Assessing Methodologies in Archaeological Ethnography: A Case for Incorporating Ethnographic Training in Graduate Archaeology Curricula

Abstract

Archaeologists have increasingly turned to ethnography as a tool for understanding the contemporary social context of material culture, archaeological practice, and ‘de-colonizing’ archaeology. Furthermore, ethnographers have turned their analysis to the practice of archaeology, providing insights into key ethical dilemmas. This work has produced signi?cant dialogue, demonstrating the potential for research and collaboration at the interface of two sub-disciplines. However, much of the research to date has relied on a limited range of ethnographic methods. We suggest that archaeologists working in this area would bene?t from using a wider repertoire of ethnographic data collection tools and ethics training opportunities. We advocate for greater collaboration between archaeologists and ethnographers and provide suggestions on methods that are well-suited for use in archaeological practice. In the long term, the most effective and far-reaching solution may be to incorporate ethnographic methods training as fundamental to graduate programmes in archaeology.     

Craft economies in the north American Southwest

Debates concerning sociopolitical organization in the North American Southwest are clarified and confounded by the conclusion that craft specialization was not always a sufficient condition of complexity in the region. Understanding the relationship between varying dimensions of craft specialization (e.g., context, scale, and intensity) and sociopolitical organization in the region requires us to examine a variety of social institutions (e.g., leadership, gender, and ethnicity) that potentially generated differentiated economies. New research on middle-range societies in the North American Southwest and elsewhere in the world should focus on identifying and interpreting the archaeological signatures of specific social institutions and their linkages to craft economies.     

The history of method and theory in the study of prehistoric puebloan pottery style in the American Southwest

The history of Americanist archaeology can be profitably approached through an examination of ceramic design studies in the puebloan region of the American Southwest. An intellectual tradition is represented throughout these studies, grounded in the assumption that ceramic design variation can be reflected, among other things, in prehistoric social groupings. Within this tradition, a number of differences in method, theory, and application can be distinguished, including (1) the classificatory systems employed, (2) the spatial and temporal scales at which ceramic design variation was studied, and (3) the potential functional role of stylistic attributes on pottery. The debates, both intellectual and social, surrounding the development of method and theory in the New Archaeology are clarified by this historical review, as are the transitions to Culture History and from the New Archaeology in the American Southwest.     

Animate Objects: Shell Trumpets and Ritual Networks in the Greater Southwest

For over a millennium, shell trumpets have been an important part of Southwestern US ritual practice. We investigate the distribution of Southwestern shell trumpets, arguing that they are objects that are accorded animacy and can be used to track the history of different social networks. Using ethnohistoric and ethnographic documentation, at least two traditions of historically linked ritual practices are identified: one associated with serpent iconography and the other with curing, warfare, and sorcery. These two traditions represent enduring dispositions that link various regions of the Southwest through the introduction and adoption of ritual practices associated with migration and the transformation of late prehistoric societies.     

Origins of Pacific Islands labourers in Fiji

Abstract

The administration of criminal justice in the period 1875–1900 had very different effects on men and women in three separate arenas: colonial towns, plantations and areas subject to chiefly control. In the towns of Levuka and Suva, men were the main concern of the courts; women rarely came before the courts and were almost never imprisoned. On the plantations, British magistrates dealt mainly with alleged breaches of the labour ordinances, with the result that women were prosecuted on an equal basis with men. The gender balance of criminal prosecutions was also closer to equal in the Fijian Provincial Courts, but the nature of the crimes charged against women was totally different from that in the other two spheres of colonial administration, the main concern being breaches of the traditional moral code. Understanding the segmented nature of the judicial system sheds further light on the workings of indirect rule in Fiji and suggests comparisons with colonial administrations in Africa.     

News from the Northern American Southwest: Prehistory on the edge of chaos

Recent developments in the study of the prehistory of the northern Mogollon and Anasazi areas of the North American Southwest are reviewed, with emphasis on the pre-A.D. 1150 period, in an attempt to identify key empirical results and incipient interpretive directions.     

Game Resources, Social Interaction, and the Ecological Footprint in Southwest New Mexico

Humans have modified their environments for millennia, but the role of these impacts on economic and social strategies among communities can be difficult to assess. This is due in part to the difficulty of quantifying impacts, which hinders our evaluations of the effects of different resource acquisition strategies and impairs attempts to understand competing demands on resources and their effects on the evolution of social relations. In this paper we employ footprint analysis, a tool used in ecology, to assess the impact of prehistoric subsistence farming communities on the environment, specifically faunal resources. We use footprint analysis to quantify the impact of various strategies of game acquisition by Classic Mimbres period (AD 1000-1130) farmers in the North American Southwest. Assessments are then employed in identifying changes in social relations among communities that may have contributed to settlement changes in the region.     

