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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropology of technology | 2/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropology_of_technology | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:06:30.454498+00:00 | kb-cron |
== Recent Developments == The 1980s and 1990s saw significant development in Anthropology of Technology, thanks in part to pioneering developments in the history and sociology of technology. In 1988, Bryan Pfaffenberger placed emphasis on the meanings of technologies in familiarizing anthropologists with the work of sociologists and historians of technology such as Trevor Pinch, Wiebe Bijker, and Thomas Hughes, all of whom argued that the cultural meanings deeply shape the formation of technological artifacts and systems: If a technology is essentially a set of meanings and social behaviors — a point made conclusively by these scholars — then the impact of a technology is the result of one set of social behaviors on another. Technology is culture, a seamless web of activities, materials, and beliefs. In 1992, Pierre Lemonnier published Elements for an Anthropology of Technology, a work that not only introduced anglophone workers to the Techniques et culture school but also argued that the cultural shaping of technological activities occurs across the entire scope of human technological activity, spanning the fabrication of stone axes to the design of twentieth century fighter jets. Some of the most interesting work in the Anthropology of Technology has been conducted in sub-Saharan African iron metallurgy, where local iron smelting/smithing was practiced in many areas within the memory of informants. Many of these studies illustrate the blurred line between ‘utilitarian’ and ‘expressive’ artifacts, the complex nature of the adoption of new techniques, the role of gender and ritual, and the role of new technologies in the rise of political centralization (for a wide range of examples, see Schmidt 1996). Other scholars have focused on ‘communities of practice’, the social organization of craftworkers, how knowledge is transmitted to the next generation, and the multiple social networks of craft that may cross-cut other social relations. Others focus on the differing social contexts of the adoption of a new technology; for example, Kim (2001) examined how the differing elite strategies in bronze period Denmark and southern Korea affected the adoption of iron production.
== Archaeological Applications of the Anthropology of Technology == Most historians and sociologists of technology have worked in industrial societies, where ample information about the thoughts and motivations of adopters and users of new technologies exist, and where the social effects of new technologies can be assessed. But how can this be done for the archaeological past, where all anthropologists have are the physical remains of artifacts? Some approaches allow at least some approximations of participant observations. These approaches rest on the concept of technical choices, the idea that any technological product can be fabricated and used in a variety of ways. Technical choices can be made among decisions about raw material, tools used to shape the raw material, the energy sources, the techniques used to manipulate the material, and the chaîne opératoire that produced the artifact. For example, one article by Ottaway sets forth all the variety of technical choices possible in copper-base metal production, and relates these choices to general cultural processes of innovation and specialization. The hope is that once the chaîne opératoire and knowledge of choices is established, then cognitive processes and cultural norms can tentatively be inferred. Establishing the choices made often requires detailed laboratory analysis of the materials to establish the irreducible properties of artifacts. For example, to alloy copper with tin requires one to be able to reach the melting point of copper (1083 °C), but this temperature can be achieved with a variety of crucibles and/or furnace structures, all of which require other technologies and choices to create—crucibles require a certain degree of fire-resistance, providing an air supply requires multiple workers at the same time, with implications for labor organization, and so on. Thus this laboratory analysis can reach beyond the laboratory to garner clues to what Pfaffenberger named the ‘sociotechnical system’, where techniques and material culture are linked to the wider social coordination of labor. A strong example of approaches to the Anthropology of Technology using both archaeological and analytical data is found in the suite of volumes examining the ancient metallurgy of northeast Thailand, centering on the site of Ban Chiang. AOT analyses of the details of the ancient system demonstrated how a competent but decentralized metal production and manufacturing system emerged and endured over millennia, a system that served the needs of heterarchical metal age economies. A related concept to technical choice is that of ‘technological style’, the idea that cultures have characteristic approaches to the manipulation of a wide variety of materials, approaches that can carry symbolic messages. The most famous example in the literature is Lechtman's linking of Incan techniques of gold working and textile that both share a preoccupation with ‘essence’, the design and the gold must be integral to the product: no plating or applique is allowed. Few archaeologists have established this kind of cross-material conceptual linkage, however. Another technique to reconstruct past technologies is experimental archaeology, where modern scholars attempt to reconstruct past technological practices. This not only allows the establishment of physical requirements for manufacturing, but also offers hypotheses for the various possibilities of manufacture, along with the bodily requirements of production and use.
== The Anthropology of Technology and Emerging Technologies ==