Prehistoric Seal Hunting on Lake Baikal: Methodology and Preliminary Results of the Analysis of Canine Sections

A number of archaeological sites on Lake Baikal revealed evidence of Neolithic and Bronze Age seal hunting. A collection of 35 canines from four sites was used to develop a methodology for analysing growth increments of canine dentine for the purpose of examining aspects of prehistoric seal hunting. Results from this preliminary analysis indicate that seal hunting at these sites was a seasonal activity confined to spring and early summer. Baikal seals were probably hunted in early spring for their meat, blubber and furs, and later in the season for their meat and skins.     

Reconstructing prey selection,hunting strategy and seasonality of the early Holocene frozen site in the Siberian High Arctic: A case study on the Zhokhov site faunal remains,De Long Islands

The Zhokhov site is one of the northern most archaeological sites in the world and a very ancient vestige of occupation of high latitudes by people, indicating that this territory was settled as early as about 8000 years ago. Investigation of the site began in 1989–1990 and then continued in 2000–2005. Here we consider the taphonomy, spatial distribution, species and age- and sex-related composition of the faunal remains from the Zhokhov site. These data allow conclusions regarding the subsistence strategy practiced by Zhokhov inhabitants, including the hunting tactics. This was a peculiar adaptation model based on reindeer and polar bear hunting in a 2:1 ratio. Reindeer hunting was all-seasonal, whereas polar bears were hunted mostly in winters at their dens. Mortality data for reindeer and polar bears depict the yearly subsistence cycle. The Zhokhov site is found to be a base camp occupied year-round with modest summer activities, while wintertime is characterised by intense polar bear hunting. Most reindeer were hunted in the fall. Subsistence strategy of the Zhokhov hunters was largely facilitated by the fact that at the time of occupation Zhokhov Island was still part of the coastal Siberian plain margin.     

Determining the Provenance of native copper artifacts from Northeastern North America: evidence from instrumental neutron activation analysis

The emergence of archaeological interest in native copper in the mid-1800s developed in concert with explanations that privileged the Lake Superior area over other potential sources of copper. Most scholars have thus assumed that when copper artifacts first appeared in Northeastern North America, they arrived as finished implements or were locally made from Lake Superior raw materials. Procurement models that point to Lake Superior as the sole source of native copper have been widely accepted in the absence of systematic large-scale testing. This article evaluates the dominant model for native copper procurement and presents trace element data derived from instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) to determine whether hunter-gatherers in the Northeast utilized one dominant source of copper or in fact exploited a number of geological deposits. I specifically report on the chemical characterization of copper from 13 discrete geological deposits and 18 archaeological sites dating to the Late Archaic (ca. 5000–3000 B.P.) and Early Woodland (ca. 3000–2000 B.P.) periods to suggest that the dominant model for native copper procurement is oversimplified.     

The Concept of Truth in the Komi Hunting Stories

Abstract

We analyse the Komi hunters' story-telling as the integrated way of knowledge transmission and communicating vernacular beliefs. We intend to demonstrate that although vernacular beliefs regulating hunting story-telling are widespread in the North, local practices enable us to reveal peculiarities of the tradition in a nuanced way. Our study is based on annual collaborative fieldwork trips to the Komi hunters, which began in 1996. During these years, we have recorded tens of hours of hunting stories and background data for the topic. Analysis of this material is based on the concept of vernacular mimetic mode of representation. We revealed that the Komi narrators communicate hunting skills and magical beliefs in the process of story-telling. The notion of “truth” is an important conceptual device that frames the story-telling practice. We discuss the Komi hunting narratives using an interpretation of vernacular ideology that we label the “aesthetics of confusion”. We will argue that in the vernacular understanding of hunting narratives, the Komi have a seemingly ambivalent and fluid, but at the same time strict, approach to the poetics of story-telling.     

