Aquatic Adaptations in Mesoamerica: Subsistence Activities in Ethnoarchaeological Perspective

Abstract

knowing. He provides a model to decolonize the understanding of the site using a Shonacentric perspective and terminology. A shortcoming of the work is that there are very few voices of ordinary local people. Chirikure is Shona and a scholar, and he mainly cites Shona philosophers, ethnographers, archaeologists, local chiefs, and historians. This is valuable information but from experts. What do ordinary people want in terms of a usable past? What are their oral histories and remembrances? Since this review was requested by the journal Ethnoarchaeology, it should bemade clear that Chirikure is critical of ethnoarchaeology (280). This is curious because in the introduction he claims to provide an unrivaled Afro-centered interpretation framework using the approach of combining illustrative and comparative analogies sensu the works of Wylie (1985) and Stahl (1993). Their approach is a method that compares and evaluates the relevance of the ethnographic source to interpret the material evidence of the archaeological subject, and to discern change and continuity in practices over time. In this approach, Wylie and Stahl recognize the role of ethnoarchaeology in rigorously investigating source sides of analogies, and there is no reason why this could not be useful in decolonizing Africa’s past.