Ethnography, Analogy, and Arctic Archaeofaunas: Assessing the Limits of Zooarchaeological Interpretation

• Main Author: Norman, Lauren
• Other Authors: Friesen, T. Max, Anthropology
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Alaska; analogy; Arctic; spatial studies; zooarchaeology; 0324; inuit
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/89033

The use of analogy to infer past lifeways from archaeological material is integral to many types of archaeological investigation. There are many sources for analogy, but the ones that offer some of the richest interpretations use ethnographic and ethnohistoric records to understand archaeological materials and their patterns. The use of these documentary records has been particularly beneficial in places where contemporary people can be linked to their archaeological ancestors through material culture using the direct-historical approach. However, the use of documentary sources in constructing past lifeways has been critiqued, with questions raised about the use of a synchronic, subjective record of a rapidly changing historical present to infer the normally fragmentary and palimpsestic archaeological material. This study aims to clarify the use of the documentary record in interpreting dwelling activities from the archaeofaunal record. By testing which ethnographically and ethnohistorically documented practices are visible archaeozoologically, archaeologists can identify activities, practices, and behaviours that can be accurately interpreted from the archaeological record using the documentary record. The Arctic is an ideal location to study the use of the analogy in the archaeological record as it has both a detailed documentary record and a well-preserved archaeological record. This study uses the direct-historical method to develop archaeofaunal expectations from the documentary record. Expectations for archaeozoological material were created to test for multiple stages of dwelling use: primary activities drawn directly from the documentary record, contemporary activities potentially invisible in the documentary record, and post-depositional activities. Archaeofaunal materials from a fourteenth century Thule Inuit semi-subterranean dwelling at Cape Espenberg, Alaska, were used to test these expectations. The strongest patterns that emerged were those relating to the primary activities directly reconstructed from the documentary record, specifically those relating to food storage, preparation, and consumption. Although this is a single study, it indicates that archaeofaunal patterns can help differentiate between activity areas in houses, and that activities that relate to domestic subsistence practices are similar in the early Thule period and the historic period. More broadly, it also suggests that documentary records can be used to accurately interpret archaeofaunal patterns relating to food storage, preparation, and consumption. Ph.D. 2018-03-11 00:00:00