Technology and Material Life

Abstract

Humans live in a world of things. They are surrounded by artefacts. Referred to as the social shaping of technology, this has been an interesting area of research in the recent past. The focus of this article is on the ‘material life’ of human beings, and the place of technology within it. The authors approach this topic from the discipline of archaeology, specifically behavioural archaeology, but also draw on research in other fields. This article, expands this framework to include the life histories of technologies and associated material practices. This article further contextualizes contemporary technology studies, primarily in archaeology, and considers how theoretical concepts from behavioural archaeology and social constructivist studies of technology might be combined. Archaeological studies of technology are explained in details in the following section with special emphasis on performance characteristics. This article also explains the life history of technology which helps us conceptualize material practices in relation to objects and technologies.