<em>CHAÎNE OPÉRATOIRE</em>, TECHNOLOGICAL NETWORKS AND SOCIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS

Abstract

In this paper, I first argue that technological analysis of archaeological assemblages in terms of chaînes opératoires is a privileged qualitative approach to reconstruct technological networks, namely networks of socially linked object-makers. This is a first step before explaining dynamic phenomena such as diffusion of techniques or emergence of shared norms at the population level. The second step is to call upon sociological regularities since archaeology alone cannot provide a fine-grained temporal resolution to evaluate how micro-level interactions might have scaled up in changes. In the second part of the paper, I give archaeological examples and illustrate how to use sociological regularities for explaining past dynamics.