Human corporeality and techniques of writing in André Leroi-Gourhan’s anthropology

A new paradigm in the social sciences, often called 'material turn', appeared at the end of the twentieth century. As is known, typical of modernity was the understanding of human beings as the only active subjects; however, it can be argued that the world of artifacts also has an active part to play as artifacts are not just signs of social relations. Today, there are many texts devoted to rethinking of these ideas that reveal the place of man in the world in a new way. Man appears in history not as a thought, not only as an ideal consciousness, but as an embodied physical being. Physicality is no longer considered only as a natural component of social interactions. This does not mean that a human being ceases to be a physiological being. The body is the way by which Nature becomes Human Being. The study of such transformation requires an interdisciplinary methodology. And now historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists simply cannot ignore the results obtained in the course of this turn. This article explores the ideas of A. Leroi-Gourhan which we find in his fundamental work titled 'Gesture and Speech' (1964). Many ideas of his preceded those at the core of the 'material turn'. He developed an original methodology which allowed to put forward a number of theoretical provisions concerning the evolution as a whole and revealing the relationship of human evolution and technology, and the connection between the brain and language, as well as to identify the stages of social organism formation, to trace the birth of figurative graphics and verbal symbolism leading to the invention of art. Man is not a monopolist in the world of technology; technology is not limited to being an extension of the physical person, it is rooted in people's movements and gestures. Gesture is understood not as a kind of language, but as a part of any language, as a basis for writing. Gestures give rise to related types of writing - when the visible language of images correlates with the audible language of speech. The article is addressed to researchers interested in socio-cultural materiality, the anthropology of technique and writing.

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