Gendered Technology and Technology That Genders

Technology is closely entwined with human society and social relations. It is intrinsic to how we navigate and engage with the wider world, how we subsist within it, and how we construct and perform our identities. As archaeologists, we use material culture and technology as a primary data source for our reconstructions of past people’s identities and social relations, including their gender systems. This chapter considers how technology is gendered, that is, how gendered practices and conceptions are visible in technological practices, and how it genders, that is, how technology, in turn, shapes our understanding and expression of gender identities. It focusses on the growing complexity of our archaeological approaches to gender and technology and explores how gender and technological innovation come together in our archaeological methodologies and the narratives we construct about the past.