Journal ArticleDOI
Social agency and the dynamics of prehistoric technology
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In this article, the authors synthesize a diverse set of emerging ideas and approaches to understand better dynamic community-level social processes of prehistoric material culture production, including scale, context, and materiality of technology.Abstract:
Technology is not only the material means of making artifacts, but a dynamic cultural phenomenon embedded in social action, worldviews, and social reproduction. This paper explores the theoretical foundations for an anthropology of technology that is compatible with this definition. Because of its focus on social agency, practice theory provides an appropriate starting point for a social theory of technology. In addition, three other themes require explicit attention: scale, context, and the materiality of technology. Four case studies demonstrate how archaeologists are beginning to take technology beyond its material dimensions, and additional questions are proposed stemming from the theoretical issues raised in the paper. The purpose of this essay is to synthesize a diverse set of emerging ideas and approaches to understand better dynamic community-level social processes of prehistoric material culture production.read more
Citations
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The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology
Journal ArticleDOI
Materializing Identities: An African Perspective
TL;DR: The authors compare African pottery techniques at a subcontinental level and see whether there are recurrent patterns in their distribution and whether these can be related to specific social boundaries or historical processes of group formation.
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The Explanation of Artifact Variability
TL;DR: In this article, a theoretical framework for explaining a portion of formal variability in artifacts attributable to the behavior of the artisan is presented, where major causal factors are the artisan's knowledge and experience, extent of feedback on performance in activities along the artifact's behavioral chain, situational factors in behavioral chain activities, technological constraints, and social processes of conflict and negotiation.
Journal ArticleDOI
The challenge of ‘technological choices’for materials science approaches in archaeology*
Bill Sillar,Michael S. Tite +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that both materials scientists and archaeologists have gained much and have much to gain by cooperating together to study ancient technologies, and that the concept of "technological choices" can facilitate a wider consideration of the factors shaping technological developments.
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ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE ORGANIZATION OF DOMESTIC LABOR: Household Practice and Domestic Relations
TL;DR: The household has emerged as a focus of archaeological inquiry over the past decade as discussed by the authors, and it is argued that the common functional definition of the household as an adaptive mechanism reacting to environmental and social conditions underconceptualizes the household and renders its study unlikely to contribute to our understanding of economic and social processes in past societies.
References
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Book
Diffusion of Innovations
TL;DR: A history of diffusion research can be found in this paper, where the authors present a glossary of developments in the field of Diffusion research and discuss the consequences of these developments.
Book
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste
TL;DR: In this article, a social critic of the judgement of taste is presented, and a "vulgar" critic of 'pure' criticiques is proposed to counter this critique.
Journal ArticleDOI
Outline of a Theory of Practice
TL;DR: Bourdieu as mentioned in this paper develops a theory of practice which is simultaneously a critique of the methods and postures of social science and a general account of how human action should be understood.