Pub Date : 2020-04-22DOI: 10.1177/1469605320920127
Carla Hernández Garavito
This article builds a framework for the analysis of the Inka Empire’s (1400–1532 CE) expansion in the Peruvian highlands. Drawing from recent archaeological excavations at the site of Canchaje (Huarochirí), I propose that the Inka built upon cultural familiarities between them and their subjects by using ritual emplacements (rock outcrops and plazas) as arenas of mediation. At the same time, the construction of mutual legibility enabled subjected communities to maintain and redefine their cultural practices in ways that survived the Inka Empire. By recasting the Inka from foreign conqueror to new kin within local ritual systems, the people of Huarochirí reinvented their traditions to garner political agency. Using archaeological data and colonial-period documents, I show that local agency informed empire-building, leading to the reinvention of local traditions. Ultimately, my work shows how mutual legibility was built on the ground while exploring specific instances of negotiation through ritual.
{"title":"Producing legibility through ritual: The Inka expansion in Huarochirí (Lima, Peru)","authors":"Carla Hernández Garavito","doi":"10.1177/1469605320920127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605320920127","url":null,"abstract":"This article builds a framework for the analysis of the Inka Empire’s (1400–1532 CE) expansion in the Peruvian highlands. Drawing from recent archaeological excavations at the site of Canchaje (Huarochirí), I propose that the Inka built upon cultural familiarities between them and their subjects by using ritual emplacements (rock outcrops and plazas) as arenas of mediation. At the same time, the construction of mutual legibility enabled subjected communities to maintain and redefine their cultural practices in ways that survived the Inka Empire. By recasting the Inka from foreign conqueror to new kin within local ritual systems, the people of Huarochirí reinvented their traditions to garner political agency. Using archaeological data and colonial-period documents, I show that local agency informed empire-building, leading to the reinvention of local traditions. Ultimately, my work shows how mutual legibility was built on the ground while exploring specific instances of negotiation through ritual.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"292 - 312"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605320920127","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47865628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-06DOI: 10.1177/1469605320914105
Sarah Kurnick, David Rogoff
It is common to view maps as simple reflections of the world. Maps, however, are more complex and dynamic. They are a potent form of spatial imagination and a powerful means of producing space. This article encourages archaeologists to experiment with, and to produce a multiplicity of, maps and other spatial images. As an example, this article juxtaposes two previously unpublished maps of Punta Laguna, Yucatan, Mexico: a site map created using traditional archaeological conventions and a visual cartographic history created using Indigenous Maya spatial ontologies. Because they depict space relationally, Indigenous Maya maps are arguably more congruous with contemporary social theories about space than are traditional Western maps. Further, the juxtaposition of two radically different maps of the same place highlights those mapping conventions that scholars often take for granted; demonstrates how specifically maps are selective and subjective; and emphasizes that Western worldviews are neither natural nor ubiquitous.
{"title":"Maya cartographies: Two maps of Punta Laguna, Yucatan, Mexico","authors":"Sarah Kurnick, David Rogoff","doi":"10.1177/1469605320914105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605320914105","url":null,"abstract":"It is common to view maps as simple reflections of the world. Maps, however, are more complex and dynamic. They are a potent form of spatial imagination and a powerful means of producing space. This article encourages archaeologists to experiment with, and to produce a multiplicity of, maps and other spatial images. As an example, this article juxtaposes two previously unpublished maps of Punta Laguna, Yucatan, Mexico: a site map created using traditional archaeological conventions and a visual cartographic history created using Indigenous Maya spatial ontologies. Because they depict space relationally, Indigenous Maya maps are arguably more congruous with contemporary social theories about space than are traditional Western maps. Further, the juxtaposition of two radically different maps of the same place highlights those mapping conventions that scholars often take for granted; demonstrates how specifically maps are selective and subjective; and emphasizes that Western worldviews are neither natural nor ubiquitous.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"119 - 143"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605320914105","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49283952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-31DOI: 10.1177/1469605320916099
Erin A. Hogg, J. Welch
Archaeological evidence has been used to assess pre-contact occupation and use of land since the first modern Aboriginal title claim in Canada. Archaeology’s ability to alternately challenge, support, and add substantive spatial and temporal dimensions to oral histories and documentary histories makes it a crucial tool in the resolution of Aboriginal rights and title. This article assesses how archaeological evidence has been considered in Aboriginal rights and title litigation in Canada, both over time and in different types of cases. The examination indicates that archaeological data have been judged to be sufficient evidence of pre-contact occupation and use. However, some limitations inherent in archaeological data, especially challenges in archaeology’s capacities to demonstrate continuous occupation and exclude possibilities for co-occupation, mean that it is best used in conjunction with ethnographies, oral histories, and historical documents. So long as courts affirm that it is the sole material evidence of pre-contact occupation, archaeological data will continue to be considered in future litigation.
