛╉that was no secret. Although Soviet engineers had studied the American design and copied its shape, size, and heat shield tiles, most of the Energiya-Buran’s other technologiesâ•›—╛╉from booster rockets to guidance systemsâ•›—╛╉differed greatly because engineers were, in the course of inventing components and processes, able to exploit Soviet resources accumulated during many decades of spacecraft engineering projects. The Buran made one successful unmanned test flight in 1988 but never flew again. The ghastly expensive program, which some say contributed to the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, died shortly thereafter. Simply acknowledging that the idea for the Buran came from the American space shuttle tells us nothing about how the Soviets solved a plethora of problems through subsidiary projects employing mainly local resources. Widely held cultural imperatives may also provoke independent invention. Edward Constant II documents the independent invention of turbojet aircraft engines in several nations just before

World War II.40 He emphasizes that engineering science had shown the technical impossibility of piston-engine planes reaching speeds beyond about 400 mph. In both civil and military aviation, however, faster planes had apparently become a cultural imperative and so stimulated many inventions, from streamlining to the use of aluminum airframes. Aware that the speed of piston-engine planes was approaching its limit, several people in France and Germany independently theorized the high-speed possibilities offered by turbojet engines, obtained resources for initiating development projects, and on the eve of the war created promising prototypes. Many behavioral questions can be asked about the similarities in technologies commercialized and adopted by different groups. However, asking the traditional question, “Did these technologies result from diffusion or independent invention?” is likely to foster unproductive controversiesâ•› —╛╉ not creative research. A more fruitful focus is on the social processes responsible for initiating and sustaining projects and on explaining, by means of contextual factors, differences in resource acquisition and the performance characteristics of the resultant Â�technologies. Summary

Project-stimulated invention, which takes place during the life history of many technologies, is the proximate cause of much inventive activity in most societies. During commercialization, for example, groups encounter performance problems that cannot be solved with available resources. Accordingly, subsidiary projects are undertaken to create the needed resources, which lead to invention cascades. The life history framework is a convenient tool for identifying performance problems, enumerating the performance requirements of resources, tracing subsidiary projects and invention cascades, and laying a foundation for narratives. Project-stimulated invention takes place in all human societies and no doubt had begun by at least the Upper Paleolithic. A common variety of project-stimulated invention is the remedial project, which is the response to unanticipated problems recognized only after a technology has come into use. Remedial projects may result in compensatory technologies. Adaptive response takes place when contex70

Some Basic In vention Processes

tual factors alter the performance requirements of an adopted technology’s activities. In Â�societies undergoing rapid changes over long periods, this process may occur episodically over many decades, even centuries, as manufacturers devise ways to adapt a technology’s performance characteristics to ever-changing contextual factors. Cultural imperatives are another source of inventive activities. An inspiring vision, a cultural imperative captivates a constituency that believes in the desirability and inevitability of the imagined technology. As new technological resources come along, potentially able to satisfy the technology’s performance requirements, peopleâ•› —╛╉ often from the constituencyâ•›—╛╉initiate projects. Cultural imperatives may be envisioned in highly specific terms, as in the shirt-pocket radio, or in diffuse terms, as in any new technology for alleviating indigestion or imaging parts of a living Â� human body. Cultural imperatives should be prevalent in societies experiencing rapid and relatively continuous technological change. Accident or serendipity or chance, regarded as an unexpected performance that arises from an activity’s interactions, may also lead to inventions.

On the basis of an unexpected performance, people may create, in a bisociative act, the vision of a new technology having potentially useful performance characteristics. This invention may lead to prototypes and development projects. The problem of explaining the occurrence of supposedly identical inventions among different groups is not that of distinguishing between independent invention and diffusion. The misplaced emphasis on the efficacy of idea transmission deters researchers from asking behavioral questions about the contextual factors that led to similar technologies that, nonetheless, differed in developmental histories and in specific performance characteristics. The processes enumerated in this chapter scarcely exhaust the proximate sources of invention. They merely illustrate the kinds of generalizations that we can create to account for particular invention patterns. The next chapter takes up a set of interrelated invention processes, all of which begin in bisociative acts that take place when new technological resources of any kind become available.

Notes 1. For an overview of industrialization in the United States, see Hounshell 1984 and Pursell 1995; for a case study on U.S. carriage makers, see Kinney 2004; for country-by-country analyses of Europe, see Sylla and Toniolo 1991. 2. This process was discussed earlier in relation to the development of complex technological systems (Schiffer 2005b); the present chapter generalizes this process to all projects. 3. Kranzberg’s (1989:247) second law, “Invention is the mother of necessity,” neatly encapsulates the basic idea of project-stimulated invention. 4. Hughes 1983:22. 5. Gould 2001:201 compares the proliferation of early steamship designs to “adaptive radiations” in Â�biology. 6. On Kettering, see Leslie 1983. 7. On Edison’s nickel-iron battery project, see Carlson 1988 and Schiffer, Butts, and Grimm 1994. 8. Barlow 1825:105 noted that the idea of an electromagnetic telegraph was “obvious.” 9. This example is adapted from Schiffer 2005b. General information on the Morse-Vail telegraph project is available in many recent sources, including

Silverman 2003 and Schiffer 2008a:Chapters 9 and 12. 10. Vail 1845:78. 11. Elsewhere (Schiffer 2008a:Chapter 1) I problematize the concept of practicality. 12. See Israel 1992 on invention and commercialization in the telegraph industry. 13. Chandler 1977. 14. Friedel et al. 1986. 15. Hughes 1983. 16. Rogers 2003 is a compendium of diffusion research. 17. Arnold 2007. 18. White and Hamilton 2009. 19. Pacey 1990 underscores this point. 20. Friedel et al. 1986. 21. Science 2008. 22. Rosenberg 1976:29. 23. Rosenberg 1976:30. 24. See Schiffer 1979. 25. On the history of coal use and its resultant problems, see Freese 2003. 26. On global warming and alternative energy sources, see Friedman 2008. 27. Friedel 2007. 71

Chapter 5 28. Gartman 1994; Mom 2004; Schiffer, Butts, and Grimm 1994. 29. The cultural imperative model is presented in Schiffer 1991:Chapter 1, 1993. It may be possible to generalize this model to all technological resources. 30. Schiffer 1993 provides detailed citations for this example. 31. See Sievers 1991, 1995, on American crystal sets. 32. A recent source on the Regency TR-1 is Simcoe 2004. 33. This example is based on the following sources: Hills 1994:197–198; Thurston 1878; http://en.wikipedia╉ .org╉/wiki/Derbyshire_lead_mining_history, accessed April 17, 2009; http://people.exeter.ac.uk╉ /Â�pfclaugh/mhinf/contents.htm, accessed April 18,

72

2009; http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/lord╉ /2-3.htm, accessed April 18, 2009. 34. Koestler 1969. Other authors treat invention as a process of combining elements; see, e.g., Fleming 2001; Weber et al. 1993. 35. A brief account of this invention is Schiffer et al. 2003:╉45–47. 36. Wiener suggests that “we need notions of probability to assess achievements and difficulties of the task of discovery” (1993:15). 37. This event is described in Schiffer 2008a:267–268. 38. Elkin and Macintosh 1974 assesses Smith’s work. 39. On the Buran project, see Hendrickx and Vis 2007; another useful source is http://www.astronautix╉ .com╉/craft/buran.htm, accessed July 15, 2008. 40. Constant 1973, 1980.

6

Technology-Stimulated Invention

Although the availability of each new material, component, product, process, and complex technological system often solves a problem, it may also have continuing effects on inventive activities. Indeed, new technologies themselves often stimulate invention a nd sometimes lead t o t he launch o f c ommercialization p rojects. Norbert Wiener framed this counterintuitive sequenceâ•› —╛╉ a solution looking for a problemâ•›—╛╉as “the inverse process of invention,” observing that “it is just as truly a work of invention or discovery to find out what we are able to accomplish by the use of these new tools as it is to search for the tools which will make possible a specific new device or method.”1 Such an invention occurs when someone, in a bisociative act, links a new technology’s performance characteristics to the anticipated performance requirements of a potential technology. This family of interrelated processes, which are important proximate contexts of invention, is termed technology-stimulated invention. Technology-stimulated invention is a widespread and probably ancient set of processes that may feed intoâ•›—╛╉and feed onâ•›—╛╉social processes such as peer competition and status system maintenance. Moreover, technology-stimulated invention may work hand in glove with cultural imperatives, as inventors connect a long-standingÂ� vision with its possible technological realization. Projects established in the wake of a new technology’s appearance are apt to require subsidiary projects, which lead to still more Â�inventions and

projects, all in accord with the cascade model (Chapter 5). These multiplicative effects can greatly accelerate rates of technological and societal change. A thorough study of technology-stimulated invention is difficult because most inventions do not pass beyond the idea or prototype stage. Even when they do, development or manufacture may founder for want of adequate resources. Thus, commercialized technologies are but a sample of a sample of the original inventions. Patent records are a useful line of evidence on invention, but how well they represent all inventive activities is unknown, perhaps unknowable.2 And, of course, patent records are absent for the majority of societies that archaeologists study. The most visible and accessible evidence of invention processes, in both traditional and industrial societies, is technologies that have reached consumers. These can supply useful information so long as we keep in mind that they represent just the tip of the invention iceberg whose full contours remain unseen. In the examples below, I employ varied lines of evidence but often rely on commercialized technologies, which are assumedâ•›—╛╉with admittedly little justificationâ•›—╛╉to represent major invention patterns. This chapter discusses the principal technology-╉ stimulated invention processes, Â�supplies examples of each, and suggests avenues for fÂ� urther research. However, the examples treat only the invention of technologies, leaving out other resources. 73

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Material-Stimulated Invention

tro]magnets, electric motors and generators, and electric power transmission lines, to small-scale systems, such as high-speed digital electronics and ultrasensitive electromagnetic radiation detectors.5

When a new material becomes available, either in bulk form, as a recipe (instructions for manufacture), or embodied in a product, it may set in motion an invention cascade. People acquainted with that material may envision it (1) replacing familiar materials in existing components and products and (2) making possible entirely novel technologies. Experiments and prototypes may reveal that the new material performs poorly in relation to the performance requirements of the envisioned technologies or its production is very resource intensive. To solve such problems, people may invent new manufacture processes, as shown by the following examples.

The new superconductors were also believed to make possible technologies long confined to the realm of science fiction, such as magnetically levitated trains that would travel at high speeds on a cushion of air. Some of the proposed applications ran immediately into three knotty performance problems: (1) ceramics are brittle materials and so cannot be wound like copper wire into coils, (2) they stopped superconducting at high current densities, and (3) electrical connections to the ceramics were unreliable.6 The problems were believed tractable, and so hundreds of projects were established around the worldâ•›—╛╉funded by governments, corporations, and universitiesâ•›—╛╉to invent serviceable superconducting ceramics by tinkering with chemical composition and manufacture processes. Some improvements in performance characteristics relevant to particular applications were achieved, which were followed by many more inventions. The first superconducting materials and components have reached the market, such as ribbon and wire. Moreover, many highly specialized, Â�superconductor-containing products in medicine, electronics, transportation, and sundry military and industrial applications have been demonstrated, and a handful have been commercialized including an ultrasensitive magnetometer and a cable for electric power transmission.7 Clearly, high-temperature superconductors have been, and remain, a powerful engine of invention, initiating cascades that are apt to extend far into the future as people devise processes and equipment for turning the material into new components and employing the components in new products.

Performance Deficiencies: Ceramic Superconductors

A superconducting material is one that, when cooled below its critical temperature, loses all resistance to the flow of electric current. In the early 1980s, several metallic superconducting materialsâ•›—╛╉all having critical temperatures below 30°Kâ•›—╛╉were commercialized and entered a very few components such as the powerful electromagnets in MRI machines. These superconductors had limited applications because the refrigeration costs were exorbitant. But that was about to change. In 1986, Alex Müller and Georg Bednorz of IBM’s research laboratory in Switzerland made a startling announcement: they had fabricated a superconducting material having a critical temperature of 30°K, but it was a ceramic.3 This was a surprise because ceramics are generally poor conductors of electricity. The Müller-Bednorz invention galvanized researchers around the globe, who dropped what they were doing and tried to confect ceramic superÂ�conductors having even higher critical temperatures. In just two years there were dozens of new materials, one of which had a critical temperature of 122°K.4 That these materials could be cooled much more affordably opened up a world of possibilities for inventing superconductorusingÂ� technologies. Some people proffered visions such as the following that appeared in Science:

Luxury Material: Aluminum

Aluminum is the third most abundant metal in the earth’s crust by weight and is a major constituent of clay, but elemental aluminum forms tenacious chemical bonds and was unknown until the nineteenth century. Friedrich Wöhler, a professor at the University of Berlin, isolated some

Applications of superconductors range from large-scale systems, including high-field [elec74

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aluminum powder in 1827, and in 1845 he made a spongy metallic mass.8 The first commercial process for making somewhat pure aluminum was invented in 1854 by Henri Sainte-Claire Deville, a French professor whose experiments were subsidized by Napoléon III. Because Deville’s process was laborious, the silvery metal was nearly as expensive as gold. Even so, optimism ran high that one day the new metal would, in the words of Scientific American, “revolutionize the arts.” 9 People assumed that the price of aluminum would fall with the advent of new manufacture processes. And so inventors proposed applications on the basis of the metal’s distinctive combination of properties and anticipated performance characteristics, including its very light weight, corrosion resistance, silvery gray color, workability, and sonorousness when struck. In virtually every instance, aluminum or an aluminum alloy was proposed to replace another metal. Among the replacements suggestedâ•›—╛╉when aluminum sold for around $10 per ounceâ•›—╛╉were in French military helmets (brass), jewelry (gold and silver), bells (bronze), and domestic articles (liberating silver for monetary uses). One observer went so far as to suggest that aluminum “will supersede German silver, and copper, in the manufacturing of articles for which these metals are now used.”10 Projects to commercialize some of these inventions led to additional inventions that reduced manufacture costs. Scarcely two years after Â�Deville came up with his process, aluminum was already cheaper than silver, and so “tea and coffee pots, spoons, &c., made of it are to be seen in the jeweller’s shops of Paris.”11 It was also made into jewelry, replaced platinum in some battery electrodes, and made up the innards of a pocket watch. Corrosion-resistant iron-aluminum alloys were devised, as were alloys of distinctive colors. Patents were also issued for processes to electroplate aluminum on objects made of iron and other readily corroded metals. And new visions were verbalized. Scientific American opined in early 1857 that

use and ornament, will, in all probability, be made of this light, beautiful, indestructible product of clay.12 Some forecast that aluminum would soon be as cheap as iron.13 Despite the best efforts of many able chemists and engineers, no dramatically cheaper manufacture process was devised until 1886. An underÂ� graduate at Oberlin College, Charles Martin Hall, solved the problem by inventing an electrolytic process (akin to electroplating), and so too did Paul Héroult in France. In the wake of the advent, in the 1880s, of relatively inexpensive steam- and water-powered electricity, the current-intensive Hall-Héroult process was quickly commercialized. As the price of aluminum fell, the miracÂ�uÂ� lous metal was made into more and more products, realizing some of the early visions.14 Comparisons

As with ceramic superconductors, the first reports of aluminum led many people to imagine substitutions or entirely new products. But there were major differences in the patterns of invention and development that followed the appearance of the two materials. With the exception of their high critical temperature, the first ceramic superconductors had very poor manufactureand use-related performance characteristics and could not be made into anything. Thus, projects focused on modifying the new material’s composition and forming processes. In contrast, aluminum was suitable for making and using many of the anticipated products; the problem was its high cost. Accordingly, projects strove to develop less expensive manufacture processes. For both materials, the inventive focus was on manufacture, reflecting the belief that if the problems could be solved, the new material would be made into the products that so many people had envisioned. As the superconductor and aluminum examples show, people modify a new material’s formula by adding, subtracting, and substituting ingredients and by altering the recipe’s interactionsâ•›—╛╉usually by trial and error. Commonly, the material is differentiated into varieties, each of which has application-specific performance characteristics. As these performance characteristics are enhanced, the inventive activity shifts to

in a few years we may be carried across the ocean in ships of aluminium, and our bells and musical instruments, all our cooking utensils, and an immense number of articles of daily 75

Chapter 6

developing processes and equipment for making components and products. Any one of the many new materials developed in industrial societies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries could be the starting point for a research project. To lay a foundation for similar projects, archaeologists can infer the manufacture processes of materials and their varieties by making observations on products, tools, and waste products and by using techniques of compositional analysis from the physical sciences.

tory of European metal artifacts on a postcontact Illinois Indian site. She found that copper and brass cooking pots were not used for cooking but were treated as a raw material. Because the Illinois had been working nuggets of native copper prior to European contact, artisans made components and products mainly using traditional processes, including “hammering, bending, folding, rolling, grinding, perforating, and annealing.”17 They also devised hybrid processes, sometimes using imported iron tools such as scissors to make blanks and preforms; the latter were often made into ornaments, some of which had been made previously of shell. Drawing on ethnohistoric accounts, Ehrhardt also discusses how the performance characteristics of copper artifacts enabled them to carry out symbolic functions. Sometimes the availability of a new material precedes actual person-to-person interaction. Thus, artifacts of exotic materials like glass, copper, brass, and iron, which had traveled long distances through traditional exchange networks or had been collected from shipwrecks, entered some regions of the New World before the arrival of European trappers, missionaries, and colonists. These cases present intriguing possibilities for studying invention because the recipients likely had little idea as to the artifacts’ original uses, much less their manufacture processes.18 Thus, they could be treated as a new material and worked. Otis Mason reported that Eskimos used familiar processes to turn wood and iron from shipwrecks into ulus, the traditional Â�woman’s knife that had been made of stone.19 In other cases, an artifact may have acquired distinctive socio-, ideo-, and emotive functions by virtue of the material’s visual performance. The many contact situations already studied by archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and ethnographers furnish opportunities for synthesis as well as grist for the generalization mill.

Contact Situations

Contact situations between societies possessing unequal technological (and other) resources are common contexts for material-stimulated invention. Native Australians, for example, encountered glass and ceramic insulators on telegraph poles in their traditional territories. Seizing the opportunity, they harvested the insulators and applied to them familiar flint-knapping processes. However, they would have faced insurmountable barriers had they set out to reproduce the glass and ceramic materials themselvesâ•›—╛╉but we should not rule out the occurrence of some experiments. Success at reproducing an introduced material is more likely in resource-rich societies. The importation of Chinese porcelain artifacts spurred a flurry of experiments in England, the German states, and elsewhere to craft a recipe for making this material, an unusual ceramic because it was not a natural clay but had to be made from several processed ingredients. Among the results was the invention of English bone china and, eventually in Germany, actual porcelain.15 Archaeological studies of artifacts from Â�contact-╉╉period sites have shown that a new material tended to provoke inventions, such as adapting familiar processes to work new Â�materials and experimenting with new processes. Moreover, people fashioned the material into both familiar and new forms and may have used the resultant products in different activities. According to Rodney Harrison, native Australians chipped their new materials into very long, finely flaked Kimberley spear points. Too large to tip spears, these points instead functioned in display activities by “evoking and expressing hybrid masculinities.”16 Kathleen Ehrhardt reconstructed the life his-

Discussion

Material-stimulated invention is a promising subject for innovative research. One might ask, for example: (1) When and how did the new material first enter the activities of potential project groups? (2) In anticipated applications, which properties and performance characteristics were apparently favored? (3) Which performance 76

Technology-Stimulated Invention

characteristics, if any, were identified as presenting problems for making the material, forming it into components and products, or using it in activities? (4) Were these problems solved, and if so, when and how? (5) Were varieties of the material invented for different applications? (6) What was the actual sequence of inventive activities, which groups undertook them, and what resources were required? (7) Did changes in factors such as resource availability affect invention patterns over time? (8) If any new processes and products were commercialized, did they spur invention cascades? It might also be instructive to identify new materials that did not foment inventions or whose inventions failed to solve process-, use-, or �maintenance-╉related problems. It should be possible to compare the findings from many studies, seeking overarching patterns in the differences and similarities in inventive activities. Published histories of materials, in both traditional and industrial societies, may contribute to this effort.20

an existing one. After AT&T’s invention of the transistor in 1947, many companies took out licenses and began to invent varieties of the tiny solid-state components so that they could be substituted for vacuum tubes in various products. During the next several decades, many new transistor types were devised that made possible, for example, radio-frequency amplifiers and oscillators that could be used in products ranging from televisions to digital computers. Making the new transistor types required new processes, as did their incorporation into particular devices. Eventually, hundreds of special-purpose transistor types replaced functionally analogous tube types in most electronic products, particularly after the prices of many transistors reached parity with those of vacuum tubesâ•›—╛╉and continued to drop.22 Studies of design tweaking require information about the projects that created the new components and the larger contexts in which the projects were conducted. We may identify changes in the performance characteristics favored over time and how these were achieved by new manufacture processes. Also of interest is the order of actual substitutions in commercial products and the results of subsidiary projects, such as the creation in Japan of components that were compatible with transistors. By virtue of their general performance characteristics, the transistor, vacuum tube, and laser are all highly adaptable components whose specific performance characteristics have been modified in well-staffed and well-equipped industrial laboratories. We could compare the differentiation patterns of these components among themselves and with others having lesser and greater degrees of adaptability in order to discern possible metapatterns.23

Component-Stimulated Invention

The arrival of a new component often unleashes a swarm of inventions. Two major patterns are discernible: design tweaking and new product ideas. If an invention leads to a commercialization project, the latter will often spur subsidiary projects and invention cascades. Design Tweaking

Inventors sometimes conduct experiments to pinpoint the design factors that affect a component’s performance characteristics. Seeking to enhance specific performance characteristics, inventors may vary the materials from which the component is made along with the sizes, shapes, and arrangement of parts. Shortly after Â�Alessandro Volta reported on his electrochemical batteries in 1800, inventors predictably tried different combinations of metals for the electrodes, varied the electrodes’ sizes and shapes, employed different conductive solutions for the electrolyte, used different containers, and altered the arrangement of parts.21 Findings from these experiments led to the commercialization of new batteries, each kind favoring certain performance characteristics. Design tweaking also takes place when the new component is envisioned as a substitute for

New Product Ideas

A second pattern of component-stimulated invention is a surge of ideas for products that incorporate or are built around the component. This pattern is readily illustrated by the electromagnet, commercialized by around 1830. I hypothesize that people familiar with the electromagnet would have internalized one or more of its general performance characteristics. To wit, it (1) produces, through the flow of current, magnetism 77

Chapter 6

of potentially great strength; (2) turns on and off rapidly; (3) can be actuated at a distance through wires; and (4) can create reliably and repeatedly precise motions of small amplitude when coupled to simple mechanisms. Owing to the rapid industrialization occurring in several nations during the mid–nineteenth century, there were ample opportunities for people in various occupations to engage in bisociative acts.24 And they did. Among the electromagnet’s first fruits were telegraphs. Hardware functioning in telegraph offices along with descriptions of telegraphs in books and periodicals helped to disseminate information about the electromagnet’s general performance characteristics.25 Consequently, inventors imagined an amazing variety of other electromagnetcontaining technologies and brought hundreds of them to the prototype stage. Examples here include clocks, a regulator for steering ships on a steady course, the operation of valves on a pipe organ, a loom that automatically moved threads into place according to the textile’s design, and a pressure regulator to prevent steam boilers from bursting.26 Only a few of these, however, were commercialized before inexpensive, dynamosupplied electricity became available. When a new component comes to market and shows signs of success, copycatsâ•›—╛╉especially in capitalist industrial societiesâ•›—╛╉often develop knockoffs. As noted above, after the invention of the transistor, many companies began to invent Â� manufacture processes and transistor varieties. Sometimes the originator and manufacturer of a new component erect barriers to copycats, such as a refusal to license patents or divulge trade Â�secrets. However, even Coca-Cola’s supersecret recipe did not prevent competitors from confecting cola-type syrups. If a new component is to be made locally, there will follow a cascade of inventions to create appropriate production processes. This pattern is exemplified by crop plants. During contact situations, crops readily penetrate societal boundaries in both directions and provoke inventions. When a new grain, vegetable, or fruit is taken up in a traditional society, it spurs inventions in cultivation and processing, which may require new tools as well as recipes for making meals. Entire Old World cuisines and agricultural regimes have

been altered by the incorporation of New World crops such as tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, beans, squash, and maize. In studying component-stimulated invention, we might ask: (1) How flexible was the component’s design? (2) Which performance characteristics were favored for particular applications? (3) Were some performance characteristics difficult or impossible to achieve? (4) Which groups, if any, invented varieties of the component? (5) Were knockoffs invented? (6) Did knockoffs require new production processes and equipment? (7) Did the mix of substitutions versus use in new products change over time? In piecing together a story, we could survey the panoply of applications envisioned for a new component, highlighting the inventions that took place in the course of commercializing the component and the products containing it. An illuminating example is Robert Friedel’s Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty.27 Product-Stimulated Invention

Three major varieties of product-stimulated invention are of interest here: knockoffs, accessories, and consumer experiments. Knockoffs

As in the case of components, copycats may move quickly to develop knockoffs of a successful new product. This is a common pattern in capitalist industrial societies, one resulting in competing companies bringing out, almost simultaneously, products havingâ•›—╛╉at the very leastâ•›—╛╉similar technofunctions. In the early 1920s, robust sales of the first home radios enticed hundreds of newÂ�comers to offer their own versions. Likewise, after the end of World War II, dozens of manufacturers followed RCA with their own television sets. And virtually every electronic gizmo brought out since then, from microwave ovens, to cellular phones, to MP3 players, has conformed to this patternâ•› —╛╉ as have many other products. But this process is an old one. The first electrical machine (an electrostatic generator) was invented and commercialized in 1714 by Francis Hauksbee, a British maker of philosophical instruments. This product remained largely a tool of esoteric research until the 1740s, when science lecturers began to publicize electricity’s startling effects. Anticipating a growing market, dozens of 78

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instrument makers on both sides of the Â�Atlantic created knockoffs.28 Copycats could easily enter the market because no electrical machine had been patented, the manufacture processes were straightforward, and the materials were common and inexpensive. All electrostatic generators preserved the basic design principles but differed in electrical, mechanical, and visual performance characteristics. Knockoffs play an important role in peer competitions among companies, allowing them to keep up with their rivals. It is important that a knockoff have design features that enable it to perform distinctively in marketing activities. Even so, the products may be so similar to the original and to each other that the only apparent difference is in the brand name or logo on the exterior, as in clothing and flat-panel televisions. In developing knockoffs, competitors may also invent components, reduce the number of components, or streamline manufacture. In this way a competitor may gain an advantage by offering a cheaper product. A notorious example is Muntz televisions, made during the 1950s and 1960s. Earl W. “Madman” Muntz drastically reduced the number of vacuum tubes and other components and wired the tube filaments in series. Although these design changes degraded the set’s performance and made testing of tubes more difficult, Muntz was able to undercut competitorsâ•›—╛╉for a while.29 Manufacturers may also design a pricier product, expecting it to become an elite status marker. In 2007, observing the popularity of bottled water, entrepreneur Kevin G. Boyd introduced “Bling h2o.” It was bottled in Tennessee after a “ninestep purification process,” came in a corked and frosted bottle “boasting hand-applied Swarovski crystal,” and retailed for $40–60.30 A product need not be entirely new to garner knockoffs. Denim pants (jeans), which had been made by Levi Strauss & Co. for more than century, became a middle-class status marker during the 1960s. Anticipating a large market, Jordache, Guess, Gap, and dozens of other companies created a plethora of knockoffs. Through reverse engineering, people who obtain or learn about a product commercialized elsewhere may attempt to replicate it by inventing components and processes. In the 1950s, for

example, Japanese radio makers reverse engineered small pocket radios and their subminiature tubes.31 Copycats were no doubt present in traditional societies. Indeed, archaeologists have shown that some between-society variation in traditional crafts originated in inventions made as artisans imperfectly copied imports. Copycat invention is also apt to occur when traditional societies obtain new products through trade from colonial regimes. In such cases, the result may not be the development of knockoffs, per se, but of artifacts that resemble an import yet are made from a different material using a traditional process. For example, the Hopi of northern Arizona were exposed in the early twentieth century to glass ashtrays, metal candlesticks, and other factory-made products. Seeking to nurture the tourist market, Hopi potters responded with copies in clay decorated with traditional motifs. Artifacts similar in form to the original but made from a different material are sometimes called skeuomorphs.32 Scarcity of the original product may also promote the creation of knockoffs. There are several steps in studying Â�knockoffs: inferring the time and place where a given product was first commercialized, examining the earliest history of any similar products invented elsewhere, seeking traces left by groups conducting experiments, and explaining the copycats’ behavior with reference to pertinent processes such as status system maintenance or peer Â�competition. Accessories

A new product may inspire the invention of accessories. By accessory is meant (1) an artifact that affects a product’s use- or maintenance-related performance characteristics, such as a notebook computer’s carrying case, and (2) an artifact used in conjunction with the product during any postmanufacture activity without which that activity could not take place. An example would be a special polish for cleaning tarnished silver. Accessories for a new product, such as the iPod Classic, may be invented by the original manufacturer or by a host of independent firms; accessories developed by the latter are sometimes called “aftermarket” products. The iPod Classic’s light weight, shape, compactness, built-in rechargeable battery, and distinctive visual performance indicate that it was designed for portability, enabling 79

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people to play music of their choosing at any time and place, and for displaying their “coolness.” In creating accessories, the crucial move is to envision the performance requirements of specific use and maintenance activities. An iPod, for example, is likely to accompany a user who is running, playing golf, and listening to music at home, in the office, while driving, and so forth. In activities involving constant motion and minimal clothing, the iPod must be firmly attached to the user. Thus sports armbands. In the office and home, the iPod is sedentary. Thus audio cables and external amplifier and speakers. Listening through earbuds or headphones while driving is inconvenient and dangerous, and periodic recharging is required. Thus the iPod becomes a car accessory with mounts, an FM transmitter, and a charger. When the iPod is visible to others during use, its socio- and emotive functions beyond advertising the user’s coolness can be enhanced to make fashion statements. Thus decorative cases and “skins.” And the iPod is likely to be accidentally dropped or scratched in many activities. Thus protective cases.33 Clearly, this one product has generated Â�dozens of inventions because people projected the performance requirements of specific postmanufacture activities and envisioned appropriate accessories. These could be easily developed by companies that already made similar products. Thus, allocating resources for the project was a routine risk, undertaken in the expectation that consumers would respond favorably. Predictably, an accessory that shows strength in sales is likely to provoke its own knockoffs. Old products can continue to generate new accessories, especially if the potential consumer base is huge. For example, people keep coming up with products to enhance the automobile’s useand maintenance-related activities, sometimes taking their cue from customized cars. Multispeaker car stereos were invented by Â�electronics-╉ savvy consumers in the 1960s who sought a high-fidelity, surround-sound experience. These systems were then reinvented and commercialized by carmakers and electronics companies. At first, built-in car stereos were offered as pricey factory options; now they come standard, their cost included in the car’s base price. Because 80

maintenance is an ongoing expense that escalates with a car’s age, there is also a continuing incentive to invent products that enable maintenance or forestall repairs. Auto supply stores offer a cornucopia of maintenance accessories, from oil and gas additives to car covers, testifying to decades of invention. The invention of accessories is not unknown in traditional societies. A case in point is the introduction of tobacco in China. As snuff became popular in the Qing dynasty during the nineteenth century, artisans devised a new container formâ•›—╛╉snuff bottlesâ•›—╛╉and made them with familiar processes in materials such as glass, jade, porcelain, agate, and silver.34 It would be interesting to compare patterns in the use- and maintenance-related performance characteristics of accessories invented for different products. Any resultant generalizations might help us to search in earlier times for traces of similar patterns. Moreover, changes in the kinds of accessories invented for a particular product may supply evidence to implicate particular social processes. Consumer Experiments

Manufacturers usually design and market a product for one set of functions and activities, but consumers may come up with different ways to use it.35 Early adopters of the gasoline automobile learned that it could be employed on farms to power saws, water pumps, washing machines, and so forth.36 This is a common process because people often imagine a product taking part in different activities. Products having very general performance characteristics furnish great latitude for conducting actual experiments. Some new applications are unremarkable, perhaps even obvious, and are explored by many consumers. Manufacturers that learn about successful consumer experiments may invent versions of the product whose performance characteristics are tailored to the new applications. When first commercialized in the 1920s, portable radios were targeted at individuals.37 But some consumers put their portables in cars, airplanes, fire trucks, and so on, and these novel applications received publicity in radio magazines. As manufacturers foresaw sales for specialized battery-powered radios,

Technology-Stimulated Invention

they came up with equipment that was mobile but not portable, such as car radios (Motorola’s first product), that could appeal to companies and government agencies. We could focus on other technologies that have undergone differentiation, seeking evidence about whether consumer experiments preceded, and perhaps contributed to, this process. When consumers in traditional societies Â� acquire a new product through exchange, they are apt to assess its performance Â�characteristics in experiments, perhaps coming up with new functions and new activities. Sometimes the product initiates a cascade of inventions and activity changes, including new manufacture processes.  Janet Griffitts has shown, by means of use-╉alterationÂ� analyses, that when Indian tribes in the Northern Great Plains acquired metal tools, they used them to shape bison scapulae into traditional hoes.38 Efforts at comparison and synthesis of similar cases may yield useful generalizations. Knockoffs, accessories, and consumer experiments scarcely exhaust the processes by which new products stimulate invention. One could begin research by choosing almost any product, following its life cycle, and seeking its effects on the invention and commercialization of other technologies. It would be curious if such research turned up products, especially in capitalist industrial societies, so singular that they did not stimulate invention. Process-Stimulated Invention

A new process often generates several kinds of interrelated inventions. People may tinker with the process, devising varieties that favor varying combinations of performance characteristics. They may imagine that it can replace processes in existing applications or foresee new ones. And new applications may give rise to projects that generate still more inventions. A case in point is electrometallurgy, invented and rapidly commercialized in the late 1830s. Electrometallurgy

That electricity could be a tool of analytical chemistry had been known since the waning years of the eighteenth century, when investigators used electrostatic technologies to decompose water.39 81

However, the process was tedious, and its applications were limited, because electrostatic technology provided precious little current. The introduction of voltaic batteries with copious current gave electrochemistry a boost. Humphry Davy, working at the Royal Institution of London, used a powerful battery to liberate sodium, potassium, and other metals from their compounds; as discrete elements, these metals had not been seen before, much less studied.40 In the following decades, chemists invented recipes for electroÂ� depositing many metals. Although these experiments led to important scientific findings, the esoteric processes found virtually no applications beyond chemistry laboratories and lecture halls. That situation changed suddenly with Frederic Daniell’s 1836 invention of a “constant” battery that could supply a relatively steady current for a long period. Daniell batteries were marketed immediately and enjoyed widespread adoption because they could power the many experiments and demonstrations then taking place with Â�current-╉hungry electromagnets. But the Daniell battery had another performance characteristic that was more germane to the invention of electrometallurgy: during operation, the copper electrode received a Â�continuous deposit of copper (from the copper sulfate electrolyte). And when this copper layer was peeled away, it preserved an impression of virtually every irregularity on the electrode’s surface. Many people observed this effect, and a few foresaw that it could become the basis of a commercial process to both deposit and shape metal. Working independently, Thomas Spencer in England and Moritz Jacobi in Russia invented electrometallurgical processes and contributed to their lightningfast commercialization. They believed that a layer of any metal could be deposited on any conductive object. People with chemical expertise then devised recipes for electroplating metals that could not be plated as easily as copper. And by applying a conductive coating such as graphite to any nonconductive object, they could plate novelties such as a wicker basket, orange, or beetle. Soon electrometallurgists had available a family of reliable processes for coating virtually anything with gold, silver, copper, tin, and nickel.

Chapter 6

Many firms in many countries began disguising ornate objects of base metals with a thin layer of electroplated gold or silver. These objects looked like solid articles of the precious metals and so enjoyed extensive adoptions. Indeed, by buying large numbers of silver-plated tea Â�services, candelabras, and flatware, middle-class people helped to devalue the solid-silver luxury items that for so long had been upper-class status Â�markers. Consequently, the status maintenance process accelerated, as rich people demanded new items to replace their tarnished tokens of wealth. In addition to electroplating conductive objects, Spencer forecast that this process could be used to reproduce objects from a metallic mold. In reproduction, the electrodeposited metal had to come away from the mold easily and cleanly. In solving this problem, Spencer and others invented special coatings for molds that made possible quantity production of objects such as medallions, commemorative coins, and printing plates. By the end of the 1840s, the reproduction of printing platesâ•›—╛╉called electrotypingâ•›—╛╉had burgeoned commercially on both sides of the Atlantic because, for large print runs, the replication of plates was inexpensive. By lowering the price of printed materials, including calico cloth, books, and illustrated magazines, electrometallurgy was devaluing older status markers, fostering still greater demand for new ones, promoting status anxiety, and infecting many readers with the virus of insatiable material desires. Electrometallurgy was an amazingly fertile set of processes that begot new inventionintensiveÂ�industries and contributed to the ever-╉ acceleratingÂ�status maintenance process. Along with telegraphy, electrometallurgy also fostered the invention of many constant batteries, each bearing the name of its inventor, such as Â�Bunsen, Smee, and Grove. In addition, electrometallurgy led to new kinds of generators (all were Â�magnetos, the ancestor of dynamos). In fact, John Woolrich in England invented and commercialized the first industrial-grade magnetos. Prior to his work in the 1840s, magnetos had been small, hand-cranked, tabletop devices used in laboratories and lectures. Woolrich developed enormous steam-powered magnetosâ•›—╛╉his last model 82

was more than 2 m tallâ•›—╛╉that could run continuously in electroplating factories. However, with higher start-up and operating costs than batteries, his magnetos found few buyers. Even so, Woolrich magnetos did establish design principles that would reappear in the commercial magnetos of the 1860s, which powered the earliest electric lights in lighthouses (see Chapter 10).41 Electrometallurgy is just one process among many that led to inventions in numerous societal contexts. The study of process-stimulated invention invites us to learn about a process’s many projected and actual applications. We could also examine whether a new process promoted a spurt of inventions as it was incorporated into manufacture activities. A story might be written about the successes and failures of adapting the process for replacing existing processes and for making possible new applications. Comparative studies may disclose pan-process patterns. Invention Stimulated by Complex Technological Systems

Complex technological systems have the potential to promote a large series of inventions, particularly if they consist of hundreds or thousands of different components and products, such as electric power systems, steamships, or even railroads. Having learned about the telegraph, people invented systems with entirely new performance characteristics by substituting different devices at both ends of telegraph wires. Among the hundreds of ideas unleashed by the telegraph were a system for sending facsimiles of letters, a burglar alarm that could ring a bell when it detected that a window or door had been opened, systems for regulating the movement of trains, hotel annunciators that enabled guests to indicate needs to the front desk, and the “fire alarm telegraph.” 42 Each of these required new components and products as well as new manufacture processes. The American fire alarm telegraph was devised by a physician, William Channing, and commercialized by him and telegraph engineer Moses Farmer in Boston in the early 1850s.43 The system had a series of call boxes spread throughout the city, which were connected by wires to a central station near City Hall. When a fire broke out, a person could turn a crank in the nearest

Technology-Stimulated Invention

call box, sending a coded signal to the central station, whose operator then rang church bells near the fire. This alarm summoned men and equipment. New products (and their components) developed for the Boston system included a striking machine for each bell, call boxes, and a keyboard for ringing the bells. The railroad also stimulated visions of new systems, each with specific performance requirements. Indeed, many people thought up new functions for railroads, including carrying passengers in cold weather, shipping perishable fruits and vegetables over long distances, and conveying commuters under cities. The result was numerous inventions that ranged from car heaters, to refrigeration units, to tunneling technologies. Today we are familiar with trains that specialize in the transport of, for example, automobiles, cattle, coal, or corrosive chemicals, but these systems, which include specialized cars as well as facilities for loading and unloading the cargo, had to be invented. The vast literature on railroad history furnishes resources for studying the differentiation of railroad components. Many other well-researched complex technological systems, such as steamships and Â�airplanes, are also suitable subjects. In conducting such studies, we must take care not to focus exclusively on the most obvious product, such as the ships or airplanes themselves. Interesting stories may be fashioned around the many technology-intensive facilities that were invented for manufacturing, operating, maintaining, and perhaps even dismantling the system. Copycats, noting the success of a new complex technological system and having similar problems to solve, may invent knockoffs. Thus, fire alarm telegraphs were developed by firms in many cities. And companies (and sometimes governments) around the globe built railroads and steamships. Each knockoff may have required the invention of numerous production processes as well as components and products that could be manufactured locally. A factory is a complex technological system that may stimulate the development of others. Henry Ford’s Highland Park factory, which implemented the moving assembly line, was the model (the so-called Ford system) for factories

of other companies seeking to mass-produce various products (see Chapter 9). Metapatterns

The reader may have surmised by now that several metapatterns are discernible across the varieties of technology-stimulated invention. The first metapattern is suggested by the history of aluminum, which showed that inventiveness can increase in response to a material’s greater affordability. This pattern is also exhibited by components, products, and complex technological systems, especially in capitalist industrial Â�societies, and so we may generalize it as follows: if a technology’s affordability increases, it is apt to simulate additionalâ•›—╛╉and more variedâ•›—╛╉inventions. Affordability depends, obviously, on a technology’s cost but also on the ability of consumers to acquire it. A second pattern is the low predictability of which inventions will be commercialized. Commonly, only some of the first inventions are brought to market, and many are not developed at all. Moreover, inventions conceived long after the appearance of the original technology may lead to successful products. Indeed, probably no one working on radar before World War II had foreseen that its major component, a magnetron (a kind of vacuum tube that generates microwaves), would stimulate after the war the invention of microwave ovens and the production equipment to make them and their components. Likewise, could early laser makers have imagined this technology’s use in DVD players or handheld pointers or medical instruments? That the technomancer’s crystal ball is so clouded, particularly in capitalist industrial societies, results from the large number of people in different realms who may come, often in waves, to exploit new technologies, especially members of a cultural imperative’s constituency. The continued productivity of some technologies is also fostered by the later emergence of new problems and new resources, which augment the possibilities for bisociative acts. The third pattern is technological differentiation, which is an increase in the varieties of an aggregate technology. The many inventions following a technology’s debut come about as people envision applications having different Â�performance 83

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requirements than the original. Development activities focus on creating appropriate varieties (see Chapter 11). In a fourth metapattern, which may be termed technological proliferation, a new technology may foment the founding of projects that, themselves, may invent still more technologies. Thus, aluminum gave rise to an electrolytic process as well as refineries for producing the metal in Â�quantity and factories to make aluminum products; new transistor types generated new materials, processes, products, and complex technological systems (i.e., factories); and so forth. The commercialization of any technology-stimulated invention almost inevitably leads, through projects, to the proliferation of new technologies (and other resources). Technological differentiation and proliferation greatly augment, incidentally, the resources available to ostensibly unrelated projects and so have contributed to the vast acceleration of technological change that has taken place in Western societies since at least the mid–nineteenthÂ�century.

haps tailoring its performance characteristics to specific applications or to reduce manufacture costs. Component-stimulated invention invites people to create technologies that incorporate a new component and to envision it replacing old ones in existing technologies. When a new product becomes available, people may invent knockoffs and accessories. Consumers experiment with new uses for the product; and when people envision a new product substituting for an old one, there is a flurry of inventive activities. New processes also stimulate invention, as people refine the process and also employ it to make other technologies. Finally, the appearance of a complex technological system is also a fillip to inventing different complex technological systems, knockoffs, and new components and products for making, using, or maintaining the system. Among the metapatterns of technologystimulatedÂ�invention are (1) a spurt of inventions following an increase in a technology’s affordability; (2) the low predictability of which inventions will be commercialized; (3) technological differentiationâ•›—╛╉the invention of an aggregate technology’s varieties; and (4) technological proliferationâ•›—╛╉the invention of other technologies. When contextual factors favor invention processes, stimulated invention becomes a major source of development projects. In a consumer society with a surfeit of novelty seekers along with people able to underÂ�take projects, a new technology will provoke inventive activities. In such Â�societal contexts, Â�novelty begets novelty.

Summary

Each new technology provides opportunities for people to engage in bisociative acts, envisioning inventions that use the new technology in the original or modified form. This family of common processes is termed technology-stimulated invention. In material-stimulated invention, people not only come up with ideas for using the material in various components and products but also develop new processes for making the material, perNotes 1. Wiener 1993:91. 2. One possible strategy for researching this issue is to select a diverse sample of inventors and compare the ideas in their notebooks with their patented inventions. 3. Kingery 1991 furnishes historical accounts on the invention of superconducting ceramics. Although a few superconducting ceramics had been invented in the 1960s, they were laboratory curiosities; the field was moribund until the 1986 breakthrough. 4. Sleight 1988. 5. Robinson 1987:531–532. 6. Pool 1988.

7. For a recent synthesis, see Krabbes et al. 2006. 8. Weeks 1935:167–169. H. C. Oersted had in 1825 isolated impure metallic aluminum (Weeks 1935:165). 9. Scientific American 1855a:13. 10. Scientific American 1856a:305. See Scientific American 1855b, 1855c, 1855d. 11. Scientific American 1856b:78. 12. Scientific American 1857:142. 13. See Scientific American 1855e, 1855f, 1855g, 1856c. 14. Weeks 1935. 15. On the invention of European porcelain, see Kingery 1986. 16. Harrison 2002:352.

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Technology-Stimulated Invention 17. Ehrhardt 2005:183. 18. Amy Margaris (personal communication 2008) suggested the potential for such studies. 19. Mason 1891. Mason (1891:414) may have been the first anthropologist to generalize about technological processes in culture-contact situations. 20. Plastics furnish excellent historical examples, as in Meikle’s (1995) overview, Friedel 1983 on celluloid, and Bijker 1995:Chapter 3 on Bakelite. 21. Schiffer 2008a:Chapter 2. 22. Braun and Macdonald 1982. 23. Much information is already available: on the transistor, see Braun and Macdonald 1982; on the vacuum tube, see Stokes 1982 and Tyne 1977; on the laser, see Bertolotti 2005. 24. Structuralism, a form of cognitive modeling, may be used to study these bisociative acts (Schiffer 2008c). 25. Schiffer 2008c discusses the electromagnet case. 26. On the electromagnet-containing inventions, see Schiffer 2008a:Chapter 15. 27. Friedel 1994. 28. Schiffer et al. 2003:23–26 discusses the Hauksbee machine; see Hackmann 1978 for information about the copycats. 29. For information on Muntz and his inventions, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_Muntz, accessed July 17, 2009. My recollections also contributed to this example. 30. Quotations are from http://most-expensive.net╉ /Â�bottled-water, accessed August 17, 2008; see also http://www.blingh2o.com/store/, accessed August 17, 2008.

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31. Schiffer 1991:161–172 and 1996b tell the story of subminiature tubes and radios. 32. Basalla 1988:107 employs a narrow definition of skeuomorph, emphasizing the survival of nonessential elements in the copy. Miller 2007:239 mentions skeuomorphs, emphasizing that making a similar form in a different material often requires new manufacture processes. Holmes 1886 discussed processes leading to skeuomorphs but did not use this term. 33. For accessories for the iPod Classic, see http://www╉ .hdaccessory.com/servlet/Page?template=category╉ -ipod-classic, accessed August 16, 2008. 34. Cornforth and Cheung 2007. 35. Consumers as inventors receives some treatment in Oudshoorn and Pinch 2003 and Eglash et al. 2004. 36. Kline and Pinch 1996. 37. Schiffer 1991:Chapter 6. 38. Griffitts 2006. 39. This section is based on King 1962; Schiffer 2008a:╉ Chapter 8; Schiffer et al. 2003:222–224; and Smith 1974. These experiments are described in Schiffer et al. 2003:222–223. 40. Davy 1808. 41. Smaller magnetos, also designed for electroplating, were invented and commercialized in the United States (Schiffer 2008a:Chapter 8). On the application of magnetos to lighthouses, see Schiffer 2008a. 42. These telegraph-inspired systems are described in Schiffer 2008a:Chapter 15. 43. Schiffer 2008a:197–199.

