What is technology? How and why did techniques – including materials, tools, processes, skills and products – become central subjects of study in anthropology and archaeology? In this book, Nathan Schlanger explores the invention of technology through the work of the eminent ethnologist and prehistorian André Leroi-Gourhan (1911–1986), author of groundbreaking works such as Gesture and Speech. While employed at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, Leroi-Gourhan initially specialized in ethnographic studies of 'material civilizations'. By the 1950s, however, his approach broadened to encompass evolutionary and behavioral perspectives from history, biology, psychology and philosophy. Focused on the material dimensions of techniques, Leroi-Gourhan's influential investigations ranged from traditional craft activities to automated production. They also anticipated both the information age and the environmental crisis of today. Schlanger's study offers new insights into the complexity of Leroi-Gourhan's interdisciplinary research, methods, and results, spanning across the 20th century social sciences and humanities.

‘There can be no more enigmatic figure in the annals of French ethnology and prehistory than André Leroi-Gourhan. In turns obsessive, capricious, prophetic and brilliant, Leroi-Gourhan was an erratic comet in a star-studded galaxy. Rarely however did he acknowledge the influence of the stars on his own orbit. But Nathan Schlanger, after years on the trail, has finally tracked him down with this scintillating intellectual biography, a must-read for every student of human technicity.’

Tim Ingold - University of Aberdeen

‘The remarkable projects of the French archaeologist and anthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan represented one of the most significant modern interventions in the social sciences. In this brilliantly-argued book, Nathan Schlanger offers both a detailed analysis of Leroi-Gourhan's intellectual development, as well as an exciting exploration of the emergence of potent concepts of technology and technical processes in human cultures.'

Simon Schaffer - Historian of Science and Emeritus Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge

‘André Leroi-Gourhan is a once major and understudied, figure in modern thought-for too long, his work has been examined with an eye to specific problems. In this excellent book, Nathan Schlanger does Leroi-Gourhan justice: he shows the consistency of Leroi-Gourhan's thought, restores his arguments about technology, anthropology, and prehistory to prominence, and carries out an extraordinary synthesis linking him to his interlocutors. This is first-rate scholarship, and I am enthusiastic about what it can bring to modern intellectual history and, more broadly, our understanding of technology.'

Stefanos Geroulanos - Professor of History, New York University