{"title":"Aboriginal rights and title for archaeologists: A history of archaeological evidence in Canadian litigation","authors":"Erin A. Hogg, J. Welch","doi":"10.1177/1469605320916099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605320916099","url":null,"abstract":"Archaeological evidence has been used to assess pre-contact occupation and use of land since the first modern Aboriginal title claim in Canada. Archaeology’s ability to alternately challenge, support, and add substantive spatial and temporal dimensions to oral histories and documentary histories makes it a crucial tool in the resolution of Aboriginal rights and title. This article assesses how archaeological evidence has been considered in Aboriginal rights and title litigation in Canada, both over time and in different types of cases. The examination indicates that archaeological data have been judged to be sufficient evidence of pre-contact occupation and use. However, some limitations inherent in archaeological data, especially challenges in archaeology’s capacities to demonstrate continuous occupation and exclude possibilities for co-occupation, mean that it is best used in conjunction with ethnographies, oral histories, and historical documents. So long as courts affirm that it is the sole material evidence of pre-contact occupation, archaeological data will continue to be considered in future litigation.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"214 - 241"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605320916099","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42457917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-02-18DOI: 10.1177/1469605320906910
Nicolas Delsol
When they introduced cattle into Guatemala in the 16th century, Europeans also brought a whole new industry involving ranches, slaughterhouses, and new forms of labor. On the one hand, cattle producers had to treat the animals as intact living organisms requiring care and nurture to maintain and increase the herds. Those animals were grown by the ranchers for specific purposes. In the first place, colonial Mesoamerican cattle were raised to produce hides and leather for intercontinental trade with Spain. The regularized disassembling of the bovine bodies created these new products, but it also had some unintended consequences, namely the generation of new subject positions among the indigenous workers of these facilities. New forms of butchering techniques aimed at extracting animal parts were unlike the indigenous practices of animal hunting and exploitation, which aimed at preserving the physical integrity of the animals’ bodies. The newly introduced techniques that involved the compartmentalization of animal bodies also involved an increased compartmentalization of labor, accompanied by new body techniques and gestures. As the butchers and the tanners became enskilled, their bodies changed and so did their hexis. To operationalize these ideas, technological approaches combined with zooarchaeological (butchery marks), ethnographic, and historical evidence are used to investigate how humans and cattle mutually grew each other’s matter and subjectivities.