7

Development and Resource Acquisition

When an invention shows promise for solving a problem, by virtue of its projected performance characteristics, a person or group may establish a project to initiate development. Every development project is different. Some begin almost immediately after the earliest conception of a new technology, others, centuries later; some have daunting resource needs, others, very few; some enjoy rapid success, others, frustrating failures; some lead directly to manufacture, others, to nothing. Some inventions generate many projects decade after decade, and others quickly achieve closure. This considerable variation offers Â�myriad opportunities for creative research, inviting us to write engaging stories and construct generalÂ� izations. Development projects engender many general questions, but this book tackles only two. The first is: How were necessary resources obtained and deployed? The present chapter sets forth concepts for framing this question in specific cases. The second question is: How did people arrive at the technology’s manufacture-ready design? Chapter 8 presents generalizations and heuristics for studying the design process.

identification of a problem from its technological solution. To traverse a developmental distance successfully, a project must meet three general conditions. First, the problem is capableâ•›—╛╉in principleâ•›—╛╉of being solved. Not all are. And the recognition of insuperable technical barriers is sometimes achieved through trial and error, not the a Â�priori application of engineering science. Second is the existence of a groupâ•›—╛╉the promotersâ•›—╛╉dedicated to pursuing the project. Promoters can be constituted in many ways. In a traditional society, the group may consist of just one person: the inventor, tribal elder, or chief. In a capitalist industrial society, the promoters can be, for example, inventor, entrepreneur, investor, sports franchise, world’s fair committee, corporate executive, government agency, head of state, or a mix of these groups. And third, the promoter group, whose composition may change during the course of a project, must acquire and deploy the necessary resources (Figure 7.1).2 Let us list the major resource categories that a project may require: 1. Human resources are people having relevant experience, skills, know-how, knowledge (including engineering science), and access to social networks. Complex technological systems such as ships and skyscrapers need a host of people, each possessing highly specialized knowledge, skills, and social connections. 2. Organizational and institutional resources

Developmental Distance

Let us consider the entirety of activities that lie between the vision of a new technology and its availability to consumers. This important construct is called a technology’s developmental distance.1 Developmental distance can be regarded as the sequence of activities that separate the 86

Development and Resource Acquisition

Figure 7.1. Developmental distance.

are the groups for enabling and carrying out the project, such as a family, attached specialist, work group, and ceremonial society; guild or union; industrial, national, and university laboratories; and partnership, corporation, factory, and government agency. 3. Technological resources are materials, components, products (including tools and machines), processes, facilities, and structures. 4. Energy resources include animals, people, sunlight, wind, flowing water, wood, peat, coal, and other hydrocarbon fuels.3 5. Utility resources are electricity, gas, water, trash disposal, sewage systems, and so on. 6. Information and communication resources are books, journals, telegraph, telephone, and the Internet; methods of accounting and record keeping from cuneiform tablets to people holding institutional memories; and social networks that furnish information about other resources. 7. Linguistic resources make it possible to describe a technology and its mode of operation, to learn about resources described in other languages, and to communicate with varied groups from employees, to financiers, to the general public.4 8. Ideological resources justify a project on the

basis of religious, moral, community, national, or other values; they may also obscure, misrepresent, or disguise the project’s actual problem. 9. Transportation resources, such as foot travel, wheelbarrow, beasts of burden, horse-drawn wagon, bicycles, automobiles, trucks, canals, railroads, ships, and airplanes, move other resources to where they are needed. 10. Locational resources are tied to a place but do not fit easily into other categories. They may be environmental, such as land for a building, an outcrop of chippable stone, a spring or river, a stand of nut trees, arable land, and a game trail; or cultural, such as a shrine, burial ground, and ancestral village. 11. Legal and political resources include patents, licenses, permits, and contracts; the ability to form companies, corporations, or trusts; access to markets; endorsement by political leadership; and enabling legislation. Resources may be sought by inquiry, application, a promise of reciprocity, friendly persuasion, lobbying, collusion, coercion, bribes, extortion, or other means. 12. Financial resources enable acquisition of many other resources and may include personal savings, investment income, prior 87

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sales, profit, loans, gifts, advance sales, stock offerings, and the issuance of bonds; and let us not forget government grants, loans, loan guarantees, and tax credits. 13. Time is needed to span a project’s developÂ� mental distance. Some projects have an open-╉ended time frame, many require more time than initially estimated, and others struggle under an inflexible deadline.

hydroelectric dams, to aircraft carriers, to new vaccines. Some developmental distances are short, follow well-traveled routes, and require few resources, and so the project’s needs are readily forecast. An experienced tribal potter who Â�invents a new vessel can specify and acquire the materials and develop the necessary skills. This modest developmental distance is thus easily forecast and just as easily covered. Likewise, anticipating the resource needs to create a new ice cream flavor is routine practice at firms like Ben & Jerry’s, which can draw on the findings of decades of food science along with the skills, expertise, and technological resources in the company’s laboratories and factories. Some projects with substantial resource needs may still allow reliable forecasts. For example, during conditions of economic stability, civil engineers can accurately specify the resources for building a run-of-the-mill highway bridge. In contrast, developmental distances can be exceedingly difficult to forecast for projects that target novel and complex technologies requiring many diverse resources as well as forays into uncharted technological territory, sometimes far beyond existing engineering science.6 The history of electrical technology is populated with proÂ�moters who underestimated the length of the journey, as in Cyrus Field’s earliest Atlantic telegraph cable, which failed almost immediately. However, the indefatigable Field was able repeatedly to raise capital from investors and secure contributions from the American and British governments for additional attempts, which eventually led to a working cable. Edison also underestimated the developmental distance to build an entire light and power system in New York City, but he was able to secure more funding, and the project was completed. Like many challenging development projects, both the Atlantic cable and Edison’s electrical system became nurseries for new engineering science.7 Not all promoters were so fortunate. Some projects having vast but open-ended developmental distances stumbled, the promoters unable to cobble together the resources to continue. For several years, beginning in 1800, British inventor Richard Trevithick built prototype steam-

Several resource categories have overlapping members, such as the people in human, organizational, information, and energy resources. However, in each category people play different roles: furnishing expertise, managing a project, providing information, and supplying muscle power, respectively. The emphasis here is on delineating a project’s resources on the basis of their required interactions and functions. In state-level societies with market economies, a major role of the promoter, beyond spearheading the project, is to obtain financial resources. Although money may secure materials and tools available in the marketplace, the creation of new skills and know-how depends on gaining experience over time, forming a project’s organization may require enabling laws, acquiring relevant engineering science may involve long-term experiments, and establishing new utility resources may call for the approval of local governments. These resources cannot always be bought or bought in a timely manner.5 Moreover, resources unavailable at the outset of a project add to its developmental distance and have to be cultivated or created along the way. The result may be the initiation of a host of subsidiary projects (as per the cascade modelâ•› —╛╉ Chapter 5). In tribal societies, promotersâ•›—╛╉perhaps just the inventorâ•›—╛╉may have had scant access to resources beyond their own labor, time, and perhaps materials, and this drastically limits the developmental distances a project can travel. In chiefdoms and early states, resource availability was usually less constrained, and so institutions like chief, church, and king sometimes underwrote ambitious projects that drew on labor and resources pooled from several communities. With the power to tax and borrow, modern polities can raise vast sums for diverse projects from 88

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powered road carriages. Although self-propelled with a compact, high-pressure engine of Trevithick’s design, the vehicles possessed performance shortcomings, including great weight, slow speed, and a propensity to break down. Moreover, the carriage roads were ill fit for such ponderous machines. Covering this developmental distance would have requiredâ•›—╛╉at a minimumâ•›—╛╉much more engineering effort, construction of advanced prototype vehicles, and building of suitable roads. But Trevithick and his partner ran out of money and gave up.8 In general, it is harder to obtain financial resources when a project’s other resource needs are open-ended and difficult to foresee, except when the purse strings are held by a wealthy promoter. Only governments, highly capitalized corporations, wealthy religious organizations, and superrich people are able to take on projects having the most dauntingâ•›—╛╉and unpredictableâ•›—╛╉developmental distances. The costliest artifact in history, the International Space Stationâ•›—╛╉at over $150 billion and still countingâ•›—╛╉requires financial support from a consortium of wealthy nations. Clearly, promoters able to tap substantial resources can tackle projects that might not generate interest and support from other groups. For example, leaders of centralized, state-level societies, from ancient Egypt, to the former Soviet Union, to modern dictatorships, can direct resources into projects that they, perhaps uniquely, have envisioned. Even wealthy inventors can pour their own money into ambitious projects. Edison, for example, spent a decade developing at his own expense massive machinery to process iron ore.9 Thus, in explaining why certain inventions were pursued, especially those having great developmental distances, we pay attention to the individuals who were excited by that vision and who could, by virtue of their socioeconomic positions, channel resources into the project. People with few financial resourcesâ•›—╛╉but perhaps much ambition, dedication, and timeâ•› —╛╉ may also pursue singular visions. A noteworthy example is the 17 metal sculptures in southcentralÂ�Los Angeles known as the Watts Towers. The brainchild of Sabato Rodia, an immigrant construction worker, the towersâ•›—╛╉two of which

reach skyward almost 100 ftâ•›—╛╉took him 34 years to complete.10 In studying the development of any technology, the following questions are germane. Who made up the promoter group? What was the original problem, and how was its solution envisionedâ•›—╛╉i.e., what were the performance requirements of the target technology? In what activities was it expected to function? Which resource needs were forecast at the outset? Were these needs met? If so, how? Did the target technology’s performance requirements change over the life of the development project and alter its resource needs? If the resources forecast at first were inadequate, did the promoters acquire additional resources? If so, how were they obtained? What was the project’s outcome? Convergence

As Nathan Rosenberg reminds us, virtually all technologies undergoing commercialization benefit from the process of convergence.11 Convergence describes how a project draws on resources of any kind produced by previous projects. We can think of convergence as a set of initially independent resource flows, each originating at a particular point in time and space, which a project unites (Figure 7.2). This representation helps us understand that a project is not an island of creativity; rather, its organization brings together the contributions of countless projects and people in pursuit of something new. Save in the simplest cases, it would be impossible to trace the sources of every resource that went into a development project. However, thinking in these terms underscores the dependence of any new technology on projects that preceded it.12 Convergence shortens a developmental distance by furnishing resources that a project would otherwise have to develop on its own. A simple but compelling example is Joseph Â�Henry’s development, around 1830, of the first essentially Â�modern electromagnet. Henry attained success easily because he could exploit the engineering science and technologies already created by experimenters in Denmark, France, and England. To wit, Hans Christian Oersted demonstrated that a current-carrying wire produced magnetism around it; André Marie Ampère showed 89

Chapter 7

Figure 7.2. The process of convergence.

that this magnetism could be enhanced by winding the wire loosely in the shape of a coil; and William Sturgeon inserted in Ampère’s coil an iron core, which intensified the magnetism manyfold. Henry insulated the wire so that it could be wound tightly in layers, yielding even greater magnetism with a smaller battery.13 In addition, these projects all depended on technological resourcesâ•›—╛╉e.g., batteries and copper wiresâ•›—╛╉commercialized by earlier manufacturers. Sturgeon and Henry were also able to exploit iron metallurgy and their own knowledge and skills. Moreover, all four men pursued their projects using tools and facilities of their employers (various colleges), which valued their work. And they made use of communication technologies, such as scientific journals, to acquire relevant information and to disseminate their findings, as well as transportation technologies to obtain materials. Henry’s electromagnetâ•›—╛╉a very simple productâ•›—╛╉benefited from considerable convergence, which reduced the project’s developmental distance.

Edison’s electric light and power system also depended greatly on convergence. By the time Edison began the project in 1878, he was able to use resources created by hundreds, if not thousands, of prior projects, including dynamos, motors, vacuum pumps, and numerous materials that his well-equipped machine shop could transform into almost any component or product. He hired people trained elsewhere, from math maven to glassblower, including some individuals well versed in electricity whoâ•›—╛╉like Edison himselfâ•› —╛╉ had apprenticed in the telegraph industry. He made use of the corporate form of organization, already an institution in American capitalism for raising money and pursuing projects. And journals, telegraphs, and railroads furnished access to other resources. Despite the many convergences, Edison’s project remained daunting, requiring the creation of myriad resources, and so his accomplishment is justly admired. Let us now imagine how even a relatively simple project, Henry’s electromagnet, might have fared had essential resources been unavail90

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able. Clearly, its developmental distance would have been much greaterâ•›—╛╉and much more difficult to forecast. Indeed, if people had somehow conceived an electromagnet in 1810, knowing only that lightning caused a ship’s compass Â�needle to behave erratically, their projects would have had to go through sequences of activities analogous to those conducted by Oersted, Ampère, and Sturgeon to create appropriate technological resources and engineering science. Given that the vastness of this developmental distance could not have been foreseen in 1810, it is doubtful that the vision of an electromagnet capable of doing work in the world could have even taken shape. And without journals and a transportation system, supportive institutions, and so on, envisioning and carrying out such a project were virtually impossible. Available resources affect not only developmental distances but also the identification of problems. The concept of developmental distance and the process of convergence together help us examine why some projects succeeded and others failed and why some projects were not undertaken in the first place. A familiar question of the latter genre is, Why didn’t aboriginal New World peoples develop wheeled transport vehicles? The lack of suitable draft animalsâ•›—╛╉a common explanationâ•›—╛╉ignores the possibility of developing people-powered vehicles such as wheelbarrows, bicycles, and rickshaws. Setting aside the question of whether any group in these societies would have been promoting wheeled vehicles, the answer may lie in an insufficiency of prior resources (which would vary from society to society) and thus no possibility of convergence. The result was inconceivable projects as well as developmental distances incapable of being forecast and perhaps too formidable to traverse. A person who sees value in learning why a technology was not developed might want to askâ•›—╛╉perhaps on a society-by-society basisâ•›—╛╉the following questions. What technological, human, and other resources might have been necessary to envision and pursue the project? Would people have been able to forecast, even roughly, the developmental distance for creating these resources? Could the project have exploited existing resources? Could a promoter group be formed to acquire resources and push the project along?

Even when they remain largely unanswered, such questions stimulate thought and discussion. Not all projects take advantage of convergence, even in the absence of social barriers to acquiring needed resources. In 1914, Henry Ford announced that he was going to build an electric car, one that might be affordable to the masses just like the Model T. His project resulted in two prototypes that incorporated some Model T parts, but in top speed and range on one charge of the battery the vehicles performed poorly compared to other electric cars of that time. Archival materials, including photographs of the body-less prototypes, suggest that the Ford design team was struggling to master an unfamiliar technology. Evidently, these men had not exploited the considerable engineering science of electric vehicles and know-how that had accrued during the previous two decades. For various reasons the project died quietly.14 The concept of convergence invites us to view any technology as, in part, the combined legacy of previous projects. Indeed, we might even say that investments made by past projects have subsidizedâ•›—╛╉by creating resources forâ•›—╛╉any development project that has benefited from convergence.15 Building on this perspective, we could undertake many interesting studies. For example, it might be instructive to look into how investmentsâ•›—╛╉obvious and subtleâ•›—╛╉by U.S. government agencies, such as the military, have furnished resources that shortened the developmental distances for semiconductor electronics, civil aviation, magnetic resonance imaging, and so on. We could also evaluate the cryptohistorical claims that organizations such as NASA have asserted about their contributions to consumer products. Distributed Development

Closely related to convergence is the process of distributed development, which occurs when there is a pooling of resources produced by independent groups whose projects aim to create the same kind of technology.16 These parallel projects potentially overcome the resource limitations of individual groups. Distributed development is common in capitalist industrial societies, but the process itself may be present in traditional societies, as shown by an example from the prehistoric American Southwest.17 91

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Dispersed in widely scattered villages on the Colorado Plateauâ•›—╛╉an area almost as large as the state of Illinoisâ•›—╛╉the inhabitants had for Â�centuries lived in semisubterranean, earth-covered wooden structures known as pithouses. As their lifeways began to change, however, villagers discovered that pithouses no longer performed well. In particular, greater dependence on agriculture, reduced residential mobility of households, and longer village occupation spans established new performance requirements for food storage and for the maintainability and longevity of structures. In an effort to meet these requirements, people in many villages tried out various dwelling designs. Information about the performance characteristics of these dwellings was no doubt disseminated widely through traditional communication channels, including mating networks, exchange activities, and intervillage rituals. By pooling the findings of experiments carried out during several decades by many households in many villages, the people arrived at construction processes and structure designsâ•›—╛╉masonry and adobe pueblos with interior storage for cropsâ•› —╛╉ that satisfied the performance requirements. Following this period of experimentation, any village could switch from pithouses to pueblos by acquiring the skills for procuring and processing the building materials and learning how to assemble them into structures. Thus, convergence promoted by distributed development enabled villagers across the Colorado Plateau, as they became more sedentary and more dependent on agriculture, to build pueblos. Another kind of distributed development occurs when a project’s tasks are parceled out among many firms and countries. In developing its 787 Dreamliner, Boeing outsourced many components, leaving suppliers in several Asian, American, and European nations to develop appropriate manufacture processes.18 Similarly, massive, cutting-edge science and technology projects, such as the International Space Station and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the latter located beneath the French–Swiss border, require the integration of development projects in many countries.19 That Boeing’s Dreamliner project fell several years behind schedule testifies to the risks when specialized development projects are distributed so widely.

In prehistory, challenging construction projects may have been enabled by development distributed among different communities. In Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, prehistoric peoples built Pueblo Bonito, an unprecedented five-story, 700-room pueblo that incorporated roof beams shaped from spruce and fir trees hauled from mountaintops more than 75 mi away.20 The construction of Pueblo Bonito, the central town of a large regional system, may have depended on development taking place in many constituent communities. Stonehenge, with some of its dressed stones (bluestones) schlepped 140 mi from Wales, is another possible example.21 Similar cases from prehistory suggest that the promoters of new, �region-╉wide ceremonial systems were able to pursue massive projects by drawing on the resources of far-flung member communities. Thus, in addition to convergences made possible by exploiting existing resources, the most daunting projects may span their developmental distances by enlisting the participation of many communities, companies, or countries in projects promoted by overarching or crosscutting organizations. The construct of developmental distance and the processes of convergence and distributed development encourage us to examine the entire range of resources available to a project, the resources that the project generated along the way, and how any new resources were created. Social Differentiation and Social Integration

Whether a project can capitalize on convergence depends in part on factors of social differentiation and social integration.22 For present purposes, social differentiation is defined as a society’s fragmentation into (largely) self-identifying groups. Thus, a society becomes more differentiated as the kinds and quantities of social groups increase. The elemental group, found in every society, is the fÂ� amily or household, which exists in many varieties. Traditional societies may also contain lineages, clans, ceremonial groups, tribes, and villages, whereas in industrial societies there may be religious groups, ethnic groups, trade organizations, universities, academic disciplines, fraternities and sororities, labor unions and guilds, charities, towns and Â�cities, counties and states, federal agencies, multiÂ� national corporations, and many others. 92

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Social differentiation is of interest because every social group has boundaries that regulate its interactions with other groups, affecting who and what may enter and leave. Social boundaries vary in permeability: some are quite open, such as the bands in residentially mobile hunter-gatherer societies whose families may come and go. Other boundaries are tightly closed: in industrial cities, many a family’s membership is tightly circumscribed so that it can maintain control over who (and what) can enter and leave the dwelling; subscribers of one cellular phone company may not be permitted to use other companies’ networks; and scholarly organizations distribute hard copies of their journals only to members and library subscribers. Social integration bridges s ocietal fissures by enabling interactions among groups. Communication and transportation systems are familiar integrative mechanisms in industrial societies, and traditional societies often have ceremonial groups that draw members from different lineages, clans, and villages and which perform rituals in dedicated places. Although groups such as churches and labor unions serve integrative functions by recruiting their members from different neighborhoods and communities, these same groups also contribute to social differentiation and maintain their separate identities. When undertaking a project, the promoters need to learn about and perhaps exploit resources that other groups may make available. As a result of an ever-expanding assortment of resources and the difficulties of learning about them, along with a growing number and variety of social groups, people in capitalist industrial nations have developed integrative organizations and information technologies that render social boundaries more permeable and foster convergence. Recall that in Henry’s electromagnet project, scientific Â�journals distributed to libraries through transportation systems allowed him to learn about previous work in several Western countries. Communication and transportation systems, as well as manufacturing companies, also enabled Henry to obtain engineering science, materials, components, and products. If appropriate integrative organizations do not exist, then their creationâ•›—╛╉if possibleâ•›—╛╉adds to a project’s developmental distance. For example, building a copper mine in a

remote area may necessitate a railroad to haul in equipment and haul out ore, a town to house its workers, and institutions to maintain civic life. However, even rigid boundaries can sometimes be penetrated: a manufacturer’s trade secrets can reach other manufacturers through spies and traitors. And although prohibitions on imports and exports can diminish the availability of technological resources to affected countries, smugglers can partially neutralize these measures. Surprisingly, a manufacturing company may discourage convergence by preventing the acquisition of technological resources that were “not invented here.” By tightening its boundary in this way, a firm can reduce the need for obtaining patent licenses and paying royalties to other firms. Although this move can increase a new product’s developmental distance, the company may benefit if its project creates a profitable product along with new resources that can be sold or licensed to others. During RCA’s decades of great prosperity as a maker of consumer electronics productsâ•›—╛╉the mid-1920s to the late 1960sâ•›—╛╉its president, David Sarnoff, was opposed to obtaining licenses for other companies’ patents. Instead, RCA established a research and development center that crafted new components, new circuit designs available for licensing to other companies, and new products. Although this strategy was more expensive in the short run than paying fees to use other firms’ patents, it yielded rich rewards for decades. After all, RCA, enjoying hefty profits from radio and component sales, had the ability to tackle technologies with huge developmental distances. Indeed, RCA was first to offer Americans blockbuster products such as black-andwhite television in 1939 and color television in 1954, both of which produced huge profits, as did the licensing of their components and circuits to other manufacturers.23 In other cases, corporations integrate vertically, forming enormous industrial organizations free from the uncertainties of obtaining technological resources from suppliers. Henry Ford’s River Rouge plant, opened in 1918, was perhaps the most ambitious enterprise of this kind. Not only did Ford own mines to supply iron and forests to supply wood, but the company also had its own smelter and mill, and, using production 93

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equipment often designed and made in-house, fabricated virtually every Model T part. Given this massive, intricate, and highly specialized production system, Ford was notoriously resistant to adopting manufacturing and marketing strategies based on annual model changes, which other companies had pioneered.24 In capitalist industrial societies, rigid boundaries around competing manufacturing firms, all of which purport to be on the cutting edge and strive to maintain tight control over their own technological resources, lead to the redundant commercialization of complex products having almost identical technofunctions (such as the plethora of MP3 players, cellular phones, Â�digital cameras, and flat-screen televisions). These products usually differ somewhat in components and circuits and in the visual performance of their cases, the latter mainly affecting symbolic and emotive functions such as brand identification and “coolness.” Likewise, tribal and peasant societies may restrict the import or copying of products made elsewhere to ensure that their own products can be readily distinguished, on the basis of appearance, from comparable products of neighboring societies. An interesting case with life-or-death implications comes from H. Martin Wobst’s study of hats in the former Yugoslavia. Because hats, which expressed ethnic identity, could be seen at a distance on trails, a person was able to distinguish between friend and foe long before risking a potentially fatal encounter.25 Although rigid social boundaries can sometimes serve a group’s interests, the restrictions imposed on convergence do disadvantage outsiders. Obviously, corporations withhold proprietary information, and government laboratories and contractors maintain a shroud of secrecy around military projects; thus, outsiders cannot easily exploit their technological resources. Beyond these familiar cases, the sheer amount and diversity of technological development occurring in industrial societiesâ•›—╛╉decentralized among individuals, universities, corporations, and governmentsâ•› —╛╉ militate against the easy flow of information and resources. Sometimes a project group learns after the fact that useful resources had been available, but they lacked timely information about them, and so their technology’s developmental distance was unnecessarily lengthened.

To mitigate these boundary and communication problems, new organizations and technologies have been established to enhance what is today known as “technology transfer.” 26 During the nineteenth century, professional societies and trade associations of every kind arose to integrate and promote their members’ common interests. Through newsletters and journals, for example, they discussed pending legislation, members’ activities, and new technologies. These societies and their publications multiplied in the twentieth century and promoted sharing of information, even among competing firms, and fostered convergence.27 Other publications arose to offer technological information without requiring membership in a society. Mechanics’ Magazine (founded 1823) in England and Scientific A merican (founded 1845) catered to inventors by including information on recent patents, on science and engineering science, and on problems that their readers might tackle. Technology compendia and how-to books of every kind, whose rates of publication ramped up dramatically during the nineteenth century, also served integrative functions. Thus, within a few decades following the commercialization of electroplating in the late 1830s, more than a dozen books on this process had appeared in several languages. An aspiring electroplater learned which off-the-shelf components and materials to buy and how to use them and, perhaps working alone, could acquire the necessary know-how.28 Books and magazines on subjects as Â�varied as cooking, gardening, raising poultry, and crochetÂ� ing proliferated during the twentieth century, furnishing information through ads and Â�articles about new products, processes, and other resources. Individuals, families, and small businesses have been beneficiaries of, and contributors to, these kinds of publications. The developer of a new chocolate cake, for example, can report the recipe in a cooking magazine or online, and readers can try it. Universities and government agencies in the twentieth century established other integrative groups to obtain and disseminate technological information. Today most American research universities have a unit that vets its faculty’s inventions. These groups track down information on 94

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Technological Traditions and the Knowledge in Technology

prior work, prepare and submit patent applications, and seek licensees for successful patents. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, American nuclear weapons laboratories have sought to transfer some technologies to the private sector. Los Alamos National Laboratory, for example, maintains a “data base of licensable technologies” that can be searched online.29 Large multinational corporations whose development and manufacturing divisions are dispersed in many countries sometimes have to create networks to improve internal communication.30 The Internet, along with various search engines and specialized databases, is today a major organizational resource for enabling convergence. A company developing a complex product, for example, may need a component meeting highly specialized performance requirements. The firm’s first move might be to enter the component’s description into a search engine such as Google; within seconds it will have learned which companies, if any, make it already. Prior to the Internet, information about highly specialized technologies was harder to come by, perhaps through limited-distribution company brochures, catalogs, and trade shows. Promoters can also learn about relevant engineering science, about venture capital firms and how to submit proposals, and about the kinds of organization that might be best suited to their project. Through large-scale integration, the Internet expands opportunities for convergence and can reduce developmental distances. In trying to explain the course of a development project, we might profitably examine how social differentiation and social integration affected its ability to take advantage of convergence. Impermeable boundaries tend to promote parochialism, hamper convergence, and lengthen developmental distances, but integrative organizations can counteract these effects. Whether rigid boundaries are detrimental to a specific project, however, depends on the kind of technology, the nature of the organization undertaking the project, and myriad contextual factors. Regardless, the accessibility of resources and information about them is demonstrably affected by social boundaries and integrative organizations and thus influences a project’s developmental Â�distance.

A major resource for virtually all development projects is the technological tradition(s) in which the participants have been socialized. A technological tradition is identified by apparent continuity in the knowledge embedded in a sequence of changing artifact designs or of production processes.31 Every development project draws upon one or more technological traditions but also usually alters their knowledge content. Three kinds of knowledge inhere in a technological tradition: recipes, teaching frameworks, and engineering science.32 Recipes

Recipes are the rules that underlie the conduct of particular activities in a technology’s life history. Let us focus on manufacture, whose rules include (1) the technology’s constituent materials, components, and products; (2) tools, facilities, and people employed in manufacturing; (3) a description of how the specific interactions are carried out; and (4) alternative interactions for solving common problems. Such a recipe, then, summarizes the knowledge that, if possessed by the manufacturing group, would enable the interaction sequence. The success of a development project is marked by the creation of a new recipe (see Chapter 8). Recipes are modeled by the researcher on the basis of behavior observed in ethnoarchaeological settings or behavior inferred from its traces in the historical and archaeological records. The technology’s behavioral chain is a convenient framework for modeling recipes. Teaching Frameworks

A teaching f ramework consists of activities that enable others to learn the technology’s recipe and acquire relevant skills and know-how; these may include imitation, verbal instruction, hands-on demonstration, and even self-teaching by trial and error. Because the sine qua non of learning recipes is mastering the interactions that constitute the activities, most teaching frameworks make extensive use of practice. Verbal instruction may also be required to highlight cues for competently executing an interaction. Thus, the transmission of technologies usually demands much practice and 95

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a master who, following tradition, can effectively channel learning. By this process, teaching frameworks also transmit know-how and skill, the intangibles of technological Â�knowledge. In addition to the knowledge that underlies verbal and nonverbal instruction, teaching frameworks may include toys and models as well as mnemonic devices, computer simulations, virtual reality equipment, magic, parables, myths, and legends. The latter elements provide vivid, emotionally charged contexts for instilling technical details, thereby increasing the likelihood that recipes will be learned and followed skillfully. A final element of teaching frameworks is rationales, the explanations that might be offered to a novice (or an inquisitive researcher) for a Â�recipe’s parts. Responses can range from a detailed technical exegesis that resembles a scientific explanation to statements that reduce to the ultimate truth: “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” As flexibly employed ideological statements that reinforce the master’s higher status in that activity, rationales promote the learning process by providing authoritative answers. If a technology is to be perpetuated, new Â�recipes created by development projects must alter teaching frameworks. Ethnoarchaeology offers ample opportunities to study how a new technology’s recipe produces changes in a technological tradition.

ditions and is often implicit. Indeed, people may be unaware of the generalizations that underlie their interactions, knowing only that a specific interaction sequence has a reasonably predictable outcome. That is why we are obligated, especially when studying the technologies of prehistory, to model the generalizations of engineering science. This requirement is elaborated in the next chapter. Development projects almost always revise and augment engineering science and so also alter the technological tradition. Needless to say, a complex development project draws upon many technological traditions and may affect all of them appreciably. Summary

If a development project is to yield a Â�manufacture-╉ ready design, its promoters must acquire and use resources such as suitable forms of organization, materials and components, and people who possess relevant knowledge and skills. The sum of a project’s activities for creating, obtaining, and using these resources is its developmental distance. Regardless of developmental distance, every project exploits, to varying degrees, resources generated by previous projects; the process of convergence describes how a project brings these existing resources to bear on its problem. Social differentiation and social integration, which determine the permeability of social boundaries, affect a project’s access to specific resources and consequently can lengthen or shorten its developmental distance. Technologies are perpetuated through technological traditions, which are themselves resources for development projects. A technological tradition contains several kinds of knowledgeâ•›—╛╉recipes, teaching frameworks, and engineering scienceâ•›—╛╉that contribute to a tradition’s cognitive continuity and which a development project usually alters.

Engineering Science

Finally, engineering science consists of generalizations that account for why recipes lead to the intended technology and why that technology, once made, can perform appropriately in postmanufacture activities. There are four kinds of engineering science: technoscience, socioscience, �ideoscience, and emotive science, each corresponding to a major kind of function (the varieties of engineering science are elaborated in Chapter 8). Engineering science inheres in all technological traNotes

definition of the need... (2) a clear goal... (3) identification of the major steps to be undertaken and the major pieces of work that had to be done... (4) constant ‘feedback’ from the results of work on the plan . . . (5) organization of the work so that each

1. Developmental distance is defined and discussed in Schiffer 2005b, 2008a:5–6; and Skibo and Schiffer 2008:85–86. 2. Generalizing from Edison’s light and power project, Drucker lists five conditions for success: “(1) a 96

Development and Resource Acquisition 17. This discussion is based on McGuire and Schiffer 1983 (see also Gilman 1987; Schiffer 1992a:Chapter 2; Whalen 1981). Distributed development is discussed, but not yet named, in Schiffer 2005b. 18. See http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/con╉ tent/06_05/b3969417.htm, accessed December 2, 2008. 19. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron╉ _Â�Collider, accessed December 2, 2008. 20. English et al. 2001. 21. Jones 2008. 22. Rathje and Schiffer 1982:284–295 discusses social differentiation and social integration. 23. A recent history of RCA is Sobel 1986. 24. Hounshell 1984 places Ford’s approach to manufacturing into historical context. 25. Wobst 1977. 26. A relevant journal is Comparative Technology Transfer and Society (founded 2003). 27. See Thomson 2009 on the importance of integrative mechanisms for fostering convergence in the antebellum United States. 28. On the dissemination of information about electroplating, see Schiffer 2008a:77–90. 29. See http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/tt/, accessed July 8, 2008. 30. Nobel and Birkinshaw 1998. 31. Evolutionists, who abound in archaeology and anthropology (e.g., Aunger 2010; Kuhn 2004; Leonard 2001; O’Brien 2008; O’Brien and Lyman 2000; Shennan 2009), have taken pains to map out technological traditions. Basalla 1988 advocates an evolutionary approach for the history of technology. 32. For further discussions of the knowledge in technology, see O’Brien 2008; Schiffer 1992a:Chapter 7; Schiffer and Skibo 1987; and Shennan 2009.

major segment is assigned to a specific work team” (1967:╉18). 3. On a history of American energy use, see Nye 1998. 4. Bazerman 1999 analyzes the “languages” that EdiÂ�son employed to communicate with different groups. 5. Rosenberg 1970 stresses the importance of knowhow and organization. 6. Constant 1973:558 mentions the difficulty of predicting resource needs for novel projects. 7. The Atlantic cable project is treated in Dibner 1959 and Schiffer 2008a:Chapter 17; Edison’s system is discussed at length in Israel 1998 and Friedel et al. 1986. 8. On Trevithick’s road carriage project, see Dibnah and Hall 2003:48–50, 55. 9. See Israel 1998. 10. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Towers, accessed December 2, 2008. 11. Rosenberg 1976:15–16 uses the term technological convergence. 12. The discussions in this section furnish the means to reformulate in behavioral terms such constructs as “technological lock-in” (Cowan 1990). 13. Schiffer 2008a:Chapters 3–4 tells the story of Â�Henry’s electromagnets and their precursors. 14. On Ford’s electric car, see Schiffer, Butts, and Grimm 1994:Chapter 11. 15. Even unsuccessful projects can create useful resources, as in Edison’s platinum-filament light bulb, which never worked. It did, however, lead to an improved vacuum pump, which was essential for the development of the carbon-filament light bulb. 16. The notion of “distributed innovation” (e.g., Lakhani and Panetta 2007), which focuses on how organizations can gain access to resources created by outside projects, combines elements of convergence and distributed development.

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8

Development and the Design Process

Before deciding to establish a development project, the promoter must believe that (1) an envisioned technology’s performance characteristics show promise for solving a problem and (2) the technology’s developmental distance can be spanned eventually. Once a project is under way, the promoterâ•›—╛╉whether lone inventor or corporationâ•›—╛╉may learn that either or both beliefs are incorrect, and so the project is usually terminated, a not uncommon outcome in capitalist industrial societies. A successful projectâ•›—╛╉whether its developmental distance is daunting or trivialâ•›—╛╉creates a design for the target technology that can, in principle, be manufactured or put into practice. The present chapter focuses on the design of products, but the generalizations and heuristics apply broadly to other technologies. Much of today’s design literature consists of handbooks in diverse disciplines and communities of practice, from architects, to aircraft engineers, to interior decorators, which furnish pertinent engineering science.1 Other works chronicle the history of design for specific products, companies, countries, and so forth. There is also a literature that crosscuts communities of practice, theorizing design much more abstractly, such as a communication phenomenon.2 We want to understand how a particular design came to be: how its designerâ•›—╛╉one person or a team of hundredsâ•›—╛╉arrived at the product’s sequence of procurement and manufacture activities. Accordingly, this chapter presents a simple theoretical framework, applicable to any technology

in any society, along with the performance preference matrix, a heuristic whose use may help us to explain a designer’s decisions.3 Let us begin with an idealized description of design development. A designer forecasts (1) activities in which the target product will take part along its behavioral chain, (2) the interactions and functions that the product will carry out in each activity, and (3) the performance requirements that each activity imposes on the product. Then, drawing on engineering science and creating new engineering science as needed, the designer selects a sequence of procurement and manufacture activities. In effect, the designer concocts a recipeâ•›—╛╉whether for catfish stew or a B-1 bomberâ•›—╛╉that, when followed, yields a product that ostensibly satisfies the activities’ performance requirements. Because the designer’s forecasts may be incomplete and inaccurate, refining the design may require many iterations. Consequently, development often entails a continuing supply of resources and thus the promoter’s ongoing support. The designer also contends with complications introduced by heterogeneous cadenas as well as technical and social constraints. The usual result is a design that embodies tradeoffs or compromises in the product’s performance characteristics.4 Technical Choices, Formal Properties, and Performance Characteristics

In the course of development, the designer makes a series of technical choices, selecting procurement and manufacture activities from among available 98

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Figure 8.1. (left) A whimsical teapot made by San Francisco artist Carol Wedemeyer (http://www.carolwedemey╉er╉.org/); (right) a ceramic cooking pot made by me.

alternatives. Let us take as our first example a ceramic teapot whose designer is a highly skilled artist. The problem, let us assume, is to create a new teapot that will dazzle visitors to her Web site and to an upscale gallery. And so she envisions and sketches a vessel having distinctive Â�visual and tactile performance characteristics. After the teapot is conceived, there come myriad decisions, beginning with the forming technique and its necessary tools. Will the vessel’s body be made by using the wheel, by joining slabs, by coiling, or by sculpting it from a solid block of clay? The forming technique, by imposing its own performance requirements on clay workability, strongly conditions the choice of clay. Processes are then selected for making the handle, spout, and lid and for joining the parts; for decoration, if any; and for drying and bisque firing. Then comes the choice of glazes, their manner of application (e.g., dipping, pouring, wiping, brushing, spraying), and the temperature and duration of the glaze firing. Having completed the design and tried out any new processes, the potter sets to work and makes the vessel. These technical choices result in a teapot, perhaps like the one in Figure 8.1a, which was made by Carol Wedemeyer, a leading ceramic artist.

Like all finished products, this teapot has specific formal properties: physical or chemical attributes that can be observed, perhaps even measured. A product’s formal properties are determined by material composition and manufacture processes. The choice of materials affects chemical composition, and manufacture processes affect shape, size, surface smoothness, and relationships among a product’s parts. And together material composition and manufacture processes determine color, density, and hardness. Formal properties are theoretically infinite, since we could, for example, measure variation in surface smoothness or shape at the nanoscale, but we pay special attention to the formal properties that influence important performance characteristics. Thus, size determines a teapot’s maximum capacity, and color(s), shape, and placement of parts affect appearance. Any technical choice may have “downstream” effects o n a p roduct’s f ormal p roperties a nd, through t hem, o n p erformance c haracteristics.5 As an example, let us take a small ceramic cooking pot (Figure 8.1b). The material in this vessel is a mixture of clay (a plastic material), water, and sandâ•›—╛╉a nonplastic additive. Additives affect formal properties and performance characteristics in many activities. Thus, a copious quantity 99

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Figure 8.2. A technical choice influences many performance characteristics.

of crushed rock or sand stiffens and strengthens the wet clay and hastens drying, reduces thermal shock in firing, and lessens thermal fatigue over repeated heating–cooling cycles during use. But it also increases a pot’s susceptibility to breakage during transport, use, and maintenance. This example indicates that a single technical choice may affect many downstream performance characteristics (Figure 8.2), perhaps enhancing some while degrading others. By the same token, any formal property or performance characteristic may be affected by more than one technical choice (Figure 8.3). Thus, beyond using nonplastic additives like sand, the potter can increase thermal shock resistance by making curved and uniformly thin walls. In attending to these causal relationships, we must keep in mind that an activity’s context also influences a p roduct’s p erformance c haracteristics. Thus, gallery lighting, other artifacts in the display setting, and the observers’ distance from the teapot affect its appearance. And the size and temperature of the fire as well as the vessel’s placement on it influence a cooking pot’s thermal performance characteristics. Clearly, the activity context can affect a product’s performance

requirements and thus, ideally, the designer’s technical choices (Figure 8.4). Technical Constraints

The network of causal relationships among technical choices, formal properties, and performance characteristics creates technical constraints. These offer the designer opportunities for solving a performance problem but also impose the need for compromises and trade-offs. Thus, a clay cooking pot contains a high percentage of nonplastic additives so that it can survive firing and heat food repeatedly without cracking. But it is more susceptible to breakage from rough handling, especially during cooking and washing. As a result, cooking pots in traditional societies typically last only about a year.6 Returning to the teapot (Figure 8.1a), we note that the artist’s technical choices gave it a stunning visual performance, thereby advertising her creativity and skill and underscoring the gallery owner’s reputation for showing works of high merit. However, those very same technical choices greatly increased the manufacturing effort (compared to a simpler teapot) and would exact a toll on performance during use and maintenance, for the vessel is somewhat difficult to fill,

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Figure 8.3. A performance characteristic is affected by many technical choices.

Figure 8.4. Major factors that affect performance characteristics.

pour, and clean. Clearly, the teapot’s ease of manufacture along with several technofunctional performance characteristics have been compromised in favor of those that enhance symbolic and emotive functions. Technical constraints ensure that virtually every product in everyday use embodies comparable trade-offs. It would not be difficult for American automotive engineers to design a tiny, inexpensive passenger car that could achieve an

all-around 50 mpg. However, other performance characteristics would suffer, such as profitability to manufacturers and dealers, passenger and cargo capacity, safety in crashes, acceleration, and top speed. Passenger cars sold in the United States today have varied designs, from two-seater subcompacts to enormous sport utility vehicles, whose performance characteristics lie within ranges deemed acceptable by specific consumer groups. Gasoline-powered cars that get 50 mpg 101

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seemingly fall far outside these ranges because the vast majority of consumers (and manufacturers and dealers) judge the drastic trade-offs in performance to be unacceptable. Sometimes the availability of new materials, components, or processes alters the constraints, enabling dramatically different design compromises. For example, plug-in hybrid cars promise urban commuters 100-plus mpg without utterly degrading manufacture-, sales-, and use-related performance characteristics. Creating Engineering Science

How do designers acquire knowledge of the causal relationshipsâ•›—╛╉engineering scienceâ•›—╛╉that informs and constrains their technical choices? The simple answer is that designers, whether potter or automobile engineer, all participate in technological traditions and so receive the necessary knowledge as part of their training (Chapter 7).7 This knowledge is not necessarily explicit but may be embedded in the routine activity sequences that novices strive to master. The complex answer requires us to examine how new engineering science is created in the first place. Because much modern engineering science is codified in textbooks and handbooks, we may not grasp that almost every generalization, in every technological tradition, originated in experimentsâ•›—╛╉often through trial and error. It is doubtful, for example, that the earliest potters understood the direct relationship between the percentage of nonplastic additives and a pot’s resistance to thermal shock. Because satisfactory cooking pots were developed hundreds of times, potters had to discover this effect by trying out various technical choices, among which the addition of nonplastic materials led to successful vessels. Likewise, some intrepid artists learned that whimsical teapots have effective sensory performances in display activities, although they have shortcomings as teapots. The designer’s first technical choices may result in a product that does not satisfy basic performance requirements. And so it is necessary to start fresh by making different choices, learning their effects on performance, and adopting more effective ones. This discovery process may require many trials and leave in its wake many failures.8

We can model the discovery process in relation to a product’s life history, taking into account the effects of every technical choice on performance characteristicsâ•›—╛╉as mediated by formal propertiesâ•›—╛╉in downstream activities. Indeed, new performance requirements are met in each activity along the product’s behavioral chain. Thus, in designing a cooking pot, the choice of clay and nonplastic additives affected both drying and firing. If a pot cracked during drying, the potter had to select different clays and/or nonplastic additives before attending to postdrying performance characteristics. After the pot could be dried reliably, the next series of trials related to firing. If the pots cracked during firing, then the potter could vary the amount and kind of fuel, arrangement of vessels and fuel, amount of preheating, and rate and duration of firing. If none of these choices reduced cracking, the potter would have had to return to earlier activities, perhaps trying out different clays, nonplastic additives, and even forming techniques. Once the problems of drying and firing were solved, the potter could turn to useand maintenance-related performance characteristics, altering the design as necessary. Designers attend to primary and secondary performance requirements.9 A primary performance requirement is a showstopper: if a pot lacks good thermal shock resistance, it is unlikely Â� to survive firing; if a cooking pot leaks lots of Â�liquid, it cannot heat its contents. Thus, a primary performance requirement must be met before a product can be taken to the next activity. A secondary performance requirement is more forgiving, at least in early trials, and is satisfied only in later prototypesâ•›—╛╉if ever. A teapot’s spout may need tweaking so that it does not dribble while pouring, and a cooking pot’s rim may be enlarged to accommodate a ladle. In the course of experimenting, the potter may eventually arrive at a recipe that meets the product’s primary and secondary performance requirements. If so, the recipe’s procurement and manufacture activities take their place on the product’s behavioral chain and become part of, or perhaps initiate, a technological tradition. In archaeology, the product’s formal properties furnish evidence for inferring the maker’s technical choices and thus the sequence of procurement and manufacture activities. The task is

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to integrate varied lines of evidence and construct a model of the recipe. These kinds of research processes have become routine in prehistoric and classical archaeology. There are also ample opportunities for conducting laboratory analyses of modern products. Recently, for example, a team consisting of art historians, a chemist, and materials scientists analyzed the chemical composition of a large series of twentieth-century bronze sculptures.10 They identified three compositional clusters on the basis of variation in zinc and tin content and were able to correlate these with foundries and forming processes. Their findings also showed that many of the “bronze” sculptures were actually brass (high content of zinc rather than tin). Questions about the design and manufacture of many industrial products invite similar analyses. For example, we still do not know exactly how Edison made the carbon filaments of his earliest light bulbs. Many trade secrets of the past can yield to laboratory analyses today. The informal process of creating new engineering science, as exemplified by the designer of a traditional clay cooking pot, is often superseded in industrial societies by highly structured laboratory experiments. Indeed, many manufacturers today have departments devoted to “research and development,” which generate new engineering science. Edison’s laboratories established a precedent that was followed by firms such as General Electric, General Motors, and AT&T. However, even in modern industrial laboratories and engineering firms, trial and error does not disappear, and it remains especially important in craft activities. (As discussed in Chapter 7, new engineering science may also be created by distributed development.) Varieties of Engineering Science

Engineering science consists of all generalizations, embedded in technological practice, that describe the causal relationships among technical choices, formal properties, and performance characteristics. The examples so far have tilted toward the utilitarian, but engineering science also includes generalizations affecting symbolic and emotive performances. Let us now define the four varieties of engineering science that may inform the development of any design.11

Technoscience

Technoscience consists of generalizations that specify the effects of technical choices, through formal properties, on one or more technofunctional performance characteristics.12 An example is the simple experimental law that, all other factors being constant, an abundance of nonplastic additives enhances a clay vessel’s thermal shock resistance. We could go further, of course, by specifying how a particular technical choice affects many formal properties and performance characteristics. Still another way to frame a principle is by listing the technical choices and properties that influence a given performance characteristic. Thus, in addition to nonplastic additives, thermal shock resistance is affected by a pot’s shape and size, wall thickness, interior and exterior surface treatments, and the manner of applying heat. In modern technoscience, quantitative principles are often specified to several decimal places, as in a metal’s melting point. However, generalizations applying to traditional technologies, which have to be modeled by the researcher, are less precise, and some merely indicate the direction of causality. In modeling technoscience, we often re-createÂ� it by carrying out replicative experiments. For example, archaeologists long wondered why traditional potters applied to their vessels various interior and exterior surface treatments, such as texturing, organic coatings, slipping, and polishing. Experiments have shown that surface treatments affect thermal shock resistance, resistance to thermal spalling, heating effectiveness, abrasion resistance, and evaporative cooling effectivenessâ•›—╛╉performance characteristics that can come into play in a variety of manufacture, use, and maintenance activities.13 The reconstructed technoscience along with contextual information permits us to offer hypotheses about why a given surface treatment might have been chosen for a particular kind of vessel. Modeling lost technoscience is not a rote process. After all, in a given Â�pottery-╉making tradition, the technoscience is likely to have consisted of many generalizations accumulated by many development projects, perhaps extending over centuries in response to changes in material availability and demands for new vessel functions. These generalizations form a complex network of causal relationships that we

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Figure 8.5. The Gatchina Palace Fabergé egg, a czar’s present to his mother. In the collection of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.

must comprehend Â� i n o rder t o exp lain t echnical choices and their changes. The need to possess models of Â�technoscience is illustrated by the case of heat treatment in chipped-stone technology. Early Â�ethnographies that mentioned the heating of chippable stone were once dismissed as fanciful because there were no surviving practitioners of this process and because archaeologists themselves were unfamiliar with it. However, experiments by Don CrabÂ�tree and others in the 1960s showed that heat treatment does improve the flakeability of certain lithic materials.14 Later experiments revealed that heat treatment also affects a stone’s color and luster. Application of this reconstructed technoscience to prehistoric materials has shown that this process was practiced by many an ancient flint knapper. Socioscience

