ontologies (Other Keyword)
1-3 (3 Records)
Pottery technology is a well-studied field of archaeological research. However, particular contributions are often limited to a partial characterization, due to the technical and theoretical backgrounds of the researchers involved. Pottery samples are interrogated separately through chemical analyses, petrographic characterization and the assignation to both decorative and functional classes. In most cases, the results of such myriad of studies remain relatively unconnected up to a general...
"Nothing but Wood and Stones": A Long-View Perspective on Human-Stone Relations in the Native Northeast (2016)
In 1762 Ezra Stiles—ethnohistoric observer and future president of Yale University—puzzled over the significance of brush and stone heaps constructed by indigenous people of New England. He found the label “sacrifice rocks” unfit for such features because indigenous people never killed animals or offered lives of any kind there. I begin this paper by addressing some of the challenges involved in interpreting eighteenth- and nineteenth-century indigenous spirituality and religion. I contextualize...
Ontologies of Water on Peru's North Coast (2016)
The power of water is all-important in the long history of Peru’s North Coast: the arid environment, the transformative effects of irrigation, and the devastating force of the ENSO (El Niño) ecological phenomenon. Archaeological theorizing about North Coast societies has often focused on the shaping force of water; this paper suggests bringing emergent thinking about the human/nonhuman relationship to bear on this topic. Twentieth century Western science saw water as something to control through...