I missed Jay Kotliar's original post on craft production. Jay, could you send me a copy? I, too am intrested in craft production and have done a fair amount of research over the years on textiles, pottery, pipe-making, etc. I also have done ethno-archaeological research among weavers and potters in South India. My present focus is on colonoware and two different kinds/periods of pipe-making in Virginia. I have also done a lot of weaving and own a variety of looms, but I find ver little in the historical archaeological (material) record for textile production here in Virginia, although I think we sometimes don't recognize fragmentary tatting shuttles, etc. Mary Beaudry has been doing some fairly intensive digging onto sewing, lace-making and similar pursuits. One of the more interesting aspects of crafts production in hist. arch., is it can put us in touch with locally-made, hand-made artifacts. For those of us who spend most of our time looking at the by-products of capitalist mass-production, this is a refreshing change, and one which provides some access to "local knowledge." Dan Mouer [log in to unmask]