This 20-hour course (lecture by Sébastien Manem) is dedicated to ceramic chaîne opératoire analysis – from fashioning to firing operations –, the preliminary stage in any research focusing on the intimate link between technical tradition and social group. The first part will focus on the importance of the notion of the chaîne opératoire and the diversity of technical behaviors observed worldwide. The second part of the course will describe the diversity of diagnostic traits that allow for the identification of the techniques by using different scales of observation from naked eye to microscope. Since the majority of traces have several origins, the training course will emphasize the notion of a body of evidence to identify each technique by using experimental, ethnographic and archaeological examples. The final part will be devoted to the importance of macro-photography – techniques and gear – in analyzing and illustrating the results.