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The Devil Is in the Details: The Cascade Model of Invention Processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Michael Brian Schiffer
Michael Brian Schiffer*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, and Lemelson Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution (Schiffer@u.arizona.edu)
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Abstract

I propose that archaeologists, in pursuing a renewed interest in studying technological change, construct general theories and models of invention processes. As an example, this paper presents the “cascade” model for investigating invention processes in the context of “complex technological systems.” Building on the recognition that the vision of a new complex technological system is often obvious, the cascade model asserts that the hard work of invention takes place in a series of invention “cascades,” as people strive to achieve acceptable values of a new technology's core or critical performance characteristics during life-history processes (i.e., fashioning a prototype, replication or manufacture, use, and maintenance). The cascade model is illustrated by means of the nineteenth-century electromagnetic telegraph, and implications are drawn for studying invention processes in the complex technological systems of small-scale societies.

Résumé

Résumé

Propongo que los arqueólogos, en su renovado interés en el estudio del cambio tecnológico, construyen teorías generales y modelos de procesos de invención. Este artículo presenta un ejemplo del modelo de “cascada” aplicado a los procesos de invención en el contexto de los “sistemas tecnológicos complejos”. Basado en el reconocimiento de que la visión de un sistema tecnológico complejo es usualmente obvio, el modelo de “cascada” propone que el duro trabajo de invención se lleva a cabo en una serie de “cascadas,” durante las cuales el tecnológo intenta conseguir valores aceptables en las características críticas que forman el núcleo de una nueva tecnología y que afectan las trayectorias históricas de esta tecnología (por ejemplo, creación de un prototipo, manufactura de réplicas, uso y mantenimiento). Ilustro el modelo de cascada con el caso de la invención del telégrafo electromagnético durante el siglo XIX y discuto sus implicaciones para el estudio de los procesos tecnológicos complejos en sociedades de menor escala.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , July 2005 , pp. 485 - 502
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2005

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