Wintering at Little Island Rock: A Fur Trade Site on Grand Island

Abstract

Research conducted by Hiawatha National Forest personnel in 2000–2002 investigated the well-preserved archaeological remains of a circa 1820s fur trader’s wintering post located on Grand Island, near the south shore of Lake Superior. The most likely occupant of this post was Henry A. Levake, a trader from Sault Sainte Marie (St. Mary’s Falls) who was accompanied by his Native American wife. Both archaeological and historical information show that the Little Island Rock Post is an example of a specialized cold-climate adaptation developed in the boreal forests of North America and in the northern portion of the temperate forests to the south. Key elements of this adaptation include: location near a late fall or winter fishery, use of large amounts of clay for chimney construction, and the presence of ample storage facilities, especially pits. Features associated with this adaptation at the Little Island Rock Post also reflect the multiethnic occupational subculture of the fur trade. This site fills a large gap in the known distribution of wintering post archaeological sites across North America.     

Second world war as a trigger for transcultural changes among Sámi people in Finland

One of the characteristics of the cultural landscape of Svalbard is the abundance of remnants of Russian hunting stations, in the form of house ruins, graves, and large erected crosses. These are traces from Russian Pomors from the areas along the White Sea, who were hunting here over a long period of time - a period which the author will make an attempt to delimit in this article. It is known that the last Russian hunting expeditions to Svalbard were equipped from Archangel in 1851-1852. Far more controversial is the issue of the actual start of hunting by Pomors in Svalbard. This issue has been hotly debated among historians and archaeologists ever since the end of the nineteenth century.     

Hunters of forests and waters: Late Iron Age and Medieval subsistence and social processes in coastal northern Sweden

During the course of the 14th century the Swedish Crown and the Catholic Church made robust attempts to include the areas beside the Bothnian bay within their central fiscal and clerical organization. Salmon fishing in the productive river rapids became major targets for external commercial interests. Written records inform us about the situation from the perspective of the exploiters. However, there is a story running in parallel – that of the local population already occupying the lands and the fishing grounds. The study aims to analyse the significance of hunting and fishing to the overall subsistence of coastal communities in northern Sweden during the period AD 500–1600. The social context is of particular interest, specifically in relation to the successive conformation by the local communities to the Swedish fiscal system. The study draws on archaeological records and on historical records from the 14th to the 17th century, in addition to ethnographic accounts for hunting and fishing. We conclude that the legal cultures embraced by the indigenous population and that of the Swedish central powers were in essence incompatible. The acquisition of land and fishing rights was never settled between two equal parties, but one-sidedly enforced by the party holding the pen.     

Specialized Early Upper Palaeolithic Hunters in Southwestern France?

Paul Mellars has long used cave and rockshelter ungulate faunal assemblages from southwestern France to argue that the early Upper Palaeolithic people of this region focused their hunting on reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), and that such specialized hunting distinguishes the Upper from the Middle Palaeolithic in at least this region. We examine this argument quantitatively, using a sample of 133 Mousterian, Châtelperronian, and Aurignacian ungulate assemblages. We show that only five Aurignacian assemblages, from three sites, stand out in terms of the degree to which their ungulate faunas are dominated by a single taxon. We also show that some Mousterian cave and rock shelter ungulate assemblages are more heavily dominated by large bovids than Aurignacian assemblages are dominated by reindeer, and that Mellars' argument is highly dependent on the exclusion of open sites from the analysis and on the numerical threshold he has selected to indicate hunting specialization.     

Charred remains of grains and seeds from the medieval high-status farm site of Reykholt in western Iceland

Abstract

Iceland was settled, primarily by peoples from Norway and the northern British Isles, in the 9th and 10th centuries. The first settlers brought with them from their homelands an agricultural system based on animal husbandry, of which cereal cultivation was an element and also with inputs from fishing, hunting and gathering of wild plants. There are strong indications that barley was cultivated during the first centuries in some parts of the country and that cultivation was at least attempted in other areas. However, Iceland is near the climatic limits of the barley-growing zone, and it is open to discussion how reliable a food source locally grown barley would have been. This paper discusses a seed assemblage of cultivated barley and archetypical weeds of cereal crops dated to between the 10th and 12th centuries AD obtained during archaeological excavations at the high status farm of Reykholt in western Iceland.     