Socioscience consists of generalizations that describe the relationships among technical choices, formal properties, and performance characteristics of products having sociofunctions.15 Some

generalizations are lawlike, in that they have no time-space boundary conditions. Thus, it was learned in most societies that differences in peoples’ visual performances, as affected by their clothing, headgear, body paint, tattoos, hairstyles, and jewelry, canâ•›—╛╉in specific activity contextsâ•› —╛╉ enable knowledgeable observers to infer social differences such as those based on occupation, age grade, marital status, ethnicity, ceremonialgroup membership, and wealth. To carry out a sociofunction, a product usually meets one or more of the following performance requirements: distinctive appearance in the pertinent activity context, recognizable at a distance, makes the eye linger, contrasts with artifacts having similar technofunctions, Â�resembles an existing symbol, and suggests analogies to other objects.16 Formal properties such as size, color, and shape result in the visual performances that can serve sociofunctions. A common principle of socioscience, learned repeatedly in traditional and industrial societies, is that artifacts of the very wealthy and very powerful tend to be made of scarce materials, employ laborious manufacture processes, or require the work of highly skilled artisans. These technical choices result in visually distinctive artifacts that may be especially effective status markers.17 By virtue of its unique appearance, a Fabergé egg leaves no doubt that it was (and is) a marker of very high status. Indeed, the egg in Figure 8.5, containing a gold miniature of the Gatchina Palace, was presented by Czar Nicholas II of Russia to his mother, Marie Fedorova, at Easter in 1901. Heather Miller presents a useful heuristic, the expected relative value diagram, for Â�assessing which technologies in an archaeological assemblage are more and less likely to have been elite status markers. For each technology, such as bone tools and marine shell ornaments, values are estimated for two variables: (1) the difficulty of acquiring its raw materials and (2) the complexity of the production process (a combination of skill and labor). Next, one creates a scatter diagram employing these variables as, respectively, the xand y-axes. Technologies appearing in the diagram’s upper right corner have the highest relative value. Miller, in applying this heuristic to Indus Valley technologies, underscores the difficulties of estimating the two variables.18 Indeed, such ex-

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ercises depend on having available many reliable inferences about each technology’s procurement and manufacture processes. Artifacts capable of symbolizing specific social meanings such as an admiral’s uniform in the U.S. Navy, a DVD player made by SONY, membership in the Hopi tribe, the currency of Spain, and a teapot made by Carol Wedemeyer are historically contingent. Thus, at this level of specificity, the socioscience consists of generalizations having time-space boundary conditions, and so they are not experimental laws. Our task is to model the socioscienceâ•›—╛╉whether laws or historically contingent generalizationsâ•›—╛╉that make possible the design of products conveying information about social phenomena in specific activity contexts. Ideoscience

Ideoscience consists of generalizations that describe the relationships among technical choices, formal properties, and performance characteristics of products that perform ideofunctions.19 Like socioscience, ideoscience enables the designer to make technical choices resulting in a product that expresses information symbolically. Thus, these two realms of engineering Â�science share a host of generalizations, but others are unique to ideoscience, and many are historically contingent. The designer of a stained-glass window illustrating Â�Bible stories has learned to make technical choices that produce Â�appropriate Â�images. On the basis of the window’s visual performance, the Â�images’ meanings would be apparent to churchgoers familiar with the symbol system. Likewise, Carol Wedemeyer, the teapot’s designer, knew how to shape and decorate a vessel so that it had a striking appearance. In gallery shows and in a purchaser’s home, this vessel would symbolizeâ•› —╛╉ to aficionados of the visual artsâ•›—╛╉the belief that individual artistry is virtuous. In archaeology, the vast majority of historically contingent socio- and ideoscience died with the technology’s last makers. Even so, Â�postprocessual archaeologists of the 1980s assigned a high priority to inferring the content of symbols and purported symbols, and practitioners of other programs have followed suit, employing and integrating varied lines of evidence.20 Thus, analyses of formal properties, spatial distributions, associations, and quantities of artifacts and ar-

chitectural features establish a basis for hypothesizing the meaning-laden performances of certain artifacts in certain activities. We hypothesize the socio- and ideoscience that, if possessed by the activity participants, would enable their socially competent performances (which also have to be inferred). It can be further inferred that �comparable generalizations informed the design process. Needless to say, this research process is highly interpretive, and consensus among archaeologists is often difficult to achieve. Access to historic, ethnohistoric, or ethnographic evidence adds clarity but seldom certainty to the inferences. Emotive Science

Nicole Boivin has shown that symbolic functions do not exhaust the ways in which artifacts convey meanings.21 Artifacts, she reminds us, may express meanings nonverbally by eliciting emotions. Designers no doubt sometimes made technical choices in order to evoke specific emotional responses of, say, potential user groups. Consequently, we may recognize a kind of engineering scienceâ•›—╛╉emotive scienceâ•›—╛╉that describes the effects of technical choices on the formal properties and sensory performance characteristics of artifacts having emotive functions. A nugget of emotive science invented repeatedly is that supersized technologies inspire awe and wonderâ•›—╛╉what David Nye calls “technological sublime.” 22 Designers of outsize technologies are, I suspect, fully aware of this generalization and apply it to good effect. A case in point, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Eastern steamship, launched near London in 1858, was designed to be the biggest, most impressive ship in the world, and it wasâ•›—╛╉at 690 ft long (a record that stood for 40 years). Wherever the Great Eastern docked, crowds flocked to gaze upon this unnatural wonder, sometimes paying for the privilege and staring in astonishment.23 Similarly, the enormous Corliss steam engine at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia set in motion dozens of machines and no doubt stirred feelings of awe. Technologies can also produce emotional responses by giving surprising or apparently magical performances, as in the earliest phonographs, televisions, and holograms. Public demonstrations of science have always traded on emotive

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effects, such as an induction coil that produces sparks 2 ft long. (Mementos, heirlooms, relics, family pictures, and the like are also capable of emotive performances, but they acquire meanings through use and possession, not through design.) It is precisely emotive performances that make possible many socio- and ideofunctions.24 Thus, the appearance in dress uniform of a high-rankingÂ� officer may inspire among lower-rankingÂ�soldiers fear and respect, and this helps to maintain social distance and discipline in a hierarchical organization. And objects employed in religious rituals, ranging from hymnals, to sacred scrolls, to pipe organs, elicit emotions that may buttress beliefs and attitudes. Designers in today’s corporations relentlessly apply emotive science so that their products can induce positive feelings, perhaps disposing consumers to make a purchase. Skimpy undergarments, such as the teddies sold by Victoria’s Secret, are apparently expected to arouse libidos. Emotive science figures greatly in the design of advertisements, such as those that juxtapose a product with smiling babies and cuddly animals or which situate it in pleasurable activities. The design principle is that such images evoke favorable feelings that the viewer may transfer to the product. A case can be made that marketing activities in modern societies are all about creating sounds and sights that cue positive emotions. Designers assume that emotive performance characteristics are heavily weighted in consumer choices. Some modern artists in the West create works containing dissected cows, human blood and organs, or feces that provoke in many viewers disgust and revulsion. Because these artists obviously knew that their works would have these effects, I submit that the recognition of a work’s potential to shock viewers and reviewers clearly influenced the design, regardless of how earnestly the artist insists that it merely embodies abstract ideas. And chefs design dishes that may produce, in addition to a sensory feast of aromas and tastes, feelings of satiety or pleasureâ•›—╛╉and sometimes pain (i.e., dishes with habanero chilies). People in traditional societies also applied emotive science when designing some artifacts and structures. One such artifact is masks, which

are widespread cross-culturally and are often used in ceremonies. Some masks have exaggerated facial expressions that can elicit mirth or fear; and masks representing nurturing or malevolent Â�spirits can cue strong emotional responses. Needless to say, many monumental structures in ancient chiefdoms and states were designed in part to have emotive effects. The Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán, near Mexico City, evokes a sense of wonder today as it no doubt did in the past. As with socio- and ideoscience, much emotive science is historically contingent and so has to be modeled by the investigator as group-specific generalizations. Such generalizations enabled designers to forecast the responses of particular groupsâ•›—╛╉defined, perhaps, on the basis of one or more sociodemographic factors and life history experiencesâ•›—╛╉to a technology’s sensory performances.25 Flawed Engineering Science

Although much engineering science consists of true generalizations that can reliably guide technical choices, some generalizations are deeply flawed. Hugh Aitken furnishes an instructive case from early radio.26 Guglielmo Marconi and his engineers, who commercialized wireless telegraphy around 1900, believed that greater transmission distances could be achieved only by using long waves (low frequencies). However, gaining an increment of distance with long waves required a disproportionate increase in the power of transmitters. To meet this requirement, Marconi built ever larger and more costly transmitters and antennas. By 1920, however, other wireless pioneers had shown that short waves can indeed travel far and are much less power hungry. Sometimes the technoscience is so flawed that it actually hinders development. In 1825 Peter Barlow, a distinguished British natural philosopher and authority on matters magnetic, wanted to learn about the conduction of electrical current over long circuits, as might be needed for an electromagnetic telegraph. After some experiments, Barlow stated that current decreases as a function of the distance squared. Barlow’s generalization had an obvious implication: long-distance telegraphy would be impossible because of the drastic drop in current. This purported law dampened interest in electromagnetic telegraphs until 1831,

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Figure 8.6. Abridged advertisement for the Belmont Boulevard pocket radio. Source: Life, 3 December 1945.

when Joseph Henry’s experiments proved Barlow wrong. The American found that current diminishes directly with distanceâ•›—╛╉not distance squared. This finding meant that long-distance telegraphy was permitted by engineering science. Henry’s findings were rapidly disseminated in journals, and telegraph development began in earnest on both sides of the Atlantic.27 In other cases, manufacture and adoption outpace the creation of reliable technoscience. John G. Burke recounts that, in the early nineteenth century, high-pressure steam engines were installed in American steamboats, despite the lack of critical knowledge about boiler design, such as the loss of strength caused by rivet holes and by differences in the thermal expansion of wroughtand cast-iron parts.28 Not surprisingly, boiler explosions were fairly common, sometimes killing passengers by the hundreds, which eventually led to the establishment of the first federal regulations over a private industry. Other kinds of engineering science may also be flawed. The first shirt-pocket radio, the Belmont Boulevard, was designed in 1945 by Raytheon, a firm that had little experience in consumer products (see also Chapter 9). The designer gave the radio rather masculine connotations: in shape

and faux-leather covering it resembled a pocket whiskey flask, and an ad in Life magazine showed the radio in the company of car keys and a man’s gloves (Figure 8.6).29 The designer probably expected that these associations would attract male buyers. However, the radio also closely resembled a hearing aid in size and shape, placement of controls, and earphone-only operation. Thus, a man with the set in his shirt pocket and earplug in his ear would have tacitly proclaimed, “My hearing is impaired,” perhaps evoking a visceral aversion to the tiny radio. The Belmont Boulevard’s ambiguous visual performance, apparently resulting from incomplete or flawed socioscience and emotive science, likely contributed to its lackÂ� luster sales. Technological traditions in industrial societies may exhibit discontinuities in engineering science, as newâ•›—╛╉but faultyâ•›—╛╉principles replace older, well-founded ones. Henry Petroski describes the serious design flaws in the first Â�Tacoma Narrows Bridge, built during the late 1930s in Washington State.30 Owing to insufficient stiffening components, this suspension bridge swayed uncontrollably in high winds, and in one especially violent storm in 1940 it collapsed. (Remarkably, there is a video recording of this event.)31 The

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susceptibility of suspension bridges to resonant lateral motion in high winds (and thus the need for robust stiffening) was not new engineering science suddenly born of this disaster. Rather, the phenomenon and the remedy had been known to nineteenth-century bridge builders and was the topic of a publication by famed civil engineer John Roebling. Important nineteenth-century suspension bridges, including the Brooklyn Bridge designed by Roebling, were either built or retrofitted to withstand high winds. This science was apparently forgotten and replaced by ad hoc principles in the early twentieth century, as bridges “were designed and built without stay cables and, later, without stiffening trusses.” According to Petroski, this “devolutionary trend culminated in the destruction of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.” 32 Petroski has written at length about the role of failure in revising engineering science.33 As a civil engineer, his examples tend to be massive, commissioned technologies, such as bridges and skyscrapers, which have long uselives and in many cases an appreciable developmental distance. Failures of these kinds of technologies are so salient that government-sponsored committees sometimes study the design, seeking flaws and perhaps offering new engineering principles. After the first Atlantic submarine telegraph cable, laid in 1858, failed after only a few weeks in use, the British government, which had generously subsidized the venture, established a committee of distinguished scientists and engineers to suggest remedies. The committee concluded that a cable project could succeed but recommended changes, including a major redesign of the cable itself: it would have to be much stronger, better insulated, and more buoyant and use a high-purity copper conductor. New cables were manufactured following the commission’s recommendations and laid beneath the Atlantic. And for decades they met basic performance requirements.34 Sometimes engineering science is not so much flawed as superannuated, as generalizations continue to be applied in artifact designs for which they are no longer appropriate. An example comes from television receivers. Vacuum-tube televisions required that the viewer occasionally adjust the vertical hold, which could go out of whack because of aging components. A Â�vertical-╉ hold control is unnecessary in solid-state sets, yet

some early ones continued to have them because, it was believed, they were expected by conÂ�sumers. Such seemingly anomalous technical choices may persist for many years, especially if a component, feature, or formal property that once had a technofunction later comes to have only a socio-, ideo-, or emotive function. A closely related phenomenon may be caused by irrelevant or superfluous engineering science. To wit, recipes for many technologies in traditional societies contain steps and prohibitions that we, today, regard as ineffective. Even in industrial societies, recipes may be larded with curious rules and technical choices. The “molecular gastronomist” and chef Hervé This (pronounced teess) recently wondered why many recipes in French cookbooks are cluttered with useless instructions. For example, menstruating women should not prepare mayonnaise, and cream should always be whipped in the same direction. In the course of simplifying French cooking, This came up with a hypothesis to explain ineffective instructions: “Cooks, using trial and error, remembered the circumstances in which they created a successful dish, even if they were irrelevant, and made them part of the recipe.” In effect, useless instructions tag along with effective ones. This hypothesis implies that recipes for more failure-prone dishes will include more useless instructions; in a test This found support for his hypothesis.35 This has put his finger on a general process that may help us explain some features of technologies, ancient and modern. Perhaps ritual activities accompanying failure-prone activities in traditional technologies, such as smelting metal ores and firing pots, originated in this way. Design as a Social Process

It is given, then, that the designer’s technical choices depend on the application of engineering science of several kinds in order to satisfy, ostensibly, a product’s performance requirements in specific activities. Left unsaid so far is that the performance requirements are established, in part, through social processes that impinge on the designer. Indeed, Randall McGuire and I argued decades ago that design is a social processâ•› —╛╉ a mantra that now pervades the design literature of many fields.36

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Figure 8.7. Each group on a cadena has its own performance preferences.

Heterogeneous Cadenas

In putting this claim to use, let us return to the concept of cadena. Recall that a cadena refers to all groups participating in the activities of a product’s behavioral chain. Cadenas vary in their degree of social heterogeneity: in traditional societies, many cadenas are highly homogeneous, whereas in industrial societies numerous cadenas are very heterogeneous. In any case, each group on a cadena has performance preferences for the products that take part in its activity (Figure 8.7). As an example, let us take a “compact” car having a conventional gasoline engine made by an American company during Detroit’s heyday, the 1960s. Although this example is largely contrived, is

vastly oversimplified, and uses very general performance preferences, the car’s indisputably heterogeneous cadena can indicate the sorts of social constraints on design decisions.37 Major cadena groups along with my guesses as to their performance preferences are as follows: • Chief executives, after deciding on the kind of model to be developed, may simply want the car to have excellent salability, high profitability, and the ability to be manufactured with existing technological and human resources. • Purchasing department executives put a high priority on the affordability of parts. • Manufacturing executives want the car to be

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potentially conflicting p erformance p references. Â�Ideally, the designer obtains information about all groups’ performance preferences and applies engineering science to arrive at a series of technical choices for manufacturing the car. Figure 8.8 is a general model of the design process.

easily assembled with existing space, equipment, and labor. • Assembly line workers desire that assembly activities be safely performed and be easily within their capabilities. • Marketing department executives favor high salability. That is, the car must attract and hold the attention of customers in ads and in the showroom with “features” such as good fuel economy, high reliability, reasonable price, distinctive appearance, and gadgets Â�galore. • Car dealership owners desire excellent salability and high profit; the car should also be reliable enough to keep customers somewhat satisfied. Problems should be easy to Â�diagnose and repair yet also require expensive replacement parts. • Salespersons want high salability, including an abundance of features and accessories similar to those required by the marketing department, as well as highly profitable cars (because most work on a commission basis). Having direct contact with customers, they also prefer cars that are very reliable and Â�easily repaired at moderate expense. • Service department executives desire cars that suffer an ample number of malfunctions and require expensive, high-profit Â�replacement parts. Yet they also want problems to be Â�easily diagnosed and repaired. • Mechanics prefer malfunctions that are Â�readily diagnosed and easily repaired. • Fleet buyers want affordable and reliable cars that get good gas mileage, are easily and inexpensively repaired, and have a minimum of user amenities. • Family buyers want cars with a reasonable price, good acceleration, great handling, excellent fuel economy, high reliability, inexpensive repairs, comfortable interiors, lots of standard accessories, a roomy trunk, and a distinctive appearance that can advertise the owner’s “coolness” and status.

Technical and Social Constraints Require Design Compromises

In making technical choices, the designer grapples with two sets of constraints, technical and social (Figure 8.8). Technical constraints are established by engineering science and are best illustrated in the car example by choices having opposite effects on the same performance characteristic. If the designer selects an eight-cylinder engine, the car has excellent acceleration but poor gas mileage. If a two-cylinder engine is chosen, the gas mileage is spectacular but the car is dramatically underpowered. A four- or six-cylinder engine compromises both power and gas mileage, but a sizable group of consumers may judge it acceptable overall. Similarly, a car with many standard accessories suits marketing executives, salespersons, and consumers but may not satisfy the consumer’s preference for a reasonable price and the manufacturer’s desire for high profit. A common compromise is to equip the car with a modest number of standard accessories. The designer of every product contends with technical constraints, regardless of the cadena’s social heterogeneity. Even when a cadena is completely homogeneous, the designer has to effect workable compromises among differing Â�activity-╉ specific performance preferences, employing applicable engineering science. Commonly, there are trade-offs between choices that promote ease of manufacture and those that affect use- and maintenance-related performance characteristics (recall the teapot). Let us turn to a best-case scenario for a heterogeneous cadena: the designer has learned about every group’s performance preferences. Not all can be fully satisfied because they put conflicting demands on technical choices, and so the final design necessarily entails compromises: favored performance preferences are given more weight than others, and some groups’ preferences may be poorly satisfied. Social constraints arise when cadena groupsâ•› —╛╉

As promised, the car’s cadenaâ•›—╛╉with its many groups varying in composition from activity to activityâ•›—╛╉exhibits much social heterogeneity. In general, the greater a cadena’s social heterogeneity, the more likely will its groups have different and 110

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Figure 8.8. A general model of the design process.

even in traditional societiesâ•›—╛╉differ in relative social power. Thus, some groups, perhaps by virtue of the structural power vested in their social roles, can influence technical choices more than other groups. For example, manufacturing executives may reject a car design because it requires too much retooling and an inordinate amount of skilled labor. Chief executives have the ultimate power to affect design compromises, but they may be influenced by other groups, especially marketing executives waving forecasts of favorable consumer responses. The designer assimilates information on performance preferences, ideally obtains feedback from all groups in the company, perhaps mediates negotiations among groups, and contrives the final designâ•›—╛╉a compromise respecting technical and social constraintsâ•› —╛╉ that is deemed acceptable by the most powerful groups. Although some groups may grouse about the design, and the car may still flop in the

marketplace, this is the best-case scenario for the working out of technical choices in a highly heterogeneous cadena. That is because there is good communication between the Â�cadena’s groups and the designer, and so compromises can be negotiated on the basis of immediate feedback. Feedback from consumers may influence the design of later models. In highly heterogeneous cadenas, however, the designer often lacks timely and reliable information about all performance preferences, especially when the groups are dispersed in different companies, communities, or countries. Under these conditions, social boundaries and erratic communication can hamper information flow. The result may be a poorly designed product that is unacceptable to some groups. The Hubble Space Telescope is a notorious example. After the telescope was launched in 1990, NASA announced that the main mirror was producing blurred images. An 111

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brand, style, size, and color and on the same rackâ•› —╛╉ are sometimes made in several countries. When these products are tried on, the wearer often finds that they differ slightly in size and fit. Apparently, there has been poor communication between the designer and the far-flung manufacture groups. Consumers, it would appear, had little influence, for they would have favored more uniformity in supposedly identical products.

investigation revealed that the Â�PerkinElmer Corporation, the contractor hired to finish the mirror, had used the wrong formula to grind the glass. Fortunately, in 1993 NASA astronauts on a space shuttle mission were able to insert corrective optics. At last the Hubble Space Telescope met the performance preferences of consumersâ•› —╛╉ e.g., astronomers and the American publicâ•›—╛╉by delivering breathtaking images of objects distant in space and time.38 “Development” projects run by organizations based in industrial countries aim to supply Â� impoverished peoples in Africa and Asia with “modern” technologies that have purportedly been designed to improve their lives. These projects have compiled a stunning record of failures, their technologies often rejected by the very people they were supposed to benefit. Typically, perhaps predictably, development agency officials have blamed these failures on the recipients’ intractable conservatism, which allegedly disposes them to resist new technologies. Emma Crewe has studied one development case in detail, that of energy-efficient cook stoves, and concludes that the real cause of rejection lies in the social constraints of a heterogeneous cadena.39 Designers in the development agencies assumed that there was a need for high-efficiency woodburning stoves (supposedly to stanch deforestation) and so favored this performance characteristic. However, they did not bother to learn that the prospective users preferred quick heating and the ability to simultaneously warm a dwelling. Consequently, cooksâ•›—╛╉who lacked social power in the development processâ•›—╛╉tended to reject the new stoves in favor of traditional ones, for the latter satisfied their performance preferences. This sort of story has been repeated many times. Designers in development agencies hold the bulk of social power on these heterogeneous cadenas and have exercised their virtual autonomy in design decisions without learning aboutâ•›—╛╉much less consideringâ•›—╛╉users’ activities and performance preferences. The many flawed products of everyday life also call attention to communication problems and social power inequalities that can afflict heterogeneous cadenas. Anyone who has scrutinized clothing in the past few decades is aware that supposedly identical shirts or blousesâ•›—╛╉same

Consumers Often Lack Social Power

In studying many of today’s industrial products having very heterogeneous cadenas, we may conclude that consumers’ use- and maintenancerelatedÂ�performance preferences have not been heavily weighted. Immediately I think of plastic Â� cereal and snack packages impossible to open with hands alone, cans of tuna nearly half empty, remote controls with poorly placed keys too small for adult fingers, LCD dashboard displays unreadable in sunlight, incomprehensible instruction manuals, some-assembly-required furniture with parts that do not fit well, pulpy and tasteless tomatoes, and electronic gadgets that confuse the consumer with more features than anyone could possibly desire, much less use. The daily roster of recalled products testifies to more serious design flaws, such as toys with lead-containing paint and appliance wiring that can catch fire. The difference in social power between manufacturers and consumers is also manifest in other design practices. A notorious example is built-in obsolescenceâ•›—╛╉designing products that fail to meet consumer performance preferences after a given time.40 To achieve this result, the designer puts heavy weight on a brief uselife and makes the appropriate technical choices. From the cusÂ�tomer’s standpoint, such products fail prematurely owing to breakage, excessive wear, orâ•›—╛╉when fashions change, perhaps annuallyâ•› —╛╉ inferior symbolic or emotive performance. Another strategy is deceptive design, which employs visual performance to disguise a degraded technofunction. I recently bought a “gallon” bottle of water that appeared to be of normal size but whose capacity was somewhat less than a gallon because its base had a large conical indentation. A generalization that informs deceptive design is that most consumers do not notice minor performance deficiencies as long as the product’s pack112

Development and the Design Process

aging remains the same. Among other kinds of deceptive design are counterfeits and forgeries. In industrial societies, consumers apparently exercise little social power in the design of many products used in everyday life.41

renowned for chasing its tail. The Pluto effect asserts that “competing technologies, in trying to be more attractive in the marketplace, tend to borrow (or steal) each other’s properties and Â�functions.” 44 Consumers have still other ways to acquire some social power. As noted in Chapter 6, Â�users are inventive and so may employ a product in ways that the designer did not anticipate. If taken up by manufacturers, ideas for new uses may influence the design of next-generation products. Similarly, a product that misses the target Â�market may still find uses in the hands of another consumer group. A manufacturer that learns about this curious turn of events may redesign the product so that it more closely matches the new group’s performance preferences. When the SONY Walkmanâ•›—╛╉a play-only machine for cassette tapesâ•› —╛╉ went to market in 1979, it was aimed at affluent adults, a market it penetrated poorly. After learning that the product appealed to young people, SONY redesigned it for that group, making it much more compact, and sold it with great success.45 Both unanticipated uses and unexpected user groups can lead to product differentiation. In order for consumers to exercise such social power, the designer must diligently obtain highquality feedback from postmanufacture activities. Googling the phrase “we listen to consumers” receives an extraordinary number of hits (try it!). But for some companies, this is no more than an advertising slogan. Indeed, manufacturers may be aware of consumer preferences and the product’s actual performance but not use the information. It had been known since 1902 that automobile seat belts save lives. In that year, the Baker “Road Torpedo,” an electric race car that reached 70 mph, stumbled on streetcar tracks and crashed into a crowd of onlookers. One spectator was killed, but the belted-in occupants emerged unscathed.46 Even at this early date, a freshman physics Â�student could have explained why seat belts are a good idea. Yet, decade after decade, American carmakers resisted entreaties from consumer advocates to install seat belts despite estimates that this simple and inexpensive component would save thousands of lives annually. Not until forced by legislation in the 1960s did American companies include seat belts as standard equipment. In the case of seat belts and, later, shoulder harnesses

Some Groups Can Acquire Social Power

Anthropologists have long noted that from the user’s standpoint, most products in traditional societies perform their functions reasonably well.42 That is because the cadenas are relatively homogeneous: often the designer, manufacturer, and user are the same person. As a result, feedback from postmanufacture activities is immediate and of high quality, especially if the product’s uselife is short. And in a completely homogeneous cÂ� adena, social power differences do not enter into the design process. A company that conscientiously obtains feedback from people who actually use and maintain their products, especially those made year after year, may heavily weight consumer performance preferences. Some years ago, Mennen began making a deodorant called the “Speed Stick.” The plastic dispenser contained a sharp part that became exposed when the contents were running low. As that part came into contact with an armpit, it abraded and scratched the sensitive skin. This design was finally replaced by one with a more rounded shape that did not injure the user. Apparently, feedback from consumersâ•›—╛╉perhaps even Mennen executives and designersâ•›—╛╉influenced the revised design. Companies that make the same product year after year may solicit feedback and give greater weight to consumer preferences.43 This strategy may be a necessity when there are many competing products. Designers also take cues about consumer preferences from the success of products made by other manufacturers. A recent example comes from computer operating systems: the mimicry by Microsoft’s Windows of the user-friendly interface of Apple systems. This process may go through many iterations, with manufacturers going back and forth, borrowing design features from each other, perhaps in the course of peer competitions. Gijs Mom, in his study of early European electric vehicles, calls this process the Pluto effect, named for the Disney cartoon dog 113

Chapter 8

and air bags, consumers have acquired power by forming advocacy groups, using the mediaâ•›—╛╉including consumer-oriented magazinesâ•›—╛╉to publicize their causes, and lobbying Congress and state legislatures. Clearly, organized action can sometimes empower consumers and affect product design. Other groups in an artifact’s cadena have also acquired power through political action or the efforts of third-party advocates. Laborers in mines, factories, and construction have sometimes been harmed by workplace technologies. The largescale mechanization of manufacturing, beginning with spinning and weaving in the late eighteenth century, made many craft skills obsolete and turned workers into machine tenders. In having to respond to their machine’s relentless motions, workers also became robotic, a turn of events satirized in Charlie Chaplin’s silent movie Modern Times (1936) and before that in René Clair’s À Nous la Liberté (1931).47 The Luddite movement was a reaction to job loss and dehumanized work, as were labor unions, but the latter were a more effective way for workers to gain some power over the design of factory processes. Beyond the tedium and demoralization of much mechanized work, some occupations involved inhaling asbestos, coal or silica dust, or toxic gases, with long-term catastrophic effects on health; other workers were harmed by daily contact with chemicals such as benzene, lead, and mercury; still others suffered high injury rates from working in tall buildings or on bridges without nets or restraints or from operating dangerous machines such as stamping presses that lacked automatic safety shutoffs. Workplace safety and health were not issues that many manufacturers took seriously until labor unions, U.S. government agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (established only in 1971), environmental groups, and trial lawyers began to flex their muscles in support of workers. The result has sometimes been the redesign of manufacturing equipment, processes, and workplaces to better meet workers’ performance preferences; but changes are hard-won, and power struggles continue. Governments, corporations, and voluntary associations, ostensibly acting on behalf of con-

sumers, may have the power to specify technical choices for some technologies. During the mid– nineteenth century, when a host of new technologies were being developed for steamships, British naval architects and shipbuilders complained about the regulations set forth by the Board of Trade, a government department, and by Lloyd’s of London, the venerable insurance syndicate.48 Antiquated, counterproductive specifications, it was said, impeded the adoption of safety-╉ promotingÂ�materials and processes, such as the use of iron frames in wooden vessels. Ships are not the only technologies whose designs have been affected by regulations. Many countries and localities specify, in minute detail, technical choices for processing foodstuffs, erecting structures, and so forth. Similarly, professional Â�societies may affect designs by defining “best practice,” to which their members are expected to conform. Regardless of whether such rules, regulations, and professional standards actually enhance product performance, they doâ•›—╛╉as social constraintsâ•›—╛╉affect designs. In recent years, designers have faced demands to take into account the preferences of groups not previously considered because they had been essentially powerless, even voiceless. These groups usually participate in activities on convergent and divergent segments of the product’s behavioral chain. To wit, workers who process raw materials, handle waste products of manufacturing, or recycle the final product may be exposed to hazards. Sometimes these activities transpire in impoverished communities in distant lands, such as ship breaking in Bangladesh. To redress the power imbalance, groups have formed in industrial nations that pressure manufacturers to redesign their processes and products. Responding to these pressures and perhaps to unfavorable publicity, computer makers Apple and HewlettPackardÂ�reduced their use of hazardous materials and increased the recyclability of components. And, as of 2008, both firms were accepting and recycling their used products.49 Similarly, humanitarian groups have been educating multinational corporations about sweatshops and enslaved laborers in their foreign suppliers’ factories. After a long campaign by student groups and others, Nike Company, the world’s largest maker of sports apparel, agreed to 114

Development and the Design Process

monitor its factories abroad and to contract only with firms that treated workers humanely. The result was the redesign and restructuring of some manufacture processes. Nike responded to these pressures because student sit-ins and boycotts had focused public attention on the company’s unsavory practices, which threatened its lucrative contracts with universities. The Internet has given grassroots organizations a way to influence product design. Medical research had shown that trans fat (highly processed fat) harms the human cardiovascular system. In 2003, the Internet-based organization BanTransFats.com sued Kraft to remove trans fat from its popular Oreo cookies.50 Kraft complied and also modified the recipes of additional products; other companies followed, no doubt fearful of lawsuits and negative publicity. To encourage the revision of recipes, New York City and the state of California banned the use of trans fat in restaurants. And as information about the dangers of trans fat reached the general public, many health-conscious people altered home-cooked meals. Clearly, grassroots organizations that advocate for workers, consumers, and “invisible” groups can acquire social power and influence product and process design. In studying modern products in capitalist industrial societies, we need to include such groups in a product’s cadena and in assessments of the social constraints that affected the designer’s technical choices.

high-quality evidence abounds, a performance preference matrix helps us to organize the information, which may expose gaps and disclose unsuspected patterns. In a p erformance p reference m atrix, t he r esearcher s ets f orth i nferences a bout t he p erformance preferences of e ach cad ena g roup. These preferences are juxtaposed with the performance characteristics of the product itself. In the completed matrix, we seek patterns indicating which groups’ preferences were heavily weighted and thus favored in the design. Drawing on the enginÂ� eering science that the designer likely employed, we assess the interplay of technical and social constraints and the exercise of social power. To illustrate this process, I draw on the contrived information in the automobile example above. In assembling a matrix, the first task is to identify relevant cadena groups and approximate their performance preferences. The next step is to infer the product’s actual performance characteristics. After assembling this information, we can format the performance matrix in several ways. In Table 8.1 the rows consist of performance characteristics, and the columns are cadena groups ordered by life history activities; at their intersection is my inference as to the strength of a group’s preference (positive or negative) for that performance characteristic, with values ranging from –1 (some antipathy) to +3 (highly preferred). Blank spaces indicate a lack of preferenceâ•›—╛╉i.e., indifference. The final column is the product’s actual performance characteristics. In devising a format for the matrix, we strive to display the information so that any patterns stand out. Although comparisons can sometimes be made with numerical measures, the most informative patterns should be evident by inspection, for people are especially adept at perceiving patterns in well-presented visual data. Patterns can be accentuated by shuffling the rows and columns. For example, to highlight the similarity in performance preferences among the marketing department, salespersons, and consumers, these three columns can be placed adjacent to one another. Let us now turn to major patterns in the automobile matrix: 1. Referring to the matrix as a whole, the

The Performance Preference Matrix

It is often difficult to obtain strong evidence about how designers actually crafted compromises. However, examples from earlier in this chapter imply that a product itself along with inferences about its activity context can be studied to discern the influence of cadena groups on the design. Indeed, when appropriately interrogated, the product can testify to the trade-offs occasioned by technical and social constraints. A product-focused study employs a performance preference matrix constructed on the basis of all available information about the product and its societal context, supplemented by inferences that may be no more than guesstimates. When 115

Chapter 8 Table 8.1. Performance Preference Matrix for a Small American Family Sedan.

Cadena Groupa Performance Characteristic

A

Affordability of Parts Manufacture with Existing Resources

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

3 3

Ease of Assembly

Final Designb

3 3

3

3

3

Reliability

2 2

Affordable Replacement Parts

1

3

–1

3

3

2

–1

2

–1

3

3

1

Easily Diagnosed Problems

3

2

3

3

3

3

2

Ease of Making Repairs

3

2

3

3

3

3

2

–1

3

3

1

Inexpensive Repairs

1

2

Affordable Purchase Price

3

3

3

3

2

Fuel Economy

2

3

3

3

2

Acceleration

2

2

1

2

2

Handling

2

2

1

2

1

Interior Comfort

2

2

1

2

2

Many Standard Accessories

3

3

2

2

Roomy Trunk

2

2

2

1

Distinctive Appearance

3

3

2

2

Profitability

3

Salability

3

3

3

3

2

3

3

3

A = Car Company’s Chief Executives; B = Purchasing Department; C = Manufacturing Executives; D = Assemblers; E = Marketing Department; F = Car Dealer Executives; G = Salespersons; H = Service Department Executives; I = Mechanics; J = Fleet Buyers; K = Family Buyers; –1 = Not Favored; 1 = Slightly Favored; 2 = Moderately Favored; 3 = Strongly Favored.

a

b







1 = Slightly Weighted; 2 = Moderately Weighted; 3 = Strongly Weighted.

groups in this heterogeneous cadena exhibit varied performance preferences. 2. As already noted, the marketing department, salespeople, and consumers have �similar performance preferences. 3. Chief executives of the car company and of the dealership both have limited performance preferences, but they converge on profitability and salability. 4. Other groups, such as assemblers and mechanics, have several performance preferences that reflect concerns about their mechanical interactions with parts. 5. Some groups have opposite preferences for the same performance characteristic. Thus, service department executives want pricey

replacement parts, whereas salespeople and customers prefer cheap ones. 6. Not surprisingly, the final design is a compromise tilted toward manufacturers, in that many user-related performance preferences are only slightly favored. The reader is no doubt aware that these patterns result from my decisions, inferences, and judgments. Thus, the question arises: Can other people construct a matrix so different from mine that the patterns would also differ? Other �researchers could of course discern varied numbers and kinds of groups, their performance preferences, and so forth. Nonetheless, I expect that matrices constructed without a ruling hypoth116

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esis or overriding theoretical agenda might differ in details but would exhibit the same major patterns. The most robust patterns should persist despite endless tinkering. In any event, others could dispute the conclusions by constructing their own matrix.

the actual performance characteristics as inferred from the final product. 9. Compare the performance preferences of each group with those of other groups and with the product’s actual performance characteristics. 10. Identify patterns in the performance matrix that might indicate which groups, by virtue of their social power, had more influence on the weighting of the product’s performance characteristics. 11. On the basis of 1–10, above, explain the designer’s technical choices.

A Research Strategy

From our present-day vantage point, the design process must often be treated as a black box having a tangible output: a product with particular formal properties and performance characteristics. The major inputs are the designer’s engineering science and cadena groups’ performance preferences and relative social power. The following tasks can contribute inferences needed to explain a product’s design: 1. Analyze the product’s formal properties and infer from them the designer’s technical choices. 2. Employing diverse lines of contextual evidence, infer the product’s techno-, socio-, ideo-, and emotive functions, paying close attention to specific interactions in life history activities. 3. With varied lines of contextual evidence and perhaps experiments, infer the product’s actual performance characteristics. 4. Become familiar with the engineering science that the designer likely employed; in some cases experiments will be required. Consider the possibility that some generalizations might have been flawed, superannuated, and so on. 5. Employing information about the product’s societal context, delineate relevant groups on the product’s cadena and infer each group’s performance preferences. 6. Evaluate the possible effects of social boundaries and communication technologies on flows of information from cadena groups to the designer about performance preferences and about the performance of long-lived technologies. 7. Identify the technical constraints that influenced the designer’s technical choices. 8. Construct a performance preference matrix by assigning values to the strength of each group’s preferences. The matrix also includes

Studying Design Change

When a product in a technological tradition changes, we want to learn why. The usual focus is on sequential forms, such as the annual changes in an automobile model or a tribal society’s new cooking pots or dwellings. The most general answer to the “why” question is already at hand: designers, in making technical choices, respond to changes in (1) the activities, performance preferences, and relative social power of cadena groups and (2) the availability of new resources, including engineering science. Let me illustrate this with a simple case introduced in Chapter 7, the transition in house forms in the prehistoric American Southwest.51 Pithouse to Pueblo in the American Southwest

Let us assume that the cadena is homogeneous: a family carries out all activities on the dwelling’s behavioral chain.52 On the basis of this simplification, we can compare the performance characteristics of both pithouses and pueblos and estimate how heavily they were weighted in each design. Table 8.2 indicates that the weightings differ greatly and are patterned. In pithouses, Â�manufacture-╉related performance characteristics were heavily weighted, but use- and maintenancerelatedÂ�ones were not; in pueblos this pattern was reversed. Fortunately, more than a century of archaeological research enables us to infer some of the altered societal factors that brought about this design change; we can also infer the performance characteristics of pithouses and pueblos. Societal changes included greater dependence on agriculture, which necessitated moreâ•›—╛╉and 117

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As suggested in Chapter 7, the new technoscience would have accumulated through experiments carried out by people in different communities (i.e., distributed development), which could be readily disseminated through social networks. As a consequence, the new technoscience became widely known, including the technical constraints that dwelling designers had to respect. To wit, it was impossible, in view of available resources, to design a dwelling that satisfied all manufacture, maintenance, and use-relatedÂ�performance preferences. Given that a host of postmanufacture performance characteristics were now heavily weighted, the Â�designer’s technical choices had to compromise those related to manufacture. Thus, under the new societal conditions, a serviceable dwelling, the pueblo, required much more effort to build than the pithouse. The added effort was judged to be an acceptable trade-off for gains in postmanufacture performance characteristics. The pithouse was well suited for seasonally mobile families that depended little on farming, whereas the pueblo was more suitable for villagers who had committed to a less mobile farming lifeway. By framing the change in dwellings as a question about design, the researcher focuses on the designer’s acquisition and use of engineering science in fashioning a set of technical choicesâ•›—╛╉a new designâ•›—╛╉that respects technical constraints. The reader can surely imagine a more complex example in which heterogeneous cadenas, communication problems, and social constraints also influenced the designer’s decisions. A technological change involving a completely homogeneous cadena can also be studied as an adoption process (see Chapter 10), where the emphasis is on explaining consumer decisions, such as whether to acquire a pithouse or pueblo.

Table 8.2. Performance Preference Matrix Comparing Pithouse and Pueblo Dwellings of the Prehistoric American Southwest.

Weightinga Performance Characteristic

Pithouse

Pueblo

Easily Obtained Materials

3

1

Easily Prepared Materials

2

1

Ease of Assembly

3

1

Good Thermal Insulation

2

2

Interior Storage Space

1

3

Total Floor Space

1

3

Easily Subdivided

–1

3

Easy to Add On

–1

3

Reusable Components

1

3

Easily Maintained

1

3

–1

3

Long Uselife

–1 = Unweighted; 1 = Slightly Weighted; 2 = Moderately Weighted; 3 = Strongly Weighted.

a

higher-qualityâ•›—╛╉interior storage space for seed, crops, and new ritual paraphernalia; greater longevity of settlements, which called for easily maintained dwellings with longer uselives; and changes in family size and composition during a dwelling’s use, which favored a design that could be easily subdivided and could also accommodate growth. These new conditions caused families to alter their dwellings’ performance requirements. Coeval with these changes was growth in engineering scienceâ•›—╛╉technoscience in particularâ•› —╛╉ as different groups began to experiment with new materials and tools, such as logs that had to be cut to accurate lengths and debarked to make roof beams and sandstone or limestone blocks that had to be shaped and sized for walls. Experiments were also carried out on different ways to Â�assemble the structural components, which created a variety of uncommon dwelling types, including so-called transitional forms. And the people learned about the amount and kinds of labor as well as specific skills required to build each type. After construction, the new dwellings were tried out in daily activities. Consequently, information accrued about maintenance requirements and how long each structure type might last with normal use and regular maintenance.

Summary

The study of design focuses on understanding how the designer arrived at a product’s specific sequence of technical choicesâ•›—╛╉i.e., procurement and manufacture activities. Embodied in recipes, these decisions depend in part on the designer’s engineering science. The generalizations of engineering scienceâ•›—╛╉techno-, socio-, ideo-, and emotive scienceâ•›—╛╉describe the effects of specific technical choices on a product’s properties and 118

Development and the Design Process

performance characteristics throughout the activities of its behavioral chain. Engineering science informs the designer of what is possible and, on the basis of technical constraints, what is impossible performance-wise. The designer also responds to available information about the �activity-╉specific performance preferences of cadena groups. In socially heterogeneous cadenas, the groups often have varying performance preferences and also differ in social power. The designer usually gives weight to the performance preferences of the groups having the most social power. Because of technical and social constraints, every design is a compromise.

A tool for studying product design is the performance preference matrix, which displays the inferred strength of each group’s performance preference in relation to its activities. With this tool, we can compare the performance preferences among groups and also discern the pattern of compromises present in the final design. On this foundation we add other lines of evidence and fashion an explanation for the Â�designer’s technical choices. A performance preference matrix also allows us to investigate changes in a product’s sequential designs.

Notes 11. Petroski’s (1985:49) usage of the term engineering science is somewhat narrower than mine. 12. Technoscience has several meanings in modern scholarship. In archaeology its usage, as defined here, begins with Schiffer and Skibo 1987; see also Schiffer 1992a. 13. See, e.g., Schiffer, Skibo, et al. 1994. 14. Crabtree and Butler 1964. 15. Socioscience is defined in Schiffer 1992a:134–135. 16. See Schiffer 1992a:Chapter 7. 17. Clark 1986. 18. Miller 2007:213–217. Her (2007:215) Figure 6.5 is an example of the diagram. 19. Ideoscience is defined in Schiffer 1992a:137–138. 20. An archaeological work on the semiotics of artifacts is Preucel 2006. 21. Boivin 2008. 22. Nye 1994. 23. On the Great Eastern, see Beaver 1969 and Dugan 1953. 24. Boivin 2008:114. 25. In the behavioral theory of communication, groupspecific generalizations are called “correlons” (Schiffer and Miller 1999). 26. Aitken 1976. 27. On the experiments of Barlow and Henry, see Schiffer 2008a:43–46. 28. Burke 1966 presents the boiler example, discussing the lack of operation- and maintenance-related technoscience. 29. Life 1945. The story of this radio is told in Schiffer 1991:161–169. 30. Petroski 2009. 31. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=╉3mclp9╉Q╉ mCGs, accessed June 9, 2009. 32. See Levitsky and Petroski 2009:180–181.

1. Modern works on design include Fielding 1999 on aircraft, Hylton 2008 on furniture, Rombauer et al. 2006 on food, and Webb and Jones 2004 on lasers. 2. Crilly et al. 2008 advocates a communication interpretation of design. Love 2002 argues the need for a cross-disciplinary theory of design. 3. This chapter draws upon McGuire and Schiffer 1983; Schiffer and Skibo 1987, 1997; and Skibo and Schiffer 2008. Skibo and Schiffer 2001 is a reader-friendly version of the behavioral design framework. Dovetailing with the behavioral framework are Petroski’s (1985, 1996) general books on design. Additional archaeological studies of design include Adams 1999; Bleed 1986; Carr 1995; Hayden et al. 1996; Horsfall 1987; Kingery 2001; Kuhn 1994; Nelson 1991, 1997; O’Brien et al. 1994; and Piper 2002. Katz 1997 introduces issues relevant to design studies in the history of technology. 4. As Petroski notes, “All design involves conflicting objectives and hence compromise” (1996:30). See also Crilly et al. 2009. 5. On relationships among technical choices, formal properties, and performance characteristics, see Schiffer and Skibo 1987, 1997. 6. Varien and Mills 1997. 7. Anthropological works on the knowledge in technology include Hutchins 1995; Keller and Keller 1996; Schiffer 1992a:Chapter 7; Schiffer and Miller 1999; and Stout 2002. On the transmission of knowledge in technological traditions, see, e.g., Crown 2001; Minar and Crown 2001; O’Brien 2008; Schiffer and Skibo 1987, 1997; Shennan 2009; and Tehrani and Riede 2008. 8. See Bleed 1991 on modeling of failure modes. 9. Schiffer and Skibo 1997. 10. Young et al. 2009. 119

Chapter 8 33. Petroski 1985. 34. On the Atlantic cable, see, e.g., Dibner 1959; Hearn 2004; Schiffer 2008a:Chapter 17. 35. Enserink 2006. 36. McGuire and Schiffer 1983; see also Schiffer 1992a. 37. Halberstam 1986 inspired this example. This behavioral chain is actually truncated, for it ends at the first user, neglecting groups that take part in lateral cycling (exchange of used products) and recycling. 38. See http://www.nasm.si.edu/events/spaceage/hub╉ ble╉.htm, accessed September 3, 2008; see also Zimmerman 2008. 39. Crewe 1997. I have put her analysis into behavioral terms. 40. Slade 2006 defines several kinds of built-in obsolescence. 41. Norman 1988 discusses the poor design of many everyday products from the consumer standpoint. 42. Mason 1895. 43. Petroski makes a similar point: “the mass-produced mechanical or electronic object undergoes some of its debugging and evolution after it is offered to the consumer” (1985:26).

44. Mom 2004:5. 45. On the SONY Walkman, see Morita et al. 1986. 46. Schiffer, Butts, and Grimm 1994:83–84. 47. On the turn toward mechanization, Giedion’s (1948) perceptive work remains a classic. Hounshell 1984 surveys the mechanization of American manufacturing. Kinney 2004 focuses on American carriages, emphasizing variability in the adoption of mechanization. 48. Prominent shipbuilders expressing these views included Murray (1861) and Russell (1864). 49. See http://www.apple.com/environment/, accessed December 11, 2008; http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/glo╉ balcitizenship/environment/recycle/index.html, accessed December 11, 2008. 50. See http://www.bantransfats.com/index.html, accessed September 15, 2008. 51. For other analyses of prehistoric design change, see Adams 1999 on ground stone and Hughes 1998 on projectile points. 52. We could complicate this example by assuming that men and women of the household have different performance preferences and vary in social power.

