Abstract: Technological anthropology can be divided into microscopic anthropology and macroscopic anthropology. The former takes the studies of material culture as its basis while the latter is concerned with the interaction between technology and society. The rising sign of technological anthropology is that Pierre Lemonnier and Bryan Pfaffenberger summarized the two types of understanding， and put forward a new anthropology of technology by taking the social technology system as its core. The rising of technological anthropology can be attributed to the four factors—crises of traditional anthropology， differences between science and technology， empirical turning of technological philosophy， and participants perspectives of technological anthropology. As to the current research of technological anthropology， such problems do exist as incomplete discipline system， imperfect research paradigm and inadequate case studies.

Key words: technology, technological anthropology, sociotechnical system