Paper long abstract:

Understanding skill is seen as a key mechanism through which the articulation of cultural and social dynamics may be viewed. Skill is the foundation on which the renewal or reinvention of material categories depends. Material categories are, in turn, deeply enmeshed in the constant negotiation and renegotiation of identity and social relations. The way in which societies choose to pass on skill is seen as determined through socially sanctioned institutionalised practices. Moreover, societies are seen as constituted through numerous cross cutting institutions with both vertical and horizontal relationships. The social nature of skill acquisition, through specific learning strategies, means that the way in which skill is acquired, and then deployed, may be argued to reflect the nature of the practices related to these institutions.

Using a newly formed skills methodology it has been possible to suggest that during the Early to Late Middle Bronze Age in Hungary, skill associated with pottery manufacture was acquired and deployed through two contrasting social arenas; one related to the household, family and kinship and one related to craft specialisation and the perpetuation of a highly stratified society. These two arenas of skill shed light on different aspects of the social dynamics being played out within a highly stratified and structured society.