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9

Manufacture

The development of a manufacture-ready design is a milestone in a technology’s life cycle, for this is when entrepreneurs, capitalists, and existing manufacturers (if not already involved) may join the promoters and begin production. However, in technologies having a totally homogeneous Â�cadena, such as many craft products in traditional societies as well as do-it-yourself items and some artworks in industrial societies, the transition from design to manufacture is seamless, requiring no new groups. If production does proceed, the technology becomes available to consumers. This chapter highlights product manufacture, but the generalizations and heuristics apply broadly to other technologies. Research on manufacture has two major goals. The first is to explain the promoter’s decision to put a design into production (or to increase, scale back, or end production). Whether village Â�artisan or factory owner, a promoter forecasts how a product’s anticipated performance cÂ� haracteristics will relate to the acquisition and postacquisition activities of specific consumer groups. This furnishes the basis for estimating potential adoptions. The promoter also estimates the kinds and quantities of resources needed to gear up production. On these bases a decision is made. In capitalist industrial societies, even many well-designed products are not manufactured, and most products find few customers. Evidently, forecasts of resource needs and consumer behaviorâ•›—╛╉even when the latter are based on focus groups, questionnaires, and other marketing techniquesâ•›—╛╉are

often inaccurate. And, of course, in making and acting on these forecasts, promoters may have relied on their own hunches and wishful thinkingâ•› —╛╉ seemingly beyond rational explanation.1 Copycat producers, however, may learn that a new product does have considerable consumer appeal and can more readily determine resource needs. Thus, the recurrent decisions of copycat producers are more readily explained than the first manufacturer’s singular decision. In explaining a decision, we seek information on the production process and its resource needs, as well as on the contextual factors that might have influenced the promoter’s anticipation of adoptions. Accordingly, this chapter preÂ� sents generalizations, strategies, and heuristics for obtaining and assessing relevant information, particularly about technologies that reached consumers. The second major goal is to document and explain changes in specific production processes. In effect, we are trying to explain why a manufacturer adopted a different way of making the product. Accordingly, explaining such decisions may also require the use of generalizations and heuristics that treat adoption processes (see Chapter 10). In studying aggregate technologies, we have great flexibility in grouping products at many scales, bounded by any combination of Â�temporal, spatial, or organizational criteria. My projects have mainly been at intermediate and higher scales, including domestic dwellings in the prehistoric American Southwest, aboriginal cooking 121

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pots in the southeastern United States, American electric automobiles made before World War II, and all electrical technologies of the eighteenth century. I gravitate toward these scales because they reflect the kinds of patternsâ•›—╛╉created by recurrent decisionsâ•›—╛╉that are discernible in both the historical and archaeological records. Seeking Evidence on Product Manufacture

We usually begin by asking basic questions: When was the product manufactured? Which groups manufactured it? What were the manufacture processes? Or was it manufactured at all? Answers to these questions are the starting point for explaining why the technology was or was not put into production. The archaeological record furnishes ample evidence for inferring the manufacture processes of well-preserved artifact types. And in the deposits of small-scale, traditional societies, these remains are often reasonably accessible. The repertoire of methods and techniques for inferring manufacture processes is large and expands yearly.2 Analytical techniques are also available for identifying production locations and, given strong chronological evidence, inferring the beginning and ending dates of a product’s manufacture s pan. These inferences are often organized by means of partial behavioral chains and flow models, which usually include failure modes that generate specific kinds of waste products, such as broken bifaces and shattered pots.3 This suite of specialized studies lays a foundation for explaining production decisions.4 Learning about commercialized Â�technologies from the historical record may require painstaking research to track down and interpret highly dispersed lines of evidence. The Â�strongest evidence lies in surviving examples of the product Â� itself, which can be analyzed by an array of hisÂ�torical and archaeological techniques. In gathering evidence from documents, we often obtain information about the technology’s manufacture span as well as manufacture-, use-, and Â�maintenance-╉ relatedÂ�performance characteristics. I now turn to a study of the shirt-pocket radio with subminiature vacuum tubes, which introduces heuristics for finding and evaluating evidence on manÂ� ufacture.

In discussing the shirt-pocket radio as a cultural imperative (Chapter 5), I showed how a constituency of electrical enthusiasts employed generation after generation of new components to make their pet product. One finding was that shirt-pocket radios containing subminiature vacuum tubes had actually entered production. This was surprising because histories of electronic miniaturization made no mention of such products; even the author of an authoritative history of vacuum tubes doubted that they had ever been employed in home radios.5 It was so widely assumed that the transistor alone made possible radios of shirt-pocket size that, at the outset of my project on portable radios, even I believed it. However, a pair of postwar ads in electrical engineering journals piqued my curiosity. In fullpage displays, Raytheon and Sylvania promised that their subminiature tubes now made possible an array of miniaturized products, including shirt-pocket radios.6 The Sylvania ad even illustrated a prototype held in a woman’s hands. Knowing that these radios, if they had been produced, were a minor and short-lived genre, I made a special effort to find them. After all, such radios would call into question the facile notion of a “transistor revolution” that pervades many histories of consumer electronics. Finding these sets would strongly imply that miniaturized radios of all kindsâ•›—╛╉and probably televisionsâ•›—╛╉would have been manufactured and marketed without transistors (given prevailing social processes).7 Pathways to the Present

Whether one is seeking evidence about the manufacture of a rare or common commercial product, the same general strategy is applicable. To wit, after delineating processes in the product’s life history, we conceive each process as a generator of materials potentially leading to the historical and/or archaeological records. Such a thought exercise aids in tracking down surviving materials. Any process (or specific activity) may initiate pathways to the present, creating a line of evidence for inference.8 In addition to the product itself, this evidence may consist of people whose recollections can be accessed as oral history, written and published materials in which the target product is represented, and other artifacts. In factories, manufacture yields not only the product but

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also discarded wastes, worn-out tools and machine parts, and production records (which may be retained in company archives or in museums). Likewise, the continuing use of, say, Colgate toothpaste contributes empty boxes, depleted tubes, and occasionally a toothbrush containing residues. A well-supported inference about manufacture usually requires multiple lines of evidence or one line of evidence that is especially strong. Reuse processes such as secondary use, curation, and inheritance contribute to the formation of the historical record. Indeed, reuse encompasses any activity that results in the retention of materials that might otherwise have been discarded, preventing themâ•›—╛╉at least temporarilyâ•›—╛╉from entering the archaeological record. Depositional processes, which directly contribute artifacts to the archaeological record, include discard, loss, abandonment, ritual deposition, and disposal of the dead. The historical and archaeological records tend to be complementary. Thus, few reuse processes result in the retention of empty toothpaste tubes and boxes, for they are rapidly discarded and enter landfills. Likewise, valuable jewelry is mainly reused; only jewelry that was lost or that accompanied the dead is apt to enter today’s landfills or cemeteries. Needless to say, various cultural and, especially, environmental processesâ•›—╛╉from fires, to volcanic flows, to fungal attackâ•›—╛╉cause damage to, and depletions from, both the historical and archaeological records. Generalizations that describe patterns in reuse and depositional processes permit the researcher to identify people, organizations, and locations where relevant lines of evidence might be found.9 In Search of Pocket Radios with Subminiature Tubes

I illustrate this research process by returning to the case study of pocket radios with subminiature tubes. The first priority was to learn which companies made them and when. I also wanted to ascertain their performance characteristics along with target and actual markets, hoping to explain why consumers largely shunned them. I began with the assumption that these radios would have been made between about 1945 and 1960, and this period guided my search of pub123

lished sources. Let us now turn to the pathways and lines of evidence.10 I wrote to Raytheon and Sylvania, hoping that these firms might have conserved documents about the use of their tubes in actual products. The Sylvania inquiry turned up nothing. Raytheon passed my letter along to Norman Krim, a retired engineer who had developed subminiature tubes before the war for hearing aids and after the warâ•›—╛╉as a member of the shirt-pocket radio constituencyâ•›—╛╉promoted their use in such sets. In interviews with Krim, I learned about Raytheon’s efforts to use subminiature tubes in consumer products. Faced with a massive postwar capacity to churn out these components (hundreds of millions had been used in the proximity fuses of bombs and artillery shells) and an incentiveâ•›—╛╉a 90 percent excess profits taxâ•›—╛╉to invest in new products, Raytheon was searching for ones that could incorporate their tiny tubes. And so, receptive to Krim’s urging, the firm developed and brought to market the world’s first shirt-pocket radio, the Belmont Boulevard (Figure 8.6). Krim also recalled that at least one other company, Emerson, had used the Raytheon tubes somewhat later in a larger pocket radio. This encouraged me to explore additional pathways, on the assumption that some of these sets had reached consumers. By 1988, when I began my research, most American radio makers had gone out of business, dropped consumer electronics, or sold out to foreign firms. I assumed that documentary evidence from defunct radio makers would have been discarded or would be too dispersed to find. In retrospect, I should have tried harder to locate manufacture-related materials held by collectors or archives. Marketing activities also initiate pathways to the present. Trade magazines with new product information aimed at manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers are an important line of evidence. Regrettably, most of these periodicals are discarded after use and are uncommon in libraries. Fortunately, the Crerar Library at the University of Chicago holds the most important magazine, Radio Retailing, which I consulted. I also found in several libraries additional trade and technical periodicals, such as Electronic Industries and

Chapter 9

Radio and Television News, and sample searched their pages. Hobbyist magazines including Popular Science, Radio Craft, and Popular Electronics were likely discarded after use, but some were found in libraries and searched. Ads, blurbs, and articles in these periodicals brought to light a number of short-lived companies on the entrepreneurial fringe that had been organized to manufacture and sell shirt-pocket radios, usually through the mail. When such companies go out of business, often in obscurity, libraries and archives seldom seek their records, which, unless intercepted by family members or collectors, end up recycled or in landfills. My limited inquiries turned up nothing. Traces of major companies’ direct marketing to consumers were sought in newspapers and mass-circulation magazines. Fortunately, libraries commonly retain these periodicals from the postwar period. I intensively searched Colliers, Holiday, Life, and others, but ads for my quarry were as scarce as the proverbial hen’s tooth. Haphazard sampling of newspapers turned up nothing. Happily, many old periodicals can be searched today online. Evaluations of some products are recorded in consumerist magazines, which are found in many libraries. Consumer Reports and Â�Consumers’ Research Bulletin were exhaustively searched, which yielded several of the radios. These magazines were useful for learning about sound quality (mediocre) and battery economy (terrible) and for sampling attitudes toward these radios (largely unfavorable). Several pathways may be initiated after a consumer product can no longer perform its original functions. Many owners, finding after a few years that small battery-powered radios are difficult and costly to repair, would have discarded the dead sets. Even working radios might have been thrown away after the novelty wore off or after owners bought transistor radios with much better battery economy and that high-tech luster. Other owners might have given their old radios to young electronics enthusiasts or to charitable organizations for resale at thrift shops or rummage sales; but many of these, too, would have eventually been disassembled or discarded. Digging in landfills for shirt-pocket radios was of course out of the question, for the sites are largely inac-

cessible to archaeological inquiry, and there is no reliable way to find artifacts so rare and so widely scattered. In a few cases, people who valued the radios for socio-, ideo-, and emotive functions, perhaps having received them as gifts from a loved one, might have kept their radios, even nonplaying ones. Upon the owner’s death, the radios might have been inherited by relatives or friends or sold at an estate sale. These reuse pathways, however, do not furnish readily accessible evidence because the artifacts, especially rare ones, are so dispersed. Fortunately, other reuse processesâ•›—╛╉particularly collecting behavior by people and organizationsâ•›—╛╉tend to concentrate rare products, forming assemblages where researchers can find them. By the early 1980s, radio collecting had become a hobby popular with thousands of Americans. Collectors badgered friends and relatives for their old radios; they also scoured flea markets, antique and thrift shops, yard and estate sales, auctions, and so on. Given this high level of effort, a few collectors were apt to encounter the rarest sets, even those with subminiature tubes. As a participant-observer in the radio collector community, I targeted my peers as a potential source of evidence. I wrote to clubs listed in Antique Radio Classified and Radio Age, asking for information about the radios, and several clubs published my inquiry in their newsletters. I also advertised in these magazines, offering to buy the sets themselves. These tactics paid off. A handful of people wrote with descriptions of their radios, some furnished copies of documentary information, and a few even sold me their sets. In addition, I sent letters to technology museums that claimed substantial radio holdings. Not one reported having a pocket radio with subminiature tubes; however, my canvassing of museums was incomplete. Maintenance processes also create pathways to the present. During the late 1940s and 1950s, radio and television service shops subscribed to Howard W. Sams Photofacts. Photofacts published pictures of home electronic products, including an interior view of the chassis, along with a circuit diagram and parts list. Over the decades, with the coming of highly reliable solid-state electronics, most of these businesses expired, and their Photofacts were either discarded or transferred

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to hobbyists and radio collectors. From the latter I was able to acquire some relevant folders. Later I encountered an index to all Photofacts and could seek the folders for additional sets that I had learned about first through other lines of evidence. Regrettably, a complete set of Photofactsâ•›—╛╉the single most valuable line of evidence on the technologies of postwar American consumer electronic productsâ•›—╛╉is held by precious few libraries. In studying artifacts of the recent period, we may be able to track down and interview a few people who were involved in a product’s design, manufacture, sale, repair, and use. In addition to Norman Krim, I located several people by visiting repair shops, and I also interviewed a retired salesman (my father); from them I secured a small sample of attitudes and recollections. An elderly engineer at Zenith Electronics told me that he, and presumably other engineers trained in the same era, viewed shirt-pocket radios as a Â�novelty itemâ•›—╛╉a “toy”â•›—╛╉that did not perform nearly as well as larger sets. Such assessments perhaps contributed to the lack of copycats among major radio companies immediately after the Belmont Boulevard’s debut. By following the diverse pathways created by reuse processes, I was able to assemble a modest body of evidence on the manufacture, performance, and marketing of pocket radios with subminiature tubes. In later years, I learned about additional lines of evidence that might have been consulted. Patent numbers on a product lead to published specifications and dates, which are now available on the Internet through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site and Google Patents. But patents are not a panacea, for they may have had little relation to actual products. Serial numbers may be useful if there is a large sample of the product, say 100 Belmont Boulevards. The highest serial number may sometimes give an indication of total sales, assuming that the manufacturer started at 001 and did not skip large blocks of numbers. Product brochures often contain images, descriptions, and prices; the library of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, has this country’s largest collection. Catalogs of retailers such as Sears, Roebuck and Co. and those of specialty firms such as Allied Radio can also be useful and may be available in 125

some libraries or for purchase on the Internet. Indeed, the first place to search for information on an old product today is the Internet, including the online auction site eBay. Although I overlooked some lines of evidence, what I did find permitted me to piece together a story about this obscure product, which, had the transistor not been commercialized quickly, might have initiated a significant technological tradition, particularly after the advent of conveniently rechargeable batteries. Evaluating Biases: An Evidence Chart

Research on these radios involved varied activities not usually done by one researcher, including participant-observation, oral history, library and archival research, and study of the radios themselves. Had I examined only one line of evidence, most likely I would have obtained a woefully Â�biased sample of sets. Let us look at this claim more closely. By constructing an evidence chart, we can display the sources of information about the radio models and, more importantly, indicate any bÂ� iases in each line of evidence (Table 9.1). Although I did not construct this evidence chart until several years after the original study, this tool may be useful in an ongoing project. At the very least, it would direct us to think systematically about the pathways that led to the product’s representation in present-day evidence. Cognizant of reuse processes, we can determine which lines of evidence might yield the most relevant information and can, by filling in the chart as the project proceeds, identify biases and conspicuous gaps. The postresearch evidence chart helped me to identify patterns in the varied lines of evidence. (I note that after Raytheon’s Belmont Boulevard, only companies on the entrepreneurial fringe made a shirt-pocket-size radio; other sets were a little larger.) An evidence chart may be constructed in many ways, but I prefer the simplest display that reveals patterns. In Table 9.1 the columns are the lines of evidence by type; the rows are radio models, arrayed by groups of manufacturers.11 A dot (•) at the intersection of a row and column indicates that a line of evidence provided information about a particular set. The chart indicates

Table 9.1. Evidence Chart Showing the Representation of Pocket Radios with Subminiature Tubes in Various Lines of Evidence.

Sourcea Radio Model

A

B

• •

• •

C

D

E

F

G

H

• •

• • • • • • • • • •

•

• • • • • • • • • • •

I

Total

Established U.S. Companies Emerson 747 Emerson 838

b

Emerson 856

b

Motorola 45c Westinghouse H508P4 Westinghouse H493P4

• • •

•

•

•

Silvertone 4212

c

•

Crosley JM8b

•

Automatic TT528 Automatic TT600

•

b

•

Firestone 4C28 Firestone 4C29b Belmont Boulevard (5P113)

•

Hoffman BP402

•

•

•

• •

6 5 3 5 3

•

5 2 4 2

•

4 1 1

• •

•

6 2

U.S. Firms on the Fringe

• • • • • •

Ekeradio AM Ekeradio FM Micro AM Micro AM Kit Micro FM Privat-Ear Trans-Mite Micro

•

Hastings FM, Jr. Pocket-Mite

•

•

2 1

• •

2 2 1

•

2 1 1

•

1

•

Florac

• •

Ear-Radio

2 1

German Companies

•

Grundig-Majestic Mini-Boy

•

2

Japanese Companies

• •

Excel KR-451 Koyo Parrot Total

7

7

4

2

10

12

2

22

1 1 3

A = Mass-Circulation Magazines; B = Consumerist Magazines; C = Hobbyist Magazines; D = Surviving Radio Companies; E = Trade and Technical Journals; F = Howard W. Sams Photofacts; G = Oral History; H = Collectors; I = All Others.

a

b

Tube/transistor hybrid.

c

Also contains miniature tubes.

Manufacture

that some lines of evidence yielded rich information, whereas others were relatively barren and/or biased. (The list of radios is probably incomplete but most likely includes all those made by major U.S. companies.) By adding up the entries in the rows, we learn which radios were represented most and which least among the lines of evidence. Many factors could explain a product’s rank on this scale. The Belmont Boulevard’s relatively high score no doubt reflects its novelty, as the first of the genre, and greater effort on my part to find evidence. The high-ranking Emerson 747, which went on sale in 1953, was also a “first” in a sense. Because the Belmont Boulevard had failed to ignite sustained interest in shirt-pocket radios, its marketing ended almost immediately. Perhaps taking a cue from the Belmont’s puny sales along with the belief that such radios were toys, no other major U.S. radio maker offered a set with subminiature tubes until the Emerson 747, which began a modest revival of pocket radios. And so we may suppose that sheer novelty accounts for the documentation of the Belmont and Emerson sets in a variety of print media. The overall low representation of radios made by fringe companies is expectable: they were not distributed through conventional wholesale and retail channels and thus had little visibility. By adding up the columns, we learn which lines of evidence furnished information in the greatest abundance. That collector holdings and expertise stand out as the most plentiful source is a pattern that may hold generally for products that have become consumer collectibles (more on that in the next section). For many reasons, I cannot recommend too strongly the examination of actual products in collections.12 Quality and kind of information also matter, and here my interviews with Krim were crucial. The dominant pattern in the evidence chart is that all lines of evidence, with the exception of collector holdings, were highly biased. MasscirculationÂ�magazines contain only ads and blurbs about radios from major U.S. companies; there is no information about fringe or foreign makers. Consumerist magazines paid little attention to pocket radios, and the rare reviews mainly treated sets from major American firms. Hobbyist

magazines as well as trade and technical journals yielded tidbits about the offerings of U.S. firms, especially those on the fringe, but contained almost nothing about the sets of major American and foreign companies. Photofacts is nearly exhaustive in its inclusion of radios from major U.S. companies, but the products of Japanese and fringe firms are absent. As noted, radios owned by collectors yielded the most representative record, and it was the only source that included the Japanese knockoffs. Had I relied exclusively on mass-circulationÂ� magazines, consumerist magazines, or Â�Photofacts, I would have been unable to tell important parts of the story. To wit, when no major American company was making pocket radios with subminiature tubes between 1946 and 1953, fringe companies were supplying them to a small Â�technology-╉savvy market. And when a few major companies followed Emerson by offering these sets from 1953 to 1956, Japanese firms also played copycat, cloning both the tubes and the radios and exporting them to the United States. Table 9.1 does not denote the kinds of information supplied, but in fact there were marked differences. Magazines, journals, and Photofacts supplied dates of manufacture; the radios themselves usually did not. Evidence for inferring production processes was most abundant in the actual radios and in Photofacts. And ads in masscirculation magazines indicated the major companies’ target markets. Judicious integration of many lines of evidence was necessary for crafting higher-order inferences, such as the size of the total marketâ•›—╛╉it was small. These patterns, qualitative and quantitative, encourage us to follow varied pathways to the dispersed lines of historical evidence that may survive today. Because almost every line of evidence yields biased and/or spotty information, it is important to seek and assess as many lines of evidence as practicable. Nonetheless, a single line of strong evidence can support unequivocal inferences about some activities. In any event, relevant evidence does not respect boundaries between museums and private collections, between technical journals and popular magazines, between documents and commercial products, and between scholars and other people. 127

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Collector Data and Temporal Patterns of Production

Fortunately, the hard work of gleaning nuggets of information about the production of many consumer products has been done already. Antique dealers, easily found on the Internet, are highly knowledgeable in their specialties and may be willing to share information. The production history of many antiques is sometimes richly recounted in specialized books, journals, and magazines. Books on antiques grade imperceptibly into catalogs for collectors, an especially valuable resource. Collectors of everything from automobiles, to Barbie Dolls, to beer cans want to learn about the items they own and others they covet. Questions about a product’s maker, date and place of manufacture, and current value have led energetic collectors and dealers to gather information and assemble catalogs. The best-researched catalogs required many person-years of work, are revised periodically, approach exhaustiveness, and are a matchless resource for answering some questions. The archetypical collector catalog is Scott’s Standard Postage Stamp Catalog, whose first edition was published in the mid–nineteenth century.13 Each edition contains a complete listing and iÂ� mage of every postage stamp issued by every country. There are, perhaps, thousands of published catalogs, but few are found in libraries. We learn about them by conducting Internet searches, which can lead to collectors, collector clubs, publishers, and used copies. I employed collector catalogs in my research on portable radios and on electric automobiles (see the next section). Magazines and journals for collectors may also contain informationâ•›—╛╉sometimes first-person accounts, sometimes authoritative research reportsâ•›—╛╉on products and companies. For example, M.â•›C. Harrold has meticulously chronicled the early history of the American watchmaking industry in the Bulletin of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors.14 Many museum curators conduct extensive research on items held by their institutions and publish the findings. Drawing on varied lines of evidence, Deborah Warner, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution, inferred the manufacture history of the Davis quadrant, “probably the

first mathematical instrument of any kind, produced in America.”15 Portable Radios Patterns in Collector Data

Because collector catalogs document the products that went to market, these data can be aggregated and displayed in graphs that trace temporal change in brands and models. Such graphs are a useful place to start research, for the patterns often suggest q uestions t hat m ay b e pu rsued t hrough other lines of evidence. I began my portable radio project by tabulating data from The Radio Collector’s Directory and Price Guide, 1921–1965.16 Going page by page, I counted the number of different American companies that were producing home radios; then I plotted the yearly totals in a simple graph (Figure 9.1). The ups and downs of such curves generally indicate the degree of enthusiasm manufacturers have for making a product. Production decisions are often influenced by sales of a company’s offerings during prior years. If a product is selling well, the manufacturer may forecast robust sales in the ensuing year and so continue production and marketing. And when a company’s new product enjoys good sales, other companies are apt to offer knockoffs. A marked change in the direction of the curve suggests that many manufacturers are responding to contextual factors, including (1) an expanding or contracting market; (2) a technological change, as in the availability of a new material or component or the shortage of an old one; and (3) societal change such as altered activities or calls for a new status marker. The dramatic leap in the number of radio makers during 1923–1925 indicates the entry into the market of copycat companies, most of them startups. This spurt followed closely, and was stimulated by, the first offerings of RCA-brand home radios, RCA’s reasonable rate for licensing its patents, the ease of evading RCA’s patents, the ready availability of necessary components, a relatively short developmental distance, and the advent of commercial broadcasting. The steep decline from 1925 to 1928, during seemingly prosperous times, represented a shakeout of companies unable to survive in a highly competitive market. The rapid rise and then fall in the number of copycat manu-

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Figure 9.1. The number of U.S. companies producing radios, 1920–1955. Source: Schiffer 1996a.

Figure 9.2. The number of portable radio models produced by U.S. companies, 1920–1955. Source: Schiffer 1996a.

facturers after the appearance of a successful new product is almost an invariant pattern in capitalist industrial societies. The mild spurt in new companies after 1928 is most likely the result of technological and social changes, including increased purchases of radios stimulated by the appearance of national radio networks (NBC and CBS), the 1927 Radio Act that regulated broadcasters so as to reduce interference among stations, easier (one-knob) tuning, and the availability of affordable sets that conveniently ran on house current instead of batteries.17 Although radios continued to sell during the Great Depression, there was a further shake-

out of companies. During the hiatus from 1942 to 1945, factories made military products for the U.S. government. After the war, many new companies anticipated profitable radio sales and began production; this surge in producers was predictably followed by another shakeout in the late 1940s. Research on these general patterns of radio production furnished a context for examining changes in portable radio offerings. Instead of plotting gross numbers of portable radio Â�makers, I obtained from the radio catalog information on the number of different models made (Figure 9.2). Thus, if 35 companies each made three different portable radios in 1939, that year’s total was 105

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models. When these totals were plotted by year, the graph disclosed some steep rises and falls. Focusing on these episodes, I set my research agenda to identify the contextual factors that caused the dramatic swings in production. Because nearly all radios were battery powered prior to 1927, manufacturers had no difficulty designing radios that were portable. They merely had to build into the sets dry batteries. More than 20 companies took advantage of this possibility, but portable radios sold poorly, and so most companies dropped them from their lines, and executives acquired some antipathy to the genre. However, occasionally during the 1927– 1938 period a few firms tried to revive portables, perhaps in response to the availability of new vacuum tubes designed for battery operation. These tubes had been targeted mainly at Â�battery-╉ operatedÂ�“farm” radios, an important genre at a time when many farms lacked electricity. Not until the late 1930s, however, did portable production take off. Explaining the Portable Radio Boom of 1938–1939

I now examine in detail the dramatic surge in portable production during late 1938 and 1939. This example illustrates the kind of contextualized explanations, combining technological and social factors, that can account for changes in production patterns. In addition, it underscores the need to critically assess explanations that the people themselves may have offered.18 The boom in portable radios was attributed by some sources to a significant technological change. In August 1938, Sylvania announced in Electronics “an important contribution to the radio industry,” a new family of battery tubes.19 These were said to be especially appropriate for portables because their 1.4-volt filaments were powered by small dry batteries, and the tubes had low power consumption (all but one was .07 watt). Presumably, these new tubes would spur manufacturers to put out portable models in anticipation of hefty sales. Manufacturers commonly claim in advertising and in press releases that new components or processes have at last enabled a product’s production. However, close examination of the products sometimes discloses little that is new. The actual stories are usually more complicated; and so it was with the Ameri-

can portable radio boom that began at the end of 1938. The late 1930s was a time of great anxiety for Americans as news arrived about Japanese, Italian, and German imperialism. Mass-circulation magazines, newspapers, and the radio networks publicized and interpreted each new aggression. The pace of events quickened as Germany annexed Austria in 1938. In September of that year, leaders of the major European powers met with Hitler at Munich. These events were reported far and wide, and for the first time in history, ordinary people could follow them on radio broadcastsâ•›—╛╉essentially in real time. In England, people could listen to the news on portable radios, an immense variety of which were already being sold in 1938. With war imminent, the portable radio would have seemed a sensible purchase, for it allowed news to be heard almost anywhere, perhaps even in a bomb shelter and in homes with failed power. British manufacturers responded with myriad models. American radio makers, which took part in the World Radio Convention in April 1938, in Sydney, Australia, doubtless noted the Â�booming production of portables in England. Consequently, American companies began to soften their skepticism about the sales potential of this genre; perhaps profits did lie ahead. Given the state of engineering science and the resources available to major companies, including existing families of battery tubes, the developmental distance for a portable radio that played well was trivial. Indeed, portables could have been Â�easily assembled with off-the-shelf components, as demonstrated by the few models that had been produced during the 1930s. But radio makers apparently reasoned that some new technology for portablesâ•›—╛╉tubes in particularâ•›—╛╉might be an asset in ads and showrooms. Salespersons could call attention to the “engineering breakthrough” that had at last made the portable radio “practical.” 20 On Halloween eve of 1938, a few months after Sylvania began publicizing the new battery tubes, Orson Welles broadcast his adaptation of H.â•›G. Wells’s War of the Worlds on the CBS Mercury Theatre. This thriller described a Martian invasion, treated like a newscast, which Welles placed in New Jersey. Although Welles prefaced the broadcast with an announcement that the story

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was a dramatization, many people apparently tuned in late and missed the warning. The result was near panic, as people suffering from shock flocked to hospitals, and two scientists from Princeton University scoured the countryside hunting for aliens. The immediate reaction to Welles’s broadcast testifies to the grip of radio news on Americans. And the timely reports of ominous events in Europe, North Africa, and China taught that the world had become a much smallerâ•›—╛╉and more frighteningâ•›—╛╉place. With war seemingly ineviÂ� table, radio makers no doubt figured that Americans, like Britons, would not want to be away from radios for very long. And so, using Â�Sylvania’s new battery tubes, which became available in late 1938, companies large and small began to produce portable radios and pushed them hard in trade journals and mass-circulation magazines. Many companies took credit in their ads for introducing this “new” genre of radios. Philco, the first company to market a set, had close ties with Sylvania and may have commissioned Sylvania to develop the new tubes. But the genre was hardly “an entirely new kind of radio, invented by Philco engineers,” as their ads insisted.21 In the early months of 1939, more than a dozen other firms brought their portables to market; by late May at least 28 companies were cranking them out. At the end of the year, when 100 models graced store shelves, nearly a million Americans could listen on their portables to news about Europe again embroiled in a continent-wide war. It would appear that radio makers anticipated a market for listen-anywhere radios that could keep Americans informed about world events. The circuitry of these sets was rudimentary, requiring no heroic development project, and the components were widely available. However, in part to enhance salability, radio companies employed Sylvania’s new family of battery tubes and a distinctive visual performance in the form of a suitcase-like exterior. During the 1930s, American companies had commercialized hundreds of new tubes, and so the creation of a new family of battery tubes was little more than good gray engineering. The portable radio revival, then, came about not because of a technological breakthrough but because radio makers, aware of new social conditions, decided to proceed with the

manufacture of a once-spurned genre of receiver, expecting it to be profitable. And for some firms it was. There is no formula for assembling into an explanation the factors that likely affected production decisions. Each case is different and requires our diligence and creativity as well as familiarity with the pertinent engineering science. Also essential are generalizations about the behavior of manufacturers along with a crap detector to analyze advertising and other sources of evidence. Early Electric Automobiles

In introducing the case study of early electric automobiles (ca. 1895–1920) in Chapter 2, I discussed the folk theories that permit people to offer plausible explanations for the comings and goings of consumer products. In seeking the actual causes of the early electric car’s senescence, I used data in The Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1802–1942.22 This work, now in several volumes, is a virtually complete inventory of American car companies and models. I went page by page through this source, recording information on every electric car. After tabulating this information, I sought to identify the cadena groups in the electric car’s life cycle whose decisions were decisive. Did inventors and promoters fail to develop suitable components and designs? Did manufactures decide against making these cars on account of serious technological constraints? Or did consumers choose gasoline cars despite the availability of many competent electric models? Graphs based on the tabulated data helped me answer these preliminary questions and gave direction to the project’s next stage.23 Figure 9.3 displays the number of American companies making electric cars during each year from 1894 to 1942. If there had been a dearth of appropriate components and designs, then the electric car’s senescence should have been much more rapid. Instead, we see a predictable shakeout period in the six or seven years after the turn of the century, but many companies endured. Evidently, electric cars suffered from no lack of invention or commercialization activities, a conclusion reinforced in a second graph. Figure 9.4 shows the number of companies producing their first electric car in each year from 1894 to 1942. 131

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Figure 9.3. The number of U.S. companies producing electric automobiles, 1894–1942. Source: Schiffer 2000.

Figure 9.4. The number of U.S. companies producing their first electric automobile in a given year, 1894–1942. Source: Schiffer 2000.

New companies were entering the business almost every year for more than two decades after the first electrics went to market. Clearly, manufacturers did not shun the electric car. Moreover, that eight companies lasted 10 or more years underscores the finding that the electric car was, for a while, a product that appealed to some conÂ� sumers. The curves do exhibit intriguing episodes of rapid rise and fall, which suggest two distinct periods of manufacturer enthusiasm: 1894–1901 and ca. 1909–1911. As the research proceeded, I learned that many social and technological factors contributed to the electric car’s renaissance after 1909, including new batteries that provided a greater range on one charge, joint promotional campaigns by car companies and electric utilities, 132

and a rebound from the depression that followed the Panic of 1907. As in the study of portable radios, steep changes in productionâ•›—╛╉whether in the number of manufacturers or in the number of modelsâ•›—╛╉provoke questions that orient the search for contextual information. It is also desirable to possess annual production figures, but reliable numbers for electric cars are scarce. There is, however, a consensus among sources that in no yearâ•›—╛╉not even during the early teensâ•›—╛╉did electric car production exceed 10,000. This number pales into near insignificance next to the hundreds of thousands of gasoline cars made annually at that time. The manufacture-related curves indicate that only after the mid-teens did optimism about anticipated sales drastically wane, leading most

Manufacture

surviving companies to reduce production and, eventually, leave the market. My next task was to examine consumer decisions by asking specific questions, such as: What was the social/ economic/demographic composition of the consumer group? Why did it choose electric cars over gasoline ones? Why didn’t other consumer groups adopt electric cars? (these questions are answered when this case study resumes in Chapter 10). Changes in Manufacture Processes

The archaeological and historical records sometimes supply abundant, high-quality evidence on changes in manufacture processes; and ethnoarchaeology provides opportunities to monitor ongoing change. The adoption of new manufacture processes is relatively common, even in traditional societies. Let us now consider several widespread proximate causes, keeping in mind that many additional factors are not discussed here. Changes in Consumer Behavior

Sometimes consumers adopt a product in numbers that threaten to exceed the manufacturer’s production capacity. Copycats may set to work, especially if the original manufacturer is unwilling or unable to ramp up production, but I focus here on the original manufacturer. Among the potential options for increasing the production rate are to (1) retain the existing Â�production process but add more workers, perhaps in additional shifts; (2) retain the production process but replicate the facilities and add workers; (3) train workers to achieve greater productivity; (4) alter the organization of production; (5) retain the workers but change the production process; and (6) change the production process, perhaps by exploiting new energy sources or replacing workers with machines.24 The last two options are of special interest here because inventing and commercializing a new production technology may involve an appreciable developmental distance and usually lead to a change in the organization of production. A greatly enlarged factory, for example, often requires an increase in specialized occupations and an expanded and perhaps more rigid managerial hierarchy. In a story oft told, Henry Ford’s Model T automobile was first marketed in 1908 and immedi133

ately racked up healthy sales. To satisfy customers eager to purchase his cars, Ford built the 60-acre Highland Park factory, which disgorged Model Ts in impressive numbersâ•›—╛╉39,640 in 1911 alone. As sales continued to rise, even Highland Park’s output could not keep pace, and so in 1913 Ford began to experiment with the moving assembly line. The flow of materials and components was precisely choreographed through a sequence of operations performed, along a line, by people and machines working as one. Workers were no longer skilled mechanics; rather, in one place they carried out simple interactions using specialized tools and machines. The results were dramatic. Within a year, the entire factory was converted into a series of tributary flows of parts feeding main flows of Model Tsâ•›—╛╉more than 200,000 in 1914 and nearly 400,000 in 1915. The time to produce a Model T dropped by a factor of eight, and the Ford Motor Company was now supplying almost half the cars in America. With the economies of true mass production, Ford was able to continue lowering the Model T’s price. In 1912, it sold for $600; in 1915 it was $440, but by then it was offered only in black. As Model T production and sales continued to rise, Ford in 1918 built an even more ambitious factory, River Rouge, which took mechanized manufacture and mass production to a new extreme. In this enormous facility, Ford embraced vertical integration on an unprecedented scale, incorporating everything from coke ovens to a glass factory for making essentially every Model T part. In addition, River Rouge was filled with special-purpose machines powered by electricity. More Model Ts rolled off the assembly linesâ•›—╛╉in excess of one million in 1921â•›—╛╉and prices continued to fall. In the early 1920s, a Model T could be had for $290. Details about Model T manufacturing technologies are covered in other works and need not be rehearsed here.25 The general lesson is that Ford faced the problem of how to produce Model Ts at a higher rate. In response, the Ford team made hundreds of changes in manufacture processes and factory organization. Even in prehistory, some manufacturers also faced the need to increase production rate, especially of items in everyday use such as pottery. In the time it takes to hand-build a simple bowl or jar,

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as by coiling or paddle-and-anvil methods, a potter using the fast wheel can turn out many similar vessels.26 The adoption of the fast wheel required materials, tools, motor skills, and workspace that differed from those of hand building. In many Old World regionsâ•›—╛╉e.g., Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, Chinaâ•›—╛╉the fast wheel was adopted in tandem with occupational specialization, usually in the context of market distribution. This particular change did not occur in prehistoric North America, where a multiplicity of potters, sometimes part-time specialists, used hand-building technologies to supply Â�consumers.27 New manufacture processes may also be promoted by a change in the performance requirements of consumers’ activities. Consumers seeking more nutritious foods have pressured farms, factories, and restaurants to reduce the use of chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, preservaÂ� tives), unhealthful fats, and so on by altering their processing technologies. When tourism takes hold in traditional villages, artisans usually respond with new products, and sometimes new processes to make them, in order to enhance portability and visual distinctiveness. Consumers may also slow down their purchases, and this may redound on manufacture processes. Economic downturns in capitalist industrial societies often lead to excess production capacity. In the Great Depression, President Hoover established the Committee on Elimination of Waste in Industry. It reported that American factories making goods such as shoes, printing equipment, and clothing were vastly underutilized.28 Long-term excess capacity usually leads to firms going out of business, the closing of factories, and the termination of workers. Factory closures may cause the rapid senescence of some kinds of products, as shown by the contraction of the American automobile industry during recent times and the loss of venerable brands such as Plymouth, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile. Productspecific production equipment may also enter senescence. The case of the recent automobile industry, as well as the periodic shakeouts of copycat producers in capitalist industrial countries, suggests that the manufacture technologies employed by surviving firms will dominate production. This calls attention to the evolutionary process of drift, a

reduction in behavioral variation that occurs when a populationâ•›—╛╉in this case, that of producersâ•›—╛╉plummets.29 As the number of producers declines, so too does the variety of distinctive manufacture technologies and products; and uncommon ones are more likely to disappear than common ones. Study of culture-contact situations is apt to provide abundant examples of this process. When traditional New World societies were overwhelmed by Old World diseases and violence, populations of both consumers and producers declined precipitously. Under such conditions, drift probably occurred. Indeed, if specialized producersâ•›—╛╉limited in numbers to begin withâ•› —╛╉ are eliminated from a small population, a technological tradition may die or be drastically altered. In the extreme case, an entire population, such as the aboriginal Tasmanians, may be driven to extinction along with all of its technologies. As Kacy Hollenback suggests, the effects of changes in the size and age/sex/gender composition of populations on manufacture technologies merit much more study.30 Peer Competitions

Competition among manufacturers can lead to significant changes in production processes, as firms strive to shave costs, increase profits, and add features to attract consumers. In highly competitive industries, such as consumer electronics, this source of technological change may persist for long periods and be played out internationally. When firms compete on the basis of price, manufacturers in high-wage countries have incentives to adopt labor-saving technologies and to reduce the number of components.31 Beginning with Motorola in the mid-fifties, a few American companies developed technologies for incorporating printed circuit boards into their radios and televisions. Printed circuit boards enabled componentsâ•›—╛╉tubes, resistors, capacitors, inductorsâ•›—╛╉to be interconnected by thin copper strips on a plastic substrate (the circuit “board”). This move eliminated the need to interconnect most components with wires, which had to be emplaced and soldered by hand, and also enabled all connections to be soldered in a single dipping operation. Soon machines were created for inserting components into circuit boards automat-

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ically. Printed circuit boards and parts-insertion machines reduced labor costs and gave a temporary advantage to pioneering companies like Motorola (at least for radio production). By the early 1960s, most manufacturers had adopted printed circuit boards as they attempted to remain competitive on price, especially when able competitors from East Asia entered the American market with their first televisions. Soon the fierce foreign competition drove most Â�American-╉owned companies out of radio and television manufacturing. A few firms Â�survived briefly by offshoring production to Asian Â�countriesâ•›—╛╉a rather drastic change in production technology and organization. Eventually, the last American brands were sold to foreign-owned multiÂ�nationals, whose radios and televisions were manufactured in an assortment of Pacific Rim countries. Shortage of Raw Materials

Scarcity of a raw material may also prompt changes in production processes. During the first four decades of the twentieth century, natural rubber, obtained from latex-producing trees, was the main ingredient in tires for bicycles, autoÂ� mobiles, and trucksâ•›—╛╉including military vehicles. Natural rubber was also used in common components such as grommets, hoses, and assorted belts. The world’s major source of natural Â�rubber was the East Indies, Malaya in particular. At the start of World War II, Japan captured Malaya from the British and precipitated a worldwide rubber shortage. In response to dwindling supplies, the United States and several other nations ramped up projects to commercialize synthetic rubber. Before the war, inventors had created several varieties of synthetic rubber, but only DuPont’s neoprene had been brought to market.32 Neoprene found important applications, but it was poorly suited for making tires and many other components and products essential for everyday life and the war effort. Although the U.S. government had stockpiled natural rubber at the outset of the war, the supply was not expected to last for more than a year or two. At the instigation of the U.S. government and with its financial support, rubber and petrochemical corporations along with university laboratories collaborated on a crash program to make a

general-purpose synthetic rubber that could be scaled up for mass production.33 The program was remarkably successful, arriving at a recipe that used butadiene, styrene, and a host of other ingredients to make a material known as GR-S. With government funding, Goodyear, B.╛F. Good� rich, Firestone, and other firms built factories. And in less than two years synthetic rubber was being made in vast quantities. Copycat Producers and Differential Adoption

When a pioneering manufacturer has adopted a new production process, groups making similar products are apt to copy the process, especially if they are taking part in peer competitions. For example, General Motors and other automobile companies adopted some of Ford’s production processes. The historical record indicates that copycats are common; it also shows that some groups adopt alternative strategies that enable them to survive. Changes in production technology can form the basis of compelling and interesting stories, as shown by Thomas A. Kinney’s study of the differential adoption of new production technologies for making horse-drawn vehicles in the United States.34 Horse-drawn wagons and carriages were ubiquitous artifacts in the nineteenth century, and the industry that produced them was an important part of the American economy. At its peak during the first years of the twentieth century, the industry annually employed around 60,000 workers, cranked out a million vehicles, and generated sales in excess of $125 million. It was a highly visible example of the “American system” of manufactures. By engaging industrialization in the Â�diverse shops and factories where it took place, Â�Kinney shows that industrialization was not a monolithic process in which large corporations employing machines and deskilled laborers uniformly replaced small firms dependent upon hand tools and craftsmen. Rather, small wagon and carriage shops survived by becoming vehicle assemblers using standardized parts turned out by mechanized factories. Indeed, the wood- and metalworking processes most amenable to mechanization became the foundation of new firms that mass-produced standardized parts, such as wheels and metal trim, to supply both the small

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shops and large factories that assembled vehicles. The differentiation of firms into parts producers and product assemblers is a trend that intensified as other crafts became industrialized, and it remains today an important feature of the industrial landscape. Kinney identifies the contextual factors, local and national, that influenced decisions about which technologies specific shops and factories would adopt. Discussion

This section has featured four major factors that can cause manufacturers to commercialize and/ or adopt new production technologies: altered consumer behavior, peer competition, changes in the availability of materials and components, and copycat producers and differential adoption. Once the investigator has established that production changes have taken place, the next task is to tease out the pertinent causal factors. If differential adoption took place, we identify relevant groups, such as copycats, partial adopters, and nonadopters (Chapter 10), and weave contextual factors into a story that accounts for the patterns. We can also begin research by Â�pinpointing trends in manufacture-related performance characteristics such as production rate, labor productivity (e.g., unit output per person-hour or Â�person-╉day of labor input), energy efficiency (energy consumption per unit output), cost per unit output, and waste products and pollution per unit output.35 The strategy in such cases is to identify the changes in manufacture processes and organization that contributed to a trend, such as the dramatic rise in the production rate of Model Ts in Ford’s factories as a consequence of moving assembly lines, specialized production machinery, and vast vertical integration. The Manufacture Process and the Archaeological Record

The archaeological record of any society, especially its dumps and middens, is composed mainly of used and discarded artifacts. The objects recovered from these deposits have undergone procurement and manufacture processes, even if they ended up as waste products. Accordingly, the archaeological record can be a reliable source of evidence on production, especially at a regional scale. Indeed, archaeologists in recent

decades have developedâ•›—╛╉and borrowed from the natural sciencesâ•›—╛╉many principles and techniques for inferring details of procurement and manufacture as well as patterns of exchange and distribution.36 Thus, in many cases we can learn about specific pre-use activities. In this section, however, I am concerned with neither these specialized inferential tools nor particular inferences. Rather, I focus on the large-scale patterns of the production processâ•›—╛╉temporal and spatialâ•›—╛╉that are inferred from the archaeological record with relative ease. Considerations of Method

One of the first tasks is to determine when an artifact type was manufactured.37 Although an ever-growing arsenal of dating techniques makes it possible to solve the dating problem, there are time lags between an artifact’s dates of manufacture and deposition. These time lags are created by an artifact’s use and reuseâ•›—╛╉essentially how long it has spent in the hands of consumers. For artifacts such as traditional clay cooking pots having a very short uselife (about a year), this lag is usually insignificant. However, large pots used for storage that remain stationary during use may have uselives of several decades.38 And through reuse processes such as inheritance and curation, artifacts with significant socio-, ideo-, and emotive functions, including jewelry, ritual objects, markers of high status, and currency, can be retained for generations, even centuries. Thus, the most reliably dated production processes are those of artifacts that had relatively short uselives and were discarded at high rates. We can rarely estimate actual production figures because it is difficult to obtain accurate and reliable samples of a given artifact type. And we almost never know the percentage of total production that the sample represents. Instead, relative measures are employed, particularly the ratio of one artifact type to another or relative percentages, which may yield strong evidence for inferring, for example, that one artifact type was made in twice the quantities of a second one or that it replaced another over time. This approach works well, given representative samples of adequate size, but can be problematic for artifacts recovered mostly as fragments in trash. In the case of pottery, the degree of fragmentation tends to vary

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by a vessel’s technofunction, size, shape, hardness, wall thickness, and, of course, postbreakage treatment. Fortunately, techniques for estimating whole-vessel equivalents are available, such as counting percentages of rims or weighing the fragments (if one has standard weights based on whole or restored vessels).39 Corrected for fragmentation and other possible biases, ratios and relative frequencies can be used to monitor changes in production. Any change in a ratio furnishes the archaeologist with a pattern to explain. As always, the research problem is that of modeling the factors that the manufacturer(s) assessed and which influenced decisions. Such explanations require the use of varied lines of contextual evidence, such as social, demographic, and environmental changes. Many uncertainties can afflict production estimates, even when computed as ratios and relative frequencies, but we still have some options. The major fallback position is to rely on the Â�simplest and, sometimes, most robust evidence: the dates when production of an artifact type began and ended. Manufacture spans furnish a Â�foundation for explaining the decision(s) to produce the product. In regions where fine chronological control is possible, such as the American Southwest with its tree-ring dating, manufacture spans of pottery types can sometimes be pinned down to within a decade or two. In historical, classical, and industrial archaeology, the accuracy may be even greaterâ•›—╛╉sometimes to the year. Exploiting reasonably good evidence on manufacture spans, Patricia Crown studied Salado Polychrome vessels in Arizona and New Mexico, seeking to understand why they were produced.40 These very distinctive decorated vessels, which comprise several specific types, together have a manufacture span of about ad 1270–1450. This was a time of great demographic upheaval: populations abandoned many regions in the northern Southwest, relocating farther to the south and aggregating into large adobe pueblos. To help incorporate newcomers into the growing southern towns, people invented integrative institutions that crosscut previous lines of social cleavage, supported by new ideologies that focused attention on matters of common concern. Crown infers that the Salado vessels were made specially to serve in the rituals of a new religious institutionâ•› —╛╉

the Southwestern Regional Cultâ•›—╛╉whose major emphases were fertility and the control of water, which were symbolized in the vessels’ painted decorations. After the southern towns were abandoned the cult disappeared, and so ended the manufacture of Salado Polychrome pottery. Anticipations of Consumer Behavior

As noted above, in explaining the decision to manufacture a product, we invoke the factors that likely caused the producer to believe that consumers would (or would not) adopt the product. Whether a potter in a Neolithic village or a Wedgwood executive, both have an eye on the future. Do I make a new kind of ritual vessel for my family and other villagers? Do I make a new line of ornate vases to sell during the Christmas season? Various factors acting singly or in concert may influence the manufacturer’s forecast of consumer behavior. After observing that fellow villagers have begun to adopt the Salado cult’s ideology, the potter, anticipating that cult members will want to acquire vessels having appropriate visual performance for the new rituals, decides to make them. The Wedgwood executive authorizes production after considering factors such as declining sales of the previous Christmas offerings and consumers’ continued willingness to buy the company’s latest products. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that manufacturers base their decisions in part on forecasts of consumer behavior, which in capitalist industrial countries furnish uncertain guidance at best. Even with the most sophisticated tools of psychology and social science at their disposal, marketers are unable to predict the response of consumers to a new product with certainty. For products having very homogeneous cadenas, however, manufacturers have a finger firmly on the pulse of consumer behavior because they or their immediate kin are also the consumers and they are familiar with the problem that the new product might solve. As a result, archaeologists who study such products tend to bundle the decisions affecting invention, development, manufacture, and adoption into a single research problem. This makes a certain sense when there is reason to believe that, on the basis of anticipated adoptions, an artisan folded invention, 137

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Â� evelopment, and manufacture into one seamless d process in a problem-solving project. Moreover, this move tacitly acknowledges that invention and Â�development are only spottily represented in the archaeological record. Yet, even if the processes are bundled, we still must account separately for decisions responding to different causal factors, such as the designer’s technical choices, the consumer’s weighting of the product’s performance characteristics, andâ•›—╛╉finallyâ•›—╛╉the artisan’s decision to produce the product. Case Study: Cooking Pots in Eastern U.S. Prehistory

An instructive case is furnished by our study of the change in cooking pot production from Archaic to Woodland times during the prehistory of the eastern United States.41 We believe that both Archaic and Woodland cooking pots had highly homogeneous cadenas, with the potter almost certainly making wares for her own household. Archaic cooking pots, made from about 2500 to 1000 bc, were produced in a limited number of forms, mainly flat-bottom, outflaring bowls with thick walls; they tended to be made with organic nonplastics such as chopped grass. Woodland cooking vessels, made from about 1000 bc to ad 1000, were much larger and more jar-shaped, had thinner walls, and contained mineral nonplastics such as sand. We assumed, with little justification, that Archaic and Woodland pots had only technofunctions, and so we focused on the relevant technical choices and performance characteristics. When James M. Skibo and I carried out this study in the mid-1980s, archaeologists knew little about the effects of different kinds of nonplastics on diverse performance characteristics of clay during manufacture and of cooking pots during use. And so we undertook laboratory experiments to reconstruct the technoscience that might have informed the potter’s technical choices, examining the effects of nonplastics on, for example, clay workability, heating effectiveness, and abrasion resistance. Considerable differences were found.42 By supplementing this new (i.e., reconstructed) engineering science with existing generalizations, such as those describing the effects of vessel shape and wall thickness on thermal performance characteristics, we concluded that

Table 9.2. Weighting of Performance �C haracteristics in Late Archaic and Woodland Pottery.