Girl soldiers with Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda fighting for survival: experiences of young women abducted by LRA

For this study the narratives of 16 young women who had served as child soldiers with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda were collected. They had spent between 2 months and 16 years in captivity before managing to escape. All of them spent time at the Gulu Support the Children Organization Rehabilitation centre, from which 12 had moved back into their communities. The narratives start with their capture, the time with the LRA, the escape and the returning and reintegrating. Even though the narratives included appalling stories about the time in captivity, the participants expressed hope for the future and focused on giving their children a good start in life. We used Antonovsky’s theories about ‘sense of coherence’ coupled with resilience theory to discern the factors that helped these young women cope. The participants all managed to leave captivity. We have no comparative information about those who are still in captivity.     

ROCK SURFACE HARDNESS AS AN INDICATION OF EXPOSURE AGE: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPLICATION OF THE SCHMIDT HAMMER*

A Schmidt Hammer was employed in evaluating the surface hardness of rocks which line ancient anthropogenic pit features, known as Pukaskwa pits, on the north shore of Lake Superior, Canada. This technique offers a possible new method of producing relative ana absolute dates for such exposed stone features Analysis of the data has provided a relative chronology for the pit features, representing two distinct construction phases. The range of absolute dates generated from the data indicates that the pits were likely constructed by Blackduck peoples c. 900 to 400 years BP.     

"Mr. Burk is most interested in their welfare": J.G. Burk's campaign to help the Anishinabeg of northwestern Ontario, 1923-53

Although there is a small but growing body of literature on Euro-Canadians who acted "with good intentions" towards the First Nations (Haig-Brown and Nock 2006), precious little has been written about those within the ranks of the Department of Indian Affairs who acted benevolently towards the Aboriginal peoples. James Gerry Burk, Indian agent for the Anishinabeg of the western Lake Superior region for three decades (1923-53), was one such individual. He chose to ignore the department's prevailing racist ideology in favour of nurturing the incipient desire for industry and enterprise that he saw first-hand among the Aboriginal constituents of his agency. In the process, he was compelled to overcome numerous obstacles that Indian Affairs placed in his way. As a result, Burk's career stands as a glowing testament to the indomitable spirit of one departmental official's commitment to assisting the Aboriginal peoples.     

Large game, agricultural land, and settlement pattern change in the eastern Mimbres area, southwest New Mexico

The 12th-century depopulation of large villages in the Mimbres region of the US Southwest has been attributed to a number of causes, including resource stress. This study combines archaeological evidence and models of environmental conditions in the eastern Mimbres area of southwest New Mexico to assess the magnitude and timing of food stress from a combination of a period of reduced precipitation and the effects of prolonged hunting and farming activities on the landscape. Results indicate that large game in the area was quite sensitive to hunting pressure, and was locally depleted long before settlement reorganization occurred. Access to arable land was somewhat reduced around the time of settlement reorganization, but productive land remained locally plentiful. Although the settlement reorganization did not improve access to large game or arable land, farmers’ perceptions of below-average conditions for agriculture relative to their expectations and past experience would have contributed to decisions to move.     

The ruse of consent and the anatomy of ‘refusal’: cases from indigenous North America and Australia

This article takes the notion of ‘refusal’ to be an alternative to recognition politics in settler colonial society. This is argued as alternative with recourse to ethnographic examples that highlight the way in which ‘consent’ operates as a technique of recognition and simultaneous dispossession in historical cases from Indigenous North America and Australia. Attention is paid to the ways in which Indigenous life in these cases refused, did not consent to, and still refuses to be folded into a larger encompassing colonising and settler colonial narratives of acceptance, and in this, a governmental fait accompli. It is those narratives that inform the apprehension and at times, the ethnography and governance of Indigenous life and are pushed back upon in order to document, reread, theorise and enact ways out of the notion of a fixed past and settled present.     

