Final reflections: what is skill and what does it bring about?

Abstract

This chapter explores skill and aims to enquire whether the Bronze Age skilled metalworking specialist can be demonstrated empirically. It presents a model that seeks to understand metal in the Bronze Age from the perspective of production, specifically focusing on the relationship between maker and material. The chapter examines the relation between cognitive knowledge and skilled practice. It also explores the role and effects of metallurgy and metallurgical skills exhaustively in the distinct niche of consumption. The chapter reviews attention to attentiveness, which is at the core of becoming skilled, and also examines what this means in the broader sense of human interaction with material, cognition, and crafting. On the micro-scale of individual axes recognition of a skilfully made example takes into consideration the material from which the axe is made. The practicalities involved in craft forces metalworkers to make choices as to what their axe will come to be.

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