摘要：The technological development of ancient people has been a concernof archaeologists, historians, and philologists since the beginning ofmodern scholarship. Nevertheless, the perception of ancienttechnology studies has remained one of a largely specialized fieldassociated with the painstaking classification of artifacts and analysisof production processes. This perception has begun to changedramatically in the last twenty years as the study of technology hasexpanded in new directions. Drawing heavily on developments inScience and Technology Studies, scholars have come to realize thatthe study of technology is first and foremost the study of people. Atool or device is a meaningless object without a user and complexhuman behaviours lie behind the invention, adoption, use, andabandonment of particular technologies — technology issocially-constructed and historically contingent.
