André Leroi-Gourhan (; ; 25 August 1911 – 19 February 1986) was a French archaeologist,

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

and

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

and a penchant for philosophical reflection.

Biography

Leroi-Gourhan completed his doctorate on the archaeology of the

North Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

under the supervision of

Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss (; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and ...

. Beginning in 1933 he held various positions at museums around the world, including the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and the

Musée de l'Homme The Musée de l'Homme (French, "Museum of Mankind" or "Museum of Humanity") is an anthropology museum in Paris, France. It was established in 1937 by Paul Rivet for the 1937 ''Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne ...

, as well as in Japan. Between 1940 and 1944 he worked at the Musée Guimet. In 1944 he was sent to the

Château de Valençay Château de Valençay is a château in the commune of Valençay, in the Indre department of France. It was a residence of the d'Estampes and Talleyrand-Périgord families. Although it is part of the province of Berry, its architecture invit ...

to take care of works evacuated from the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

, including the

Venus de Milo The ''Venus de Milo'' (; el, Αφροδίτη της Μήλου, Afrodíti tis Mílou) is an ancient Greek sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime between 150 and 125 BC. It is one of the most famous works of ancient ...

and the

Winged Victory of Samothrace The ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'', or the ''Nike of Samothrace'', is a votive monument originally found on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the be ...

. He also participated in the

French resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

, for which he received the Croix de Guerre, the

Médaille de la Résistance The Resistance Medal (french: Médaille de la Résistance) was a decoration bestowed by the French Committee of National Liberation, based in the United Kingdom, during World War II. It was established by a decree of General Charles de Gaulle on 9 ...

and the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

. In 1956 he succeeded Marcel Griaule at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

, and from 1969 until 1982 he was a professor at the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment ('' grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris n ...

. In 1973 he received the gold medal of the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

Technicity, ethnicity, milieu

In ''L'Homme et la matière'' 'Man and Matter''(1943), Leroi-Gourhan proposes the concept of ''technical tendencies'', that is, universal technical dynamics that operate independently of the ''ethnic'' groupings which are nevertheless the only forms through which these tendencies are concretised. The concretisation of the technical tendency in a particular ethnicity he calls a ''technical fact''. In ''Milieu et techniques'' 'Environment and Techniques''(1945), Leroi-Gourhan develops this into a general theory of the relation between the technical (as universal tendency) and the ethnic (as specific, differentiated concretisation). The human group, according to Leroi-Gourhan, behaves as though it were a living organism, assimilating its exterior milieu via "a curtain of objects", which he also calls an "interposed membrane" and an "artificial envelope", that is, technology. The milieu of the organism is divisible into the exterior milieu (geography, climate, animals and vegetation) and the interior milieu (the shared past of the group, thus "culture", etc.). This division enables a clarification of the concept of technical tendency. A tendency, according to Leroi-Gourhan, is a movement, within the interior milieu, that gains progressive foothold in the exterior milieu. Leroi-Gourhan contributed to the methods of studying

prehistoric technology Prehistoric technology is technology that predates recorded history. History is the study of the past using written records. Anything prior to the first written accounts of history is prehistoric, including earlier technologies. About 2.5 million ...

, introducing the concept ''

chaîne opératoire Chaîne opératoire (; ) is a term used throughout anthropological discourse, but is most commonly used in archaeology and sociocultural anthropology. It functions as a methodological tool for analysing the technical processes and social acts i ...

'' (operational chain) which denotes all the social acts involved in the life cycle of an artifact.

Evolution, memory, program

Crucial to Leroi-Gourhan's understanding of human evolution is the notion that the transition to

biped Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning 'two feet' (from Latin ''bis'' 'double' ...

ality freed the hands for grasping, and the face for gesturing and speaking, and thus that the development of the

cortex Cortex or cortical may refer to: Biology * Cortex (anatomy), the outermost layer of an organ ** Cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the vertebrate cerebrum, part of which is the ''forebrain'' *** Motor cortex, the regions of the cerebral cortex i ...

, of technology, and of

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

all follow from the adoption of an upright stance. What characterises humanity in its distinction from animals is thus the fact that tools and technology are a third kind of memory (in addition to the genetic memory contained in DNA and the individual memory of the

nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes ...

), and thus a new form of anticipation, or programming. Anthropogenesis corresponds to technogenesis.

Legacy

The French philosopher Jacques Derrida discusses Leroi-Gourhan in '' Of Grammatology'' (Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, corrected edition), in particular the concepts of "exteriorisation", "program", and "liberation of memory." This discussion was particularly important in the formulation of Derrida's neologism, ''différance''. Leroi-Gourhan is frequently cited in the two volume collaboration by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychiatrist

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næs ...

entitled '' Capitalism and Schizophrenia''. The hand/tool and face/vocalization couplings of Leroi-Gourhan play an important role in the development of Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of becoming and deterritorialisation. The French philosopher

Bernard Stiegler Bernard Stiegler (; 1 April 1952 – 5 August 2020) was a French philosopher. He was head of the Institut de recherche et d'innovation (IRI), which he founded in 2006 at the Centre Georges-Pompidou. He was also the founder in 2005 of the polit ...

gives an extensive reading of Leroi-Gourhan in '' Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus'' (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).

Bibliography

In French

*''L'Homme et la matière'' (Paris: Albin Michel, 1943). *''Milieu et techniques'' (Paris: Albin Michel, 1945). *''Le geste et la parole'', 2 vols. (Paris: Albin Michel, 1964–65). *''Les religions de la Préhistoire'' (Paris: PUF, 1964). *''Préhistoire de l'art occidental'' (Paris: Mazenod, 1965). *''Mécanique vivante: Le crâne des Vertébrés, du Poisson à l'Homme'' (Paris: Fayard, 1983).

English translations

*''Prehistoric Man'' (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957) (n.b. this appears to be an earlier translation of 'The Hunters of Pre-History', or a translation of an earlier version of the same work). *''Treasures of Prehistoric Art'' (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1967). *''The Dawn of European Art: An Introduction to Palaeolithic Cave Painting'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). *''Gesture and Speech'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: MIT Press, 1993). *''The Hunters of Prehistory'' Trans. Claire Jacobson. New York: Atheneum, 1989

983 Year 983 ( CMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – Diet of Verona: Emperor Otto II (the Red) declares war against the Byza ...

References

External links

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*

L'aventure humaine, 1970, INA archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Leroi-Gourhan, Andre 1911 births 1986 deaths French paleoanthropologists French paleontologists French archaeologists French anthropologists French Resistance members Recipients of the Legion of Honour Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France) Recipients of the Resistance Medal Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 20th-century French philosophers 20th-century archaeologists French male non-fiction writers 20th-century French male writers

Biography

Technicity, ethnicity, milieu

Evolution, memory, program

Legacy

Bibliography

In French

English translations

See also

References

Further reading

External links