Spreading of Innovative Technical Traits and Cumulative Technical Evolution: Continuity or Discontinuity?

Abstract : "This paper questions the spreading of techniques considered as advantageous when measured in terms of energetic efficiency. A present-day case study, in which techniques do not spread, is used to highlight a transmission model that can be used to understand the spread of technical systems in terms of demic or cultural processes. The model is then applied to the spread of the potter’s wheel in the second and third millennium bc in the southern and northern Levant. Results show that both demic and cultural processes explain how the potter’s wheel became prevalent in the Levant. The selective forces are discussed by comparing the ceramic production contexts. We conclude that technical evolution is regulated by social mutations, i.e., major discontinuities." (source: éditeur)