The Archaeo-Ethnology of Hunter-Gatherers or the Tyranny of the Ethnographic Record in Archaeology

1978 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Martin Wobst
Keyword(s):  
Space Time ◽  
Behavioral Variability ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Anthropological Theory ◽  
And Behavior

Many of the constructs of space, time and behavior in the ethnographic literature on hunter-gatherers may be partly determined by the severe constraints on ethnographic fieldwork. This paper discusses the genesis of some of these constructs, points out that the anthropological theory consumed by archaeologists is often based on, or developed for these constructs, and suggests that some of these constructs may be insensitive to deal with behavioral variability expressed in the archeological record, even though they can be made to fit any data. Their application to the archaeological record may merely be ethnography with a shovel in which the form and the structure of the ethnographic record are reproduced in the archaeological one.

“Scrub”

2012 ◽  
Vol 642 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott N. Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Site Analysis ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social ◽  
Specific Setting ◽  
Group Members ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Complete Account

Conducting ethnographic fieldwork in varied spaces, with different actors, enriches our understanding. A researcher may find paradoxes in practices and ideas and ask for clarification, or recognize that social dynamics and behavior are peculiar to group members present in a specific setting. This article highlights the usefulness of intentional variability and flexibility in the field. Researchers should plan to do multi-site analysis (MSA) to look for negative cases and opportunities to challenge commonsense notions. Additionally, this article emphasizes that the relationships built during fieldwork shape the data that are captured. Therefore, researchers need to consider the bases for their relationships, including what the subjects get out of them, and how subjects’ positionality affects what comes to be known. This perspective de-emphasizes false norms of objectivity and renders a more complete account of the social worlds we study.

scholarly journals Mesolithic Fireplaces and the Enculturation of Early Holocene Landscapes in Britain, with a Case Study from Western Scotland

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 131-159
Author(s):  
Steven Mithen
Keyword(s):  
Early Holocene ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Subsistence Economy ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
The Social

In light of the enculturation of landscapes by ethnographically documented hunter-gatherers, we should expect Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to have endowed their early Holocene landscapes with meaning. Attempts to find evidence for this have focussed on the unusual and exotic – those aspects of the archaeological record that seem immediately unrelated to subsistence. In this contribution, I suggest that fireplaces, ubiquitous on Mesolithic sites and often swiftly passed over in site reports as evidence for cooking alone, had played a key role in the process of landscape enculturation. Although we cannot reconstruct the specific meanings once attached to early Holocene landscapes, by appreciating the social and cultural significance of fireplaces we gain a more holistic view of the Mesolithic than is currently the case, whether in those studies that focus on settlement and subsistence or those that cite examples of ritual. In the course of making this argument, I summarise the evidence for fireplaces from Mesolithic Britain, noting the need for more systematic reporting. Finally, I provide a case study from western Scotland that seeks to view a suite of fireplaces in the context of the landscape topography, early Holocene environments, subsistence economy, and by drawing on selected ethnographic analogies.

scholarly journals Social identities in the field: how fluctuating fieldworker identities shape our research

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Kirkebæk Johansson Gosovic
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Data Generation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Anthropological Theory ◽  
Multiple Identity ◽  
Identity Processes ◽  
Interpretation Process ◽  
At Home

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to developing the understanding and practice of fieldwork in familiar settings by expanding the literature on fieldworker identities. Design/methodology/approach Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a multinational biopharmaceutical corporation, and drawing on anthropological theory of social identities, the paper demonstrates the multiple and fluid identities that we as organizational ethnographers purposefully take on, accidentally acquire, unintentionally are ascribed with and experience during ethnographic fieldwork in familiar settings. Findings Building on these insights, and by expanding the literature on researcher identities, the paper develops a critique of the spatial and temporal notions often attached to fieldwork in familiar settings by demonstrating how outsider identities are ascribed even “at home” and how insider identities can be experienced when away. It further reflects on the ways in which these identities shape the data generation and interpretation process. Originality/value This paper argues that to properly grasp the multiple identity processes involved in a fieldwork, we must escape the spatial and temporal conceptualization of being either an insider or an outsider. Instead, the paper argues for a relational and situational perspective on being an insider and an outsider in the field and proposes to conceptualize “insider” and “outsider” as ascribed, changing and sometimes volatile social identities.

North and South: Hunter-Gatherer Communities in the Andes Mountains in Central Chile

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis E. Cornejo B. ◽  
Lorena Sanhueza R.
Keyword(s):  
River Valley ◽  
Andes Mountains ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Central Chile ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Social Units ◽  
North And South ◽  
Chilean Andes

AbstractOne of the most serious limitations in studies of prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies based on the archaeological record has been the difficulty of establishing distinctions among groups that inhabited a given area at the same time. This article suggests that, at least during a period ranging from 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1000, the Central Chilean Andes, specifically the Maipo River Valley, was occupied by two groups of hunter-gatherers that were distinct enough for us to propose that they were actually two different social units.