{"title":"Disassembling cattle and enskilling subjectivities: Butchering techniques and the emergence of new colonial subjects in Santiago de Guatemala","authors":"Nicolas Delsol","doi":"10.1177/1469605320906910","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605320906910","url":null,"abstract":"When they introduced cattle into Guatemala in the 16th century, Europeans also brought a whole new industry involving ranches, slaughterhouses, and new forms of labor. On the one hand, cattle producers had to treat the animals as intact living organisms requiring care and nurture to maintain and increase the herds. Those animals were grown by the ranchers for specific purposes. In the first place, colonial Mesoamerican cattle were raised to produce hides and leather for intercontinental trade with Spain. The regularized disassembling of the bovine bodies created these new products, but it also had some unintended consequences, namely the generation of new subject positions among the indigenous workers of these facilities. New forms of butchering techniques aimed at extracting animal parts were unlike the indigenous practices of animal hunting and exploitation, which aimed at preserving the physical integrity of the animals’ bodies. The newly introduced techniques that involved the compartmentalization of animal bodies also involved an increased compartmentalization of labor, accompanied by new body techniques and gestures. As the butchers and the tanners became enskilled, their bodies changed and so did their hexis. To operationalize these ideas, technological approaches combined with zooarchaeological (butchery marks), ethnographic, and historical evidence are used to investigate how humans and cattle mutually grew each other’s matter and subjectivities.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"189 - 213"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605320906910","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45220376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper focuses on a collection of objects deliberately concealed beneath the verandah of a ward for middle-class, female, paying patients at Australia’s longest continuously operating mental health institution, the Royal Derwent Hospital in Tasmania. Cached in small discrete mounds across an area of some 50 square metres, the collection was probably concealed in the mid-20th century and contains over 1000 items of clothing, ephemera and other objects dating from 1880 to the mid-1940s. In achieving a possessional territory of such magnitude, this patient achieved a level of personal self-expression that is rarely encountered archaeologically, particularly within an institutional context. Analysis of this collection as an ‘underlife’ illuminates both functional aspects of the hospital and the hopes and desires of this particular, though still anonymous, patient and her vibrant world of things.
{"title":"Secret and safe: The underlife of concealed objects from the Royal Derwent Hospital, New Norfolk, Tasmania","authors":"Lauren Bryant, Heather Burke, Tracy Ireland, Lynley A. Wallis, Chantal Wight","doi":"10.1177/1469605320903577","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605320903577","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on a collection of objects deliberately concealed beneath the verandah of a ward for middle-class, female, paying patients at Australia’s longest continuously operating mental health institution, the Royal Derwent Hospital in Tasmania. Cached in small discrete mounds across an area of some 50 square metres, the collection was probably concealed in the mid-20th century and contains over 1000 items of clothing, ephemera and other objects dating from 1880 to the mid-1940s. In achieving a possessional territory of such magnitude, this patient achieved a level of personal self-expression that is rarely encountered archaeologically, particularly within an institutional context. Analysis of this collection as an ‘underlife’ illuminates both functional aspects of the hospital and the hopes and desires of this particular, though still anonymous, patient and her vibrant world of things.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"166 - 188"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605320903577","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43370421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-02-01DOI: 10.1177/1469605319875283
Catherine A. Steidl
Reference to identity is ubiquitous in archaeology. Even when identity is not part of the questions driving research, assumptions about it affect interpretations of data; the terms used to designate individuals or collective groups carry implicit ideas about their identities. Default categories used to describe people, however, are often rooted in binary oppositions instead of the interactions that made up their daily social lives. In an archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean, these oppositional categories are most frequently rooted in ethnicity. This article presents the community as an ideal framework to address the problems posed by an overreliance on ethnicity for understanding ancient identities, but also to compare collective social dynamics more broadly. Laying out a methodology for communities’ archaeological study, it uses two case studies from Emporion (Spain) and Ephesos (Turkey) to illustrate the new questions and conversations facilitated by an archaeology of communities that complement ongoing identity studies.
