On the nature of ceramics technology: from Empedocles to Dawkins

Abstract

This contribution discusses salient aspects of the development of ceramics technology from its invention to the present, and the role ceramics have played during the cultural development and technological progress of ancient and modern societies. The conjecture is being advanced that the transformation of ceramic production modes from holistic, that is, individualistic processes to prescriptive, that is, cooperative industrially determined technologies had a profound and lasting impact on the social, economic, and cultural fabric of all societies. In addition, the chaotic and thus, nondeterministic interaction of ceramic technology and society, and the transfer of information among potters will be described in terms of the concept of strange attractors as well as sets of self‐normalizing ‘memes’ (ideas) in a Lamarckian and/or Darwinian mode. Such specific ideas drive cultural and, by inference, technological evolution of societies.