If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
A fundamental component to the presence of animal remains within anthropogenic contexts is the underlying potential evidence for interactions and experiences. While there are many methods to examine and reconstruct human-animal interactions, foundationally there are equally as many relational dynamics to consider. The diverse methodological approaches of twenty-first-century archaeology further provide profuse opportunities for us, as scholars, to theorize and explore many contextual, discursive, and dialectic dynamics of humans and animals from antiquity to the modern day. What cultural meanings were attached to wild animals in antiquity? How can one better evaluate the importance of domestic animals to ancient societies? How can we dialogue with our own anthropocentric biases when we set out to understand ancient pet keeping or transhumance? Are there ways in which we can expand our interpretations to be inclusive of these relational dynamics while recognizing the value of traditional zooarchaeological hypotheses? In this session, a range of spatially and temporally variable research about human-animal relationships—from ancient to modern—is presented, highlighting exciting paradigms, approaches, and examples of how we can thoughtfully, thoroughly, and holistically reconstruct human-animal dynamics within the archaeological record.
Other Keywords
Zooarchaeology •
Theory •
Iron Age •
Ideology •
Taphonomy •
Pastoralism •
Foodways •
Historic •
ontology •
Neolithic
Geographic Keywords
Republic of Turkey (Country) •
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Country) •
State of Israel (Country) •
Lebanese Republic (Country) •
Syrian Arab Republic (Country) •
West Bank (Country) •
Republic of Cyprus (Country) •
Gaza Strip (Country) •
United States of America (Country) •
Republic of Iraq (Country)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)
- Documents (8)
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Animals Do Speak but Are We Listening? Perspectivism, Slow Zooarchaeology, and Contemplating Animal Domestication (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper I argue that animals do in fact speak to us and discuss several ways in which this framework can be approached. Through consideration of perspectivism as well as methodological approaches designed to disrupt zooarchaeological work as usual, I attempt to take animals seriously by listening to...
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Constructing the Herd: Critically Considering the Temporality of Human-Animal Relations in Archaeological Analysis (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of the herd is often deployed when discussing systems of animal management in the ancient past, sometimes explicitly but most often implicitly. Due to the nature of the archaeological record, zooarchaeological assemblages often compress multiple generations of livestock into a single dataset....
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The Ethics of Macaw Keeping in the Prehistoric Southwest and Northwest Mexico (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper considers the ethical components of prehistoric macaw husbandry practices in the cultural areas of the US Southwest and Northern Mexico. Within many traditional Native American cosmological schemes, humans and animals occupy a shared social world with reciprocal responsibilities toward one...
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An Examination of the Multiple Roles of Wild and Domestic Animals Excavated from the Vat Komnou Cemetery (200 BCE–400 CE) at Angkor Borei, Cambodia (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This talk will discuss the preliminary results of a pilot study focusing on faunal remains from the Early Historic/Pre-Angkorian site of Angkor Borei, Cambodia. Angkor Borei is one of Southeast Asia’s earliest urban centers, located in the Mekong Delta region of southern Cambodia. It was also a prominent...
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Fishing with Dogs: Canine Contributions to Andean Maritime Communities (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dogs played many roles within prehispanic Andean societies, including companions, hunting and herding partners, guardians, sacrifices, and mortuary offerings. Their role within maritime communities however remains surprisingly understudied, particularly considering the importance of maritime adaptations...
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From Agamemnon to the Animals: Zooarchaeological Research on Human-Animal Boundaries at Mycenae, Greece (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the Late Bronze Age site Mycenae in Greece, animals have long been understood mainly in terms of records preserved on clay tablets and sealings, artistic depictions, and later references in Homeric epic echoed by Schliemann. The archaeological remains of animals record a more detailed record of complex...
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Native Eastern Woodland Edible Metaphors of Pig and Bear (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domestic pigs, first introduced to sixteenth-century Native Americans in the Southeast by Spanish entradas, provided a familiar and suitably European food source for colonists who settled the region. Over the next two to three centuries, local Indigenous cuisines also incorporated pig meat and fat, which...
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A Tale of Dead Kitties: Theorizing Human-Animal Companion Relationships and Social Domestication through the Anatomization of Ancient Cats (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Current discourse articulates domestication as a series of actionable, multidimensional processes, shaped by temporally relevant cultural and social factors; “social contracts” (sensu Armstrong Oma) as maintained, agentive, sustained human-animal relationships. This definition is particularly relevant...