{"title":"Re-thinking communities: Collective identity and social experience in Iron-Age western Anatolia","authors":"Catherine A. Steidl","doi":"10.1177/1469605319875283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605319875283","url":null,"abstract":"Reference to identity is ubiquitous in archaeology. Even when identity is not part of the questions driving research, assumptions about it affect interpretations of data; the terms used to designate individuals or collective groups carry implicit ideas about their identities. Default categories used to describe people, however, are often rooted in binary oppositions instead of the interactions that made up their daily social lives. In an archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean, these oppositional categories are most frequently rooted in ethnicity. This article presents the community as an ideal framework to address the problems posed by an overreliance on ethnicity for understanding ancient identities, but also to compare collective social dynamics more broadly. Laying out a methodology for communities’ archaeological study, it uses two case studies from Emporion (Spain) and Ephesos (Turkey) to illustrate the new questions and conversations facilitated by an archaeology of communities that complement ongoing identity studies.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"26 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605319875283","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45881396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-02-01DOI: 10.1177/1469605319884137
B. Isakhan, Sofya Shahab
After conquering large swathes of northern Iraq, the Islamic State undertook an aggressive genocidal campaign against the Yezidi people in which they not only executed and enslaved thousands of innocent civilians, but also damaged or destroyed several key Yezidi temples and shrines. Drawing on a small sample of in-depth semi-structured interviews with Yezidi men and women from two regions conquered by the Islamic State, this article documents the effect this wave of persecution has had on these Yezidi individuals. It finds that the attacks by the Islamic State on Yezidis and their heritage sites have caused considerable suffering among the community, in part because of their inability to practise their intangible religious rituals and customs. However, the Yezidi people have also demonstrated remarkable resistance and resilience to the Islamic State genocide in terms of returning to their ancient homelands, reconstructing their heritage sites and the re-emergence of their intangible religious heritage practices. The article concludes by noting that the new insights gleaned from these interviews are a step towards better understanding the relationship between tangible and intangible heritage in the wake of conflict, genocide and mass heritage destruction.
{"title":"The Islamic State’s destruction of Yezidi heritage: Responses, resilience and reconstruction after genocide","authors":"B. Isakhan, Sofya Shahab","doi":"10.1177/1469605319884137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605319884137","url":null,"abstract":"After conquering large swathes of northern Iraq, the Islamic State undertook an aggressive genocidal campaign against the Yezidi people in which they not only executed and enslaved thousands of innocent civilians, but also damaged or destroyed several key Yezidi temples and shrines. Drawing on a small sample of in-depth semi-structured interviews with Yezidi men and women from two regions conquered by the Islamic State, this article documents the effect this wave of persecution has had on these Yezidi individuals. It finds that the attacks by the Islamic State on Yezidis and their heritage sites have caused considerable suffering among the community, in part because of their inability to practise their intangible religious rituals and customs. However, the Yezidi people have also demonstrated remarkable resistance and resilience to the Islamic State genocide in terms of returning to their ancient homelands, reconstructing their heritage sites and the re-emergence of their intangible religious heritage practices. The article concludes by noting that the new insights gleaned from these interviews are a step towards better understanding the relationship between tangible and intangible heritage in the wake of conflict, genocide and mass heritage destruction.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"25 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605319884137","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43962776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-02-01DOI: 10.1177/1469605319883483
Pamela L. Geller, L. Marcelin
A growing number of heritage studies scholars critique top-down approaches to cultural sites of global significance. International and state organizations, they explain, eschew locals’ concerns. We consider the Parc National Historique, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Haiti, Milot. Writers have produced a history that is hierarchical and nationalistic in ideological tone, which policy makers circulate when promoting the Parc. In so doing, they elide the past roles and present-day concerns of Milot’s residents, who have lived in these structures’ shadows for generations. To access them, our ethnographic work documents a vernacular culture-history, which shares common ground with official interests and departs in important ways. Incongruities in practice and discourse stem from locals’ understanding of heritage (eritaj) and experiences of instability (enstabilite). The validation of vernacular concerns makes for a comprehensive understanding of the past. It may also create collaborative opportunities between the community and national (or international) organizations, which can safeguard Haitian patrimony and alleviate socio-economic instabilities.