Performance Characteristic

Late Archaic Woodland

Ease of Manufacture

+

–

Portability

+

–

Heating Effectiveness

–

+

Impact Resistance

–

+

Thermal Shock Resistance

–

+

Abrasion Resistance

–

+

Archaic cooking pots were easily made and lightweight but fell short in many cÂ� ooking-related performance characteristics. Woodland vessels, in contrast, excelled as cooking pots, but their manufacture was more labor and skill intensive. Archaic peoples had a highly varied diet, including shellfish, which did not depend on lengthy cooking episodes; and their settlements were highly mobile. In that context, expediently made pots that could be easily transported were an effective design compromise. However, as Woodland peoples became less mobile and began to exploit resources that required more intensive cooking, such as nuts that had to be heated for long periods to release oils, Archaic-type pots presented performance problems. We concluded that Woodland pots were developed and produced by people who were responding to the changing performance requirements of cooking activities. Because groups were now less mobile, potters could afford to invest more effort in making vessels that performed better in use (and during maintenance). These trade-offs were illustrated in a very rudimentary performance matrix, which identifiedâ•›—╛╉with a plus sign (+)â•›—╛╉the performance characteristics weighted in each pottery technology (Table 9.2). Once the first Woodland potters had traversed the developmental distance needed to make their pots, other peoples linked by social networksâ•› —╛╉ and facing similar problems in everyday cookingâ•›—╛╉became copycats and, after acquiring skill in the new production process, began to make the new vessels. In other cases, a new product Â�enters an existing exchange network (or fosters establishment of a new one), perhaps leading to its widespread adoption throughout a region.

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Identifying Knockoffs

Given fine-grained chronological control, we can sometimes trace production and distribution processes in considerable detail. Not only may it be possible to infer the community or communities where production began, but copycats can be identified if they used local materials whose properties differed from the originals and perhaps from each other. For example, clay minerals and chemical composition can be compared among pottery fragments and possible clay sources.43 A distinctive nonplastic additive may also indicate the production locale. Sometimes we can identify pottery work areas in a community if tools and waste products had been deposited in place and preserved. Analyses such as these have allowed archaeologists to infer with great confidence, for example, that Salado Polychrome vessels were first manufactured by communities in the Tonto Basin of central Arizona and were exchanged over a much larger region. Compositional analysis has also shown that copycats were at work throughout the same region, making knockoffs that varied in raw materials and in the skill with which the motifs were painted.44 Summary

Both the archaeological and historical records contain evidence for inferring the manufacture processes of technologies, old and new. After ascertaining that production did take place and learning when and where it occurred, we may seek to explain the decision to take that final step in commercializing the product. In crafting an explanation, the researcher assembles into a narrative the factors that the promoter likely assessed, particularly anticipated consumer behavior and

resource requirements, in deciding whether to proceed. In the historical record, information about the production of a particular artifact type can be dispersed among different lines of evidence. These can be traced by regarding each activity in the product’s life history as a generator of material remains that began pathways to the present; and people who took part in those activities may be available for interviews. Pathways also lead to the archaeological record, whose contents may reliably represent the remains of common, wellpreservedÂ� artifacts. In studying the artifacts of industrial societies, we can exploit collector catalogs, which sometimes contain complete information on the production of specific brands and models. These data are readily aggregated into graphs that display changes in producer enthusiasm for making particular products, which can become foci of explanation. Many proximate causes can lead to new manufacture technologies, including changes in consumer behavior, peer competitions, and changes in raw material and component availability. The explanation of such a change may implicate several causal factors. Fortunately, the archaeological record preserves many traces of manufacture. Consequently, we have developedâ•›—╛╉and borrowed from the natural sciencesâ•›—╛╉a host of techniques for inferring dates and places of manufacture, production techniques, and distribution modes. Regardless of the sources of evidence employed as well as the degree of product aggregation, we make use of additional lines of contextual evidence in explaining manufacturing decisions.

Notes 1. Akerlof and Shiller 2009 explores the role of the irrationalâ•›—╛╉“animal spirits”â•›—╛╉in economic decision making. 2. See, e.g., Cotterell and Kamminga 1990, Hodges 1981, and Miller 2007 for multitechnology overviews. 3. Bleed (1991) offers several constructs from operations researchâ•›—╛╉event tree analysis and fault tree analysisâ•›—╛╉for modeling failure modes during manufacture; he (2001) also discusses alternative modeling modes. Archaeologists sometimes use a chaîne

opératoire model, which lays stress on the cognitive component of manufacturing operations (see, e.g., van der Leeuw 1993). Skibo and Schiffer 2008:Chapter 2 details the shortcomings of the chaîne opératoire approach. 4. Shimada and Wagner 2007 presents a general strategy for archaeological research on production, employing a case study from prehispanic Peru. 5. Stokes 1982. 6. Proceedings of the I.R.E. and Waves and Electrons 1946:╉24A; Radio and Television News 1949:27.

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Chapter 9 7. I make this argument on the basis of table radios (Schiffer 1992a:Chapter 6). 8. A formalization of the “pathway model” is found in Schiffer 1976:53, 1987:50. 9. Schiffer 1987 remains the only book-length treatment of the formation processes of the historical and archaeological records. 10. This case study is adapted from Schiffer 1996b. 11. Table 9.1 is adapted from Schiffer 1996b:Table 7.1; minor errors in that table have been corrected here. 12. Stratton and Trinder 2000:199 also calls attention to the information potential of private collections. 13. Scott’s Standard Postage Stamp Catalog was published by Scott Publishing Co., New York. It is a multivolume set revised often. 14. Harrold 1984. 15. Warner 1988:23. 16. Grinder and Fathauer 1986. This catalog lacked the information needed for my study of pocket radios with subminiature tubes. 17. On one-knob tuning, see Harrison 1979. 18. See Schiffer 1991:Chapter 9 for additional information on the prewar boom in portable radio production. 19. Electronics, August 1938:39. 20. Schiffer 2008a:Chapter 1 deconstructs the term practical as it applies to technologies. 21. E.g., Collier’s, 18 February 1939:8. 22. Kimes and Clark 1989. 23. For further discussion, see Schiffer 2000. 24. Mumford 1934:383 lays special stress on the role of new energy sources for increasing production. Costin 1991 presents a general framework for studying changes in the organization of production. Neupert 2007 employs contingency theory from sociology to study the organization of ceramic production in traditional villages in the Philippines. See Shimada 2007 for studies of craft production in prehispanic complex societies of Peru. 25. On Model T production technology, production figures, and prices, see Batchelor 1994; Casey 2008; and Hounshell 1984. 26. Foster 1959. Kramer 1985:93 cites studies supporting the view that adopting the fast wheel was a response to rising consumer demand.

27. Instructive studies on pottery manufacture include Costin and Hagstrum 1995; Knappett 1999; Rice 1996; Roux 2003, 2010; Skibo and Schiffer 1995; Stark 1995. 28. Mumford 1934:377. 29. A reduction in behavioral variation precipitated by a drastic decline in a small population is just one kind of drift. Binford (1963) was probably the first archaeologist to employ the concept of drift; today it is a staple in evolutionary archaeology (e.g., Neiman 1995). This sort of change can also be explained as an instance of selection: the most able competitors survived. 30. On technological change precipitated by a reduction in the number of producers, see Hollenback and Schiffer 2010. Hollenback is responsible for setting forth and developing these ideas. 31. This section draws on my personal knowledge of these processes, gained in part from oral history (see also Schiffer 1991:Chapter 14, 1992b). 32. Smith 1985; http://acswebcontent.acs.org/land╉ marks╉/landmarks/rbb/, accessed May 14, 2009. 33. Howard 1947. 34. Kinney 2004. 35. Piaskowski and Piaskowska (1986) present a variety of engineering-inspired quantitative measures that, they argue, should be applied to production processes. 36. Some overviews are Costin 1991; Henderson 2000; Miller 2007; Shimada 2007; and Tite 1999. 37. Taylor and Aitken 1997 is an overview of dating techniques. 38. On pottery uselives, see Shott 1996; Varien and Mills 1997; and Varien and Ortman 2005. 39. Orton 1993 reviews techniques for estimating whole-vessel equivalents; see also Shott 2001. 40. Crown 1994; some details come from Simon et al. 1998. 41. This example is drawn from Schiffer and Skibo 1987. 42. The experiments are detailed in Skibo et al. 1989. 43. See, e.g., Glowacki and Neff 2002. 44. On the Salado example, see Crown 1994 and Simon et al. 1998.

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Adoption

Whether they are individuals, companies, or governments, consumers make decisions, each of which may lead to an acquisition event. These decisions cumulatively create adoption patterns.1 Some technologies compete with alternatives, others have the field to themselves; some are adopted in small numbers, others in large. The basic premise of this chapter is that an acquisition decision (positive or negative) results from the consumer’s anticipation of how a given technology will perform in, and affect, particular postacquisition activitiesâ•›—╛╉old or new. The activities may be those of the consumer, family members, employees, community members, or others. The technology’s performance characteristics are assessed implicitly or explicitly and weighted according to contextual factors. The consumer then makes a decision, perhaps choosing among alternative technologies (Figure 10.1). With the exception of commissioned technologies, we aim to explain not individual acquisition events but the adoption patterns created by recurrent decisions. Accordingly, in modeling these decisions we pinpoint the performance characteristics, specific adoption process or processes, and contextual factors that best explain a pattern. A technology’s anticipated performance characteristics may differ greatly from its actual ones. Indeed, after acquisition, a technology may have unexpected effects on activitiesâ•›—╛╉short, medium, and long term. Thus, the entirety of Â�activities (and costs) involved in operating and main-

taining a gasoline automobile would have been largely unknown at first. But later adopters, if they had learned about the first adopters’ experiences, might have considered these effects. Several Â�factors ought to improve later adopters’ forecasts, including technologies with short uselives acquired in abundance and the accessibility of information through integrative organizations and social networks.2 This chapter surveys a sample of common adoption processes that, acting singly and in combination, generate the acquisition events that determine a technology’s postmanufacture fate. Some processes are merely hypotheses, which the reader may wish to evaluate. Case studies that treat competing aggregate technologiesâ•›—╛╉one on early automobiles, the other on lighthouse illuminantsâ•›—╛╉present new heuristics: the market diaÂ�gram and the threshold performance matrix. The lightning conductor illustrates an instance of adoption without competition. Sources of Evidence

The historical record preserves some evidence for inferring and explaining consumer behavior, but that evidence may be difficult to track down, especially on the size and composition of the actual market. Although manufacturers and retailers may release sales figures for a product that sold well, they jealously guard sociodemographic information about customers, fearing its exploitation by competitors. In some U.S. government agencies, purchases are a matter of public record; 141

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Figure 10.1. Major factors affecting acquisition decisions.

other federal agencies may monitor and report certain consumer trends. The government’s decennial census reports assemble a wealth of data for studying patterns of consumer behavior. And probate records ostensibly contain inventories of a person’s last possessions, a valuable source of evidence in historical archaeology. In an ethnoarchaeological study, the Â�researcher does a census of the community or a sample of its households, gathering information on artifacts, activities, and sociodemographic factors. Thus Brian Hayden’s Coxoh Project surveyed households in three villages in the Maya highlands of Central America, and William A. Longacre conducted his Kalinga Ethnoarchaeology Project in northern Luzon villages in the Philippines.3 Both projects set standards for doing ethnoarchaeology and have led to new understandings of adoption processes in traditional societies. Other projects are beginning to furnish comparative material. With the exceptions of poorly preserved artifacts and those that were rare in the past, adoption stands proud in the archaeological record, yielding examples of most technologies. As such, the archaeologist often has sufficient evidence for studying consumer behavior at regional, community, and sometimes household scales. Indeed, the remains of a long-occupied village may contain instances of virtually every (preservable) thing that was acquired, used, and deposited at that location, sometimes in deep, stratified refuse deposits that reveal changes in consumption over

time. To generate reliable and accurate quantitative evidence, however, requires use of sophisticated sampling strategies. And with the exception of architecture and other obtrusive artifacts, quantifying rare items is very difficult. Groups and Subgroups

One way to begin an adoption study, particularly in ethnoarchaeological and well-documentedÂ� historical communities, is to divide potential consumers into subgroups that likely made the sameâ•›—╛╉i.e., recurrentâ•›—╛╉acquisition decisions. Subgroups can be defined on the basis of contextual factors such as gender, age, ethnicity, social Â� class, occupation, or place of residence. Next, using percentages, graphs, and other simple statistics, we seek associations between the socioÂ� demographic factors and adoption patterns.4 Even when strong patterns emerge, we Â�cannot conclude that membership in a given group was the proximate cause of the acquisition decisionsâ•›—╛╉with the exception of artifacts that symbolize group membership. Thus, we must learn whether age, ethnicity, or social class per se in fact affected the weighting of a technology’s anticipated performance characteristics or whether other contextual factors were at work. Subgroups of companies are formed using general criteriaâ•›—╛╉e.g., manufacturing, financial, and retailâ•›—╛╉or specific criteriaâ•›—╛╉such as fast food, upscale women’s clothing, and hardware. We can

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also create categories for partitioning religious groups, government agencies, and other institutional consumers. Thus, Catholic and Protestant churches should exhibit patterned differences in acquisition behavior because of their divergent doctrines and differing ritual technologies. Manufacturing firms tend to use sociodemographic criteria when forecasting a product’s target market, but that market may not emerge. An interesting exercise is to compare a manufacturer’s original target market, as gleaned from the earliest ads, with the actual market perhaps implicated in later ads. General Patterns of Household Adoption

During 1976–1977, I undertook an ethnoarchaeological study of household artifacts in Tucson, Arizona.5 Prior to that research, little was known about the artifact contents of American homes, and so we sought to document assemblages and explain their variation, focusing on the factors that promote the acquisition of products new and used. Student interviewers visited 184 homes and recorded household size, age and sex of members, income, time since last move, number of moves in the previous five years, and size of dwelling; also obtained was a complete inventory of furniture and major appliances that indicated when each item had been acquired and whether it was new or used. Two factors militated against forming formal subgroups: (1) the small sample size and (2) immense variation in the inventories. Although every household possessed a unique artifact assemblage, we expected that major socioÂ� demographic factors would create overarching patterns. To detect them, we correlated the number of items in the furniture and appliance inventory with household size, income, and so forth. Household size and income had effects but did not explain much of the variation; equally influential were stage of household development and time since last move. Given the vast variation in inventories, the following generalizations merely describe unsurprising tendencies, not strong patterns: 1. Households with higher incomes tend to Â�acquire more objects and to have larger dwellings.

2. Households that move less often tend to possess more items. This is the “at rest effect”: The longer a household remains in a dwelling, the more objects it accumulates. 3. Larger households tend to acquire more Â�objects. 4. Early-stage households tend to have fewer objects, but as the household agesâ•›—╛╉up to a pointâ•›—╛╉it acquires additional objects. These weak generalizations nonetheless Â�imply that changes over time in a society’s householdsâ•›—╛╉their number, composition, stage of development, wealth, and residential mobilityâ•›—╛╉are apt to affect aggregate consumer behavior and product life cycles. As the number of households increases, so too does the acquisition of dwellings and products (all else being constant). An obvious implication is that when divorce rates are high, which tends to promote the proliferation of households, there is an increase in the acquisition of dwellings and in artifacts to fill them. Likewise, if a society’s population drops drastically, reducing the number of households, so too does product acquisition. Household numbers can also decline during economic downturns. In the “Great Recession” that began in the United States in 2007, many unemployed people moved in with family members and friends, shrinking the number of households, thus reducing demand for both housing and many consumer goods. Households in late stages tend to acquire fewer and fewer artifacts, and so an aging society is one that sees a drop in demand for many consumer goods. Precisely this process is today affecting Japan and Italy; the United States has been spared somewhat because young families immigrate to our shores in large numbers and become avid consumers. As households reach peak earnings, usually at intermediate stages, they tend to acquire more things. These factors also redound on reuse behavior. Thus, low-income, early-stage households acquire relatively more used items. It would be instructive to compare aggregate consumer behavior with specific historical changes in a society’s households as they responded to altered social, economic, demographic, and environmental factors.

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A variety of processes can help account for the weak correlations between household acquisition behavior and sociodemographic factors. Among the most important is activity enhancement. The ActivityEnhancement Process

After Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos was deposed in 1986, liberators of the presidential palace discovered that his wife, Imelda, had a passion for shoesâ•›—╛╉she owned more than a thousand pairs.6 Imelda Marcos, as a first lady with many social obligations and much money, apparently bought a new pair of shoes for every occasion. Pondering this curious behavior, I hypothesized that a general process was at work beyond shoe collecting. To wit, people are apt to enhance the conduct of a favored activity by acquiring artifacts with s pecialized f unctions.7 Marcos’s behavior made sense if she were trying to enhance her social competence in public appearances by always wearing a new pair of shoes, no doubt in the latest style, color, and trimâ•›—╛╉and from the designer au courant. Imelda Marcos’s shoe assemblage is, I suggest, an extreme example of a general and widespread process. To gain deeper insights into the activityenhancementÂ�process, let us consider the “EveryÂ� day” Swiss Army knife made by Victorinox. By virtue of its many blades and parts, the Swiss Army knife can serve as a bottle opener, toothpick, filleting knife, and screwdriver. In carrying out any one of these technofunctions, however, this multipurpose tool performs less well than the corresponding specialized tool. Indeed, the design of any multi- or general-purpose artifact inevitably imposes compromises on performance characteristics. That is why, when resources are available, consumers are apt to obtain myriad specialized artifacts to enhance favored activities, actual and anticipated. Consequently, holding other factors constant, higher-income consumers tend to have larger artifact inventories because they have enhanced many activities (and they may have more activities to enhance). The technologies of food preparation also serve as an example of activity enhancement. Although much cooking and baking can be done today in urban America with merely a stove, several

pots and pans, and a few utensils, these generalpurpose artifacts impose performance shortcomings on some tasks. A wooden spoon can be used for mixing and beating, but specialized tools would be judged more appropriate for certain interactions. A person of ample means who takes cooking and baking seriously or who desires to give that impression, perhaps in competition with friends and relatives or merely to indulge a passion, is likely to buy a dozen different whisks and spatulas, one or two countertop mixers, several handheld mixers, and sundry food processors for specific tasks. And special-purpose gadgetsâ•› —╛╉ everything from nutmeg grater to mushroom brushâ•›—╛╉will be purchased in profusion, as will a stove capable of many discrete functions. Perhaps the kitchen will be remodeled to accommodate additional activity-specific work areas. Clearly, individual and household activity preferences can affect the general relationships between sociodemographic factors and acquisition patterns. And so we expect households of similar age and size, income, and residential mobility to vary in acquisition patterns depending on the activities they favor. A family that entertains often needs a house with large public spaces and ample furniture. A family that favors car maintenance at home stocks the garage with dozens or even hundreds of specialized tools. Even relatively low-income families may have sufficient disposable income to enhance a few activities. In modern consumer societies, manufacturers in concert with the media cater toâ•›—╛╉and fosterâ•› —╛╉ a host of needs to enhance activities.8 A hobbyist potter can form a serviceable salad bowl with only a potter’s wheel, sponge, needle tool, wooden or plastic rib, cutting wire, and trimming tool. In recent decades, the number of hobbyist and parttime potters has expanded greatly, creating a sizable market. Manufacturers, perhaps taking hints from stories in magazines such as Clay Times and Ceramics Monthly about the custom-made tools of professional potters, have introduced hundreds of new products. Enticed by ads in these magazines, hobbyists add dozens of items to their tool kits. Thus, manufacturers and consumer magazines, locked in mutual dependence, ramp up the performance requirements of specific activities so as to promote purchases; they may also imply

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that peers will regard nonconformists as socially incompetent. The activity-enhancement process includes the acquisition of products having specialized functions of every kind. All of Imelda Marcos’s shoes covered her feet (technofunction), but they also had symbolic and emotive functions. Likewise, a kitchen brimming over with specialized utensils, in the full view of guests, no doubt also serves symbolic functions. Moreover, the Â�activity-╉enhancement process also applies to social groups beyond individuals and households. Thus, wealthier organizations and communities and countries also enhance favored activities. Activity enhancement does not explain why a given group favors a particular activity. An obvious move is to suggest that a group’s core values determine which activities will be enhanced. This kind of explanation is unsatisfactory because any group’s core values contain contradictory and incoherent elements that, selectively invoked, can seemingly justify any activity and acquisition. In the end, a “values” explanation merely reiterates in different terms what we already know: a group favored certain activities. Behavioral research on this issue may lead to a deeper understanding of adoption processes across the entire spectrum of social groups. Ensemble Adoption

Another process that creates variation in acquisition patterns is ensemble adoption. Here, an acquisition event sets in motion a cascade of related acquisitions. Ensemble adoption should be widespread among social groups and societies, depending on anticipated activities, resources, and sundry social processes. Three examples of ensemble adoption are discussed here: the Diderot effect, enabling technologies, and accessories. The Diderot Effect

The Diderot effect states that “the purchase of one new item calls into question a person’s ensemble of objects, leading to the acquisition of a whole set of more expensive possessions that fit together.”9 (The effect is named after Denis Diderot, the Â�eighteenth-╉century French philosopher and encyclopedia writer who described the process in relation to his own purchases.) A famil-

iar example comes from kitchen appliances in a middle-class American home. Suppose that the 10-year-old refrigerator has given up the ghost. In shopping for a new one, the consumer learns that it is impossible to buy an identical replacement because new refrigerators come in styles that differ in material, shape, trim, and color (in accord with fashion changes fostered by planned obsolescence). The salesperson will no doubt point out that the new refrigerator’s style will clash with that of the “outdated” but still-functioning stove and dishwasher. Fearing that mismatched styles would signal social incompetence, the consumer then buys not only a new refrigerator but also a stove and dishwasher. In general, the Diderot effect may operate when one product in a stylistically similar ensemble has to be replaced. Whether a household conforms to the Diderot effect ought to depend on its resources, the cost of acquiring the new products, and the importance of signaling social competence in specific activities. Resource-poor households are unlikely to respect fashion dictates when it comes to bigticket items like kitchen appliances seen by few outsiders, but their members may still wear coordinated outfits at weddings. And although wealthy households are able to conform to fashion changes, they may not always do so. This kind of variation within sociodemographic groups also tends to weaken overarching adoption patterns. A goal for future behavioral research is to identify the contextual factors that explain why some households (and other groups) decide to conform whereas others resist. In late prehistoric societies of the American Southwest, many new kinds of pottery were adopted. In some regions, these adoption processes can be studied in detail owing to the exceptional chronological control afforded by tree-ring dating. In the Grasshopper area of east-central Arizona, Barbara Montgomery and J. Jefferson Reid showed that an entire suite of black-on-white vessels was replaced in less than a human generation by polychrome pots.10 After households acquired their first polychrome vessels, the die was apparently cast. From then on, only the newer vessels were judged socially appropriate, and soon people stopped acquiring black-on-white pots. The Diderot effect may help to explain this pattern.

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Enabling Technologies

The electrification of millions of middle-class American homes in the early twentieth century created opportunities for the adoption of new electrical products. Although families might have signed up for electric power expecting to use it only for lighting, aggressive marketing by electric utilities and manufacturers soon convinced many people that “irons, fans, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines” would solve long-standingÂ� problems.11 Electric power was an enabling technology, for without it these products would have been useless. Tanja Winther has shown how this process operated in Uroa, a Muslim village in rural Zanzibar.12 Connection to the electricity grid made possible the purchase of lights, fans, televisions, radios, and other appliances. These purchases were fostered by electric company promotions, anticipated household activities, and families seeking to possess and display modern things. There is another way to frame this case: an interest in obtaining a specific artifactâ•›—╛╉electric lightsâ•›—╛╉led to the adoption of electricity. In interviews, Winther asked people why they adopted the lights. They responded with a range of performance characteristics in which the electric light bested the kerosene lantern, including brightness, no smoke or smell, cheaper and easier to use, and as an icon of modernity. Not surprisingly, 99.2 percent of homes with electricity had lights. One could make the argument that, in anticipation of having an electric light, villagers adopted electricity. Even so, the grid was the enabling technology that paved the way for many acquisitions beyond lights.13 Other utilities made feasible the acquisition of dependent technologies, and interesting projects could be built around such expected patterns. We need only recall the many products enabled by, and attached to, telephone lines and television Â�cables in the United States. Accessories

The acquisition of certain technologies raises the likelihood that accessories will also be acquired. Thus, an iPod’s purchaser may accessorize with items designed to enhance or accompany particular activities (for examples, see Chapter 6). This type of ensemble adoption is prevalent in con-

sumer societies, especially when the accessories have symbolic and emotive functions. Activity-Entailed Adoption

In general, a group that anticipates carrying out a new activity (or adopting a new manufacture process) acquires the artifacts to meet that activity’s performance requirements. This is the general process of activity-entailed adoption. Let us suppose that I want to take up knitting. In preparation, I would buy a basic needle kit, yarn, a book for beginners, and a basket or bag to hold my tools, supplies, and a work under way. To explain these purchases we refer to the artifact entailments of simple knitting activities. However, explaining why one needle kit or a particular beginner’s book was acquired instead of available alternatives requires a different approach (see Competing Technologies, below). Activity-entailed adoption pervades every realm of every society. Converts to Islam expect to perform particular rituals, and so they purchase prayer rugs and Korans. Likewise, a person’s political activities may lead to the acquisition of buttons, bumper stickers, yard signs, and so forth. Activity-entailed adoption can also help to explain prehistoric patterns, such as the adoption of agricultural technologies. Dozens of groups around the globe developed plant cultivation and domesticated many crops important today, including wheat and rice and maize. After the first groups in a region adopted agricultural practices, neighboring hunter-gatherer groups might also have adopted them, perhaps after farmers had encroached on critical gathering or hunting territories. Let us assume that a hunter-gatherer group had decided to add appreciable amounts of maize to the diet. This decision led to a host of new activities and the acquisition of the artifacts that these activities entailed. In such cases we analyze the adoption of Â�farming-╉entailed artifacts by considering, one at a time, the activities in each crop’s life history and their performance requirements. Referring back to Figure 3.6 for guidance, we posit that the maize behavioral chain included preparing the field, planting seeds, weeding and perhaps Â�watering, harvesting, transporting the cobs, Â�drying the cobs, removing the kernels, selecting and storing seed for the next planting season, storing grain for

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future consumption, grinding the grain, cooking, serving, and eating. To these we may add maizerelated social and ceremonial activities. After delineating each activity’s performance requirements, we infer which artifacts were obtained to satisfy these requirements. In this way we explain maize agriculture’s far-reaching technological Â�effects. Exactly which kinds of artifacts were acquired for each activity depended on a host of contextual factors, especially the resources available to the adopting group. For example, the suite of technologies already employed by nearby maize farmers might have been acquired by exchange or, more likely, served as models that shortened the developmental distance for creating Â�knockoffs. Such moves might have contributed to the pan-╉ regionalÂ�similarities in technologiesâ•›—╛╉i.e., “culture areas”â•›—╛╉that many anthropologists of the twentieth century attributed to diffusion.14 The maize example suggests the possibility that an adopted artifact was one of many entailed by an entire network of activities linked in a long and complicated behavioral chain. Thus, in explaining the acquisition of ceramic containers by the hunter-gatherer group, the researcher points to their entailment by the cooking and serving of maize, which in turn were entailed by the new agricultural activity. (When necessary, one also explains how the adopting group commercialized the knockoffs.) However, explaining the adoption of the agricultural activity itself requires consideration of decisions made in relation to a variety of somewhat more distant causal factors, such as population pressure, loss of territory and access to subsistence resources, environmental change, and peer competition among communities. A question that lurks in the background is whether the reverse of this process can take place: Can the acquisition of an artifact entail an activity? If someone is given an artifact, for example, might it lead to the adoption of an activity that employs that artifact? In capitalist industrial societies where gifting figures prominently in maintaining social relations, researchers can easily identify examples of this sequence from their own experience. But by no means is the activity actually entailed. Instead of using the artifact, the recipient may stow it away indefinitely, put it on display, or pass it on. If the activity is adopted,

we may infer that it was an instance of activityentailed adoption in which the artifact had been acquired first. Perhaps the recipient, wanting to carry out the activity, had manipulated the giver into making that purchase, a common childhood strategy for birthdays and holidays. This move returns primacy to the activity while doing only tolerable violence to the actual sequence of events. Sequential Adoption

Sometimes a product’s fate is in the hands of two or more consumers that make sequential decisions. Sequential adoption is a common process having many varieties. One kind occurs when a group acquires the product and uses it to furnish a service to another group. The Concorde supersonic airliner, commercialized by a consortium of French and British firms, was offered to airlines around the globe. Thus, airline companies were the primary consumers. Secondary consumers were the flyers who bought tickets. This kind of sequential adoption also occurs in traditional societies when one community builds a ceremonial or sports structure expecting that it would also be used by members of nearby communities. A second variety of sequential adoption takes place when manufacturers buy components to incorporate into their products; the products in turn are acquired by secondary consumers (dealers) and then by tertiary consumers (users). In a third kind of sequential adoption, primary consumers intervene between the manufacturer and t he s econdary o r e ven t ertiary c onsumers. Thus, American automobile manufacturers sell their products to dealers, and the latter offer them to buyers. In the nineteenth century, itinerant peddlers took their wagons, heavily laden with the latest household goods bought from manufacturers or dealers, seeking sales throughout rural America. This variety of sequential adoptionâ•› —╛╉ sometimes known as down-the-line exchangeâ•› —╛╉ is common in traditional societies. Primary consumers base their acquisition decisions in part on the anticipated decisions of secondary consumers. Additional contextual factors, such as social needs, may influence the earliest primary consumers, especially when they engage in peer competitions. Once the adoption process is well under way, primary consumers may have information about whether the Â�product’s

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performance characteristics were as promised and whether secondary consumers behaved as expected. On the basis of this information, later adopters make their decisions. The Concorde’s first purchasers were British Airways and Air France, subsidized by their respective governÂ� ments. After the Concorde’s poor use-relatedÂ�performance characteristics became widely knownâ•›—╛╉ e.g., noisy takeoffs, excessive pollution, sonic boomsâ•›—╛╉as did the paucity of consumers willing to pay a huge premium for supersonic flight, no other airline added a Concorde to its fleet.15 To craft a well-rounded account of a sequential adoption process, we investigate the factors that influenced the decisions of all consumersâ•›—╛╉primary, secondary, and so forth (see the passenger steamship case study in Chapter 11). Coerced and Imposed Adoption

In coerced adoption, one group forces another to adopt a technology. This process lies behind many acquisition events, especially in bureaucratic organizations. From about 2000 to 2007 the University of Arizona began putting exclusively on the Internet information needed for routine teaching, learning, and advising activities, even though it bought computers mainly for support staff and the ever-expanding administration. After the university catalogs went online there followed the schedule of classes, faculty/staff information bulletins, interlibrary loan and reserve reading materials, and letters from the president and provost. Although many faculty members could live without reading high administrators’ platitudes, when the university dictated that final grades could be entered only online, every faculty member who did not have an up-to-date computer had to buy one, usually at his or her own expense. A more subtle case of coerced adoption took place during preparations for the New York World’s Fair of 1939. Mark H. Clark has described how AT&T pressured General Motors to buy a particular magnetic recording system for its Futurama Pavilion. General Motors purchased this system, which happened to be made by an AT&T subsidiary, even though a competitor’s system had been endorsed in an MIT report.16 Coercive adoption pervades the corporate world, as when a manufacturer sells a popular product to dealers

contingent on the latter also acquiring less popular ones. The exercise of social power may result in imposed adoption. In this process, a group acquires artifacts t hat m ust b e u sed b y a nother g roup. Thus, parents buy children’s clothes, toys, food, health products, and sundry paraphernalia; bureaucracies purchase for employees everything from vehicles, to furniture, to pens; and factory managers buy machines used by assembly-line workers. Public officials commission and install war memorials and other monuments thatâ•›—╛╉as mass mediaâ•›—╛╉all passersby view. In the most extreme examples, hospital patients must interact with equipment that they did not acquire (and would never think of acquiring), and soldiers and prisoners have nary a choice in everyday artifacts. In culture-contact situations, missionaries often forced indigenous groups to don Western clothing and so forth. Moreover, in slavery and quasislavery contexts, owners and masters provided many artifacts of everyday life. The U.S. government’s installation of the Hell Gate lighthouse in New York City, an imposed adoption, reminds us that the activities of seemingly homogeneous user groups may vary, with subgroups having different performance preferences. Erected in 1884 to solve navigation problems posed by rocks in the East River, Hell Gate was a powerful floodlight that brightened the way for vessels sailing near the treacherous area at night. This lighthouse garnered different responses from two user groups: shippers who sailed up and down the East River, passing into and out of the lighted zone, complained loudly, but ferry operators, who crossed the river and remained in the lighted zone, were pleased. Capitulating to the shipping companies, the government dismantled the Hell Gate light after just two years of operation.17 Only sometimes do groups suffering imposed adoption have the power to reverse an acquisition decision. Acquisition may also affect the activities of groups taking part in maintenance, repair, reuse, and discard. In exploring whether any such groups were disadvantaged by an acquisition decision, we may employ a performance preference matrix (see Chapter 8). Clearly, the many varieties and effects of imposed adoption, which in ex-

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treme forms is blatant oppression, remain to be fully explored.18 Additional Social Processes

Some social processes that stimulate invention and commercialization (Chapter 4) also foster adoption of extant products. Thus, peer competition, role fulfillment, and status maintenance promote an enormous amount of acquisition behavior, especially in socially mobile and rapidly changing societies. Some of these processes overlap with activity-entailed adoption but are singled out here because they offer opportunities for interesting studies. Peer Competition and Defensive Adoption

breakfasts, Internet access in rooms, and Wi-Fi. The perception has been that without these amenities, motels would be at a competitive disadvantage in luring travelers. A common variety of defensive adoption, which applies mainly to individuals and households, is known informally as “keeping up with the Joneses.” 20 Marina Moskowitz has described in detail how this process played out in the adoption of silver-plate flatware and bathroom fixtures by middle-class American households. She pays special attention to the ideologies espoused by manufacturers, the media, and the peer groups themselves that promoted these purchases.21 Rites of Passage

A peer competition often includes the potent process of defensive adoption, which some might view as conformity to “peer pressure.” A technology’s early adopters, as trendsetters, establish new requirements for a particular activity, and so peers seeking to display social competence may also acquire the technology. Recall that competitions are waged at every social scale, from individual to empire, and that displays of social competence may take place in any realm of activity. Early adopters sometimes enjoy only a temporary advantage because peers soon catch up. During the waning decades of the nineteenth century, electric light and power systems were installed in towns and cities throughout the United States. When entrepreneurs and civic boosters in one town adopted electric lights for downtown, neighbors in nearby towns usually followed suit, concerned that they might fall behind in attracting immigrants, businesses, and tourists. Without an electrical system, which made possible lit-up display windows and eye-catching signs and billboards, a city might seem out of step with the “march of progress.” Likewise, the first businesses on Main Street to install electric lighting gained an advantage in attracting consumers, especially in the evening when storefronts could be lit up. And so other businesses on Main Street defensively acquired electric lights.19 In recent years, many motel owners (from large chains to independents) have competed for consumers by adopting, successively, “free”

A person’s progression from one social role to the next is marked in every society by rites of passage such as puberty ceremonies, weddings, and funerals. These rituals often require certain artifacts specified by long-standing religious or social traditions, many of which have to be acquired new for that event. At his bar mitzvah, a Jewish boy receives a tallit, the prayer shawl that he is now entitled to wear, usually bought by a parent or grandparent. And it is expected that gifts from friends and relatives will rain upon the young man. In most societies, weddings are grand celebrations that include the acquisition of appropriate products. In American society, parents of a bride usually buy her a wedding dress, and the Â�couple acquires rings. The wedding itself, which in some regions and ethnic groups includes a sumptuous feast, minimally requires the purchase of Â�flowers, cake, and sundry food items. And guests are expected to buy cards and gifts for the couple, and many acquire new clothing for the occasion. Clearly, a wedding celebration is a feast of consumption, in every sense, for all participants. In present-day America, the artifact requirements for rites of passage seem to be constantly expanding. An entire industry of wedding planners has emerged in concert with manufacturers, abetted by magazines catering to would-be brides, which have dramatically raised the number of necessaryâ•›—╛╉i.e., activity-entailedâ•›—╛╉artifacts. A similar process of intensified consumerism has afflicted other traditional rites of passage from baby showers to funerals.

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Chapter 10

Seasonal Ceremonies

Artifact Replacement

Ceremonies tied to the seasons also have artifact requirements. Some may be satisfied by objects held in trust by social groups and passed down from generation to generation, such as masks and musical instruments, whereas other artifacts are acquired new. Passover, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas promote a frenzy of purchases, including cards, chocolate Â� Â�bunnies, costumes, matzo, trees, and Â�fruitcakes. A pronounced Â�upward tick in the number of Â�Christmas-╉relatedÂ� necessities appears to have followed the publication in 1843 of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, for celebrants did not want to be likened to Ebenezer Scrooge. As is well known, sales of Christmas gifts and accessories mean the difference between profit and loss for many manuÂ�facturers and retailers, which relentlessly promote purchases through media that have also become dependent on the holiday “season.” 22

The conduct of nearly every activity eventually results in artifacts that can no longer perform their functions, which is often signaled by breakage, excessive wear, or loss of symbolic or emotive value. Thus, a major process of acquisition, perhaps the major process in many traditional societies, is artifact replacement. Artifacts vary greatly in replacement rates: facial tissues are used once, yet some ritual objects last for centuries. The replacement rate of an artifact type varies directly with the number in use by the Â�community (or other group) and inversely with uselife (defined as the mean number of days or years). For a given artifact type with a constant but relatively short uselife, the rate of acquisition moves in tandem with changes in the number in use. If fewer households conduct the activity that employs the artifact, there is a decrease in acquisition rates; and as more households conduct the activity, rates of acquisition increase.23 Artifacts with very long uselives may persist in use even after senescence is well under way and acquisition has ceased. For example, large-screen black-and-white televisions have not been manufactured for many years, yet some remain in use. Modern American automobiles have uselives of about a decade even though any given modelâ•› —╛╉ e.g., the 1979 Corvetteâ•›—╛╉was manufactured for less than a year. Because of such time lags, the researcher has to take care when specifying the beginning and end of senescence. As noted in Chapter 8, manufacturers along with marketing and retailing groups in capitalist industrial societies promote various kinds of planned obsolescence, which lead to “Â�premature” replacement. Manufacturers have been known to use inferior materials or devious designs that compromise a product’s technofunction and shorten its uselife. More commonly, stylistic changes render previous models symbolically and emotively obsolete and so promote acquisition of the newest model, a process that goes hand in hand with defensive adoption and which also drives ensemble adoption.24 In times of economic downturns, groups may place less weight on symbolic and emotive performance characteristics, resisting the acquisition of the newest products so long as the old ones can still perform their technofunctions.

Gifting

The previous paragraphs imply that gifts, the mildest form of imposed adoption, help to Â�satisfy social obligations and strengthen social ties. The giver must balance social expectations of the occasion with the artifact’s performance characteristics that might be relevant for the recipient’s actual or anticipated activities. Social expectations often indicate an appropriate range for the gift’s value and may dictate particular items, as in the bride-price and dowries of traditional societies. In many countries, the only appropriate engagement present is a diamond ring, a social expectation enhanced and exploited by De Beers, the South African firm that has a monopoly on the diamond trade (“Diamonds Are Forever”). Many occasions allow the giver greater latitude. For my bar mitzvah, a neighbor gave me a fine briefcase. This was an odd present for a 13-year-old, yet the giver expected that I would use it in college, and I did. Although anthropologists and marketing specialists have written much about gifts of every kind, we have ample opportunities to create new generalizations about gifting behavior, especially on the ways that changing social expectations affect acquisition patterns and thus the life cycles of particular products.

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Adoption

Commissioned Technologies

ogies, as in the diesel-electric versus the steam locomotive.25 Obviously, technologies per se do not compete; rather, consumers choose among the offerings of competing manufacturers. That qualification aside, the competition framework helps to structure a project in which adopters select among alternatives. Two case studies here employ this framework: the first examines the competition between electric and gasoline automobiles at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the second treats upstart electric lights versus oil lamps in nineteenthcentury lighthouses. The competition framework is inapplicable if only one kind of artifact meets the performance requirements of the consumers’ activities. Such a caseâ•›—╛╉on lightning conductorsâ•›—╛╉is also taken up below.

An intriguing subject is the singular technologies that the consumer commissions, such as the Bill Gates house, Yankee Stadium, and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. In a commissioned technology, the acquiring group in effect becomes the promoter, making consequential decisions about development and manufacture. Our task, as always, is to identify the contextual factors that led to the decisions, taking into account the conÂ� sumer’s anticipation of the technology’s performance characteristics and their weightings in specific Â�activities. Sometimes a commissioned technology fails to meet the consumer’s performance preferences, and so acquisition may not take place. This can occur in capitalist industrial societies where projects involve many stages of development undertaken by different firms and agencies. In addition, production may be put out for bid, with several manufacturers competing for the contract. Thus, even though the decision to proceed is made by one group, the appreciable social heterogeneity of the cadena may give rise to communication problems, conflict, and negotiation. Although the study of commissioned technologies may be most fruitful when historical and ethnographic data are available, archaeologists are by no means reticent to tackle such technologies from prehistory. An obvious example is household objects having highly homogeneous cadenas. Archaeologists also study commissioned technologies most likely to have had heterogeneous cadenas such as the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán near Mexico City or ancient irrigation systems in Mesopotamia. Many of these technologies were built in several stages, perhaps serving different groups and performing different functions over time. Thus, the complexity of the research problem is multiplied because decisions may have been made sequentially by different groups.

Case Study 1: Electric versus Gasoline Automobiles

Chapter 9 demonstrated that, beginning in the mid-1890s, many American companies commercialized the electric automobile, and some manufacturers survived for more than a decade. The electric car then entered senescence during the late teens and virtually disappeared from the marketplace after about 1920, eclipsed by the gasoline car’s mass production and mass consumption. The explanation for this somewhat rapid senescence lies in consumer choices made during the early and middle teensâ•›—╛╉the “classic” period of electric cars.26 In studying such cases, we may employ several heuristics, including a market diagram and a threshold performance matrix.27 Let us first consider the electric automobile’s target and actual markets in relation to all potential consumers. Much evidence for inferring the electric car’s target market comes from Â�magazine advertisements. Ads in Harpers, Â�Literary Â�Digest, and Collier’s leave little doubt that electric cars were targeted at the urban eliteâ•›—╛╉i.e., the Â�upper-╉ middle and upper classes. Commonly, ads showed well-dressed men and women traveling in the cars to leisure or business activities. Other ads depict no people, yet their texts often had the same elite orientation, as in, “The Rauch & Lang Electric never can be ‘common’â•›—╛╉it will always be the car of social prestige, and appeal to those who know that in electrics cheapness is not a matter of price.” 28

Competing Technologies

Evolutionary archaeologists have shown that many technologies are adopted in a competitive context: two or more new products compete among themselves, as in the Beta versus VHS video�tape recorders; or a new technology competes against one or more established technol151

Chapter 10

The abundant ads in Literary Digest also reveal pervasive pitches to women. During the electric car’s period of greatest sales, women were depicted in and around electric cars about three times more often than men. Likewise, ads touting technical virtuosity, which at that time would have been aimed mainly at men, were muted after about 1910, the time when the electric car’s component technologies had become largely stabilized. A product’s design also supplies evidence about the target market. The electric car’s furnishings underscored the manufacturers’ expectations that their products would be bought by people with “refined taste.” The more expensive models included richly upholstered seats, reading lights, and silk curtains, which would have been expected to appeal more to women than to men. The ads and other lines of evidence, including manufacturers’ brochures, discussions in trade journals, and articles in motorist magazines, are strongly patterned: the electric car’s target market during the early and middle teens was urban America’s “horsey set,” people who could afford to own and maintain horse-drawn carriages in the city. But some manufacturers also expected electric cars eventually to trickle down to the middle class. Acting on this belief, a few makers brought out relatively inexpensive models in the midteens, but these products failed to put the brakes on the electric car’s sales skid. As noted above, it is difficult to obtain accurate evidence on a product’s actual market. Fortunately, all sources converge on the conclusion that most electric cars were bought by wealthy urbanites. Moreover, women often used the cars, especially during daytime, for running errands and traveling to social activities. In a photograph taken in 1914 outside the Detroit Athletic Club, presumably where women were meeting, 32 of the 35 parked cars were electric.29 Telling evidence that women drove, perhaps even purchased, electric cars comes from a variety of intriguing ads. In 1912, the Electric Vehicle Association of America inquired of readers, “Have you noticed that more men are driving Electrics each day?”30 An ad for Motz tires, addressed to “Madam,” claimed “No More Tire Troubles on Electric Cars.”31 And people in the electric car industry commented on the car’s association with women, lamenting that 152

Figure 10.2. A marketing diagram. Source: Schiffer

2000.

this might be discouraging purchases by men.32 All lines of relevant evidence indicate that women preferred electric cars. A market diagram visually summarizes inferences about a product’s target and actual markets in relation to subgroups of potential consumers (based on sociodemographic factors). By highlighting major patterns, a market diagram helps us to refine a project’s questions. The automobile marketing diagram (Figure 10.2) exhibits a strong pattern: the electric car was a niche product that never reached a mass market. Yet the urban middle class did adopt automobilesâ•›—╛╉gasoline automobilesâ•›—╛╉in profusion. This pattern, finally, leads us to ask a more nuanced question: Why did members of the urban middle class prefer gasoline over electric cars? To lay a foundation for answering this question, we compare the consumer-related performance characteristics of the two automobile types. The tool for making these comparisons is a threshold performance matrix, one organized in terms of the major use-related activities of that time: touring in the countryside, an activity favored by men; and the urban activities of running errands and traveling to social functions, which were favored by women (Table 10.1).33 This kind

Table 10.1. Threshold Performance Matrix for Gasoline and Electric Automobiles, ca. 1912.

