An Other-Than-Human Being: The Archaeology of Bears in North America

Ever since Irving Hallowell's classic 1926 ethnographic study of the special mythic status of bears in the Subarctic, anthropologists are generally aware that many peoples throughout the world have treated bears as far more than a subsistence resource, something more akin to another kind of human or an other-than-human being. Hallowell attributed that special relationship between Subarctic humans and bears to some striking parallels between bear and human behaviors and physiologies. If that were indeed the case, then one would expect to see similar relationships outside the Subarctic, although in fact Hallowell found little evidence for the special treatment of bears elsewhere in North America. Archaeological and historical research over the last nine decades, however, has produced a vast amount of as yet unsynthesized information on the roles of bears in Native American beliefs, rituals, and subsistence. Taking into account ecological variables of bear demography, reproductive rate, habitat use, seasonal availability, and trophic level, we invite participants in this session to draw on new and existing data to reconsider zooarchaeological and other evidence of bear hunting and use in light of the range of relationships that existed between bears and humans across the millennia in Native North America.