{"title":"In the shadow of the Citadel: Haitian national patrimony and vernacular concerns","authors":"Pamela L. Geller, L. Marcelin","doi":"10.1177/1469605319883483","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605319883483","url":null,"abstract":"A growing number of heritage studies scholars critique top-down approaches to cultural sites of global significance. International and state organizations, they explain, eschew locals’ concerns. We consider the Parc National Historique, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Haiti, Milot. Writers have produced a history that is hierarchical and nationalistic in ideological tone, which policy makers circulate when promoting the Parc. In so doing, they elide the past roles and present-day concerns of Milot’s residents, who have lived in these structures’ shadows for generations. To access them, our ethnographic work documents a vernacular culture-history, which shares common ground with official interests and departs in important ways. Incongruities in practice and discourse stem from locals’ understanding of heritage (eritaj) and experiences of instability (enstabilite). The validation of vernacular concerns makes for a comprehensive understanding of the past. It may also create collaborative opportunities between the community and national (or international) organizations, which can safeguard Haitian patrimony and alleviate socio-economic instabilities.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"49 - 73"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605319883483","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45108989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-02-01DOI: 10.1177/1469605319879253
Sarah Trabert
Archaeologists are increasingly moving past discussions of whether migration events occurred in the past to more nuanced discussions of the meaning surrounding the migrants’ belongings. Migrants used material culture as powerful memory objects, to create meaning and adapt to living in a new place and often with new people. There are relatively few archaeological examples of large-scale migration into the Great Plains in the wake of European invasion of North America. One exception to this is the migration of Puebloan peoples from northern New Mexico to the Central Great Plains during the Puebloan diaspora after 1600 CE. Sites attributed to this migration are discussed in context with recent work on meaning and materiality to reconsider the critical role that objects play in identity expression and cultural survival in new homelands.
{"title":"Understanding the significance of migrants’ material culture","authors":"Sarah Trabert","doi":"10.1177/1469605319879253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605319879253","url":null,"abstract":"Archaeologists are increasingly moving past discussions of whether migration events occurred in the past to more nuanced discussions of the meaning surrounding the migrants’ belongings. Migrants used material culture as powerful memory objects, to create meaning and adapt to living in a new place and often with new people. There are relatively few archaeological examples of large-scale migration into the Great Plains in the wake of European invasion of North America. One exception to this is the migration of Puebloan peoples from northern New Mexico to the Central Great Plains during the Puebloan diaspora after 1600 CE. Sites attributed to this migration are discussed in context with recent work on meaning and materiality to reconsider the critical role that objects play in identity expression and cultural survival in new homelands.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"115 - 95"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605319879253","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44806808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-02-01DOI: 10.1177/1469605319871362
Kacey C. Grauer
A holistic and relational approach to landscape amplifies understandings of the complexities of human–environment relationships. This article examines ecological and social aspects of landscape at the ancient Maya city of Aventura, Belize, in the context of relational ontologies. The city of Aventura is enmeshed with microenvironments known as pocket bajos, and I argue that pocket bajos defy categorization as natural or cultural. By exploring their spatial context, material content, and associated activities that create cosmological connections, I demonstrate that the pocket bajos were active social agents in the construction of the city and the maintenance of community. The relations that people living at Aventura established with pocket bajos highlight the interconnectedness of humans with the environment, and this approach avoids projecting current-day Western categories of nature and culture onto the past.
{"title":"Active environments: Relational ontologies of landscape at the ancient Maya city of Aventura, Belize","authors":"Kacey C. Grauer","doi":"10.1177/1469605319871362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605319871362","url":null,"abstract":"A holistic and relational approach to landscape amplifies understandings of the complexities of human–environment relationships. This article examines ecological and social aspects of landscape at the ancient Maya city of Aventura, Belize, in the context of relational ontologies. The city of Aventura is enmeshed with microenvironments known as pocket bajos, and I argue that pocket bajos defy categorization as natural or cultural. By exploring their spatial context, material content, and associated activities that create cosmological connections, I demonstrate that the pocket bajos were active social agents in the construction of the city and the maintenance of community. The relations that people living at Aventura established with pocket bajos highlight the interconnectedness of humans with the environment, and this approach avoids projecting current-day Western categories of nature and culture onto the past.","PeriodicalId":46391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Archaeology","volume":"20 1","pages":"74 - 94"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2020-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/1469605319871362","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42522759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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