Activity and Performance Characteristic

Gasoline

Electric

Touring Range of 100+ mi (T)

+

–

Top speed of 40–60 mph (T, S)

+

–

Ease of fueling, recharging (T)

+

–

Ruggedness (T)

+

–

Economy of operation and maintenance (T)

–

–

Repairability in country (T)

+

–

Can indicate owner’s membership in the group “tourists” (S)

+

–

Can indicate owner’s wealth (S)

+

+

Range of 50–100 mi (T)

+

+

Speed of 12–20 mph (T)

+

+

Ease of starting (T)

–

+

Running Errands in Town

East of driving (T)

–

+

All-weather capability (T)

–

+

Reliability (T)

–

+

Economy of operation and maintenance (T)

–

–

Ease of fueling, recharging (T)

+

+

Can indicate owner’s wealth (S)

+

+

Can indicate owner’s social position (S)

+

+

Range of 50–100 mi (T)

+

+

Traveling to Social Functions in Town

Speed of 12–20 mph (T)

+

+

Ease of starting (T)

–

+

East of driving (T)

–

+

All-weather capability (T)

–

+

Reliability (T)

–

+

Economy of operation and maintenance (T)

–

–

Ease of fueling, recharging (T)

+

+

Cleanliness of operation (T)

–

+

Quietness of operation (T, S)

–

+

Can indicate owner’s membership in the “horsey set” (S)

–

+

Can indicate owner’s wealth (S)

+

+

Can indicate owner’s affinity for “high culture” (I)

–

+

Note: Entries represent an approximation of how these performance characteristics were judged. + = the car exceeded the threshold value of that performance characteristic; – = the car fell short of the threshold value; T = technofunction; S = sociofunction; I = ideofunction.

Chapter 10

of matrix indicates whether a performance characteristic did (+) or did not (–) meet the activity’s basic performance requirements. In constructing a matrix, we exploit varied lines of evidence for inferring performance characteristics pertaining to all functions. The matrix exhibits strong patterns in relation to the three automobiling activities: in every performance characteristic relevant to touring, electric cars fell far short, but they were superior in the majority of performance characteristics important for running errands and traveling to social functions. Indeed, given the low city speed limits of that timeâ•›—╛╉8–12 mph, geared to the plodding pace of the horseâ•›—╛╉an electric car could cruise town essentially all day long on a single charge of the battery. These patterns demonstrate that the decision to purchase a car was not that of choosing between functional equivalents. If a family bought only one car, some of its automobiling activities would be badly compromised, even curtailed. To enhance their automobiling activities, we would expect America’s wealthiest families to have bought both kinds of cars, obviating the need for compromises. And that is exactly what happened. The Henry and Clara Ford family had a stable of gasoline cars, including a Rolls Royce and a succession of Detroit Electrics, the latter driven mainly by Clara. Thomas and Mina Edison also had “his” and “her” automobiles, gasoline and electric, respectively. Here, then, is an apparent paradox: Ford, who helped to bring about and personified the triumph of the gasoline car, owned electrics, and Edison, tireless advocate of electric cars, who invented and commercialized a battery that gave them a greater range, owned gasoline cars. This paradox vanishes when we acknowledge that each kind of car performed best in different automobiling activities. Thus, families that wanted to conduct all activities had to own both kinds of cars, regardless of the values and automobile preferences their members might have expressed as inventors and manufacturers. At that time, however, middle-class families could not afford to buy and maintain two cars. That these families favored touring activities, as indicated by their purchase of gasoline cars, leads to the next question: Why did these families favor a leisure activity pursued mainly by men? The an-

swer, I suggest, implicates the structure of middleclass families in America before World War II. In the traditional Euro-American patriarchal family, men were the “breadwinners” and so could decide which activities in certain realms were favored and could allocate resources to meet those activities’ performance requirements. Middleclass men, captivated by touring and aware that ownership of a touring-capable car had become a status marker among their peers, enhanced their leisure activities and advertised their social competence by buying, displaying, and talking about gasoline cars. And occasionally they might have used them for touring. This explanation differs so greatly from those generated by folk theory (see Chapter 2) that some scholars have dismissed it out of hand.34 In dealing with proximate causes, my explanation remains sound, but it does not explain how and why groups came to favor specific activities. In this study and the one on lighthouse illuminants that follows, the threshold performance matrix was indispensable for comparing the capabilities of competing technologies. Construction of a matrix places great demands on evidence and inference and invites revision by other researchers; yet robust patterns are apt to persist. In the automobile matrix, performance characteristics were grouped according to activities of use. The lighthouse study shows that this kind of matrix may also be organized in relation to additional life history activities. Case Study 2: Electric versus Oil Lamps in Lighthouses

As the market diagram suggests, the consumer response to a given technology is that of differential adoption. Even when information about a new technology is widely disseminated, some people and some groups become adopters, but others do not. Surely most middle-class Americans knew about electric cars but declined to buy one. Prehistoric societies in Southern California and the Great Basin were familiar with pottery making, for their neighbors practiced it, yet only some groups became pottery makers and users. When the adoption process is framed in this way, the researcher strives to explain the decisions of adopters, partial adopters, and nonadopters.35 In studying lighthouse illuminants in the late

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Adoption

Figure 10.3. Sandy Hook main light, New Jersey, the first lighthouse to employ an incandescent light.

nineteenth century, I seek to explain (1) why no country adopted electric lights for all lighthouses, (2) why two countriesâ•›—╛╉England and Franceâ•› —╛╉ were relatively avid adopters, (3) why some countries such as the United States were token adopters, and (4) why many countries adopted no electric lights. The differential adoption of electric lights is an intriguing puzzle because of the challenge of explaining adoption decisions vested in organizations, usually government lighthouse boards, that had to consider and reconcile many financial, utilitarian, and political factors when weighting the performance characteristics of different illuminants. Electric systems for lighthouse illumination at that time mainly employed carbon arcs, which also produced the very bright light still found in some theater projectors and in old searchlights.36 At its peak popularity in 1895, fewer than 30 arc lights were in use among the thousands of lighthouses worldwide.37 Oil lamps remained the predominant lighthouse illuminant everywhere.

(Only a very few lighthouses had an incandescent lamp; America’s first was the Sandy Hook main light in New Jersey [Figure 10.3].) Maritime commerce and naval activities accelerated greatly in the mid–nineteenth century, given added impetus by steamships and international telegraphs. Groups with an interest in safe travel at sea, including merchants, shipowners, Â� captains, insurance companies, and naval officers, advocated improved systems of coastal lighting. In response to these pressures, national lighthouse boards, where not already in existence, were established to expand the number and effectiveness of coastal navigation aids. Lighthouse organizations in England, Scotland, France, and the United States kept abreast of developments abroad and experimented with new illuminants and acoustical aids. Naval officers shared their firsthand familiarity with conditions along other coasts, and official visits provided timely information on foreign organizations and technologies. Reports on new

155

Chapter 10 Table 10.2. Performance Matrix for Lighthouse Illumination, ca. 1860–1899.

Activity and Performance Characteristic

Electric

Oil

Acquisition of Components and Installation of the System Components commercially available

+

+

Can be installed in lighthouses anywhere

–

+

Easily installed in existing lighthouse structures

–

+

Affordable “first costs”

–

+

Existing expertise adequate for designing and installing system

–

+

Yields whitest, brightest, most penetrating light

+

–

Produces sufficiently steady light

+

+

Long outages are avoidable

+

+

Does not cast confusing shadows

–

+

Avoids blinding mariners

–

+

Symbolizes special concern for safety of ships and sailors

+

–

Symbolizes a nation’s wealth and political power

+

–

Symbolizes modernity

+

–

Symbolizes scientific/technological prowess

+

–

Operable with traditional staff of keepers

–

+

Operable without complete backup systems

–

+

Breakdowns easily repaired

–

+

Affordable operating expenses

–

+

Easy to administer

–

+

Functions During Use

Operation, Regular Maintenance, and Repairs

Note: + = meets basic performance requirements; – = does not meet basic performance requirements.

Â� lighthouse Â�technologies appeared in technical and popular journals and in monographs. The electric light received extensive and detailed coverage, beginning with the first installation in an English lighthouse in 1859. In the following years, publications compared the performance characteristics of the electric light with those of oil lamps. Clearly, the differential adoption of electric illuminants cannot be attributed to the differential distribution of information about the new technology’s performance characteristics. Perhaps a threshold performance matrix treating several life history processes can point the way to an explanation.

Because the decisions of lighthouse boards impinged on many activities, I grouped the performance characteristics of the two illuminants in relation to three major processes: (1) acquisition and installation; (2) utilitarian and symbolic functions in use; and (3) regular operation, maintenance, and repairs. (Each process and its constituent activities involved specific social groups, and so we could also focus on the latter when constructing an explanation.) The entries in Table 10.2 run the gamut of behavioral capabilities, including performance characteristics for mechanical, chemical, and electrical interactions as well as costs for acquisi-

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Adoption

tion, use, and maintenance. The incorporation of sensory performance characteristics accommodates symbolic and emotive capabilities, such as conveying a general or specific meaning. Thus, the matrix makes it possible to include seemingly incommensurable factorsâ•›—╛╉quantitative and qualitativeâ•›—╛╉from political meanings to labor costs. To highlight patterns, we shuffle the rows to create clusters of plusses and minuses in each process category (I did not do this for the car matrixâ•›—╛╉Table 10.1). As long as all performance characteristics apparently relevant to the decision-making group are included, the threshold performance matrix serves as a causally neutral tool involving no a priori assumptions about weightings. In principle, any patterns should help us identify which performance characteristics were heavily weighted by particular consumer groups and which were not. On the basis of major and minor patterns in the weightings, we can posit contextual factorsâ•›—╛╉e.g., political, religious, social, economic, and environmentalâ•›—╛╉that might have affected the decisions of each group of potential adopters. Table 10.2 exhibits strong patterning. Insofar as acquisition and installation are concerned, the electric light was a poor performer. The purchase price was greater, it was difficult or impossible to emplace in many existing lighthouses, and installation was costly and required special expertise. During use, electric and oil illuminants had varied strengths and weaknesses in performance, but both served their technofunctions adequately. Lighthouses also had important symbolic functions, especially in this era of intense international competition. The electric light, because it was whiter and brighter than oil lamps, excelled at communicating a country’s concern for safety at sea. And because of its special cachet as an electrical technology at a time when the telegraph, telephone, and trolley were beginning to affect many lives, the electric light could serve as a symbol of a country’s scientific and technological prowess. Thus, in addition to being an aid to navigation, the electric lighthouse was a beacon of modernity. Yet it performed poorly in operation and maintenance by requiring backup electrical and oil systems and a larger staff, and it was more expensive and difficult to repair and administer.

The major pattern in the performance matrix is painfully clear: only in use-related functionsâ•› —╛╉ as an aid to navigation and a beacon of modernityâ•›—╛╉was the electric light a stellar performer. In all other performance characteristics, especially operating costs and the unquantifiable “hassle” factor, the electric light dimmed. Thus, the failure of lighthouse organizations in every country to adopt electric lights for general application was a recurrent decision apparently based on assigning a heavy weight to a host of utilitarian and financial performance characteristics. Nonetheless, some countries did install electric lights even after the early adoptions had revealed their shortcomings. The matrix’s minor pattern indicates that these adopters heavily weighted the electric light’s symbolic performance characteristics. Owing to its symbolic potency, new arc lights could serve as a political technology, especially if the lighthouses were situated in prominent places likely to be seen by people of many nations. That is why, I suggest, a handful of countries that previously had no electric lights, such as Spain, Denmark, and the United States, adopted one or two in the last decades of the century. These were, perhaps, instances of defensive adoption. Then there is the matter of explaining the more avid adoptions by England and France, which I believe resulted from peer competition and defensive adoption between traditional aÂ� dversaries. Despite the electric light’s many performance deficiencies, England added several and floated a plan to add many more. France, which had already installed a handful of electric lights, considered a massive project to electrify all of her most important lighthouses. In proposing this project to the government, Émile Allard, the chief engineer of France’s Central Lighthouse Service, played the nationalist card by noting in a report that the British had “already established 6 electric lights on their coasts, and they appear to be soon installing many others.” 38 French officials could not miss the point: if France did not rapidly adopt more electric lights, Britain would take a decisive lead in lighthouse illumination. To guard against this indignity, Allard proposed that 42 electric lights be emplaced in new and existing lighthouses. Although the plan was accepted, only 12 of the proposed lights were put into operation; 157

Chapter 10

the expenses for carrying out the entire plan were simply too great, even for France. Newer oil lamps would have to suffice. Lending support to the inference that electric lighthouses had an overriding political function for France and England is their spatial distribution. The French lights at Dunkerque, Calais, Gris-Nez, and La Canche were tightly clustered in the extreme north, at the Strait of Dover, where the English Channel is narrowest. This was one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and also where the British lights were clusteredâ•›—╛╉probably not a coincidence. This placement ensured that every ship passing through this part of the channel from the Atlantic and Mediterranean en route to London and points north would almost always be within view of one or more electric lights, at least in good weather. Certainly these lights promoted safe passage through a narrow and often stormy and fogged-in channel, yet they also advertised French scientific and technological eminence to every passing mariner. In the wake of the humiliating Franco-Prussian War, the electric light was one way that France could assert symbolically that it was still a world power, underÂ� scoring her contributions to electrical science and technology even as other nations such as the United States were taking the lead. Although England abandoned its plan to electrify dozens of lighthouses, it did add a few after 1880. One can infer that the new British lights, and retention of the old ones despite their high operating costs, were a halfhearted attempt to keep pace with the French program, which, ironically, had been partly predicated on the belief that the British were about to take the lead in lighthouse illumination. The vast majority of maritime countries adopted no electric lights, a pattern that might be explained by several factors. The first is that for many countries, no amount of political symbolism could offset the electric light’s greater expense and hassles; investing in other trappings of modernity might have promised a richer dividend. Second, the electric light might not have had the same favorable meanings in countries outside the mainstream of Western technological development and political hegemony. And third, the facilities and technical expertise needed to maintain the lights were lacking in many places.

Discussion Functional Equivalents

The two case studies demonstrate that the notion of “functional equivalent,” which implicitly pervades many studies of technological change, is dubious. The claim that two technologies are functionally equivalent usually rests on purportedly identical technofunctional performance characteristics. Thus, electric and gasoline cars moved people from place to place, and oil lamps and electric arcs in lighthouses furnished adequate light. However, the threshold performance matrices (Tables 10.1 and 10.2) indicate that, beyond sharing a few general performance characteristics, seemingly equivalent technologies are likely to differ in a host of specific performance characteristics, including symbolic and emotive ones. Moreover, performance characteristics throughout other life history activities are apt to vary. In selecting among competing technologies that appear to be functional equivalents, potential adopters may weight any performance characteristic in any life history activity. I maintain that functionally equivalent technologiesâ•›—╛╉in the sense of identical performance characteristics in all activitiesâ•›—╛╉are exceedingly rare.39 If that is so, then it becomes necessary to employ heuristics that permit fine-grained comparisons among competing technologies, such as a threshold performance matrix structured by life history activities. Indeed, this matrix compels us to consider the entire set of relevant people– artifactÂ�, artifact–artifact, and perhaps even Â�artifact–╉extern interactions that took place in activities along the competing technologies’ behavioral chains. This approach reduces the chance of overlooking contextual factors that influenced acquisition decisions and establishes a sound basis for creating an explanation. The assumption of functional equivalence has vitiated many efforts to help communities in “developing” countries. In the decades following World War II, various public and private organizations in the United States and other nations sought to hasten economic “development” by giving these countries Western technologies, from diesel irrigation pumps to electric pottery wheels. Through ignorance or arrogance it was assumed that the new technology could simply substitute for the old one and thereby improve

158

Adoption

peoples’ lives. In case after case, however, the results contradicted the planners’ rosy forecasts. The new technologies either (1) were not adopted at all, (2) were tried out by a few early adopters and then abandoned, or (3) were widely adopted but had unexpected and unhappy consequences. Such non- or misbegotten adoptions are usually attributed to the inherent conservatism of the recipient group, which is tantamount to abandoning the search for an explanation. I suggest that the actual explanation has to do with the poor fit between a new technology’s performance characteristics and the performance requirements of traditional activities.40 It should be possible to construct a behavioral explanation for such a case by treating it as a competition between the old and new technologies, making use of a threshold performance matrix that includes all relevant life history activities. “Lag in Adoption” or Differential Adoption?

Diffusionists sometimes frame a question as follows: Why did some consumers lag behind others in replacing an old technology with a new one? The implicit assumption is that the new technology was markedly superior. A perfunctory analysis of performance characteristics, perhaps just economic ones, may follow, with the conclusion that the new technology should have been rapidly and widely adopted. Thus, the laggards resisted because they were simply hidebound conservatives, wedded to the familiar technology.41 The lighthouse case study suggests another approach: (1) frame the problem as one of differential adoption, (2) identify and assess all potentially relevant performance characteristics of the competing technologies in relation to the adopting groups’ activities (including primary and secondary consumers, where appropriate), (3) construct a threshold performance matrix, and (4) craft models of the contextual factors that influenced the decisions of early and late adopters. The Researcher’s Judgment and Creativity

Even the casual reader cannot help but notice that the study of competing technologies depends heavily on the researcher’s performance characteristics. Consider, for example, how judgment and creativity contribute to the study of differential adoption and the construction of a

threshold performance matrix. Because any technology can provoke many questions, sometimes the most fruitful question is not formulated until the research is well under way. In the electric car study, it took me many months to peel away folk theories before I could ask: Why didn’t middleclass American consumers adopt electric cars? This question differed greatly from the standard one in automobile histories: “Why did the early electric car fail as a consumer product?” In comparing two or more technologies, we have much latitude in identifying and assessing their specific performance characteristics. There is no cookbook. From the standpoint of the decision-making group, we consider which performance characteristics in which life history activities would have been relevant. By relevant I do not mean that every performance characteristic was explicitly considered by decision makers, for performance characteristics can sometimes be understood implicitly and still influence the decision. Thus, in the lighthouse study, I included the electric light’s symbolic performance characteristics even though the many lighthouse-related sources I consulted made no mention of them. I suggest that the partial and token adoptions of electric lights are inexplicable unless we consider their meanings at that time, which can be inferred from well-documented public responses to electric lights and other electrical technologies. Our task, then, is to use varied lines of evidence to posit the set of performance characteristics that affected acquisition decisions. Sometimes it is necessary to impute to decision makers the possession of a technology’s implicit meanings. In societies without written records, this creative act is difficult but unavoidable. Then there is the matter of deciding whether a given performance characteristic crossed the threshold of adequacy. These judgments, too, depend greatly on our abilities to gather, assess, and integrate multiple lines of evidence. Judgment looms especially large when sources offer divergent views. In inferring that the electric light was an adequate illuminant during use, I discounted a few sources that offered a contrary opinion. That was a judgment call, and such calls are needed when sources conflictâ•›—╛╉and when they are silent. Patterns in a completed threshold performance matrix may stand out or be subtle. Minor

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patterns may be especially problematic, for they could be easily ignored or accorded undue attention. Thus, different researchers may perceive different patterns and attach greater or lesser significance to them. Creativity also looms large in establishing connections between contextual factors and patterns in a threshold performance matrix. Two people could craft identical matrices, recognize similar patterns, and yet arrive at dramatically different explanations. I hasten to point out that conflicting explanations and the controversies they engender are as common in physics, chemistry, and biology as they are in archaeology and history. More often than not, a controversy is the starting point for new and productive research. It is no failing of the behavioral approach that models and heuristics admit of individual differences, alternative explanations, and disputes among investigators. Even in science there is art. Adoption Without Competition

New technologies occasionally have somewhat unique performance characteristics, and so may utterly lack competitors. Potential adopters may assess the effects that such a technology’s (anticipated) performance characteristics are likely to have on ongoing activities or forecast new activities that they make possible. Acquisition is more likely if the new technology seems to solve a longstanding problem, satisfies the performance requirements of a cultural imperative, enables the display of social competence, and so forth. In explaining a case of adoption without competition, we seek strong evidence for inferring adoption patterns. Next it is necessary to identify the technology’s anticipated performance characteristics in specific activities, such as ease of acquisition and effectiveness during use, which potential adopter groups likely considered and perhaps weighted. Finally, taking contextual Â�factors into account, we explain the adoption patterns. A common context for noncompetitive adoption is culture-contact settings. Although many adoptions by an indigenous group may be coerced, others reflect deliberate decisions. The Hopi Indians of northern Arizona have been exposed to many new cultivated plants through contact with successive invaders, beginning with

the Spanish in the mid–sixteenth century. Hopi farmers and their prehistoric forebears had long practiced a diversified agriculture in their high desert environment, growing many varieties of maize, beans, squash, and other cultigens. They have also been avid experimenters. Alfred Whiting, an ethnobotanist who studied Hopi agriculture in the 1930s, wrote that “when it comes to seed, the Hopi will try anything once.” 42 Indeed, Hopi farmers tested any new species and varieties that came their way, for each cultigen has somewhat distinctive growing-, preparation-, and userelated performance characteristics. Introduced plants that survived, and whose products could be used, continued to be cultivatedâ•›—╛╉everyÂ�thing from peaches to watermelon. We might hypothesize that peoples such as the Hopi, having a precarious subsistence base owing to their environment’s short growing season and erratic rainfall, were eager to adopt new cultigens that might lessen sporadic subsistence stress. In this adoption process, new cultigens were added to agricultural practice, and old ones were retained. Case Study: Franklin’s Lightning Conductor

The study of adoption without competition can be illustrated by the lightning conductor, commonly called a lightning rod.43 In the event of a lighting strike, this technology protects a structure by passing the charge harmlessly into the ground (or in the case of ships, into the sea). In addition to the rod on the roof, the lightning conductor includes fixtures to hold the rod firmly in place and fasteners to secure the wire as it wends its way into the ground. Invented by Benjamin Franklin and publicized beginning in 1750, the lighting conductor was soon commercialized on both sides of the Atlantic by instrument makers and by others skilled in fashioning and installing metal products. Lightning conductors were advertised in instrument catalogs at £3 to almost £8, but these prices were misleadingly low. Most installations were commissioned, and thus a design had to be customized for each structure. A ship installation could cost £100. Clearly, for many groups the high cost of most installations reduced this technology’s affordability. Lightning was a scourge that could ignite or tear apart a building in seconds. In 1769, lightning

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struck an unprotected powder magazine in Brescia, Italy, setting off its entire store; the blast leveled the town and also killed some 3,000 people. Powder magazines were among Â� lightning’s likely targets, as were tall buildings and ships. The lightning conductor was the firstâ•›—╛╉and remains the onlyâ•›—╛╉technology that actually protects Â�structures. However, some people, including one prominent natural philosopherâ•›—╛╉Â�Franklin’s Â�nemesis Jean-Antoine Nolletâ•›—╛╉b elieved that lighting conductors actually attracted lightning and thus increased the risk of damage. In studying lightning conductors, we can exploit a unique body of evidence on adoption. In 1784 Marsilio Landriani, a professor of physics and a persuasive advocate of Franklin’s invention, published information on 323 European installations of lightning conductors.44 For each entry he recorded the kind of structure, its location, and usually the owner’s name. Simple analyses of these data furnish patterns that contribute to fashioning a narrative of differential adoption. At the outset, let us consider the gaps and biases in Landriani’s data that necessarily constrain our inferences. The most entriesâ•›—╛╉120â•›—╛╉come from Landriani’s home country, Italy, followed by France and Germany with a little more than 60 each; there is a mere sprinkling of other installations. I suspect that these data record the observations and activities of people in Landriani’s social network. Given this geographical bias, several conclusions follow: (1) Landriani’s Â�sample underestimatesâ•›—╛╉perhaps vastlyâ•›—╛╉the total number of installations; (2) assuming that Italy is the most exhaustive case, adoptions were clearly sparse; and (3) inferences about differences in the prevalence of lightning conductors among countries are precluded. Nonetheless, aggregated data should reveal patterns in the kinds of buildings protected as well as in the purchasers’ social positions. Houses, by far the most abundant structure in almost all communities, constitute more than half the installations (54 percent), followed distantly by religious structures (14 percent), palaces and castles (8 percent), military structures (7 percent), and public buildings (6 percent). Schools and factories together make up only 3 percent. The prevalence of military lightning conductors is greatly underestimated because, in some cases, Landriani’s en-

tries (each of which, in the absence of specifics, I counted only once) correspond explicitly to multiple installations, such as all powder magazines controlled by the grand duke of Tuscany. Setting aside houses for the moment, we see that the vulnerable structures of organizations, especially wealthy ones, were more likely to be protected. As stewards of such properties, church and state functionaries were likely to have in their ranks people familiar with electrical matters. Because many electrical experts were clergymen, they would have been strong advocates for outfitting religious buildings. And the grand duke of Tuscany was himself an electrical experimenter. No doubt many castles, palaces, and military installations in wealthier countries were protected, whereas poor parish churches in countless hamlets were not. I suggest that access to electrical expertise and sufficient wealth were two major factors favoring the acquisition of lightning conductors by the stewards of nonresidential structures. I divided houses into two groups: those that were owned by a titled person, such as a duke or earl, and those that were not. In any Â�community the nobility would be a minuscule minority of all residents, yet nearly half the housesâ•›—╛╉84 of 174â•› —╛╉ were owned by titled persons. What is more, many other houses, some listed as “country homes,” doubtless also belonged to the elite. Among the untitled adopters were scholars and scientists, many with knowledge of electricity. Although it is possible that less well-to-do people installed their own lighting conductors, low affordability might have been a barrier, as were beliefs by some that lightning conductors were dangerous. The inescapable conclusion is that lighting conductors for houses were mainly an elite consumer product. Apart from the protection it provided, a lightning conductor had a symbolic function that may have fostered its acquisition by well-heeled and well-educated urbanites. A lightning rod on the roof was visible to passersby, marking its owner as a knowledgeable and prudent person to peers. I speculate that if one elite house in a community was fitted with a lightning conductor, other members of that social class, especially neighbors, might have installed them tooâ•›—╛╉an instance of defensive adoption. Perhaps in some communities lightning conductors 161

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Â� became a status marker that indicated prudence and social competence. We may also infer that risk assessments, however flawed and implicit, probably figured in decisions, as indicated by patterns in nonresidential structures. The most uniformly protected type of building, in all countries for which some data are available, was the powder magazine. The dire consequences of a lightning strike on such a structure were so well known after the Brescia disaster as to occasion little overt discussion. A warranted inference is that such knowledge was factored into decisions, given that powder magazines were preferentially protected in comparison to all other types of nonresidential structure. In these cases, the lightning conductor’s ability to protect structures clearly outweighed its cost. In contrast, nonadoptersâ•›—╛╉if they were familiar with lightning conductorsâ•›—╛╉apparently favored parsimony over protection, perhaps having concluded that the risk of a lightning strike on their structures was negligible. (In such cases of differential adoption, we may employ a market diagram to display categories of people and categories of structure.) Summary

This chapter has offered a panorama of adoption processes. Adoption depends on the aggregate acquisition decisions of consumers, which may consist of groups and subgroups at any social scale. At the household scale, influential factors include income, stage of household development, and residential mobility, but the patterns tend to be weak. The activity-enhancement process helps us to explain some of this variation, for it states that a group with sufficient resources will likely enhance favored activities by purchasing a plethora of specialized artifacts. Ensemble adoption, which encompasses the Diderot effect, enabling technologies, and acces-

soriesâ•›—╛╉and is promoted by sundry social processesâ•›—╛╉also leads to variation in the Â�products acquired by households and other social groups. Activity-entailed adoption, prevalent at all social scales, contributes greatly to acquisition processes. In sequential adoption, two or more consumer groups make serial decisions, and so explanation requires a consideration of the factors influencing each group’s decision. Various social phenomena lead to coerced and imposed adoption, which are common, for example, in bureaucratic organizations and in culture-contact situations. Artifact replacement makes possible the continued performance of activities in every society. Many social processes such as defensive adoption, rites of passage, seasonal ceremonies, and gifting also promote acquisition. Case studies on early electric and gasoline automobiles and on electric and oil lamps in nineteenth-century lighthouses brought to the fore two heuristics, the market diagram and the threshold performance matrix, for studying competing technologies. These case studies also called into question the notion of functionally equivalent technologies and emphasized the need to explain differential adoption. The final case study, employing the lightning conductor of the eighteenth century, treated adoption without competition. The adoption processes enumerated here are not exhaustive, for additional processes remain to be identified and investigated. Nor are the processes mutually exclusive. For example, artifact replacement and ensemble adoption operate in tandem and may be sustained by social processes such as defensive adoption. In weaving an explanatory tapestry, the researcher can show how several processes together yielded the adoption pattern.

Notes 1. In the literature of material culture studies, adoption is often called “consumption” (e.g., Miller 2001). 2. On the effects of social networks, see, e.g., Abrahamson and Rosenkopf 1997. Adoptions also may have unforeseen consequences on society as a whole. As

Winner points out, “Technologies are structures whose conditions of operation demand the restructuring of their environment” (1977:100). 3. On the Coxoh Project, see Hayden and Cannon 1984; on the Kalinga Project, see Longacre and Â�Skibo 1984 and Stark and Skibo 2007.

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Adoption 4. Historical archaeologists employ variants of this strategy (e.g., Spencer-Wood 1987). 5. Schiffer et al. 1981 supplies details on this study. 6. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imelda_Marcos, accessed October 30, 2008. 7. In the original discussion of the activity-Â� enhancement process, I called it the Imelda Marcos hypothesis (Schiffer 1995). 8. On the archaeological study of consumer societies, see Majewski and Schiffer 2001. 9. Nye 1998:170. The Diderot effect was named in McCracken 1988:118–119. A related but more general concept is “coherence”â•›—╛╉the idea that household items should in some sense be matched (Winther 2008:╉165). 10. Montgomery and Reid 1990. 11. Nye 1998:171. 12. Winther 2008. 13. Winther 2008:106, 176–177. 14. Mason (1894, 1896) was the first anthropologist to delineate what would later be called “culture areas.” A specialist in the study of technologies, he attributed “technogeographical” zones to environmental factors. 15. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde, accessed January 10, 2009. 16. Clark 1992:185–187. 17. Schiffer 2008a:279–280; see also Schiffer 2005a. 18. Walker and Schiffer 2006 begins building relevant theory. 19. See Marvin 1988 and Nye 1990 on the symbolic potency of electric light and power systems. 20. Social critic Vance Packard (1959) engaged the process of “keeping up with the Joneses.” 21. Moskowitz expresses her view as follows: “The shared material markers of the standard of living were particularly important in providing a sense of middle-class identity” (2004:12). 22. Schmidt 1995 discusses the processes that promote the intensified consumerism of many seasonal ceremonies; on Christmas, see also Miller 1993. 23. These kinds of relationships are discussed in detail in Schiffer 1987:Chapter 4.

24. Slade 2006 treats the many strategies of planned obsolescence. 25. On the competition framework, see Leonard and Jones 1987, which discusses the “replicative success” of artifacts. Schiffer 1996a furnishes a behavioral version of competition. 26. Schiffer, Butts, and Grimm 1994:Chapter 10. 27. Schiffer 2000 presents additional details on this case study, including the heuristics. 28. Literary Digest, 19 October 1912:685. 29. Georgano 1985 makes this observation. 30. Literary Digest, 13 July 1912:70. 31. Literary Digest, 2 March 1912:442. 32. See, e.g., Chalfant 1916. 33. Griffitts 2006 makes extensive use of performance matrices to study adoption processes. 34. Dismissive reviews include Hugill 1996 and Scharff 1995. Mom 2004 and Kirsch 2000 support my explanation’s basic premises and add much to the story. 35. In an ethnographic context, Acheson and Reidman 1982 discusses differential adoption by individuals. 36. Schiffer 2005a and 2008a:Chapter 20 present additional material on the lighthouse case. 37. I have estimated these numbers from Findlay and Kettle 1896. 38. Allard 1881:3; my translation. 39. A more formal exposition of this tenet is the “postulate of functional nonequivalence” (Schiffer 1979, 1992a:83). 40. Neupert 1999 furnishes several examples of illconceivedÂ�introductions of “modern” ceramic technologies to villages in the Philippines. 41. For an example of this approach, see Aldcroft 1969. 42. Alfred Whiting, quoted in Soleri and Cleveland 1993:╉206. Soleri and Cleveland 1993 discusses the retention of traditional plant varieties and the incorporation of new ones into Hopi agriculture. 43. Schiffer et al. 2003:Chapter 9 furnishes a more complete account of the lightning conductor. 44. Landriani 1784.

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11

Large-Scale Processes of Aggregate Technologies

Previous chapters have supplied a smorgasbord of generalizations and heuristics for investigating and explaining (in proximate fashion) the recurrent decisions that create patterns of technological change. Sometimes, however, we encounter patterns on a scale so large that analyzing them as the sum of individual decisions would be unwieldy. Large-scale patterns require new generaliÂ�zations that put individual decisions in the background without resorting to diffusion theory or similarly unsatisfactory constructs. Having access to decades-, centuries-, and even millennia-long sequences of technological Â� change that sometimes transpired over vast territories, we are well positioned to investigate largescale patterns, especially of aggregate technologies, and to formulate new generalizations and heuristics. This chapter presents two general models, the first on long-term competitions, the second on technological differentiation, along with recommendations on how to explain trends in an aggregate technology’s use-related performance characteristics. Long-Term Competitions

This section engages a common pattern: the apparent replacement of one aggregate �technology by another, as epitomized by the sequence of Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. To handle such cases, we may employ a model focused on aggregate technologies in competition.1 Recall that an aggregate technology is a family of related ma-

terials, components, products, processes, or complex technological systems. Although the previous chapter examined competitions between aggregate technologiesâ•›—╛╉electric versus gasoline autoÂ�mobiles and electric versus oil illuminants in lighthousesâ•›—╛╉they involved somewhat homogeneous aggregates and lasted only a few decades. The present model handles far more diverse aggregates as well as longer-lasting competitions. On the basis of folk theories and marketing ideologies, many people in capitalist industrial societies come to believe that technological competitions end in a rout. Thus, “old-fashioned” and presumably inferior aggregate technologies are replaced by “new and better” ones in a linear process that culminates in a fleeting senescence for the earlier technology. Many popular histories and textbooks, and even some scholarly works, extol the superiority of the new technology, making it seem obvious why its predecessor lost the competition and purportedly disappeared. This kind of narrative can be easily overturned when the researcher attends in some detail to the record of actual technological change, for old technologies have a habit of persisting.2 Let us take vacuum tubes, a large aggregate of component types; first commercialized before 1910, they were once present in all Â�electronic devices. Although some vacuum tube types did die out rapidly after the first transistors (another aggregate of components) became commercially available in 1952, others did not. Indeed,

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Â� transistors replaced tubes only slowly in many products; after all, to incorporate transistors, a circuit as well as other components had to be redesigned. Moreover, designing transistors for particular applications sometimes involved a large developmental distance. Surprisingly, vacuum tubes are still manufactured today for use in high-end stereos and guitar amplifiers, linear Â�accelerators, xâ•‚ray equipment, radar systems, microwave Â�ovens, commercial broadcast transmitters, and so onâ•›—╛╉more than a half century after the first transistors went to market. Similarly, Janet Griffitts reminds us that bone survives as a material technology millennia after the appearance of metals. Animal bone was used extensively well into the nineteenth century in the West for everyday consumer products from toothbrush handles, to jewelry, to dice, and even today it is made into bone folders (used by some librarians and archivists), knife handles, and crochet hooks.3 Francis Evans showed that canals in Britain coexisted with railroads for long periods, and passenger railroads have endured decades after the advent of automobiles and air travel.4 And both stone and bronze survived the arrival of iron. Apparently, many competitions are protracted affairs lasting decades, centuries, or longer; and some may have no decisive winner or loser. Even when an aggregate technology disappears somewhat quickly, its rapid senescence still requires explanation. In any event, how an aggregate technology fares in the face of competition is always an empirical question.5 Building the Model

Although life cycle stages apply to aggregate technologies, invention, commercialization, and adoption often take place continuously as specific product types come and go. Thus, American wine bottles of today differ from those made two centuries ago. And although systems of radio broadcasting have lasted for more than a century, their constituent product types have changed greatly. Given this compositional flux, the researcher has much flexibility in defining the parameters of particular stages and can examine patterned changes in their content, duration, and intensity over time.

Functions, Functional Field, and Application Spaces

In principle, the four basic functions also apply to aggregate technologies. Because the technologies that make up an aggregate perform Â�myriad and varied specific functions, we delineate the technology’s most general functions. Thus, the general technofunction of wine bottles is to contain Â� a quantity of fermented grape juice; their general sociofunction is to denote the identity of the Â�winery on a label and/or by a distinctive shape, which also serves as a status marker for purchasers; their general emotive function is to promote relaxation. All radio broadcasting systems have the general technofunction of transforming source material such as recorded music and news into a modulated electromagnetic wave. And most radio broadcasting systems in America also have the general ideofunction of reproducing consumerist ideology through advertising. Although one or more general functions should be discernible for any aggregate technology, some constituent technologies might not conform, and these exceptions are likely to vary over time. Thus, for a period of several decades, American broadcasters funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were commercial free and so did not overtly promote consumerism. With cutbacks in federal funding, however, many stations now carry commercials. In discussing overarching relationships between technology and society, the concept of functional field is relevant.6 A functional field is the totality of a society’s techno-, socio-, ideo-, and emotive functions. This set of specific functions, which a society might possess by the Â�millions, is conceived abstractly without reference to the technologies that perform them. Societies in which social processes such as peer competitions take place over long time spans have ever-changingÂ�functional fields. Even during brief periods, Â�myriad specific functionsâ•›—╛╉and thus the technologies that materialize themâ•›—╛╉can come and go. No longer, for example, do televisions require standalone magnifiers, as some did during the late 1940s when the least expensive sets had screens of just 7 in. Perusal of an old Sears Roebuck catalog provides many examples of products no longer made because their functions disappeared. And

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the thousands of new product offerings each year suggest the accretion of new functions. Functional changes result mainly from the addition of new or the deletion of old activities and the modification of existing ones. As family television watching came to be dominated during the 1950s by sets with 21-in screens, for example, the magnification function disappeared, as did magnifiers. Likewise, change in a religious activity can cause the loss of functions and thus the obsolescence of certain ritual artifacts. In contrast, new activities that range from made-for-TV sports to social networking on the Internet establish functions that come to be materialized in new technologies. The proliferation of “home fitness” activities in recent decades introduced muscletoning functions served by new consumer products, such as programmable stationary bicycles and treadmills, as well as socio-, ideo-, and emotive functions performed by fitness magazines, videos, and books. During the last two centuries in Western countries, functional fields have expanded relentlessly. However, there are instances in history and in prehistory when functional fields severely contracted, perhaps on account of a drastic population decrease or economic or social collapse. These cases also merit study. An aggregate technology maps onto some portion of the functional field, carrying out the set of general functions that compose the Â�technology’s application space. For example, the application space of “vacuum cleaners”â•›—╛╉a large family of product typesâ•›—╛╉consists of general clean-up functions in industrial, commercial, and residential activities. Likewise, the application space of “Catholic ceremonial objects” encompasses general functions such as representing Jesus and Mary in the display and worship activities of individuals, families, and churchgoers. The size of an application space is its total number of general functions (or the proportion of the functional field that its functions cover). An application space also has a shape, which is defined by the variety of general functions, as in industrial, commercial, and residential vacuuming. In response to changing activities, an application space’s size and shape change over time. Some grow in one direction, adding general functions, while shrinking in another; some exhibit

alternating cycles of growth and contraction. In the absence of competing technologies, changes in the size and especially the shape of an aggregate technology’s application space testify to the comings and goings of general functionsâ•›—╛╉and thus activities. Only aggregate technologies that have general functions in common can become direct competitors. That is, two or more technologies compete when their application spaces overlap. Thus, stoves and laptop computers do not compete, but gas and electric stoves do. The shared portions of the functional field where competitions take place are called arenas. Figure 11.1 illustrates the simplest case: two aggregate technologies competing in one arena. Arenas may consist of smaller arenas, each a less abstract general function pertaining to a class of activities, consumers, and places. Delineation of arenas helps us to focus on the actual nexus of technological competitions while simultaneously putting into relief any uncontested areas. Uncontested areas of the functional field allow aggregate technologies to persist. Performance Characteristics of Aggregate Technologies

Adapted slightly, the familiar concept of the performance characteristic can help us investigate the kinds of factors that influence an application space’s size and shape. To wit, general performance characteristics enable general functions (Figure 11.2). Recall from the last chapter that the competition between gasoline and electric automobiles took place in three arenas: touring in the country, running errands in town, and traveling to social functions in town. Thus, the most general performance characteristics were the abilities to tour and to furnish personal urban transportation. These general performance characteristics in turn depended on sets of more specific, yet still somewhat general performance characteristics, such as those that came into play in touring: range on one charge of the battery, top speed, ease of refueling/recharging, maintainability, repairability, etc. General performance characteristics permit us to compare the ability of aggregate technologies to carry out general functions. Because an aggregate technology’s performance characteristics are general, some of its

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Figure 11.1. A functional field, the application spaces of two aggregate technologies, and the arena where they compete.

Figure 11.2. Major factors that determine an aggregate technology’s application space.

variants might not conform. Exceptions alert us to a process by which an application space can expand. Oddball variants may have a unique set of performance characteristics that stimulate trials Â� in new applications. If any are commercialized and adopted, copycat manufacturers may proliferate similar variants. If the new variants come to occupy a substantial application space, their functions and performance characteristics will become somewhat general. The digital computer and laser are familiar examples of electronic technologies that began as highly specialized variants whose application spaces have become vast and whose functions and performance characteristics are now quite general. The assertion in Chapter 10 that true functional equivalents are rare applies especially to aggregate technologies. Indeed, the likelihood that any two allegedly “functionally equivalent” aggregate technologies share all general performance characteristics should be vanishingly small. Ac-

cordingly, the arenas in which most aggregate technologies actually complete ought to be tinyâ•› —╛╉ at least at first. Thus, although automobiles competed with trains in long-distance travel after the turn of the twentieth century, they differed dramatically in performance characteristics, such as all-weather capability, reliability, maintainability, flexibility in routes, speed, passenger comfort, carrying capacity, social meanings, and ability to furnish thrilling experiences. As a result, the competition began in a small arena, that of touring by wealthy consumers. In addition, where replacements do occur, imperfect matches between the performance characteristics of the new and old technologies will set in motion other changes in the functional field. The increasing adoption of automobiles for touring led to many new functions that were eventually materialized in paved roads, motels, filling stations, garages, roadside diners, and so on.7 In applying this model, we begin by identifying

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an aggregate technology; this is the focal technology. Competing technologies, which can be quite diverse and differ over time, are also identified and defined. Next we discern temporal changes in the technologies’ application spaces. This requires tracking down the technologies that were commercialized and adopted by consumers in numbers large and small. By comparing the focal technology’s application space with those of competing technologies, we can pinpoint the activities and general functions in the arenas where competitions took place. General performance characteristics are then posited to account for patterned changes in the size and shape of the focal technology’s application space in relation to its competitors. Upon this foundation we craft a story. To illustrate long-term competitions among aggregate technologies, I turn to a case study of three major electric power systems: electrostatic, electrochemical, and electromagnetic.8 These competitions spanned several continents and more than two centuries and continue today.

competition until 1800. On the Â�cutting edge of natural philosophy in the heyday of NewtonÂ� ianism, electrical science after about 1740 acquired the cachet of academic respectability, a performance characteristic that contributed to the gradual adoption of electrostatic technologies by college teachers. These people expanded the technology’s application space by assimilating electricity into the teaching of natural philosophy, which enhanced their social competence. Electrostatic technology attracts the attention of audiences because it produces dramatic effects that evoke a sense of wonder. For example, a person charged by a generator or Leyden jar gives off sparks; similarly, “electrified” objects might mysteriously repel or attract each other at a distance. Thus, an important general performance characteristic is “displayability.” The entertainment potential of these effects was also exploited by electrical lecturers and demonstrators, who traveled from town to town and charged admission to their shows.11 Perhaps captivated by these performances, collectors of scientific instruments and hobbyists also expanded this technology’s application space. Owing to long-standing cultural imperatives in Western societies, virtually every new technology, however esoteric, is assessed for its usefulÂ� ness in medical diagnosis or therapeutics (see Chapter 5). The ability to deliver electricity to the human body, either as a charge to the entire person or as a spark or shock to particular places, was a general performance characteristic judged suitable for treating sundry ailments. Electrotherapists managed to establish this important application in a crowded arena. Another part of this technology’s application space was research in biology and chemistry. At this time there were few competitors to electricity’s unique general performance characteristics, which invited experimenters to study, for example, whether electricity could hasten plant growth, affect heart rates, and promote chemical reactions.

