A Comparative Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Gender and Landscape: Livelihood and Viewshed

Summary

The sexual division of labor in many societies situates women and men in livelihood activities which differ markedly in their locations, facilities, and relationship to other features in both the built and non-built environment. The repeated juxtaposition of these behaviors and elements over time result in rather distinctive female and male viewsheds or vistas and, ultimately, gendered perceptions and interpretations of the landscape. Consider the perceptual field of a woman scraping hides on the side of a storage cache as contrasted with that of a man tending fish nets on a nearby lake. How do key livelihood strategies contribute to variable viewsheds and interpretations of the landscape by women and men? Under what conditions are these experiences and interpretations likely to change? Such issues will be addressed with data from a comparative ethnoarchaeological investigation of gender and subsistence in four circumpolar hunter-fisher and hunter-herder societies: Canadian Chipewyan, Siberian Khanty, Finnish Sami, and Alaskan Inupiaq. Suggestions will be offered for applying viewshed dynamics in living cultural systems to ancient archaeological landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20519