The Lord of the Things: a synthesis regarding the artefact and material culture in archaeology

Artefacts are material products that can provide us with a considerable amount of social, technological and cultural information. For this reason, artefacts are a very important -and sometimes unique-source for study (sometimes exclusive) in some disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology and prehistoric studies. These objects or artefacts are tangible cultural manifestations of past societies, so their study reveals important details regarding the culture and the people that made them. This work proposes a reflective synthesis of several different but closely related concepts such as artefact, object, technology and style, all these elements being objectives of archaeological studies.