Status Rivalry and the Politics of Biculturalism in Contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand

Could it be that despite a huge literature spanning decades from many disciplines, a corpus of writing that examines seemingly every twist and turn of a complex situation, we still are missing something basic and fundamental to a proper understanding of contemporary cultural politics in Aotearoa New Zealand? A thing so obvious and omnipresent, that it was characterized long ago in the anthropological literature as the fundamental dynamic of Polynesian culture, and acknowledged even further back by Maori in their ancestral sayings? He tauranga uta, he toka tu moana (a resting place ashore, a firm rock at sea). ‘This metaphor describes the chief whose influence is unchallenged in his territory which extends from the land to the sea’ (Mead and Grove 2003:125). But surely real chiefs, those solid anchoring points, no longer exist as they did before the coming of the Pakeha. Be that as it may, the elements of social organization and associated cultural values of chiefly status continue to resonate in contemporary society. This paper argues that Goldman's concept of status rivalry is that crucial overlooked aspect of cultural politics necessary to a full understanding of what is happening today in the Waitangi Tribunal, Parliament, and so many other places where biculturalism and multiculturalism are debated and discussed, and that it is an aspect of Polynesian culture that has been part of the interrelationship between the Crown and te tangata whenua (the indigenous people) since their first encounters.     

Toward the Historical Archaeology of Levuka, a South Pacific Port of Call

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Fijian port of Levuka alternately passed through incarnations as a beachcomber community, boisterous port of call, commercial entrepôt, and colonial capital. Initial investigations in this town in 2000 provide a data set through which archaeology's potential for a meaningful dialogue on Levuka's past can be explored. These data reflect upon an increasingly segregated European community structure, through which social transformations in alcohol use, landscape alterations, and material culture consumption patterns are examined.     

The Evolution of Migration: the Case of Lapita in the Southwest Pacific

Migrations have occurred across the history of the genus Homo and while the movement of pre-modern humans over the globe is typically understood in terms of shifting resource distributions and climate change, that is in ecological terms, the movement of anatomically modern, and specifically Holocene, populations is often explained by human desire to discover new lands, escape despotic leaders, forge trade relationships and other culture-specific intentions. This is a problematic approach to the archaeological and behavioural explanation of human migration. Here an evolutionary and ecological framework is developed to explain various movement behaviours and this framework is applied to the movement of human groups from the inter-visible islands around New Guinea to the widely dispersed archipelagos of the southwest Pacific about 1000 BC. Labelled the Lapita Migration, this movement is explained as a selection-driven range expansion. The development of evolutionary and ecological theory to explain human movement facilitates empirical testing of alternative hypotheses and links different histories of human movement through shared explanatory mechanisms.     

Archaeological,Historical, and Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Sewn Boats: past,present, and future

Sewn‐plank vessels have been a pervasive form of ship construction since antiquity. This paper provides an introductory overview of the current state of the field of sewn‐plank studies, with a particular focus on the Indian Ocean. It describes the basic function of sewn‐plank techniques, and then discusses textual references and historical approaches to the topic. The relevant archaeological evidence is reviewed, and prior ethnographic work relating to the topic is outlined. It summarizes numerous experimental sewn‐plank reconstructions that have been undertaken and concludes with a discussion of the current directions of the field and suggestions for the future.     

Hunting with Howiesons Poort segments: pilot experimental study and the functional interpretation of archaeological tools

For many decades the use of backed pieces from the Howiesons Poort, between about 70 ka and 55 ka ago, in South Africa has been a point of discussion. Recently direct evidence has been provided to associate these tools with Middle Stone Age hunting strategies. Yet, whether they were used to tip hunting weapons or as barbs remained an open question. In this paper we introduce a set of pilot experiments designed to test the effectiveness of Howiesons Poort segments, the type fossils of the industry, hafted in four different configurations as tips for hunting weapons. It is shown that the morphological type can be used successfully in this way. We present the results of a macrofracture analysis conducted on the experimental tools and compare these to results obtained from three Howiesons Poort backed tool samples. By correlating experimental outcomes, macrofracture data and the interpretation of micro-residue distribution patterns, we provide some insight into the functional variables that might be associated with Howiesons Poort segments.     

华人新移民在澳大利亚、新西兰的生存适应分析

澳大利亚、新西兰自上世纪七八十年代开始实行面向亚洲的政策以来 ,来自亚太地区不同国家的华人移民以及其他亚裔移民大量移进这两个国家。他们在异国他乡面临着以高失业率为主要特征的生存危机。但这一包括中国大陆新移民的华人群体 ,克服重重困难 ,站稳脚跟 ,逐步积累 ,取得了初步的成功     

The role of labrid fish in prehistoric economics in New Zealand

Labrids are one of the most common types of fish to occur in inshore rocky marine habitats in New Zealand. There are major discontinuities in their relative abundance in archaeological sites from different regions of New Zealand, and these are difficult to reconcile with known distributional patterns. A number of possible explanations are examined such as changes in fishing technology and various ecological factors. It is concluded that the reasons for these observed fluctuations may vary considerably from one case to another, but where large numbers were caught by prehistoric people who had access to alternative fish resources, unreliability of some major aspect of the economy may be inferred. A combination of poor sea conditions and marginal horticulture is likely to increase the importance of labrid fish.     

