Patterns of Technology and the Organization of Production at Harappa

From the article

"Following a brief discussion of the regional and inter-regional contexts in which Harappan pottery production took place, focus is placed on recent excavations at Harappa for the purpose of providing an introduction to the project with respect to patterns of technology and the organization of production. Evidence for specialization, standardization, and control in pottery manufacture at Harappa is evaluated. Specialization can be inferred from the restricted range of types produced in the context of a single activity area, from repetition of patterns of technology in the production process, and from the high degree of efficiency in production and in the multiple sequences employed. The high level of skill of the potters is revealed in the quality of the final product, in the patterned sequences, and in the tools they employed, while standardization is evident in the restricted range of forms produced in uniformly applied production sequences. Evidence for central organizational control over pottery production, however, is largely lacking. These features taken together with evidence from other crafts and other sites show that different kinds of production were absorbed into the Harappan urban environment in different ways. The evidence reviewed also suggests that kinship groups in the Harappan civilization continued to exist as viable political and economic entities, a situation that confirms what we know from other urban contexts."

Chapter 6 of Harappa Excavation Reports 1986-1990