Willow Smoke and Dogs’ Tails: Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems and Archaeological Site Formation

1980 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewis R. Binford
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Site Formation ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Subsistence Strategies ◽  
Settlement Systems ◽  
Settlement Strategies

Hunter-gatherer subsistence-settlement strategies are discussed in terms of differing organizational components, "mapping-on" and "logistics," and the consequences of each for archaeological intersite variability are discussed. It is further suggested that the differing strategies are responsive to different security problems presented by the environments in which hunter-gatherers live. Therefore, given the beginnings of a theory of adaptation, it is possible to anticipate both differences in settlement-subsistence strategies and patterning in the archaeological record through a more detailed knowledge of the distribution of environmental variables.

scholarly journals Otro lado. An inquiry into the conceptual topology of animism among the Moré (Itene) of the Bolivian Amazonia

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paweł Chyc
Keyword(s):  
Elderly People ◽  
Space Time ◽  
The Other ◽  
Surface Boundary ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Time Distance ◽  
Topological Framework ◽  
Boundary Space

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork among the Moré (Itene) who, together with Wari’ and Oro Win, are the descendants of the last Chapacura speaking groups in Amazonia. I analyze, hunting story and elderly people stories (los cuentos) where the Moré explicitly conceptualize the notion of “the other side” as the realm of reality inhabited by non-human persons (the Deads, Spirits, Mothers of game, etc.). I focus on some topological aspects of Moré animism, such as conception of surface, boundary, space-time, distance markers, inside/outside distinctions. In conclusion I sketch some possible directions for further research in this topological framework for animism. I hope this paper can contribute to the renewed debate about animism in Amazonia and more broadly to the onto-logical turn in anthropology.

scholarly journals Accounting for space, time, and behavior using GPS derived dynamic measures of environmental exposure

2021 ◽  
pp. 102706
Author(s):  
Marta M. Jankowska ◽  
Jiue-An Yang ◽  
Nana Luo ◽  
Chad Spoon ◽  
Tarik Benmarhnia
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Exposure ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Dynamic Measures ◽  
And Behavior

scholarly journals New Materialism, Ethnography, and Socially Engaged Practice: Space-Time Folds and the Agency of Matter

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Anna Catherine Hickey-Moody ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Space Time ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Impact Processes ◽  
The Social

This article is an investigation of the agency of matter and an exposition of the new materialist methods I have been developing as part of a muti-sited trans-national ethnography that features socially engaged arts practices alongside more traditional ethnographic and qualitative techniques. I think through the agency of matter and consider the temporality of matter as part of its agency, understanding these agents as constitutive features of the research assemblage. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from the United Kingdom, I examine how matter’s space-time can impact processes of making the social. I develop theoretical resources for moving the field forward.

scholarly journals Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE – 1500 CE)

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-412
Author(s):  
Augustin F.C. Holl
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Territorial Strategies ◽  
Territorial Marking

When analyzed systematically, Tropical Africa megalithism appears to have emerged in contexts of friction between different lifeways, agriculturalists versus foragers, pastoralists versus hunter-gatherers-fishermen, or agriculturalists versus fishing folks. The monuments built were clearly part of actual territorial strategies. Research conducted by the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (2002-2012)  frontally addressed the “Why” of the emergence of megalithism in that part of the world, and probes the reasons for the performance of the elaborate burial practices preserved in the archaeological record. This paper emphasizes the diversity and complexity of burial protocols invented by Senegambian “megalith-builders” communities from 1450 BCE to 1500 CE. Senegambian megalithism is shown to have proceeded from territorial marking imperatives, shaping a multi-layered cultural landscape through the implemented mortuary programs anchored on the construction of Ancestorhood. Keywords: Megaliths; Senegambia; Cultural landscape; Mortuary program; Burial practice; Monolith-circle; Sine-Ngayene;

Quelques remarques sur la conception actuelle du terme "cordillere" dans les Alpes internes francaises

1957 ◽  
Vol S6-VII (4-5) ◽  
pp. 463-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Debelmas
Keyword(s):  
Major Element ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Field Observations ◽  
Modern Approach ◽  
French Alps ◽  
Variable Time ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Original Concept

Abstract The term "cordillera" is being applied more and more frequently to structures whose origin was of lesser magnitude in terms of space, time, and behavior than the original concept of an orogenically active major element of submarine relief. When field observations do not reveal the presence of embryonic "nappes," the tendency is to consider the cordillera as representing a state of orogenic activity affecting a particular area of a geosyncline, during a variable time interval, which is not perforce related, at least not directly, with the breaking off of nappes. This modern approach is applied to an analysis of the inner French Alps.

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