Case Study: Three Electric Power Systems Electrostatic Technology

In an electrostatic system, electricity is generated by friction, as in the spark that passes between finger and metal object after we shuffle our feet on a rug. During the eighteenth century, many ingenious frictional “electrical machines,” operated by a hand crank, were brought to market by a host of instrument makers.9 Typically, a small cloth cushion coated with a mercury amalgam pressed against a rotating glass globe, cylinder, or disk. The charge was collected from the glass and transferred to a metal tube, called a prime conductor, or to a Leyden jar. The latter could store a large charge for long periods. Together, electrical machine, Leyden jars, prime conductor, and sundry accessories formed an electrostatic power system.10 Their general performance characteristics enabled electrostatic power systems to acquire a small but surprisingly persistent application space. Because this technology could furnish a steady source of charge (as long as someone turned the crank), which could be stored for later use, it was well suited for conducting experiments in the nascent science of electricity and lacked

Electrochemical Technology

In 1800, Alessandro Volta invented the first electrochemical system of power generation, better known today as the battery, and instrument makers immediately marketed many varieties.12 171

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In early examples, two electrodes of different Â�metals (usually copper and zinc) were immersed in a dilute acid contained in a glass or ceramic jar; this was a battery’s basic cell. Wires connected to the electrodes provided power for experiments and various devices. Large batteries, consisting of many cells connected in series or parallel circuits, could supply considerable power. In contrast to electrostatic technology, which generates high voltage but very low current, batteries typically produce very low voltage but potentially high current. Thus, although electrostatic systems create impressive sparks and shocks, batteries furnish much usable power without the need for constant human involvement. However, a nineteenth-century battery required periodic refurbishing, with the frequency of maintenance a function of its usage pattern. These differences in general performance characteristics, along with a vastly expanded functional field in the industrializing West, Â�enabled electrochemical technology to find applications Â� well beyond those of electrostatic technology. In physics, batteries led to the discovery of electromagnetism, which soon begat electromagnets, generators, and motors. In the meantime, around batteries grew the entirely new industry of electrometallurgy, which included the reproduction of printing plates and the Â�electroplating of relatively inexpensive consumer items that mimicked the visual performance of gold and silver products (see Chapter 6). In this arena, batteries competed entirely with older technologies of applying thin layers of metal, such as tinning, attaching metal foils, and evaporating mercury from a gold–╉mercuryÂ�amalgam. In factory production of electroplated objects, batteries were the preferred power source. Beginning in the late 1830s, batteries Â�powered telegraphs, which immediately became a tremendous growth industry in many nations. Other Â�battery-╉powered communication systems that came to market included doorbells, alarms to summon police and fire departments, railroad telegraphs, and in 1876, the telephone. Batteries competed with electrostatic technologies only in a tiny arena. Indeed, electromedicine, the teaching of physics, and public demonstrations suffered little impact from the upstart technology, as batteries merely took their

place alongside the older technology. In scientific research, however, electrostatic technology’s application space shrank somewhat. Moreover, battery-powered scientific instruments became indispensable for creating effects and for recording data in many fields, from metrology to meteorology. Experiments with battery-powered lights and motors immediately raised the possibility that electrical technologies could replace oil lamps and gas burners as well as motive powers such as steam and animals. With very few exceptions, such replacements did not take place until much later. Battery-powered systems competed poorly with traditional illuminants and motive powers because operating costs were higher by at least an order of magnitude. Electromagnetic Technology

Discoveries and inventions between 1820 and 1835 laid the foundations of electromagnetic power systems.13 These systems generate electricity by means of machines that put into relative motion a coil of insulated wire and a magnet. As long as the motion continues, current is induced in the coil and can be put to use. Whether powered by hand, water, wind, or steam engine, these Â�machines are called generators, and they can be designed to produce either alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC). Electromagnetic systems are thus composed of a generator, a source of mechanical power, and many other components and products. Hand-cranked generators were brought to market beginning in the early 1830s, and a few steam-powered models followed in the next several decades. In the 1870s, manufacturers began commercializing many powerful steam-powered generators as well as motors and other components. An important general performance characteristic of electromagnetic systems is the ability to be scaled up for producing vast amounts of power, eventually greater than batteries by many orders of magnitude. What is more, lower operating costsâ•›—╛╉inputs of cheap coal or moving water versus zinc and acidâ•›—╛╉promised far more economical power generation than batteries for large-scale applications. The suitability of electromagnetic power systems for trolleys was shown in Germany in 1879. In the United States especially, 172

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trolleys in just a few decades had displaced horse cars in the urban transport arena. Above all, electromagnetic lighting systems (arc and incandescent) came to symbolize modernity and safe operation. During the 1880s, hundreds of Edison DC systems were installed in cities and towns, as boosters and public officials projected a progressive image to attract new businesses and settlers. In many arenas, including electroplating, telegraphy, and telephony, electromagnetic power eventually replaced batteries. For a brief period, however, enormous stationary batteries were used in power stations for load levelingâ•›—╛╉i.e., storing power from generators when demand was low and releasing it when demand rose. As electromagnetic power was more widely adopted in the early twentieth century, the application space for many kinds of stationary batteries contracted enormously. In 1927, for example, American radio makers offered their first plug-in models, which were a great success; and so the market for Â�battery-powered radios, and thus radio batteries, correspondingly dwindled, though it never disappeared. In addition, physicians and hospitals adopted scores of new plug-in products for diagnosis and treatment.

teaching, public lectures, and museums of science; and some are also bought by experimenters and hobbyÂ�ists. In short, even in the twenty-first century, technologies based on electrostatic effects and electrostatic power systems continue to have an appreciable application space. Including hybrids, this application space is larger and more varied today than it was in the eighteenth century. Batteries of many kinds are still around, with new varieties seemingly emerging monthly. Battery systems today above all boast portability. Thus, in applications where this performance characteristic coincides with low-voltage DC requirements, batteries are usually the power system of choice. With the advent of transistor electronics in the 1950s, which require only lowcurrent, low-voltage DC, manufacturers began to commercialize a torrent of portable devices, a pattern that persists in the twenty-first century. From flashlight to vibrator, laptop computer to hybrid electric car, hearing aid to iPad, products dependent on batteries pervade everyday activities and touch our lives, even our bodies. The history of electric power systems suggests that in the commercialization of each newâ•›—╛╉and potentially competingâ•›—╛╉aggregate technology, the arenas may turn out to be small in relation to the application space of an “old” technology. The new technology mainly materializes entirely new functions on the basis of its unique general performance characteristics. Thus, the new technology’s application space expandsâ•›—╛╉but not necessarily at the expense of the old one’s. Often competitions arise with entirely different technologies, as in the electromagnetic power system’s challenge to horse cars and gas lighting. Consequently, both old and new technologies coexist, manifest in complementary application spaces in a growing functional field. In response to a changing functional field, the application spaces of aggregate technologies expand and contract, often in unexpected ways. The unpredictability of many changes arises because the functional field reflects the entirety of a Â�society’s activities, changes in any one of which can have far-reaching effects on the potential application spaces of existing and new technologies. Indeed, through the myriad intersections of behavioral chains, any activity change can impinge unexpectedly on one or more existing

Discussion

Despite the staggering growth of technologies dependent on now-ubiquitous electromagnetic power systems, neither electrostatic nor electroÂ� chemical technologies have been driven to extinction. Exploiting electrostatic effectsâ•›—╛╉especially attraction and repulsionâ•›—╛╉companies have commercialized products seemingly essential for modern life, including air fresheners, computer printers, and xerography. There are also families of machines for separating materials in industrial processes, cleaning smokestack emissions from power plants and factories, and applying coatings to objects. In physics, gargantuan electrostatic generators produce ultrahigh voltages for accelerating charged particles. And the accelerator mass spectrometry technique of radiocarbon dating uses an electrostatic accelerator. These new technologies are all hybrids, employing electromagnetic power systems to produce electrostatic effects. However, pure electrostatic power systems are still being manufactured for use in 173

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Â� technologies or contribute to the invention and commercialization of new ones. Whether an aggregate technology’s application space can grow to include a set of new functions depends on that technology’s general performance characteristics. As new functions appear, inventors, engineers, and artisans working in that technology strive to create new designs, some of which may be brought to market and perhaps adopted. In the final analysis, the shape and size of an application space, in relation to a society’s functional field at any point in time, are determined mainly by the aggregate technology’s general performance characteristics in comparison to those of competing technologies. An interesting example comes from modern craft pottery in the United States. Attempting to expand the market for their wares, craft potters have introduced many new products, including garlic jars, liquid-soap dispensers, and pans for baking brie, which compete with similar products made of other materials, such as glass and plastic as well as ceramics produced by industrial processes. The handmade products perform no better (and sometimes worse) during use and maintenance than competing products, yet they are purchased despite being much more expensive. The numerous traditional forms made by craft potters, from mugs to platters and Â�pitchers, also find a market despite the availability of cheaper factory-made ceramics. On the basis of ethnoarchaeological observations, I suggest that handcrafted pots are purchased because of their unique visual and tactile performance characteristics, which enable socio-, ideo-, and emotive functions during marketing, gifting, display, and use. These items indicate to knowledgeable observers that each is a unique product fashioned by a person, a nostalgic allusion to the presumed virtues of craft production. And precisely because craft pottery evokes cheery emotions and often affirmative aesthetic judgments, such vessels have become appropriate gifts. Perhaps the capability of communicating individual artisanshipâ•›—╛╉an evocative contrast to mechanization and mass productionâ•›—╛╉is the most important general performance characteristic underwriting the expanding application space of today’s craft pottery.14 In studying changes in an aggregate technol-

ogy’s application space, we may need to focus, at different times, on different general performance characteristics and on different competing technologies. Moreover, let us recall that the specific performance characteristics of unusual variants may help an aggregate technology to stake out new applications. In the late nineteenth century it was possible to buy a pocket flashlight powered by tiny batteries; a seemingly insignificant product, it was the first electrical system of ultimate portability. This unusual variant was a harbinger of technologies to come, as portability became the general performance characteristic that enabled electrochemical technologies to stake out a huge application space in the twentieth century. A final point: many technologies apparently in senescence survive for surprisingly long periods because of the importance of oldâ•›—╛╉and sometimes even newâ•›—╛╉general functions. Let us consider horses, an aggregate technology consisting of many breeds. In the United States, there were an estimated 9.2 million horses in 2007, more than in any other country.15 At the turn of the Â�twentieth century, horses performed essential technofunctions in rural and urban activities; now they are most prominent in a host of leisure, sport, and display activities from rodeos to holiday parades. Horses may carry riders or pull loads today, but their symbolic and emotive functions loom large, such as promoting companies and causes, alluding to a simpler and more virtuous agrarian past, and furnishing riders and observers with a pleasurable experience. And for some people, horses are pets with which they have strong emotional bonds. In treating the American horse as an aggregate technology in competition with other technologies, many questions come to mind. In what activities did horses take part during the twentieth century? Do the horses that still abound on ranches and farms have any important technoÂ� functions? Do horses’ general performance characteristics give them an advantage in certain activities where, perhaps, motor vehicles and other competing technologies might perform poorly? In which general performance characteristics do different breeds excel? How have activities and functions involving horses changed in relation to those of competing technologies over the decades? Clearly, we could conduct an inter174

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esting study of the changing application space of horses throughout the twentieth century. Such studies could also be carried out on other “nostalgia technologies,” from quilts, to log cabins, to Civil War uniforms.

describes how the centuries-old flint-knapping industry of Brandon, England, has declined; its products have become severely limited in variety, restricted mainly to flints for antique flintlock guns.19 Prehistoric pottery and electronic computers differ in materials, manufacture processes, societal contexts, rates of change, and other seemingly salient factors. Nonetheless, patterns of technological differentiation exhibit common features and so can be handled by a single model that lays a foundation for explaining, in a proximate fashion, any technology’s differentiation. The technology transfer model is illustrated by means of eighteenth-century electrostatic technology.

Technology Transfer and Technological Differentiation

In order for an aggregate technology to colonize new areas of the functional field, people must invent and commercialize variants to perform the new functions. This process is called technological differentiation (and might be compared to adaptive radiation in biological evolution). In studying technological differentiation and its resultant patternsâ•›—╛╉i.e., the proliferation of adopted variants over time and spaceâ•›—╛╉we begin by identifying a particular aggregate technology. The aim is to understand how that technology was redesigned so that its variants could function in new activities. In tackling this task, we may employ a technology transfer model that incorporates conceptual tools from earlier chapters.16 The archaeological and historical records reveal many examples of technological differentiation. In the Colorado Plateau region of the American Southwest, pottery making began in the first centuries ad with a few jar forms.17 By ad 1000, jars had been joined by more varied jars, bowls of several sizes, effigy vessels, ladles, and so on. During the next few centuries, additional variants were adopted, which differed on the basis of shape and size as well as slip color and painted decoration. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, people were making and using dozens of ceramic variants having assorted utilitarian, symbolic, and no doubt emotive functions.18 Likewise, the electronic computer began in the 1940s with a few machines made for ballistics calculations; these were followed in the 1950s and 1960s by computers tailored for military, industrial, and commercial activities. During the 1980s, a plethora of new computers were introduced for business, education, and household use. Today special-purpose computers are found in everything from airliners to stuffed animals. The pottery and computer examples suggest that differentiation processes are widespread. Differentiation is also reversible, which is apt to occur during senescence. Richard Gould, for example,

A Behavioral Framework

Technological differentiation results from processes that come into play when technologies are transferred from community to community within and between societies. By framing the explanatory problem in this way, we focus at first on how people carrying out activities in recipient communities contribute to the redesign and proliferation of adopted variants. The basic premiseâ•›—╛╉that technologies are transferred among communitiesâ•›—╛╉is hardly a novel claim, but it has novel implications when community is defined in technological terms. For present purposes, a communityâ•›—╛╉a technocommunity, to be preciseâ•›—╛╉is any group whose members take part in one or more activities that incorporate variants of a particular aggregate technology.20 Thus, members of the “field archaeologist” community conduct surveys and excavations using an array of familiar recovery and recording technologies. We can also designate communities of bonsai gardeners, rock climbers, celebrity chefs, and Catholic priests, each consisting of a group whose membersâ•›—╛╉regardless of whatever else they do and whether they interact among themselvesâ•›—╛╉conduct certain activities with certain technologies. In the study of eighteenth-century electrostatic technology, I identified several communities that arose after this technology had been invented by electrophysicists and commercialized by instrument makers.21 Disseminators, which included college teachers and itinerant science lecturers, brought electrical phenomena and 175

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technology to the attention of people outside the electrophysics community. Collectors and hobbyists acquired electrical technology for display and use at home. Electrobiologists studied how plants and animals respond to electricity. Electrotherapists treated various diseases. Earth scientists investigated the roles of electricity in terrestrial and atmospheric processes. Property protectors designed, installed, and used the lightning conductor to safeguard structures. And new alchemists incorporated electrical technology into experiments involving chemical synthesis and analysis. Community members may consist of all or a subset of people in an existing community, may include portions of several existing communities, or may form an entirely new group. Thus, many electrophysicists were members of the larger physics community. In contrast, most early electrotherapists were not physicians but were people of varied occupations who formed a community around this new treatment technology. It is often impossible to predict the composition of a recipient community before the technology is actually transferred, modified, and adopted. Few people could have foreseen that many electrotherapists would lack previous experience in electrical technology or the healing arts and that relatively few physicians were adopters. Thus, the statement that technologies are transferred from one community to another is our postadoption assessment, since the recipient community as such may have had no prior existence. Communities can be designated at several scales, depending on how finely activities and technologies are resolved. For example, I could have divided the community of electrobiologists into electrobotanists and electrozoologists, but I did not believe that this move would yield significant insights. The memberships of different communities may overlap to any extent, from completely to not at all; and one person may belong to many communities. Thus, electrophysicists and electrobiologists shared a handful of members. The lack of community exclusivity may be surprising at first, but such seemingly ephemeral or transitory communities faithfully reflect the sortingâ•›—╛╉and constant re-sortingâ•›—╛╉of people among activities in all societies. Community members can even be drawn from different countries and continents.

Indeed, most electrical communities had members in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and the American colonies. Our task is to identify communities on the basis of shared activities and technologies, regardless of whether their memberships crosscut social, political, or geographical boundaries. Although a community defined on this basis had a behavioral reality, its existence may not have been recognized or labeled by people in the past. I emphasize that “technocommunity” is simply a construct that enables us to designate the groups that contributed to a technology’s transfer and differentiation. Processes of Technology Transfer

Technology transfer may be modeled as a sixphase process: 1. In information transfer, people learn about a technology through one or more modes such as word of mouth, written materials, or examples of the hardware itself. 2. Experimentation involves an assessment of the new technology’s performance characteristics in relation to specific activities. 3. Redesign, which subsumes both invention and development, creates new variants that more closely match the performance requirements of the recipient community’s Â�activities. 4. In manufacture or replication, the modified technology is reproduced and made available to consumers. 5. Adoption occurs when the new variants are acquired. 6. During use, the new technology is incorÂ� porated into the recipient community’s Â�activities. At this point, we are able to specify the composition of the recipient community along with its shared activities and technologies. Figure 11.3 is a general model of the differentiation process. These phases are not strictly sequential. For example, limited acquisition often takes place before redesign and manufacture. Many of the earliest electrotherapists at first acquired, and experimented in their clinical practice with, offthe-shelf electrical machines and Leyden jars originally designed for electrophysicists and disseminators. Accordingly, we might sometimes

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Large-Scale Processes of Aggregate Technologies

Figure 11.3. A model of technological differentiation.

handle experimentation as an early phase of adoption. Also, redesign and manufacture are often iterative processes that alternate with use. Merely a heuristic, these phases partition a complex process into manageable units of study.

electrical technology also moved with ease across scientific fields and international borders by following well-established modes of communication through scientific societies and academies.22 By 1760, most middle- and upper class people in the West had no doubt learned something about electrical technology. I hasten to add that identifying the precise modes of information transfer is unnecessary. After all, information transfers often leave few traces in the archaeological and historical records. But, more to the point, the transfer of information, through any mode, is not a sufficient condition for the transfer of the technology itself. Very few people who learned about electrical technology in the eighteenth century redesigned or acquired it. When, however, specific people and events involved in an important information transfer are known, we can add interesting biographical details to the story. Thus, Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Priestley were nodes linking several communication networks and played

Information Transfer

A description of the technologyâ•›—╛╉and, often, of its general performance characteristicsâ•›—╛╉is transferred, directly or indirectly, from people in one community to people who are potentially the Â�nuclei of new recipient communities. Individuals who acquire this information can assess the technology’s suitability for their own activities, ongoing or anticipated. Many modes of information transfer alerted a wide cross section of people to the existence of electrical technology, such as scholarly journals and books, newspapers and magazines, public lectures and demonstrations, instruction from college teachers, and nonmarket exchange of the technologies themselves. Information about 177

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pivotal roles in information transfer. Such people sometimes conduct the experiments that can lead to the formation of a new community. Experimentation

The second phase usually begins when a few people try out the new technology in activities that differ from those of the originating community, or they may forecast in “thought experiments” how it might perform. In this way, engineering science is created about the fit, real or imagined, between the performance requirements of given activities and the technology’s performance characteristics. Often a technology shows some promise, but the fit is imperfect. For example, Alessandro Volta invented an “electric pistol” in which a spark could explosively ignite a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. Intrigued with this effect, Henry Cavendish and Joseph Priestley used the electric pistolâ•›—╛╉a kind of reaction chamberâ•›—╛╉in pneumatic chemistry, but it was ill suited for the careful control of gaseous reactants and reaction products. As in this example, early experiments may indicate that the technology shows some promise in a new activity but its weighting of performance characteristics is unsuitable.

to understand how people could have acquired a new variant. I enumerate three, somewhat idealized, manufacture modes prevalent in the eighteenth century: 1. One person makes an example of the new technology, often for his or her own use. Such singular technologies can be of great importance, especially in scientific research. Commissioned technologies may also exemplify this manufacture mode. 2. Many people construct copies of a variant for their own use. Also conforming to this manufacture mode are items produced or commissioned for scientific research. Numerous electrophysicists and members of other communities, for example, assembled their own Leyden jars. 3. One or more producers make a technology available for exchange or purchase. Instrument makers brought to market many variants of electrical technologies designed for varied communities. In studying different societies, whether industrial or traditional, we would include other modes of manufacture and distribution.

Redesign

Adoption

Manufacture or Replication

Use

If experimentation goes forward, people redesign the technology, which can eventuate in the creation of newâ•›—╛╉and, usually, functionally specializedâ•›—╛╉variants that may meet their performance requirements. Building on the principles of Volta’s electric pistol, both Cavendish and Priestley designed new electrical reaction chambers, yet their variants still lacked sufficient controls for some experiments. These deficiencies were remedied by Antoine Lavoisier’s elegant but expensive version, which allowed the experimenter to make accurate measurements of reactants and products. Clearly, the latter experimenters placed much greater weight on measurement capabilities than did Volta in designing the original electric pistol. The design model (Chapter 8) helps us to explain such changes. In this phase, variants are manufactured and made available to consumers. An appreciation for differences in manufacture modes helps us

People who acquire the technology become members of the recipient community. We can explain acquisition behavior by estimating and comparing the performance characteristics of the adopted technology against alternatives that might have been chosen, employing the tools in Chapter 10. However, in dealing with large-scale patterns, such as technological differentiation, we merely call attention to the new variants’ weightings of performance characteristics, which rendered them suitable for a recipient community’s activities. Thus, electrotherapists adopted Edward Nairne’s redesigned electrical machines because they were compact and had flexible and extendable conductors, which enhanced their portability and made it easier to apply their output to patients. In use, the technology interacts with community members, and so its use- and maintenancerelatedÂ�performance characteristics come into

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play. By distinguishing use from acquisition, we acknowledge that a community may include far more people than just those who directly acquired the technology. Thus, the disseminator community consisted of lecturers and demonstrators as well as assistants and spectators, and the electromedical community included assistants and patients. Recognition of a Â�community’s diverse composition is essential for assessing a technology’s activity-specific performance requirements, for different user groups often favor different weightings. In the electromedical community, we might suppose that most patients would have preferred electrical treatments that were brief, effective, safe, and painless. Electrotherapists would have favored convenience and reliability in administering treatments, which could have been affected by the availability and skill of assistants. A community’s members may be socially diverse or sufficiently homogeneous to be definable on the basis of social roles, age, gender, social class, and so forth. By considering the diversity of a community’s membership (and even relationships between members and nonmembers), researchers can treat issues such as conflict, negotiation, and social power, which can influence the actual weighting of performance characteristics.23 For example, electrotherapy equipment usually embodied the performance characteristics favored by the therapist, reflecting the difference in social power between electrotherapist and patient in that activity. And to reassure the patient that shock treatments were safe, the electrotherapist conspicuously employed an electrometer whose function was entirely symbolic and emotive. A performance preference matrix (Chapter 8) may be useful in discerning these kinds of differences in social power. Discussion The Performance Requirement Matrix

When the technologies of each community tend toward homogeneity in general functions or when we focus on a narrow range of variants, a performance requirement matrix may be constructed. Such a matrix exhibits the relationships among communities and their performance requirements for a given aggregate technology. My example is a somewhat homogeneous aggregate technology manufactured within a re-

stricted time period: the magneto from 1832 to about 1870. The magneto is an electrical generator whose magnetic field is produced by permanent magnets, not by electromagnets as in a dynamo. For illustrative purposes, I designate five communities: (1) blasters ignited explosive materials in mining and construction projects; (2) electrometallurgists formed, and plated objects with, metals; (3) illuminators employed electric arc lighting in, for example, lighthouses and large public places; (4) demonstrators exhibited an array of wondrous electrical phenomena; and (5) electrotherapists applied electricity to people. As already noted, by virtue of their different activities, the five communities had varying performance requirements for magnetos, and these are readily displayed in a performance requirement matrix (Table 11.1). A plus sign (+) indicates that a community’s activities require a particular performance characteristic. Rearranging the columns indicates differences and similarities in the communities’ performance requirements. For example, magnetos for electrometallurgists and illuminators needed high power and “industrial strength.” Indeed, the heavy magnetos of both communities had lubricated bearings, rigid frames, and large coils and magnets. Additional insights may be gained if the researcher rearranges the rows so as to group together related performance requirements, such as all those pertaining to mechanical operation. In the case of these early commercial magnetos, there are relatively few varieties, communities, and performance requirements. It would be far more difficult to construct a performance requirement matrix for all magnetos of all time periods, much less one for all electrical technologies of the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Nonetheless, for some projects we could use this matrix to orient research, discern patterns, and summarize findings.24 Applying the Framework

The technology transfer framework has many potential uses, such as a springboard for creating new generalizations and heuristics and a starting point for studying the adoption of a particular variant. But the framework is most appropriate for establishing the foundation of a story that accounts for an aggregate Â�technology’s Â�differentiation. Such a

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Chapter 11 Table 11.1. Performance Requirement Matrix for Magneto Technocommunities, ca. 1832–1870.

Community Performance Requirement

A

Capable of Continuous Duty Operable by Hand

B

C

+

+

+

Operable by Steam Engine

+

Can Be Carried by One Person

+

Produces Low to Moderate Power

+

E

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

Produces High Power

D

+

Conveniently Delivers Power to the Human Body

+

Exhibits Various Electrical Effects

+

Inexpensive

+

Note: A = Blasters; B = Electrometallurgists; C = Illuminators; D = Demonstrators; E = Electrotherapists.

story might treat all recipÂ�ient communities and their activities’ performance requirements or focus on just one or several related communities. In any case, the goal is to understand the processes that led to the technology’s differentiation. We begin by specifying the aggregate technology of interest and then identify its commercialized variants along with their functions and distributions in time and space. Diverse lines of evidence are subsequently employed to infer provisional communities, user groups, and the new variants’ activities. The next task is to infer how each community weighted the variants’ performance characteristics, which affected the technology’s performance requirements. Weightings and performance requirements are determined by contextual factors, and so we strive to identify the most salient ones. We can also fit the details of the case study into a biographical framework if one or just a few individuals dominated the transfer process or created the new variants. A purely chronological framework emphasizes the sequence in which new variants emerged in the course of transfers from community to community. Yet time can be Procrustean, especially when there are many communities, people, transfers, and new variants. In my book-length narrative of eighteenth-╉centuryÂ� electrical technology, I used a chronological framework for the earliest developments and then shifted to an atemporal presentation organized by technocommunities.25

Trends and Technological Saltations

A common pattern in both the historical and archaeological records is a directional change or trend in one or more use-related performance characteristics. Thus, from 1939 to the present, television receiversâ•›—╛╉of a given screen sizeâ•›—╛╉have become smaller (i.e., less total volume) and so can be placed in a greater variety of spaces. In 1951, a 30-in TV had a cabinet occupying at least 30 ft3 and hulked in the corner of a living room.26 Today a 32-in flat-panel TVâ•›—╛╉about 2 ft3â•›—╛╉can be hung on the wall. During that same period, the reliability of TV sets has increased dramatically, so much so that most sets of recent vintage can operate for a decade or more without a single repair. Such trends, which the media and some researchers might call “improvement” or “progress,” are so familiar that we might forget that their explanations are not self-evident. A brief example and a case study help us to fashion recommendations for explaining technological trends in userelated performance characteristics.27 (Adapted somewhat, the following framework may also contribute to explaining trends in manufacturerelated performance characteristics.) Saltations and the “Turbojet Revolution”

Let us begin by considering briefly the enormous increase in the maximum speed of aircraft during the twentieth century, from less than 50 mph to more than mach 1 (the speed of sound). As mentioned in Chapter 5, Edward Constant II showed

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Figure 11.4. Changes in the top speed (in knots) of fast transatlantic liners, 1838–1952.

nology’s performance trend is to continue. Saltations may follow one upon the other, with each new technological paradigm generating a host of projects, so long as promoters can acquire the resources needed to span the developmental distances. I suspect that many technological trends in prehistory and later times have saltations as their immediate cause. But what brings about saltations?

that people conversant with aircraft technoscience had foreseen, before World War II, that propeller planes driven by piston engines would soon reach a peak speed far short of mach 1. In response to this constraint, a “presumptive anomaly” in Constant’s terms, promoters sought to build a generation of faster planes. In heavily weighting the performance characteristic of speed, they experimented with alternative technologies and developed turbojet engines.28 In short order the turbojet allowed aircraft to surpass the performance of piston-driven planes and to exceed the sound barrier, eventually yielding the American SR-71 “Blackbird,” a spy plane that could pass mach 3. For present purposes, we may say that the decades-long increase in maximum speed was enabled by an abrupt technological change. Constant described such changes as “technological revolutions,” drawing inspiration from Thomas Kuhn’s work on scientific revolutions.29 In Constant’s scheme, a revolutionary change brings about the replacement of one “technological paradigm” (propellers and piston engines) by another (turbojet engines). We can generalize this process and label it with a term less loaded than revolution. Following John Landers, I regard a discontinuous or abrupt technological change as a saltation.30 A trend in one or a small number of use-related performance characteristics may result from saltations in material, process, component, or product technologies.31 The implication is that when one technology reaches a perceived or actual developmental limit another must take its place if the aggregate tech-

Case Study: Passenger Steamships

Let us explore this question by means of a case study, that of express passenger steamships plying the North Atlantic between Europe and America. Among these vessels’ most heavily weighted performance characteristics was speed.32 Not surprisingly, the competition among Atlantic liners to make record crossings has been well documented. To qualify as a new record, a vessel’s average (mean) speed during a westward crossing from Europe to the United States or to Nova Â�Scotia on “a regular scheduled crossing had to exceed the previous record.” 33 A record crossing earned for the liner the coveted “Blue Riband.” There were 59 record crossings during the 1838– 1952 period; some ships set the record repeatedly, and some held it for multiple years. British Â�liners set the most records (43), followed distantly by vessels of Germany (9), the United States (4), France (2), and Italy (1).34 Figure 11.4 shows the increase in speed records by five-year intervals from 1838 to 1952 (the latest record for each interval is plotted).35 The trend line exhibits a fairly linear rise, from 9.5 knots to 181

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34.5 knots. Many technological changes contributed to this trend, such as higher steam pressures and more streamlined hulls, but engine design and propulsion method were the decisive saltations. Following Arnold Kludas, I divide this sequence into three time periods, each marked by consistent adoptions of particular engine and propulsion technologies on the part of steamship lines for their swiftest ships.36 The number in parentheses at the end of the description is the sustainable service speed of that period’s fastest ship:37 • Period 1 (1838–1873). Ships had a single twocylinder, side-lever steam engine and side paddle wheels (13.5 knots). • Period 2 (1872–1907). Compound engines, usually with three or four cylinders, prevailed, as did screw drive with one or two propellers. A compound engine feeds the steam sequentially through larger cylinders at decreasing pressure (22.5 knots). • Period 3 (1907–1952). Steam turbines replaced piston engines, and four propellers were adopted (31.0 knots). The project-stimulated invention model (Chapter 5) reminds us that each new engine and propulsion system was made possible by a plethora of new components, whose details need not detain us here. Moreover, within each period, which corresponds coarsely to Constant’s technological paradigm, the trend of increasing speed was maintained through refinements, sometimes significant ones. We might suppose that as each technology appeared to be approaching a perforÂ� mance limit, inventors in engine Â�factories and shipyards, perhaps commissioned by steamship lines, set out to develop new Â�technologies. Whether a perceived limit was technical or economic or social does not detract from our understanding that new technologies were commercialized and adopted in large part to create speedier liners. The nearly fourfold increase in speed over this period, along with the technological saltations that made it possible, has long been known. And to many people the explanation is obvious: Western societies place a high value on “progress,” on continuously improving their technologies, and so people strove to build faster and faster

ships. The trend also appears to conform neatly to Robert Friedel’s culture-of-improvementÂ�thesis.38 However, invoking a cultural value that promotes technological change in general cannot explain differences in the level of effort invested in commercializing particular technologies. After all, in no society does change take place uniformly across all technologies or uniformly in one technology over its entire life. In crafting an explanation, we must identify the specificâ•›—╛╉often socialâ•›—╛╉processes that impelled the saltations sustaining a technological trend. The major processes at work in this case appear to have been (1) peer competitions among steamship companies, (2) peer competitions among several countries, and (3) consumers clamoring for rapid transatlantic passage.39 Steamship companies were of course profitseeking enterprises, and faster ships meant more round trips per year and thus, potentially higher profit. These firms ordered faster linersâ•›—╛╉and also larger ones to accommodate more passengers. In addition, they one-upped each other in providing creature comforts and social amenities, from hot and cold running water in cabins to lavishly furnished saloons.40 Amenities aside, having captured the Blue Riband gave a shipping company bragging rights, enhanced its prestige, demonstrated its technical competence, and gave it a temporary edge over competitors. Countries had ample incentives to support their domestic steamship companies. Huge passenger liners had an obvious military application, for they could serve as troop carriers during wartime. Thus, governments took an uncommon interest in these vessels, subsidizing their construction and operation in several ways, particularly with generous mail contracts and also sometimes through loans and, occasionally, annual payments. A few countries even partially financed the building of specific ships. The most notorious example is the SS United States, the last holder of the Blue Riband, whose construction at Newport News, Virginia, was enveloped in secrecy. It was built at a cost of $77 million, of which the Pentagon contributed $45 million.41 Because record-holding ships were usually on the cutting edge of steamship technology, they also served as a source of national pride and prestige that captivated government officials and ordinary citi-

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zens. Indeed, large crowds turned out dockside to watch the great liners arrive and depart, and newspapers lavishly covered these events. A swift crossing of the treacherous North Atlantic appealed to prospective passengers because a shorter trip decreased exposure to icebergs, punishing storms, and monster waves. In industrial nations, people in the growing ranks of the elite and upper-middle classes could validate their status and demonstrate social competence to their peers by crossing the Atlantic and talking about it for years afterward. The faster and larger ships accommodated passengers of several social classes; steerage was filled with poor immigrantsâ•›—╛╉often more than a thousand by the end of the nineteenth centuryâ•›—╛╉who shared cramped quarters. No doubt they too would have preferred an expeditious voyage. The competition for the Blue Riband was essentially over by the early 1950s, owing to major changes in transportation industries and travel patterns. The great transatlantic migrations had ceased, and air travel began to attract affluent travelers. As flying became more affordable in the 1960s and 1970s, even people of modest means no longer aspired to sail across the Atlantic. Their market greatly diminished, the surviving steamship companies became cargo or cruise lines, in the latter case commissioning more lavishly appointed ships but no longer competing on the basis of speed. A cruise, after all, is a leisurely activity that often begins and ends at the same port. And to remain competitive internationally, governments subsidized the development not of cruise ships but of giant transport planes that could move troops and supplies quickly. If an inherent drive toward “progress” or perpetual improvement lay behind the passenger liner’s increase in speed, this trend should have continued as long as it was possible to create new technologies yielding additional saltations (given also that steamship companies could command sufficient resources to commission the new ships). And there were some technological possibilities. The Stena Line commissioned several large catamaran ferries, employing modified aircraft engines and jet propulsion, which can carry 1,500 people and hundreds of vehiclesâ•›—╛╉and sail at 40 knots. Also using jet propulsion, the U.S. Navy contracted for experimental ships that can

reach 50 knots. Clearly, these technologies could have made possible a generation of faster liners.42 But large cruise ships are no faster today than they were in 1930. That is because the social processes behind the Blue Riband competition had abated by the early 1950s, and so steamship companies, in commissioning ships, no longer placed heavy weight on speed. This example enables me to underscore an important theme. To wit, cultural valuesâ•›—╛╉whether religious, political, or socialâ•›—╛╉cannot explain specific instances of technological change, such as why development is pursued intensively for some technologies but not for others and why trends in a technology’s use-related performance characteristics may end or even reverse.43 The proximate causes of technological change are not cultural values, such as improvement or progress, but specific societal processes that operate differentially over time and across space and affect how the performance characteristics of specific technologies are weighted. As is well known, you cannot explain a variable (e.g., technological change) with a constant (e.g., cultural values). Discussion

Trends in the use-related performance characteristics of aggregate technologies, particularly over long periods, invite diligent inquiry. Lewis Mumford, also using the example of �transatlantic steamship travel (but citing no evidence), argued that the trend toward greater speed had slowed down between 1866 and 1933.44 Although his specific conclusion is wrong, his larger point is worth pondering: in general, the rate of performance gains exhibited in a technological trend will at some point begin to decelerate and perhaps reverse. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any technological trend continuing indefinitely. One advantage in studying past technologies is that we may precisely monitor a trend to see when it began to attenuate and when it ended. We may delineate the technological saltations that promoted the trend and look into the contextual factors that caused its termination. Even technological trends proceeding vigorously in the present may be profitably studied, such as the increase in the energy of particle accelerators in physics.45 Having identified a specific trend, ended or ongoing, we might proceed as follows in �fashioning

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Figure 11.5. Factors affecting trends in use-related performance characteristics.

an explanation. Let us take the exponential increase in the storage capacity of computer memory chips, a trend that has transpired from about 1960 to today. First, we would identify the immediate technological cause of this trend, which is a vast increase in the number of transistors that can be crammed onto a memory chip. This number has doubled approximately every 18 to 24 months, a trend described by Moore’s “law,” which is actually a goal or empirical generalizationâ•›—╛╉not a law.46 We know that computer chips are made on a silicon substrate.Thus, any saltations would have occurred in the materials and processes employed to print transistors (and other circuit elements) on a silicon wafer.47 Our next task is to identify these technological changes, perhaps dividing the trend into periods corresponding to major technological paradigms. We might ascertain which social groups commercialized each technology and which groups were the adopters (primary and secondary consumers). Given this background, we would pinpoint the societal factors that might prompt promoter groups to put heavy weight on storage capacity and, consequently, to undertake projects that might bring about further increases. In the case of memory chips, there has obviously been competition among chip makers, but we would also identify important groups of chip-using product manufacturers that, in turn, are responding to adoptions by varied consumer groups. Special attention might be paid to understanding the processes behind the persistence and expansion of consumer activities involving chip-containing products, such as decoding military intelligence, simulating weather patterns and the birth of the

universe, doing Internet searches, and downloading music and movie files. As a final element of our explanation we might examine how increases in the storage capacity of memory chips have spurred the invention of new products (as per component-stimulated inventionâ•›—╛╉see Chapter 6) that, when commercialized, enabled new consumer activities and eventually led to more capacious memory chips. At last we could link the trend in computer chip performance to saltations in material and process technologies. These saltations were caused by the heavy weighting of storage capacity that resulted from the convergent decisions of chip makers, various product manufacturers, and diverse consumer groups (i.e., primary and secondary consumers). Figure 11.5 is a sketch of the general factors that may contribute to explaining a trend in use-related performance characteristics. Summary

The life cycles of aggregate technologies play out in the vast sweep of historical and archaeological time and leave behind distinctive patterns. This chapter has furnished models and recommendations for studying several common aspects of these life cycles: competitions among aggregate technologies, technological differentiation, and trends in use-related performance characteristics. Many people believe that when aggregate technologies compete, the newest one must quickly triumph owing to its purported superiority. But this belief is simplistic and often incorrect. This chapter furnishes a model that helps us to seek patterns in such competitions and to craft nuanced explanations. Along with the model come

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several new constructs. A functional field is the entirety of functions carried out by a society’s technologies. An aggregate technology’s share of that functional fieldâ•›—╛╉i.e., the focal technology’s application spaceâ•›—╛╉has both a size and a shape that depend on its general performance characteristics. Actual competitions among the Â�focal technology and other aggregate technologies occur in specific arenas, defined on the basis of shared general functions. Arenas may in fact be a very small part of the focal technology’s total application space. Thus, an “old” technology, seemingly targeted for replacement, may surviveâ•›—╛╉even thriveâ•›—╛╉given the opportunities afforded by a functional field in flux. In any event, even if an aggregate technology does become extinct, its senescence could have been a protracted process whose details might make a fascinating story. The model and new constructs were illustrated by means of the competitions among electrostatic, electrochemical, and electromagnetic power systems. Despite the prevalence and importance of electromagnetic power systems today, both earlier systems endure. Technological differentiation is the proliferation of an aggregate technology’s variants, a pattern that can be found throughout the human past. Technological differentiation arises when an aggregate technology is transferred from one (techno)community to recipient communities whose activities differ. In studying this process,

we employ a technology transfer model consisting of six phases: information transfer, experimentation, redesign, manufacture or replication, adoption, and use. Our aim is to explain the recipient community’s redesign and adoption of the aggregate technology. Over the long term, some aggregate technologies exhibit directional changes or trends in one or more use-related performance characteristics. Such trends may stem from saltations, a sequence of abrupt or discontinuous changes in, for example, the technology’s components or products. As the limitations of one technological paradigm are forecast or encountered, promoters may establish projects to develop alternatives so that the trend in a heavily weighted performance characteristic can continue. Such trends have often been attributed to a society’s cultural values, such as progress or improvement. Instead, I suggest that trends result from specific contextual factors, including peer competitions and consumer behavior. Although research on aggregate technologies in competition, technological differentiation, and technological trends may seem somewhat removed from concrete people–artifact interactions, these large-scale patterns are ultimately reducible to individuals and groups making recurrent decisions on the basis of a technology’s potential, anticipated, or actual performance characteristics in particular activities.

Notes 1. Schiffer 2001 contains an earlier version of this model. As noted in Chapter 10, technologies do not literally compete; rather, manufacturers compete for consumers. 2. Other works expressing this idea include Gould 2001; Griffitts 2006; Rosen 1997; and Schiffer 1992a:╉ Chapter 5. 3. Griffitts 2006. 4. Evans 1981. 5. Nye notes that old technologies can survive in “niches where they are still competitive or where values other than economic and technical performance are considered important” (1998:4). 6. Schiffer and Skibo 1987 defines functional field. 7. On these kinds of changes, see Schiffer 1979, 1992a:╉ Chapter 4. 8. Schiffer 2001 provides a more detailed discussion of this competition.

9. See Hackmann 1978 on eighteenth-century electrical machines. 10. Schiffer et  al. 2003 presents an overview of Â�eighteenth-╉century electrical technologies. 11. On public spectacle and the technologies of science in the eighteenth century, see Schaffer 1983 and Sutton 1995. 12. On early electrochemical technologies and their applications, see Schiffer 2008a. 13. Schiffer 2008a discusses the early history and applications of electromagnetic power systems. 14. Levine and Heimerl 2008 explores the political aspect of crafting in modern America from the artisan’s standpoint. 15. See https://www.horsecouncil.org/pressreleases╉ /2007_AHCGlobalPopresources.php, accessed November 18, 2008. 16. Schiffer 2002, Schiffer et al. 2003:Chapter 12, and

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Chapter 11 Skibo and Schiffer 2008:Chapter 8 present the technology transfer model. 17. Skibo and Blinman 1999. 18. On the prehistory of the American Southwest, see, e.g., Cordell 1997 and Plog 1997. 19. Gould 1981; see also Whittaker 2001. 20. A related concept is “consumption community” (e.g., Nye 1998:173–174). 21. Schiffer et al. 2003 discusses eighteenth-century electrical communities (for an abridged version, see Schiffer 2002). 22. On the development of these institutions, see McClellan 1985. 23. Walker and Schiffer 2006 addresses these issues. 24. Another aggregate technology that lends itself to this kind of analysis is nineteenth-century American steamships (see Hillstrom 2005), which varied according to the waters they plied (e.g., oceangoing, coast, eastern rivers, western rivers, Great Lakes). 25. See Schiffer et al. 2003. 26. On the 30-in DuMont Royal Sovereign TV of 1951, see http://www.earlytelevision.org/dumont_ra119╉ .html, accessed June 7, 2009. 27. Trends in use-related performance characteristics are not evolutionary laws, as some scholars maintain, but are technological changes requiring explanation (a recent archaeological work on technological trends is Roux 2010). 28. Constant 1973, 1980. 29. Kuhn 1970. 30. According to Landers, “Saltation-like events can and do occur in the history of technology” (2005:╉ 68). Saltations also occur in manufacture-relatedÂ� performance characteristics (see Chapter 9). 31. The saltation process is the mirror image of processes implicated by catastrophe theory (e.g., Renfrew 1978): instead of saltations creating a continuous change, a continuous change creates saltations. Both processes abound. 32. Because fuel consumption (e.g., pounds of coal per

horsepower-mile) increases as a function of speed, fuel economy was also an important performance characteristic that contributed to saltations and affected steamship designs. The compound engine, for example, led to a significant increase in fuel economy (e.g., Murray 1861). 33. Kludas 2000:17. 34. These data come from Kludas 2000:146–147. 35. Figure 11.4 is based on data in Kludas 2000:146–147. 36. These three periods correspond to the three “eras” defined in Kludas 2000:31–32, 51–52, 99–100, which also characterizes the technologies of each. 37. Information on engine and propulsion technology and on “sustainable service speeds” is from Kludas 2000:╉152–153. 38. Friedel 2007. 39. In piecing together this explanatory sketch, I have drawn heavily on Hughes 1973 and, especially, Â�Kludas 2000. 40. Blue Riband ships were the fastest and largest passenger liners, but other liners were more luxurious, especially after 1899 (Kludas 2000:26). 41. Kludas 2000:134. 42. For the Stena ship, see http://www.dlharbour.ie╉ /Â�con╉tent╉/stena/hss_story.php, accessed October 30, 2009; for the navy ship, see http://www.news.navy╉ .mil╉/search/display.asp?story_id=19084, accessed May 6, 2009. 43. White bluntly assigns cause to values: “Technology...╉is itself shaped by the dominant values of society” (1978:╉xxiv). 44. Mumford 1934:207. 45. Sessler and Wilson 2007 furnishes materials for conducting such a case study. 46. Alesso et al. 2008:31–32. 47. For some years now, it has been forecast that the performance limits of silicon substrates are fast approaching, a presumptive anomaly that has engendered much invention and development. But, as of 2010, no alternative had been commercialized.

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Reflections

A research project about a specific technology is guided by questions. The first question is often very general, and while refining it we may Â�explore diverse sources of information, read widely but shallowly, and at some point formulate more specific questions that can be researched in great depth. At a project’s end we usually have Â�answered many specific questions and perhaps a much-╉ revisedÂ�general one. Together, these answers furnish a basis for constructing a nuanced explanatory narrative. There is no formula for crafting productive questions, which above all reflect the Â�researcher’s curiosity and creativity. However, a conceptual scheme may provide direction. The behavioral conceptual scheme presented in Chapter 3 encourages us to ask about the factors that led to peoples’ decisions to conduct activities that affected a technology’s life cycle. Research questions may focus on one or more stagesâ•›—╛╉i.e., invention, commercialization, adoption, and senescenceâ•› —╛╉ or on the specific substages or Â�processes that constitute them. Recurrent decisions made by similar groups, presumably affected by the same causal (contextual) factors, generate many patterns of technological change detectable in the historical and archaeological records. One factor that looms large in decisionsâ•›—╛╉singular or recurrentâ•›—╛╉is a technology’s anticipated performance characteristics in relation to the performance requirements of certain activities. As behavioral capabilities, performance characteristics underlie virtually every kind of people–artifact, artifact–artifact,

people–extern, and artifact–extern interaction and enable utilitarian, symbolic, and emotive functions. Decisions are influenced by weighted performance characteristics, and that is why the latter play such a prominent role in the conceptual scheme and in the generalizations and heuristics. The weighting of performance characteristics depends on contextual factors: political, social, cultural, economic, religious, environmental, etc. Clearly, decision-making processes are not directly accessible in the past or in the Â�present. Thus, in accounting for decisions, we create models of the contextual factors that affected a group’s weighting of performance characteristics. These models then serve as the foundation of our explanations. A research project may consist of the following activities: exploring sources, framing and refining questions, acquiring evidence, seeking patterns, inferring processes, discerning causal contextual factors, identifying weighted performance characteristics, modeling decisions, and crafting a story. In carrying out these activitiesâ•› —╛╉ not necessarily in the above orderâ•›—╛╉we may exploit the tool kit of generalizations and heuristics presented in earlier chapters. The choice of tools depends on the stage or process implicated by a given question. (In answering many specialized questions, such as how a technology was made or how it functioned, we necessarily employ different tools supplied in other reference works.) I emphasize that the behavioral tool kit remains a work in progress. Additional generalizations and heuristics are needed, and some of

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those presented here have not been adequately tested. These lacunae and shortcomings give the reader ample incentives to refine, evaluate, and augment the tools. On Causes

The tools we have now implicate a wide range of contextual factors that might have affected the weighting of performance characteristics. But the conceptual scheme privileges no factors, for it is causally neutral. The formulations in this book merely help us to pinpoint proximate causes in specific cases. Because these generalizations and heuristics are grounded in the materiality of human lifeâ•›—╛╉i.e., concrete interactions taking placing in activitiesâ•›—╛╉I believe that different investigators could, when presented with an instance of technological change, arrive at similar if not identical proximate causes. This, I suggest, is a close approximation to the replicability-inprinciple tenet of modern science. Many scholars find that an explanation specifying only proximate causes is incomplete and unsatisfying. However, fingering fairly Â�distant causes is a creative process not readily constrained by current scientific generalizations. Yet this position also reflects a faith in the ability of science to make inroads in new domains, eventually pushing causality somewhat beyond the immediate. The electric car study illustrates the difficulty of establishing distant causes in the absence of relevant generalizations. My research brought to light several strong patterns, including the electric car’s poor touring ability in contrast to its superiority in urban activities and the tendency of elite families to purchase both gasoline and electric cars because of the vehicles’ complementary functions (Chapter 10). These patterns, among others, led me to revise the research question. Because elite consumers did buy electric cars for several decades, no longer did it make sense to ask: Why did the electric car fail in the marketplace? Rather, a more nuanced question became: Why did the gasoline car, but not the electric, reach a mass market of middle-class families? In accounting for the latter families’ decisions to choose a gasoline touring car, which favored men’s activities over women’s, I held responsible the patriarchal structure of traditional middleclass American families along with their limited

financial resources. This explanation does not go very far, for I could notâ•›—╛╉and still cannotâ•›—╛╉explain how and why social units, from households to countries, decide which activities to favor. Invoking a socially determined male bias in decision making merely begs these questions. Distant causes remain elusive. By explicitly identifying the limits of current knowledge, we call attention to subjects and questions that might be fertile ground for scientific research. Thus, investigating why social units favor certain activities might lead to the creation of new generalizations and heuristics that could bring us closer to somewhat distant causes. On Creating Narratives

Regardless of which distant causesâ•›—╛╉if anyâ•›—╛╉are preferred, we have considerable latitude in fashioning a story, so long as we respect the constraints established by artifact-based scientific studies. In the final analysis, writing an explanatory story requires a large measure of humanistic and aesthetic sensibilities. For example, even someone firmly committed to a scientific approach may introduce biographical information, believing that understanding the experiences of, say, inventors and entrepreneurs may help account for their decisions. Individuals do make a difference, as the superb biographies of Elmer Sperry, Thomas Edison, and Elihu Thomson testify.1 Another reason for including biography is the belief that people are interested in people. Biographical details can enliven narratives that might otherwise be devoid of passion and compassion. Choosing which people to highlight is also a judgment call. Perhaps a person played a pivotal role in a technology’s life history or just happened to have led an unusual life. Although individuals may be prominent in a story, as were Henry Ford and Thomas Edison in my book on the early electric car, let us remember that any technological change results from the decisions and consequent activities of many peopleâ•›—╛╉their contemporaries and predecessors. And so, in using biography we must be vigilant to avoid backing into the Â�inventor-╉as-hero plot. We must also choose a discourse mode suitable for the anticipated audience. An Â�explanaÂ�tion aimed at peer researchers would differ greatly from one aimed at high school students or cor-

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porate executives. The research apparatusâ•› —╛╉ generalÂ�izations, heuristics, and their accompanying jargonâ•›—╛╉that might be appreciated by science-oriented peers could be a distraction and Â�obstacle to others. No matter the anticipated audience, a narrative is a word sculpture that arises from creative acts involving brain and hands no different from those that transform blobs of clay into whimsical teapots. Although authors and sculptors expect, or at least hope, that their products will elicit favorable responses from others, a work’s contours and colors and textures should above all bring satisfaction and joy to the creator. The researcher who forgets this runs the risk of crafting a sterile, lifeless story. On the Relevance of the Past to the Present

Over the decades, scholars have shown that the study of the past can be relevant to the presentâ•› —╛╉ beyond furnishing entertaining stories. Applied archaeology is flourishing, with its major foci being cultural resource management, heritage studies, revival of dead technologies, forensics and disaster archaeology, architectural reconstruction and preservation, and modern material culture studies such as garbology. Historians also contribute to cultural resource management, heritage studies, and architectural reconstruction and preservation; and in corporations and government agencies they craft documents that serve as institutional memory. In these realms of relevance, many archaeologists and historians are fully engaged. But some scholars have long made bolder claims for relevance. During the Great Depression, Nels Nelson discussed some of the unfortunate “social consequences of mechanization,” concluding that they could be ameliorated: “To this end the study of history and of archaeology has much to contribute, for once we become familiar with the entire past of human development we should be in a position effectually to direct our future course.” 2 Our knowledge of the human

past is vastly greater today than it was in Nelson’s time, but we seem to be no closer to affecting the course or consequences of technological change. That is largely because scholars do not make the major decisions affecting the life histories of technologies. Rather, these decisions are made by corporate executives, venture capitalists, government officials, the superrich, heads of nonprofit organizations, and so forth. These groups set technology policy, affect the invention and commercialization of technologies through the provision or denial of resources, and initiate the transfer of technologies to traditional and “developing” Â�societies. Although scholars make no major decisions unless they also play other roles, our expertise is still relevant. In every society stories about the past pervade the present. Whether creation myths, explanations of why products failed, or lessons of the last war, stories about the past help to rationalize ongoing activities and inform and justify decisions about future ones. These stories may leave out contradictory elements, contain invented facts, or incorporate erroneous cryptohistory. As authorities on the past, we do have the standing to evaluate such claims. Accordingly, we incur a responsibilityâ•›—╛╉as scholars and as citizensâ•›—╛╉to use our crap detectors to expose flaws in stories that shore up technology policies. A Final Thought

It is curious that increasing numbers of archaeologists and historians of technology have, during the past few decades, turned away from the intensive study of technologies themselves. This seems like a rather self-defeating move for disciplines that have access to the rich material records of the past. Accordingly, I have provided in this book not only generalizations and heuristics but also many questions for initiating new inquiries into how and why our material world came to be. Perhaps a younger generation of scholars will be inspired to seize the many opportunities and accept the challenges afforded by studies of technological change that privilege the material life of human beings.

