Chaine Operatoire

The chaine operatoire, or operational sequence, is an analytical framework that reconstructs the entire ordered chain of technical actions and decisions by which a raw material is transformed into a tool, used, maintained, and finally discarded. Originating in the technological anthropology of Andre Leroi-Gourhan, the concept treats technology not as a set of finished objects but as a process — a sequence of gestures, choices, and constraints that materializes human know-how, or savoir-faire. As Sellet's influential synthesis explains, applying the chaine operatoire to stone tools means tracking material from its geological source through acquisition, core preparation, blank production, tool shaping, use and rejuvenation, and eventual abandonment, with every stage represented by characteristic artifacts and by-products. The approach is dynamic and behavioral rather than typological: it asks how and why objects were made the way they were. It complements attribute-based macroscopic analysis, which Andrefsky systematizes, by binding individual technological readings into a coherent narrative of production from start to finish.