The study of the human-made world, whether it is called artifacts,
material culture, or technology, has burgeoned across the academy.
Archaeologists have for cen- ries led the way, and today offer
investigators myriad programs and conceptual frameworks for engaging the
things, ordinary and extraordinary, of everyday life. This book is an
attempt by practitioners of one program - Behavioral Archaeology - to
furnish between two covers some of our basic principles, heuristic
tools, and illustrative case studies. Our greater purpose, however, is
to engage the ideas of two competing programs - agency/practice and
evolution - in hopes of initiating a dialog. We are convinced that there
is enough overlap in goals, interests, and conceptions among these
programs to warrant guarded optimism that a more encompassing, more
coherent framework for studying the material world can result from a
concerted effort to forge a higher-level synthesis. However, in engaging
agency/ practice and evolution in Chap. 2, we are not reticent to point
out conflicts between Behavioral Archaeology and these programs. This
book will appeal to archaeologists and anthropologists as well as
historians, sociologists, and philosophers of technology. Those who
study science-technology- society interactions may also encounter useful
ideas. Finally, this book is suitable for upper-division and graduate
courses on anthropological theory, archaeological theory, and the study
of technology.