Notes 1. On Sperry, see Hughes 1971; on Edison, see Israel 1998; and on Thomson, see Carlson 1991.

2. Nelson 1932:118, 121.

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Glossary

Cadena The set of all social groups taking part in a technology’s entire life history. Chemical Interaction A chemical transfer or change taking place between interactors. Coerced Adoption One group forces another to adopt a technology. Commercialization A life cycle stage consisting of two substages, development and manufacture, which transform an invention into a technology available to consumers. Commissioned Technology A technology whose development and manufacture have been commissioned by the consumer. Compensatory Technology A technology developed to solve a problem posed by a technology that has been in use for a while. Complex Technological System A large set of interacting components and products available to the end user. Component (or Part or Assembly) A discrete, formed object that is joined with other componentsâ•›—╛╉through physical and/or chemical interactionsâ•›—╛╉during product assembly. Convergence Bringing together the resources of any kind for a project, many produced by previous projects. Convergence shortens a project’s developmental distance. Convergent Chain Segment An interactor such as a material or component joins the behavioral chain of another interactor. Creative Anachronism The erroneous assertion that a particular invention was at the beginning of an important technological tradition. Cryptohistory Claims, which may be true or false, about the history of a technology that serve the present-day interests of groups such as corporations. The actual history remains hidden. Cultural Imperative An imagined technology

Acquisition Event A consumer obtains a technology. Activity Occurring in a particular place, an activity is a series of related interactions among a set of interactors that includes at least one person or Â�artifact. Activity-Enhancement Process Groups may enhance a favored activity by acquiring artifacts with specialized functions (of any kind). Activity-Entailed Adoption A group acquires artifacts in anticipation of carrying out a new activity. Adoption The life cycle stage in which consumers Â�acquire a technology. Aggrandizer Aggressive, often acquisitive people who gravitate toward leadership positions. Aggregate Technology A set of similar technologiesâ•›—╛╉they can be either materials, components, products, or complex technological systemsâ•›—╛╉ whose members ordinarily do not interact among themselves. Alternative Chain Segment An alternative set of Â�activities that may substitute in an interactor’s Â�behavioral chain. Application Space The set of general functions carried out by an aggregate technology by virtue of its general performance characteristics. It has both a size (total number of discrete functions) and shape (variety of functions). Arena Shared areas of the functional field over which aggregate technologies compete. Artifact Any material phenomenon modified or manufactured, wholly or in part, through the Â�interactions of people. Behavioral Chain A fine-grained model that includes the entire set of activities that took place during the life history of a component, product, or complex technological system. Bisociative Act A cognitive association between two formerly independent phenomena.

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Glossary Â�believed by a groupâ•›—╛╉its constituencyâ•›—╛╉to be desirable and inevitable, merely awaiting appropriate technological resources to enable its realization. Defensive Adoption Trendsetting consumers establish new requirements for a particular activity, and so peers seeking to display social competence also acquire the technology. Dependent Technology A technology whose operation is contingent upon the operation of another technology (compare to Enabling Technology). Designer The group that chooses a technology’s procurement and manufacture activities (i.e., makes technical choices). Development A substage of commercialization, development leads from an invention to the design of a technology capable of being manufactured. Developmental Distance (1) The entirety of development and manufacture activities that lies between the conception of a new technology and its availability to consumers. (2) The activity sequences that separate the formulation of a problem from its technological solution. Diderot Eἀect When one artifact in an ensemble requires replacement, others may also be replaced in conformity with fashion changes. Distributed Development The convergence or pooling of resources produced by independent groups whose projects aim to create the same kind of technology. Divergent Chain Segment An interactor, such as a by-product or waste product, takes off from the behavioral chain of another interactor. Electrical Interaction The flow of electrons or other charge carriers between parts of an interactor or between interactors. Electromagnetic Interaction An interaction that depends on electromagnetic radiation, such as light or radio waves. Emotive Function An artifact function that has the effect of evoking emotions. Emotive Science The variety of engineering science that treats the effects of technical choices on emotive performance characteristics. Enabling Technology A technology that makes possible the operation of other technologies. Engineering Science (1) The generalizations that account for why recipes lead to the intended technology and why that technology, once made, can perform appropriately in activities of its life his-

tory. (2) The generalizations employed by designers to make technical choices. Ensemble Adoption An acquisition event sets in motion a cascade of related acquisitions. Expected Relative Value Diagram A scatter diagram for displaying the relative value of a set of Â�artifacts. The two variables plotted are (1) difficulty of acquiring the materials and (2) complexity of the production process. Extern A type of interactor that arises independently of people, such as sunlight and clouds, wild plants and animals, rocks and minerals, and Â�landforms. Flow Model A model that usually specifies a sequence of major processesâ•›—╛╉i.e., each an aggregate of specific activitiesâ•›—╛╉in a technology’s life history, such as procurement of materials, manufacture, use, maintenance, reuse, and deposition. Focal Technology The reference technology in studies of aggregate technologies in competition. Formal Property A physical or chemical attribute of an artifact that can be observed, perhaps even measured. Functional Equivalents Two or more technologies have identical performance characteristics in all activities of their life histories. This is almost never the case. Functional Field The entire set of a society’s techno-, socio-, ideo-, and emotive functions defined Â�independently of the technologies that carry them out. Ideofunction An artifact function that symbolizes ideology or ideas. Ideoscience The variety of engineering science that treats the effects of technical choices on ideofunctional performance characteristics. Imposed Adoption A group acquires the artifacts that have to be used by another group. Indigenous Theory Implicit theories that enable people in a consumer society to converse about product histories, inventing facts as needed in order to display social competence. Intensified Consumerism The performance requirements of certain activities, such as seasonal ceremonies and rites of passage, are ramped up by groups that stand to gain from more widespread adoption of certain artifacts. Interaction The minimal unit of human behavior, an interaction is any matter–energy transaction

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Glossary Â� taking place between two or more interactors in an activity. Interaction Mode Five major kinds or modes of interÂ� action can take place in an activity: mechanical, chemical, thermal, electrical, and electromagnetic. Interactor Any person, artifact, or extern taking part in an activity. Invention The creation of an idea or vision for a technology that has performance characteristics differing from those of other technologies. Leyden Jar A component that stores electricity; a kind of capacitorâ•›—╛╉an insulator sandwiched Â�between two conductors. Life Cycle Model The stages or processes in the life history of a type of technology. Major processes are invention, commercialization (development and manufacture), adoption, and senescence. Life History The entire set of interactions that take place during a given interactor’s existence. Discrete interactions are often aggregated into activities and processes. Manufacture (or Replication) A substage of commercialization in which resources are assembled and deployed for producing a technology. Market Diagram A heuristic that frames a techÂ� nology’s target and actual markets in relation to all potential consumer groups, the latter defined on the basis of sociodemographic criteria. Material (or Ingredient) Any kind of substance or form of matter that may be converted into a new material, component, or product; a raw Â�material is an extern (i.e., a substance prior to Â�processing). Material Property Any quality or quantityâ•›—╛╉chemical, physical, biologicalâ•›—╛╉of an interactor that can be measured in relation to a standard scale in a laboratory. Material properties influence but do not determine performance characteristics. Mechanical Interaction Physical contact taking place between interactors in an activity. Narrative The explanation of a technological change structured as a reader-friendly story. Peer Competition Competitions among groups at any social scale may lead to the creation of new technologies. Performance One interactor’s minimal engagement with another (in any mode) in a discrete interÂ� action. Performance Characteristic A capability, compe-

tence, or skill that could be exercised by an interactorâ•›—╛╉i.e., “come into play”â•›—╛╉in a specific, real-world performance. See also Sensory Performance Characteristic. Performance Preference The performance characteristics of a technology that a group prefers for its activities. Performance Preference Matrix A heuristic that displays the performance preferences of a product’s cadena groups. Performance Requirement Matrix A heuristic that displays an aggregate technology’s performance requirements for different technocommunities. Performance Requirements (1) The performancesâ•›—╛╉ by constituent interactorsâ•›—╛╉that an activity requires for its conduct. (2) The performance characteristic that an artifact must possess in order to take part in a specific interaction or Â�activity. Planned Obsolescence The strategies that manufacturers use to promote “premature” artifact replacement. This can be achieved by (1) changing an artifact design to make previous models symbolically and emotively obsolete and (2) making technical choices that shorten an artifact’s uselife by compromising its technofunction. Pluto Eἀect To increase the appeal of their Â�products to consumers, manufacturers make technical choices so as to mimic the performance characteristics of their competitors’ products. Presumptive Anomaly The expectation that a trend in one or more use-related performance characteristics of a technology will come to an end unless constraints can be surmounted. Primary Performance Characteristic A Â�performance characteristic that must be satisfied before the designer can attend to the next activity in the product’s behavioral chain. Process (1) A fairly discrete set of related activities that modifies a material, forms a component, assembles a product, or operates any technology. (2) Any set of related activities, such as manufacture process, recycling process, commercialization process, and adoption process. (3) A theoretical mechanism, such as a specific social process, invoked to explain an empirical pattern. Product A more or less self-contained artifact that has become available to the end user; it may be simple or complex (the latter assembled from many different components).

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Glossary Project Following the identification of a problem, a projectâ•›—╛╉consisting of a novel activity sequenceâ•›—╛╉ is undertaken that may yield a new technology that solves the problem. Project-Stimulated Invention The inventive activities that a project undertakes in order to traverse its developmental distance. Promoter The group dedicated to pursuing a particÂ� ular project; it must acquire and deploy the resources needed to traverse the developmental distance. Recipes The rules that underlie a technology’s manufacture, use, and other life history activities. Remedial Projects Projects undertaken to solve a problem that appears after a technology has been in use for a while. The result may be a compensatory technology. Resources The material factors needed to span a developmental distance. These include people, organizations and institutions, technologies, energy, utilities, communication and information, transportation, legalities, finances, and time. Saltation A discontinuous or abrupt change in, for example, a technology’s components. Secondary Performance Characteristic A performance characteristic that, while not a showstopper, may require tweaking to satisfy a product’s performance requirements. Senescence The last stage of a technology’s life cycle involving the decrease of manufacture and acquisition activities to zero. Sensory Performance Characteristic A performance characteristic involving or depending on one or more human senses: sight, touch (and pain), hearing, smell, and taste. Thus, one can speak, for example, of acoustic, olfactory, and visual perÂ� formance characteristics. Sequential Adoption An acquisition depends on two or more consumer groups that make their decisions in sequence. Social Competence The judgment that a person’s performance satisfies the activity requirements embodied in the expectations of a pertinent group. Social Constraints The conflicting performance preferences of cadena groups that a designer reconciles through trade-offs and compromises, respecting differences in social power. The potential for conflicts increases as cadenas become more heterogeneous.

Social Diἀerentiation The fragmentation of a society into self-identifying groups. Social Heterogeneity A cadena with many groups. Social Homogeneity A cadena with few groups. Social Integration Social mechanisms that bridge the fissures in society by promoting interactions among groups. Sociofunction An artifact function that communicates social information symbolically. Socioscience The variety of engineering science that treats the effects of technical choices on sociofunctional performance characteristics. Status System Maintenance The development of new technologies to replace those no longer able to perform as status markers in a social hierarchy. Technical Choice A procurement or manufacture Â�activity selected from available alternatives. Technical Constraints The network of causal relationships among technical choices, formal properties, and performance characteristics that constrain the designer’s choices. Technocommunity A community defined on the basis of shared activities and shared technologies. Technofunction A utilitarian artifact function that involves manipulating or transforming matter, Â�energy, or both. Technological Change Changes in the activities that take place during a technology’s life history: invention, development, manufacture, marketing, acquisition, use, maintenance, reuse, and disposal. Technological Diἀerentiation The proliferation of an aggregate technology’s variants as it is transferred from the originating community to recipient communities. Technological Disequilibrium A new component is introduced into a technological system that disturbs the relationships among its other components, and so further inventions may be required to restore equilibrium. Technological Paradigm A major aggregate technology whose members operate according to the same basic principles (e.g., gasoline engines or Â�incandescent light bulbs). Technological Tradition A continuous series of Â�inventions, with later ones building on the principles, effects, and hardware of earlier ones. A technological tradition is also characterized by cognitive continuity. Technology The material culture component of activities, also known as artifacts, material culture, etc.

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Glossary Technology-Stimulated Invention The introduction of a new technology may provoke a cascade of inventions, as in component-, product-, and �process-╉stimulated invention. Technoscience The variety of engineering science that treats the effects of technical choices on technofunctional performance characteristics.

Thermal Interaction When one interactor warms or cools another. Threshold Performance Matrix A causally neutral tool for explicitly comparing the performance characteristics of two or more competing technologies.

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211

Index

Numbers in italics indicate figures. Ambler, J. R., 8n1 Ampère, André Marie, 12, 89–90 anticipated performance characteristics, 39 application space, and aggregate technologies, 169, 170, 174 archaeology: and adoption patterns, 142; and artifactscale studies, 8n2; and diffusion theory, 17, 18; and formal properties of product, 102–3; and manufacturing processes, 122, 136–39; and relevance of past to present, 189; and shifts in conceptual schemes during late twentieth century, 22; and technological differentiation, 175; and technoscience, 104, 105, 119n12. See also contact situations; diffusion theory and diffusionism; ethnoarchaeology; evolutionary theories; historical archaeology; pottery; Southwest Archaic period, and cooking pots, 138 architecture: and Bauhaus tradition, 24–25; and peer competitions, 45–47, 53n20, 53n23 arenas, and aggregate technologies, 169 Arnold, Jeanne, 63 art: and cadena groups of, 39; and social role expectations, 48. See also bronze sculptures; pottery artifact functions, and fundamental constructs, 23–25 artifact replacement, and adoption patterns, 150 Attoe, W., 53n22 automobiles: and adoption patterns, 151–54; consumer behavior and changes in manufacture of, 133; and design as social process, 109–10, 113–14; and invention cascades, 58, 60, 65; and performance preference matrix, 115, 116; and progress narratives, 14; and project-stimulated invention, 80; and technical constraints on design process, 101–2. See also electric cars

accessories: and adoption patterns, 146; and productstimulated invention, 79–80 accidents, and invention processes, 67–69 Acheson, J. M., 21n38, 163n35 acoustic performance characteristics, 28 acquisition events, 141 activities: elements of, 31; and formation of new social groups, 49–50; and fundamental constructs, 23–25 activity-enhancement process, 144–45 activity-entailed adoption, 146–47 adaptive response, and invention processes, 64–65 adoption, as a life cycle process, 37 adoption patterns: and activity-enhancement process, 144–45; and artifact replacement, 150; coerced and imposed forms of, 148–49; and commissioned technologies, 151; and competing technologies, 151–62; and defensive adoption, 149; and Â�ensemble adoption, 145–46; and gifting, 150; groups and subgroups in studies of, 142–43; and households, 143–44; and life cycle models, 37; and rites of passage, 149; and seasonal ceremonies, 150; and sequential adoption, 147–48; sources of evidence on, 141–42; and technology transfer, 176, 178 advertising, gender and target markets for, 152 affordability, and metapatterns, 83 aggrandizers, and peer competitions, 44 aggregate technologies: definition and examples of, 30; and long-term competitions, 167–75 agriculture: and activity-entailed adoption, 146–47; and diffusion theory, 17; and ethanol production, 33; and introduction of new crop plants, 78; and noncompetitive adoption, 160; and partial behavioral chain, 31, 32; and transition from pithouses to pueblos in Southwest, 117–18 Aitken, H. G. J., 106, 140n37 Akerlof, G. A., 139n1 Allard, Émile, 157 Allen, Paul, 45, 48 alternate chain segments, 30 aluminum, and material-stimulated invention, 74–75, 84n8

Bacon, Francis, 20n6 Baranson, Jack, 16 Barlow, Peter, 71n8, 106–7 Basalla, G., 21n18, 53n7, 85n32, 97n31 Bazerman, C., 97n3 Bednorz, Georg, 74 213

Index behavior: and behavioral chains, 30–34, 41n23; and behavioral framework for technological differentiation, 175–76; changes in manufacture processes and consumer, 133–34, 137–38; patterns of and recurrent decisions, 7; and use of term technological change, 5 “best practices,” 114 Bigsby, Paul, 11–12 Biltmore mansion (Asheville, North Carolina), 45 Binford, Lewis, 140n29 bisociative act, 67, 85n24 Bleed, P., 139n3 Boeing, 92 Boivin, Nicole, 40n4, 41n6, 41n9, 105 Boserup, E., 54n25 boundaries, and social differentiation, 93–94 Boyd, Kevin G., 79 Braun, E., 41n14 bronze sculptures, 103 Bryant, L., 20n12 Bryce, R., 41n27 built-in obsolescence, 112 Buran project (Soviet space shuttle program), 70, 72n39 Burj Dubai (Dubai), 47, 53n23 Burke, John G., 107, 119n28 cadena(s): and decision making of social groups, 38– 40; definition of, 41n25; and design as social process, 109–12, 113; and life cycle models, 31–32, 33 Carlson, W. B., 20n7 Carnegie, Andrew, 48 Carneiro, R. L., 54n26 catalogs, and information on manufacturing, 128 cathedrals, and peer competitions, 45, 46 causes, and research on technological causes, 188 Cavendish, Henry, 178 CBS, 44 ceramic(s). See pottery ceramic superconductors, 74, 75, 84n3 Chaco Canyon (New Mexico), 92 chaîne opératoire, 31, 41n22, 139n3 Channing, William, 82 Chaplin, Charlie, 114 chemical interactions, 25–26 China, introduction of tobacco to, 80 chipped-stone technology, and heat treatment, 104 Christmas Carol, A (Dickens 1843), 150 cities, and peer competitions, 45–47 Clair, René, 114 Clark, Mark H., 148 class: and gender in marketing of electric cars, 154; and maintaining systems of social differentiation, 50; and passenger steamships, 183 coerced adoption, 148

Cold War, and peer competitions, 43, 48 collecting and collectors: and information on manufacturing, 124, 128–30; and technology transfer, 176 commercialization: and life cycle models, 37; and predictability of inventions, 83 commissioned technologies, and adoption patterns, 151 communication resources, 87 communities, and technology transfer, 175–76, 179 companies, and peer competitions, 44–45. See also corporations compensatory technologies, and invention processes, 64 competition: and adoption patterns, 149, 151–62; longterm forms of and aggregate technologies, 167–75. See also peer competitions complex products, 30 complex technological systems, 30, 82–83 components: and categories of technology, 29, 41n23; and component-stimulated invention, 77–78 compromises: adoption patterns and performance characteristics, 144; and technical constraints on design process, 100. See also trade-offs conceptual schemes: activities and artifact functions, 23–25; and categories of technology, 29–30; decision making and life cycles, 38–40; and interaction modes, 25–26; and life cycles, 30–38; and life history, 23; performances and performance characteristics, 26–28; shifts in during late twentieth century, 22–23; and social competence, 28–29 Concorde, 37–38, 147, 148 Constant, Edward, II, 70, 97n6, 180–81, 182 consumer(s) and consumerism: behavior of and changes in manufacture processes, 133–34, 137–38; and definition of consumer society, 54n39; Â�design process and lack of social power, 112–15; and folk theories about technological change, 19; and Â�product-╉stimulated invention, 80–81, 85n35; and sequential adoption, 147–48 consumerist theory, for product failures, 19 contact situations: and changes in manufacturing processes, 134; and material-stimulated invention, 76, 85n19; and noncompetitive adoption, 160 continuous change, and invention processes, 64–65 convergence, and development, 89–91, 97n27 convergent chain segments, 30 copper artifacts, at postcontact Illinois Indian site, 76 copycats: and complex technological systems, 83; and component-stimulated invention, 78, 79; and manufacturing processes, 121, 135. See also Â�knockoffs corporations: and emotive science, 106; as source of cryptohistory, 16–17; and vested interest theory, 19. See also companies Costin, C. L., 140n24 countries, and peer competitions, 45–47. See also state 214

Index Cox, O. C., 54n33 Coxoh Project (Central America), 142 Crabtree, Don, 104 creation myths, 11 creative anachronism, 12–14 creativity, and adoption patterns, 160 Crewe, Emma, 112 Crilly, N., 119n2 Crown, Patricia, 137 cryptohistory, and misleading perspectives in discussions of technological change, 16–17 Csikszentmihalyi, M., 41n10 culture: imperatives of and invention processes, 65–67, 72n29; and role of values in technological change, 183, 186n43 Cunaeus, Andreas, 68 Daniells, Frederic, 81 dating techniques, and manufacture of artifacts, 136 Davy, Humphry, 81 deceptive design, 112–13 decision making: and life cycles, 38–40; role of in technological change, 6–7 defensive adoption, 149 demographics, and patterns of household adoption, 143. See also gender; population Department of Energy, 63 dependent technologies, and adoption patterns, 146 depositional processes, 123 design: component-stimulated invention and tweaking of, 77; and engineering science, 102–8; idealized description of process, 98; and performance preference matrix, 115–17, 118; and research strategies, 117; and social constraints, 109–112; and social power of consumers, 112–15; and studies of changes, 117–18; and technical choices, 98–100; and technical constraints, 100–102, 110 development: and convergence, 89–91, 97n27; and developmental distance, 86–89; distributed form of, 91–92; social differentiation and integration, 92– 95; as social process, 108–12; as substage of commercialization, 37; technological traditions and knowledge in technology, 95–96. See also design developmental distance, 86–89 Deville, Henri Sainte-Claire, 75 Diderot effect, 145, 163n9 Dickens, Charles, 150 differential adoption, 135–36, 154, 159 diffusion theory and diffusionism: and differential adoption, 159; and independence in invention processes, 69; and misleading perspectives on technological change, 17–18 disseminators, and technology transfer, 175–76 distributed development, 91–92 divergent chain segments, 30

Dobres, M. -A., 40n2, 53n6 “downstream” effects, of technical choices, 99–100 drift: and demographic collapse, 54n30; and manufacturing processes, 134, 140n29 Drucker, P. F., 96–97n2 Dunnell, R. C., 53n8 dynamo, 69 Edison, Mina, 154 Edison, Thomas, 11, 15, 20n5, 60, 63, 88, 89, 90, 96– 97n2, 97n15, 103, 154, 188 Ehrhardt, Kathleen, 76 electrical interactions, 26 electric cars: and case study in adoption patterns, 151– 54; convergence in development of, 91; folk theories on demise of, 18, 19–20; manufacture of, 131–33 electricity, and adoption patterns, 146, 154–58. See also electric power systems electric motors: and creative anachronism, 12–13; and invention by accident, 69 electric power systems, 171–73 Electric Vehicle Association of America, 152 electrochemical technology, 171–72, 173 electromagnet(s), 77–78, 90–91, 172–73. See also electromagnetic motors electromagnetic interactions, 26 electromagnetic motors, 12–13 electrometallurgy, 81–82, 85n41 electrostatic technology, 171, 173 emergent performance characteristics, 28, 30 emotive functions, 23 emotive science, 105–6 enabling technologies, and adoption patterns, 146 Energy Policy Act of 2005, 33 energy resources, 87 engineering science: definition and types of, 96; and design development, 102–8; use of term, 119n11 England, and electric lights in lighthouses, 157–58 ensemble adoption, 145–46 environment, and design as social process, 114 ethanol, production of from corn, 33, 41n27 ethnoarchaeology, 142 Evans, Francis, 168 evidence chart, and manufacture, 125–27 evolutionary theories: and concept of drift, 134, 140n29; and concept of progress, 14–15; and technological traditions, 97n31 exotic materials, and contact-period sites, 76 expected relative value diagram, 104 experimentation, and technology transfer, 176, 178 Faraday, Michael, 12, 13 Farmer, Moses, 82 Ferguson, James, 12 fetal heart-rate monitor, 14 215

Index feudalism, and new social groups, roles, and activities, 49 Field, Cyrus, 88 financial resources, 87–88, 89 Finn, Bernard, 62 flow models, and life cycles, 34, 35, 41n28 folk theories, and misleading perspectives in discussions of technological change, 18–20, 41n19 food(s): and activity-enhancement process, 144; and cooking pots in Eastern U.S. prehistory, 138; Â�ethanol production and prices of, 33; gustatory and Â�olfactory performance characteristics, 28; and trans fats, 115 Ford, Clara, 154 Ford, Henry, 83, 91, 93–94, 133, 154, 188 formal properties, and design development, 99–100, 102–3, 104 France, and electric lights in lighthouses, 157–58 Franklin, Benjamin, 12, 68, 160–62, 177 Friedel, Robert, 8n2, 20n5, 62, 65, 78, 182 functional equivalents, and adoption patterns, 158–59 functional field, and aggregate technologies, 168–69, 170, 173, 185

historical archaeology, 142 history, and relevance of past to present, 189. See also cryptohistory Hollenback, Kacy L., 36, 41n32, 134 Holmes, W. H., 85n32 Hopi: and copycat inventions for tourist market, 79; and noncompetitive adoption in agriculture, 160; and partial behavioral chain for maize production, 31, 32; Spanish “influence” on and technological change, 18 horses, and aggregate technology, 174–75 Hounshell, D. A., 97n24, 120n47 House, John, 34, 35 households, and adoption patterns, 143–44 Hubble Space Telescope, 111–12 Hughes, Thomas P., 41n20, 57–58 humanism, and perspectives on technological change, 5–6 humanitarianism, and design as social process, 114–15 human resources, 86 Hunter-gatherers, and diffusion theory on spread of agriculture, 17 hyperdiffusionism, and independent invention, 69

Gates, William, 45, 48 gender, and advertising of electric cars, 151 Giedion, S., 120n47 gifting, and adoption patterns, 150 Gould, Richard, 42n38, 71n5, 175 Gramme, Zénobe, 69 Great Eastern (steamship), 37, 42n37, 105 grassroots organizations, and design process, 115 Great Depression, and changes in manufacturing processes, 134 Griffitts, Janet, 81, 163n33, 168 Guericke, Otto von, 12, 20n13 gustatory performance characteristics, 28

idealism, and diffusion theory, 18 ideofunctions, 23, 24 ideological resources, 87 ideoscience, 105 Illinois Indians, and copper artifacts at postcontact site, 76 imposed adoption, 148–49 independent invention, and invention processes, 69–70 individuals, and peer competitions, 44–45 industrialization: and invention processes, 57; and manufacturing processes, 135–36; and safety issues, 114 influence, and diffusion theory, 18 information resources, 87 information transfer, 176, 177–78 installation, and invention cascades, 61 intensified consumerism, and rites of passage, 149 interaction modes, 25–26 International Space Station, 89, 92 Internet, 95, 115, 125 invention and invention processes: accident or unexpected performance, 67–69; cascade model and project-stimulated, 57–63; continuous change and adaptive response, 64–65; and cultural imperatives, 65–67; and independent invention, 69–70; and life cycle models, 36–37; remedial projects and compensatory technologies, 64; and technological disequilibrium, 63–64; technology-stimulated forms of, 73–84

Halberstam, D., 120n37 Hall, Charles Martin, 75 Hamilton, Elizabeth G., 63 Harris, M., 41n22 Harrison, Rodney, 76 Harrold, M. C., 128 Hauksbee, Francis, 78 Hayden, Brian, 44, 53n11, 142 Hayes, Rutherford B., 15 Heimerl, C., 185n14 Hell Gate lighthouse (New York), 148 Hemingway, Ernest, 10 Henrich, Joseph, 49 Henry, Joseph, 12, 89, 90–91, 107 Héroult, Paul, 75 hierarchies, and status system maintenance, 50

216

Index facture, 124–25; of systems of status differentiation, 50–57. See also status system maintenance Majewski, T., 54n39 major processes, 34 manufacture: and archaeological record, 136–39; changes in processes of, 133–36; collector data and temporal patterns of production, 128–33; evidence on processes of, 122–27; goals of research on, 121–22; and invention cascades, 61; as substage of commercialization, 37; and technology transfer, 176, 178 Marconi, Guglielmo, 106 Marcos, Imelda, 144, 163n7 market diagram, 151, 152 marketing: of electric cars, 154; and invention cascades, 61; and manufacture, 123–24 masks, and emotive science, 106 Mason, Otis, 76, 85n19, 163n14 material(s), and categories of technology, 29 material property, 27 material-stimulated invention, 74–77 Matson, F. R., 40n3 McCracken, G., 54n37, 163n9 McGuire, Randall, 108 McLuhan, Marshall, 10 mechanical interactions, 25, 26 Mechanics’ Magazine, 94 media, and misleading perspectives on technological change, 10–12 medical technologies, and cultural imperatives in invention processes, 66–67 metapatterns, and technology-stimulated invention, 83–84 Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 24 migrations, and diffusion theory, 17 military, and status differentiation, 50–51 Miller, Heather, 41n13, 41n17, 53n6, 85n32, 104 mine drainage, and cultural imperatives in industrial activities, 67 Mintz, S. W., 54n37 models: and cascade model of project-stimulated invention, 57–63; of life cycles, 30–38; and replicative experiments in technoscience, 103–4 Mokyr, J., 21n20 Mom, Gijs, 113 Montgomery, Barbara, 145 Morse, Samuel F. B., 60, 61 Moskowitz, Marina, 41n12, 149, 163n21 Müller, Alex, 74 Mumford, Lewis, 140n24, 183 Muntz, Earl W., 79, 85n29 museums, as sources of information on manufacturing, 128 Musschenbroek, Petrus van, 68

inventors, in media accounts of technological change, 11 iPod, 79–80, 85n33 Israel, Paul, 20n5, 62 Italy, and adoption of lightning conductors, 161, 62 Jacobi, Moritz, 81 Japan, and manufacture of pocket radios, 127 Kalinga Ethnoarchaeology Project (Philippines), 142 Kettering, Charles F., 60 Keyser, P. T., 20n13 King, W. James, 13 Kingery, W. D., 84n3 Kinney, Thomas A., 120n47, 135–36 Kludas, Arnold, 182, 186n36–37 knockoffs: identification of in archaeological record, 139; and product-stimulated invention, 78–79. See also copycats knowledge, in product development and resource acquisition, 95–96 Kramer, C., 140n26 Kranzberg, M., 71n3 Krim, Norman, 66, 127 Kuhn, Thomas, 40n1, 181 Landers, John, 181, 186n30 Landriani, Marsilio, 161 Large Hadron Collider, 92 Lavoisier, Antoine, 178 legal resources, 87 Leonardo da Vinci, 12, 13 Levine, F., 185n14 Leyden jar, 68, 171 life cycles: and aggregate technologies, 184–85; and decision making, 38–40; models of, 30–38; stages of, 41n32 life history: as fundamental construct, 23; and invention cascades, 60, 62; and performance requirements, 27 lighthouses, 148, 154–58 lightning rods, 160–62 linguistic resources, 87 locational resources, 87 Longacre, William A., 142 Los Alamos National Laboratory, 95 Love, T., 119n2 Lyman, R. Lee, 21n40, 38 Lyons, Nick, 16 magazines, as sources of information on manufacture, 124, 127, 128 magnetos, 179, 180 maintenance: and invention cascades, 62; and manu217

Index Nagel, E., 8–9n13 narratives: creation of, 188–89; and invention cascades, 62; progress and technological revolution as themes in discussions of technological change, 14–15 National Compact Stellarator Experiment, 63 National Public Radio (NPR), 11–12 Navajo, 18 Nelson, Nels, 189 Neupert, M., 140n24, 163n40 New York, and skyscrapers, 47 Nike Company, 114–15 Nollet, Jean-Antoine, 161 Norman, D. A., 120n41 Nye, David, 53n20, 105, 185n5 Oersted, Hans Christian, 84n8, 89 olfactory performance characteristics, 28 organizational and institutional resources, 86–87 Orton, C., 140n39 Packard, Vance, 163n20 patents, and manufacturing processes, 125 Paul, Les, 11 peer competitions: and changes in manufacturing processes, 134–35; and social needs, 43–49, 52. See also competition performance(s): and conceptual schemes, 26–27; and emotional responses to public demonstrations of science, 105–6; invention processes and unexpected, 67–69; primary and secondary requirements of, 102; technology-stimulated invention and deficiencies in, 74. See also performance characteristics; performance preference matrix; performance requirement matrix; threshold performance matrix performance characteristics: adoption patterns and compromises on, 144; of aggregate technologies, 169–71; and conceptual schemes, 27–28, 41n14; and technical choices in design process, 99–100 performance preference matrix, 115–17, 118 performance requirement matrix, 179, 180 Petroski, Henry, 8n2, 107, 108, 119n3–4, 119n11, 120n43 Philco, 131 phonograph, 15 Photofacts (magazine), 124–25, 127 Piaskowki, J. & Pisakowska, H., 140n35 pithouses, and transition to pueblos, 92, 117–18 Pluto effect, 113 political resources, 87 popular culture, and progress narratives, 15 population: decline of and reduction in variety of social roles, 49–50, 52, 54n30. See also demographics postprocessualism, socioscience and ideoscience in archaeology, 105

potential technology, and technology-stimulated invention, 73 pottery: adoption of new types in prehistoric Southwest, 145; and aggregate technologies, 174; and changes in manufacture processes, 134, 138; and hobbyists in consumer societies, 144; and production estimates, 136–37; and technical choices or constraints in design process, 99–101, 105; technological differentiation of in Southwest, 175 power: and imposed adoption, 148; and role of consumers in design process, 112–15 Priestley, Joseph, 177, 178 primary consumers, 147–48 primary performance requirements, 102 process, and categories of technology, 30 process-specific generalizations, 5–6 process-stimulated invention, 81–82 producer constraint theory, 19 product(s): and categories of technology, 29–30; component-stimulated invention and new ideas for, 77–78 product-stimulated invention, 78–81 professional societies, and technology transfer, 94 progress, and cultural themes in discussions of technological change, 14–15 project–stimulated invention, 57–63, 71n3 promoters, and developmental distance, 86, 88, 89 properties, use of term, 30. See also formal properties prototypes, and invention cascades, 60 pueblos, and transition from pithouses, 92, 117–18 Pursell, C., 21n43 radios: engineering science and design of shirtpocket, 106, 107; invention and marketing of shirtpocket, 16–17, 66; manufacture of shirt-pocket portable, 122–27, 128–31; product-stimulated invention and portable, 80–81 Radio Act (1927), 129 Radio Collector’s Directory and Price Guide, 1921–1965, The, 128–30 railroads, 83 Rathje, W. L., 41n7, 97n22 rationales, teaching frameworks as, 96 raw materials: and manufacturing processes, 135; and resource acquisition, 29 Raytheon, 66, 107, 122, 123 RCA, 44, 93, 128 recipes, and development projects, 95 recurrent decisions, and behavior patterns, 7 redesign, and technology transfer, 176, 178 reference group, for discussing artifact functions, 25 Reid, J. Jefferson, 8n4, 145 Reidman, R., 21n38, 163n35 relative measures, of production, 136–37 remedial projects, and invention processes, 64 218

Index replication, and technology transfer, 176, 178 replicative experiments, in technoscience, 103–4 research: design process and strategies of, 117; on manufacture, 121–22; study of competing technologies and researcher’s performance characteristics, 159–60 residential mobility, as example of process-specific generalization, 5, 6 resource acquisition: categories of, 86–88; technological traditions and knowledge in technology, 95–96 reuse processes, and manufacture, 123, 124, 125 reverse engineering, 79 “reverse salients,” and technological development, 57–58 rites of passage, and adoption patterns, 149 Rochberg-Halton, E., 41n10 Rodia, Sabato, 89 Roebling, John, 108 Rogers, E. M., 21n41 Rosenberg, Nathan, 63, 89, 97n5, 97n11 rubber, 135 safety, and design as social process, 113–14 Salado Polychrome ceramics, 137, 139 Sandy Hook lighthouse (New Jersey), 155 Sarnoff, David, 93 Sawyer, Diane, 16 Schiffer, Adam J., 10 Schiffer, Michael B., 7, 21n29, 41n7, 41n13, 41n15–18, 41n20, 41n22–23, 41n25–26, 41n32, 42n42, 54n38– 39, 71n9, 72n29, 72n35, 85n25–26, 85n32, 97n22, 119n3, 138, 140n9, 163n25, 163n27, 163n36, 163n39, 163n43, 185n1, 185n6, 185n8, 185n10, 185n13, 186n21 Schmidt, L. E., 163n22 science: and emotional responses to public demonstrations of, 105–6; and perspectives on technological change, 5–6. See also technoscience Science (journal), 74 Scientific American (journal), 75, 94 SCOT program (social construction of technology), 22, 40n3, 40–41n5 seasonal ceremonies, and adoption patterns, 150 secondary consumers, 147, 148 secondary performance requirement, 102 self-identifying groups, and social differentiation, 92 senescence, and life cycle models, 37–38 sensory performance characteristics, 27–28 sequential adoption, 147–48 Sessler, A., 186n45 Shiller, R. J., 139n1 Shimada, I., 139n4 ships and shipping. See lighthouses; steamships Simmel, Georg, 51 simple products, 30 skeuomorphs, 79, 85n32

Skibo, James M., 7, 41n18, 41n22, 119n3, 138 Slade, G., 120n40, 163n24 Smith, Grafton Elliot, 69 smokestack scrubbers, 64 social competence, and conceptual schemes, 28–29 , 41n19 social differentiation, and product development, 92– 95. See also status differentiation social constraints: on the design process, 109–112; and peer competitions, 47–48 social integration, and product development, 92–95 social needs: and formation of new social groups, roles, and activities, 49–50; gifting and adoption patterns, 150; and maintaining systems of status differentiation, 50–57; and peer competitions, 43–49 social networks, and adoption patterns, 162n2 social process, design as, 108–15 social roles: expectations for and creation of new technologies, 48–49; and formation of new social groups, 49–50 societal constraint theory, 19 sociofunctions, 23, 24 socioscience, 104–5 SONY, 16–17, 113 Southwest: and adoption of new kinds of pottery, 145; population aggregation and formation of new social groups in, 49; pottery and technological differentiation in, 175; Salado Polychrome vessels and Southwestern Regional Cult, 137; and transition from pithouses to pueblos, 92, 117–18. See also Hopi; Navajo Soviet Union, and space shuttle program, 70 Spanish, and technological change in Southwest, 18 Spencer, Thomas, 81, 82 Sperry, Elmer, 188 Spicer, E. H., 21n39 sports, and peer competitions in professional, 47–48 Spratt, D. A., 41n32 Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1802–1942, The, 131 state, promoters and developmental distance, 88, 89. See also countries status differentiation, maintaining systems of, 50–57. See also social differentiation; status markers; status system maintenance status markers, 50, 51, 104 status symbols, 50 status system maintenance, 50, 51–52, 54n38 Staudenmaier, John, 34, 36 steamships, 37, 71n5, 105, 181–83, 186n24, 186n32, 186n40 Stonehenge (England), 92 Stratton, M., 140n12 Sturgeon, William, 90 219

Index subsidiary projects, and invention cascades, 58–60 sumptuary laws, 50–51 superconductors, 74, 84n3 suspension bridges, 107–8 Sylvania, 122, 123, 130, 131 Tacoma Narrows Bridge (Washington), 107–8 tactile performance characteristics, 27–28 Tasmania, population decline and loss of complex technologies, 49 Taylor, R. E., 140n37 teaching frameworks, and product development, 95–96 technical choices, and design process, 98–100 technical constraints, on design process, 100–102, 110 technocommunity, 175 technofunction, 23, 24 technological change: and adoption patterns, 141–62; and basic invention processes, 57–71; basic questions in study of, 3–4; and behavioral change, 5; causes of, 188; and conceptual schemes, 22–40; creation of narratives on, 188–89; and decisionmaking processes, 6–7; and design development, 98–119; and large-scale processes of aggregate technologies, 167–85; and manufacture, 121–39; product development and resource acquisition, 86–96; research on, 187–88; scientific and humanistic perspectives on, 5–6; skepticism toward misleading and incorrect perspectives on, 10–20; and social needs, 43–53; and technology-stimulated invention, 73–84 technological constraint theory, 19 technological differentiation: and aggregate technologies, 175–80, 185; and metapatterns, 83–84 technological disequilibrium, and invention processes, 63–64 technological display, and invention cascades, 60–61 technological proliferation, and metapatterns, 84 technological resources, 87 technological revolution, and cultural themes in discussions of technological change, 15–16 technological saltations, 180–84, 186n30–31 technological traditions: and creative anachronisms, 13–14; development and resource acquisition, 95–96; and engineering science, 107–8; and evolutionary theories, 97n31; and use of term technical tradition, 20n17 technology: categories of as conceptual scheme, 29– 30; definition of, 4. See also technological change; technology-stimulated invention; technology transfer Technology and Culture (journal), 8n3 technology-stimulated invention: and complex technological systems, 82–83; and component-stimulated invention, 77–78; and material-stimulated

invention, 74–77; and metapatterns, 83–84; and potential technology, 73; and process-stimulated invention, 81–82; and product-stimulated invention, 78–81 technology transfer: and aggregate technologies, 175– 80, 185; and professional societies and trade associations, 94 technoscience, 103–4, 118, 119n12 telegraph: and engineering science, 106–7, 108; and product-stimulated invention, 60, 61–62, 71n8–9; and technology-stimulated invention, 82–83 television: and engineering science, 108; and peer competitions among companies, 44; and userelatedÂ�performance characteristics, 180 Texas Instruments, 66 thermal interactions, 26 This, Hervé, 108 Thomson, Elihu, 53n5, 97n27, 188 threshold performance matrix, 151, 152, 153, 156, 157 Thurston, Robert, 11 time: as resource, 88; and time lags in artifact use and reuse, 136 tobacco, introduction of to China, 80 Tobias, S. F., 54n26 Torrence, R., 42n42 trade associations, and technology transfer, 94 trade-offs: and changes in manufacturing processes, 138; and technical constraints on design process, 100, 101–102. See also compromises transistors, 77 transportation resources, 87. See also Concorde; railroads; steamships trends, and technological saltations, 180–84, 186n27 Trevithick, Richard, 88–89 tribal societies, promoters and developmental distance, 88 “trickle down” theory, and status differentiation, 51, 54n37 Trinder, B., 140n12 “turbojet revolution,” 180–81 unexpected performance, and invention processes, 67–69 universities, and technology transfer, 94–95 University of Arizona, 148 Urquhart Castle (Scotland), 23, 24 use/operation: and invention cascades, 61–62; and technology transfer, 176, 178–79 use-related performance characteristics, 180, 181, 183 utility resources, 87 Vail, Alfred, 60, 61 values, role of cultural in technological change, 183, 186n43 Van Buren, Martin, 61

220

Index van der Leeuw, S., 42n42 Very Large Array radio telescope (New Mexico), 59 vested interest theory, 19 visual performance characteristics, 27 Volta, Alessandro, 77, 171, 178 Wagner, U., 139n4 wagons and carriages, manufacture of, 135 Warner, Deborah, 128 War of the Worlds (radio broadcast, 1938), 130–31 Washington, D.C., 53n22 weddings, and adoption patterns, 149 Wedemeyer, Carol, 99, 105 Welles, Orson, 130–31 Wells, H. G., 130–31 White, Joyce C., 53n4, 63 White, L. T., 186n43

Whiting, Alfred, 160, 163n42 Whittaker, J. C., 42n37 Wiener, Norbert, 72n36, 73 Wilson, E., 186n45 Winner, L., 21n25, 53n4, 162n2 Winther, Tanja, 146 Wobst, H. Martin, 94 Wöhler, Friedrich, 74–75 Woodland peoples, and cooking pots, 138 Woolrich, John, 82 World Radio Convention (Australia, 1938), 130 World War II, and portable radios, 130, 131 York Minster (York, England), 45, 46 Zanibar, and adoption of electricity, 146

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Foundations of Archaeological Inquiry James M. Skibo, series editor Ancient Complexities: New Perspectives in Precolumbian North America Susan M. Alt, editor Living with Pottery: Ethnoarchaeology among the Gamo of Southwest Ethiopia John W. Arthur Complex Systems and Archaeology: Empirical and Theoretical Applications R. Alexander Bentley and Herbert D. G. Maschner, editors The Archaeology of Meaningful Places Brenda J. Bowser and María Nieves Zedeño, editors Invisible Citizens: Captives and Their Consequences Catherine M. Cameron, editor Material Meanings: Critical Approaches to the Interpretation of Material Culture Elizabeth S. Chilton, editor Simulating Change: Archaeology into the Twenty-First Century Andre Costopoulos and Mark Lake, editors Pottery Ethnoarchaeology in the Central Maya Highlands Michael Deal Archaeological Perspectives on Political Economies Gary M. Feinman and Linda M. Nicholas, editors Archaeology beyond Dialogue Ian Hodder The Archaeology of Settlement Abandonment in Middle America Takeshi Inomata and Ronald W. Webb, editors Evolutionary Archaeology: Theory and Application Michael J. O’Brien, editor Style, Function, Transmission: Evolutionary Archaeological Perspectives Michael J. O’Brien and R. Lee Lyman, editors Race and the Archaeology of Identity Charles E. Orser Jr., editor Ancient Human Migrations: A Multidisciplinary Approach Peter N. Peregrine, Ilia Peiros, and Marcus Feldman, editors Unit Issues in Archaeology: Measuring Time, Space, and Material Ann F. Ramenofsky and Anastasia Steffen, editors Behavioral Archaeology: First Principles Michael Brian Schiffer Social Theory in Archaeology Michael Brian Schiffer, editor Craft Production in Complex Societies: Multicraft and Producer Perspectives Izumi Shimada, editor

Pottery and People: A Dynamic Interaction James M. Skibo and Gary M. Feinman, editors Expanding Archaeology James M. Skibo, William H. Walker, and Axel E. Nielsen, editors Archaeological Concepts for the Study of the Cultural Past Alan P. Sullivan III, editor Essential Tensions in Archaeological Method and Theory Todd L. and Christine S. VanPool, editors