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Ceramics are quintessential indicators of human culture and its evolution across generations of social learners. Cultural transmission and evolution theory frequently emphasizes apprentices’ need for accurate imitation (high-fidelity copying) of their mentors’ actions. However, the ensuing prediction of standardized fashioning patterns within communities of practice has not been directly addressed in handicraft traditions such as pottery throwing. To fill this gap, we analysed variation in vessel morphogenesis amongst and within traditional potters from culturally different workshops producing for the same market. We demonstrate that, for each vessel type studied, individual potters reliably followed distinctive routes through morphological space towards a much-less-variable common final shape. Our results indicate that mastering the pottery handicraft does not result from accurately reproducing a particular model behaviour specific to the community’s cultural tradition. We provide evidence that, at the level of the elementary clay-deforming gestures, individual learning rather than simple imitation is required for the acquisition of a complex motor skill such as throwing pottery.

This work aims to improve understanding of the conditions favoring adoption of new craft traits.We investigated the cost of motor skill adaptation in asking seven expert potters to produce familiar vs. unfamiliar shapes and using a familiar vs. unfamiliar wheel. The gestural patterns of the potters (i.e. the succession of their hand positions) were videotaped for quantitative analysis. Results showed that the hand positions varied mostly according to the shape being thrown, whether that shape was familiar or not. Additionally, all potters transferred a major part of their hand positions repertoire from the familiar shapes to the unfamiliar ones. Hence, expert potters produce novel shapes through individual learning which constitutes a low cost of adaptation. In archaeological contexts where ceramic production wasdistributed among multiple expert potters, new vessel shapes could easily have been adopted because the individual cost was low. On the other hand, we hypothesize that low-skilled potters (e.g. potters specializing in small vessels) would not have achieved such adoption without opportunities for social learning. As for the unfamiliar wheels, results indicated that their use did not influence the hand positions but involved new postures that may be difficult to adopt, this merits further studies.