Marcia-Anne Dobres was an Americanarchaeologist whose research focused primarily on the confluence ofgender,agency, andtechnology. She was a professor at theUniversity of Southern Maine.^[1][2] She died of thyroid cancer on May 14, 2021.^[3]

Dobres received her B.A.Summa cum Laude fromNew York University in 1986 and her M.A. fromBinghamton University in 1988, both inAnthropology.^[1] In 1995, Dobres graduated with her Ph.D. in Anthropology from theUniversity of California, Berkeley.^[1] Her Ph.D. advisor was Dr.Margaret W. Conkey.

Dobres' body of work examines the association between technology and social agency. Instead of focusing primarily on the materiality of technology, Dobres expounds the value of analyzing cultures through the lens of technological production. Dobres suggests that technology is inextricably linked tocultural practices, as the production of technology is shaped by social processes and is an avenue through which culture is expressed.^[4]

Dobres explores these concepts in her bookTechnology and Social Agency: Outlining a Practice Framework for Archaeology.^[5][6] This publication focuses on how the study of technology and social agency can be used to better understand how social constructs control and have controlled production of materials through the centuries.^[7] Much of her other work contains research around similar topics such as gender, prehistoric technology and art, and societal impacts on such things.^[8]

• Technology and Social Agency: Outlining a Practice Framework for Archaeology, 2000.^[9][10][11]
• The Phenomenal Promise of Chaîne Opératoire: Mindfully Engaged Bodies and the Manufacture of Personhood in a Regional Perspective, 2010.^[1]
• Agency in Archaeology (editor), 2000.^[12]
• The Social Dynamics of Technology: Practice, Politics, and World Views, 1999.^[13][14]

• 20th-century births
• 2021 deaths
• 21st-century American archaeologists
• American women archaeologists
• New York University alumni
• University of California, Berkeley alumni
• Binghamton University alumni
• University of Southern Maine faculty
• American women academics
• Deaths from thyroid cancer

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles with hCards
• Year of birth missing