Materials, Technology and Social Life

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Scientific techniques for the analysis of archaeological materials and technologies
• How archaeologists use social theories to explore the development of technologies and the changing use of materials in past societies
• The role of social relations and networks in the creation and maintenance of technological practices and skills

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Evaluate the usefulness of a range of scientific techniques for the analysis of archaeological materials and technologies
• Critically assess the value and appropriate application of a range of social theories employed to understand materials and technology in past and contemporary societies
• Critically assess past and current archaeological approaches to the study of materials and technology

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Produce independent research
• Analyse complex written texts

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Engage with archaeological and ethnographic objects in order to describe and understand the technology of their production, and how this is embedded in fields of knowledge and social relations

Typically the syllabus will cover:

• Introduction to the module: material worlds
• Making things, making relations: technological processes and choices
• Embedded technologies
• Art and technologies of enchantment
• Materials
• Fieldtrip (Pitt Rivers Museum)
• Project presentations
• Technologies of remembrance and forgetting
• Wayfaring and mapping: technologies of travel and space
• Building
• Feedback on assessed work

Teaching and learning methods

This is primarily a seminar-based course, although fieldtrips will be incorporated where practical and relevant. Discussions in seminars will enable you to develop your knowledge, understanding, intellectual skills and critical abilities. The seminar sessions will also include hands-on study of archaeological and ethnographic objects as a focus for discussion.

Teaching methods include:

• Seminars Group work Tutorials

Learning activities include:

• Individual study Artefact study
• Preparing and delivering student-led seminars Discussion groups

Resources & Reading list

Journal Articles

Sofaer, J (2006). Pots, Houses and Metal. Technological Relations at the Bronze Age tell at Százhalombatta, Hungary. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 25(2), pp. 127-47.

Ingold, T. (2007). Materials against materiality. Archaeological Dialogues, 14(1), pp. 1-16.

Pfaffenberger, B. (1992). Social Anthropology of Technology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 21, pp. 491-516.

Ingold, T. (1997). Eight themes in the anthropology of technology. Social Analysis, 41, pp. 106-38.

Sigaut, F (1994). Technology. Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology, pp. 420-59.

Textbooks

Lemmonnier, P. (ed.) (1993). Technological Choices: transformations in material culture since the Neolithic. London: Routledge.

Leroi-Gourhan, A (1945). Milieu et Technique. Paris.

Adams, J. (2003). Ships, Innovation and Social Change. Stockholm: Stockholm Studies in Archaeology 24. Stockholm Marine Archaeology Reports 3.

Jones, A. (2002). Archaeological Theory and Scientific Practice. Cambridge: CUP.

Schlanger, N. (ed) (2006). Marcel Mauss. Techniques, Technology and Civilisation. Oxford: Durkheim Press / Berghahn Books.

Conneller, C. (2011). An Archaeology of Materials: substantial transformations in early prehistoric Europe. London: Routledge.

Dobres, MA and Hoffman CR (eds). The Social Dynamics of Technology: Practise, Politics and World Views. Washington.

Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social: an introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gell, A. (1998). Art and Agency: an anthropological theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Toren, C. (1999). Mind, Materiality and History. Essays in Fijian Ethnography. London.

Assessment strategy

Assessment 1: through the hands-on, self-directed study of an individual object (either archaeological or ethnographic), this assignment helps you understand processes of making and the social relations that exist within technology. Assessment 2 provides the opportunity to develop in detail a chosen aspect of the module through a case study, decided in consultation with the module coordinator.

Summative

Summative assessment description

Referral

Referral assessment description

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External