In May 2019 the fi rst fi eldwork season took place at Tell Abu Habil, a Chalcolithic site on the Jordanian bank of the middle Jordan Valley. Although preliminary, the results indicated that during the early fourth millennium BC, a time when considerable amounts of archaeological literature claim that the entire Jordan Valley had been abandoned, Abu Habil was in fact a centre dedicated to a large-scale, workshop-based ceramic production. The aim of this paper is to refl ect on how the ceramic chaîne opératoire approach, if applied from the outset of a research project can orient it by generating new archaeological questions. Subsequently, what kind of epistemological issues emerge from these chaîne opératoire-driven questions in general?