Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
For 40 years, the archaeology of the North and North Atlantic has become increasingly productive. Interdisciplinary work grounded in environmental archaeology has crosscut local, national, and regional boundaries to produce significant advances in methodology, collaborative practice, and human-ecodynamic interpretations. However, studies of northern material culture have been less transformative and often remain limited by regional, period-specific, or material-specific intellectual traditions that relegate objects to the category of "small finds" and to studies that focus primarily on functional, chronological, or typological analyses. SANNA is a project bringing together northern archaeologists interested in looking beyond the immediate or visible characteristics of material culture. SANNA 3.0 focuses on the creation, use, meaning, interpretation, discard, and/or reuse of "portable artifacts": items smaller than architecture or landscapes that not only create intimate bonds in domestic contexts but also link humans, animals, and nonhuman worlds in various ways and at diverse social scales. The presentations in this symposium not only look at how objects circulated, were used, and had social meaning in the past but also at how they gain new social lives when we, as archaeologists, and others—including descendant communities and the public—encounter them again and give them new meanings.
Other Keywords
arctic •
Zooarchaeology •
Material Culture and Technology •
Ritual and Symbolism •
Geoarchaeology •
Paleoethnobotany •
Textile Analysis •
Trade and exchange •
Isotopic Analysis •
Historic
Geographic Keywords
Isle of Man (Country) •
Faroe Islands (Country) •
Alberta (State / Territory) •
Department of Martinique (Country) •
Yukon Territory (State / Territory) •
Republic of El Salvador (Country) •
Department of Guadeloupe (Country) •
Cayman Islands (Country) •
British Columbia (State / Territory) •
Antigua and Barbuda (Country)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)
- Documents (8)
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Driftwood, a Lifeline in the Arctic: Production of Artifacts from Driftwood in Northwest Iceland and Norse Greenland (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Iceland was settled by the Norse in the late ninth century and Greenland was settled from Iceland around AD 1000. Although these countries are quite dissimilar in landscape and geology, they have a similar flora in which the only forest-forming tree is birch. Birch alone...
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From Omajuk to NiKik: The Variable Transformation of Animals into Social Things among the Historic Period Labrador Inuit (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies have conventionally regarded Inuit relationships to animals in terms of subsistence and food-getting, from seasonality and hunting strategies to calories of meat, fat, and marrow consumed. Inuit oral traditions and ethnographic sources, however, offer...
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Invisible Women in a World of Men: The Textile Trade in the North Atlantic, AD 1000–1600 (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Waterlogged or deeply buried deposits from medieval harbors in certain northern European towns have produced large and well-preserved textile assemblages that contain a surprising number of non-indigenous textiles. Some of these appear to have originated in the North...
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More Than Just a Pot: The Social Life of Soapstone Vessels among the Southern Labrador Inuit (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout the Canadian Arctic and Greenland soapstone (steatite) oil lamps and cooking pots were a common and crucial component of Inuit daily life. Maintaining a houseful involved elaborate behavior structured around the hearth and its technical and social components....
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The North Atlantic Wool Trade, ca. 1000–1400: A Strontium Isotope Approach (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. North Atlantic islands were colonized by settlers from Norway and the British Isles in the ninth century, bringing agricultural practices from Northern Europe. Wool and fish dominated exports from Iceland from the Viking Age, although the impact of the wool trade remains...
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Of Monsters and Men: Material Culture, Movement, and Symbolism at Surtshellir, a Western Icelandic Viking Age Ritual Site (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the course of 850 years, Surtshellir—a massive lava cave in western Iceland’s rugged interior—was variously described as a geological wonder, a shelter for outlaws, an abode of ghosts and spirits, a tourist's dream, a place of torture, the wilderness, an archaeological...
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The Qajartalik Petroglyph Site (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2017, the Canadian government nominated eight places as candidates for future designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. One of those is Qajartalik, located off the coast of Nunavik, where more than 180 anthropomorphic faces were carved into soapstone outcrops between...
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What Does a Fire Giant Eat? A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Surtshellir's Burnt Faunal Remains (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the ninth and tenth centuries CE, a very distinctive and unique site was established inside the cave of Surtshellir. This lava tube was reputed to be the home of the mythological fire giant, Surtur and has been studied over the course of several years by a team led by the...