André Leroi-Gourhan is undoubtedly one of the most acclaimed figures of twentieth-century anthropology and archaeology. In France, his intellectual importance rivals that of the Claude Lévi-Strauss, yet Leroi-Gourhan’s major contributions are almost entirely unknown in the Anglophone world. This collection seeks to change that.
This selection of Leroi-Gourhan’s important texts—many translated into English for the first time—highlight some of his chief influences, such as elaborating a theory of technology, which argues that material culture focusing on the object in use, and how use is a dynamic feature that has specific consequences for human evolution and human society. With serious ramifications for our understanding of material culture, putting Leroi-Gourhan’s thinking about technology into English will have an immediate and transformative impact on material culture studies.
André Leroi-Gourhan (191186) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist. Nathan Schlanger is professor of archaeology and director of studies in archaeology at the École Nationale des Chartes. Nils F. Schott is a lecturer in the Euro-American Program of the Collège universitaire de Sciences Po, Reims.