Whose Heritage? Immigration and Place Narratives in Denmark

Questions of heritage, of ownership of discourses of past and present are important elements in present‐day struggles over identity and belonging, not least those related to immigration policy. None the less, the perspective of immigrant groups is often overlooked when decisions are taken concerning preservation of heritage sites. Since the late 1960s the area around Frederiksværk, Northern Zealand has become the home of large numbers of immigrants, notably from ex‐Yugoslavia, who were brought to Denmark to serve as rank and file in the then booming steel industry. In spite of their undeniable contribution to the development of the town, the cultural heritage of this relatively large immigrant population takes up very little space in the official branding of the town as a key site in the industrial history of Denmark. This article discusses the various place narratives in relation to immigrants in the case of Frederiksværk. We take as our point of departure the Danish notion of kulturmiljø (cultural milieu), which is more material than the notion of heritage. This discussion focuses on the ability of kulturmiljø to capture and incorporate the multiple and often contradictory cultural practices of different groups of actors and not the least to transgress the often rather static and confined view on local history, which often results from the heritage perspective. We analyze how different actors, notably the Yugoslavs, are represented in the narratives of the town, and how Yugoslav immigrants themselves perceive their position in Frederiksværk. Furthermore, we attempt to register some of the imprints made by immigrants on the material and cultural fabric, possibly useful to include in a kulturmiljø of Frederiksværk. The conclusion assesses the potentials and limitations of the kulturmiljø approach with regard to making visible the place narratives of immigrants.     

Hunting in Currier and Ives's America

Currier and Ives were the most prolific producers of inexpensive lithographs in nineteenth‐century America, their prints designed to be mirrors of national tastes and attitudes. They never intended to create fine art, but rather to produce images that would be attractive to their largely middle‐class clientele. As people gathered in cities in increasingly large numbers and had their work hours regulated, they had the time, interest, and disposable income to engage in various sporting activities. Well‐off city dwellers took to hunting, both for enjoyment and as a symbolic, ritualistic expression of their place in society. Hunting came to reflect urban males’ preoccupation with pursuits that might liberate them from the growing regimentation of city life and gave visible form to the definition of masculinity in their newly adopted urban environment. Currier and Ives mirrored the development of that image in more than 100 lithographs on hunting.     

Displacement,memory and home(less) identities: Turkish Cypriot women’s narratives

Abstract

This study is an analysis of the narratives of Turkish Cypriot women in the north of Cyprus who were displaced during the ethnic conflict between the 1950s and 1974. We have conducted 21 interviews with Turkish Cypriot women who were living in different parts of Northern Cyprus. We used oral history, both as a method and as an epistemological stance to re-phrase the near past of Cyprus and the Cyprus issue from the perspective of gender/women’s studies. The study follows the traces of modernity, patriarchy, and nationalism in women’s narratives, about the place, home, belonging and homelessness. The narratives describe Turkish Cypriot women’s experiences of being a woman in conflict and displacement (‘göçmen olmak’ in daily talk in Turkish) making a home out of a house and undertaking daily routines for their families. The study also reveals that ethnic conflict and displacement have empowered women to a certain degree.     

‘What remains? An empty doll-case’: Deconstruction and Imagination in Victorian Narratives of Doll Production

Increasing interest in the Victorians' relationships with the material world has led many critics to turn to periodical publications and, in particular, to process articles and other forms of industrial writing as sources for new insight. This article contributes to this growing body of scholarship by examining narratives of doll production. Because dolls are objects that Victorians celebrated for their imaginative potential and that were often not intended to be treated as ordinary commodities, such narratives can shed light on the intricate relationships between materiality and the imagination. In revealing the process of production, these narratives deconstruct dolls, reducing them to a collection of material parts. By some accounts, these parts are brought to life through a specialized process of manufacture that dehumanizes the workers who make them and robs them of their imaginative agency. While this deconstructive exploration can be seen as an extension of the ‘melancholy and gloom’ that Baudelaire describes as the result of children's destructive compulsion to see the insides of their toys, it could also generate new imaginative possibilities. By inviting readers to behold commodities in a state of transformation, I argue, narratives of doll production demand a more imaginative attitude towards commodities as objects shaped by their material histories.