The corporeal,the social and space/place: exploring intersections from a midwifery perspective in New Zealand

This article explores the interrelations between the corporeal, the social and the spatial as they operate to shape the discursive and material realities of childbirth in the obstetric hospital setting. It draws on interviews conducted with midwives throughout New Zealand and embodies key insights derived from the work of Michel Foucault and Elizabeth Grosz. The obstetric hospital is theorised as a product of particular socio-political relations that privilege biomedical constructions of the body and childbirth. Midwives, however, proffer an alternative construction of childbirth and the space/place it is enacted. It is one that requires a woman to actively engage with a variety of birth spaces and take up a range of subject positions that enable her to be a more active agent in the process of parturition. The limited and limiting spatial and discursive arrangements of the obstetric hospital, it is argued, shape the behaviour, subjectivity and corporeality of the maternal body confined within it and therefore the practises of midwives. Unfortunately, and as this article demonstrates, the opportunity to take up such an alternative is limited in the obstetric hospital despite some recent cosmetic attempts to render it more welcoming.     

Travel Writing,Ethnography, and the Colony-Centric Voyage of the Jesuit Relations from New France

This article argues that the Jesuit Relations, commonly read as the accounts of daring French travelers to the New World in the seventeenth century, must also be understood in light of the colony-centric circulation of the texts. In a step that has never before been considered part of the process through which the Relations collected and circulated information, some—and perhaps all—of the texts were sent back to Canada after being edited and published in Paris, giving Jesuits in the colony an opportunity to consult the published texts to see how they had been changed in France. This article focuses on two related areas of scholarship on the Relations that need re-evaluation in light of the colony-centric circulation of the texts: the status of the texts as travel writing, and as the premiere source of ethnographic data on the Amerindian groups that the missionaries encountered in Eastern Canada.     

民间资源保护队的缘起和历史地位

民间资源保护队是罗斯福新政期间从事资源保护工作的重要“组织”。它的成立是由一种保护自然资源的愿望和为城市失业青年提供有报酬的工作的需要所决定的;同时它也是罗斯福具有进步主义内涵和特征的社会改革和资源保护思想与实践发展的逻辑结果。民间资源保护队在美国现代历史上占有非常重要的地位,它不仅一定程度上缓解了美国当时所面临的“环境”危机和社会危机,而且扩展了资源保护运动的范围和群众基础,为战后美国的环境运动埋下了伏笔。     

西南亚磨制石器工具与狩猎采集者的生存：向农业过渡的含义

最近对西南亚地区的研究显示,从采集向农业的过渡最早发生在拉文特南部,它可能很快,而且促成因素之一可能是干燥的气候。纳图菲时期（12800-10500B．P．）是植物驯化的开始,但是栽培的直接证据最早仅在前陶新石器A段（10500—9600／9300B·P．）约旦河谷和大马士革盆地的遗址中得到证明。所知最早的栽培品种是二粒小麦和大麦。     

Recent research in the archaeology of architecture: Beyond the foundations

Although architectural remains have always been a principal focus of archaeological investigation, research on such remains, particularly small-scale structures, has taken on new importance because of the information they can offer on human behavior. This article provides a review of recent trends in the archaeology of architecture (mainly domestic in nature), including current work in household archaeology and spatial patterning analysis of architectural remains, and discusses the new models and methodologies being generated to interpret these remains. The main areas covered in this review include the New World, Mesoamerica in particular, Europe, and general focus on recent work in the Near East.     

定位华裔新西兰人：当代“高质量移民”与早年“不受欢迎的外国人”之比较

自19世纪至20世纪中期,华裔新西兰人被视为不被法律承认的异乡人;而从1987年开始,华裔新西兰人被视为主要的中产阶级移民群体而受到欢迎,并被寄予建立国际联系和裨益经济的厚望。在这两个群体之间,存在着如社会经济实力、籍贯、教育程度、移民动机等方面的巨大差异,最主要的是,他们与新西兰非华裔主流群体的融合程度不同。然而,不论是早期卑微的定居者还是近年来的高素质“空中飞人”,华裔新西兰人的定位没有改变,只要他们是华人的后代,而且“看起来是华人”,他们就永远不可能被当作“真正的新西兰人”。“华人性”总是被刻画成和“新西兰价值”格格不入。