On the Limits of Ethnographic Analogy: Ontology and the Self in Casas Grandes.

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Modelling Human Behaviour through Ethnoarchaeology: Ethnoarchaeology as Long-Term Traditional Knowledge (L-TeK)" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeologists have embraced ethnographic analogy because they do not believe their first-hand "modern" experiences can be abstracted into models that are applicable to ancient lifeways. Ethnoarchaeology has thus been tasked with studying “traditional” communities to create more accurate understandings of ancient life. In this discussion, I explore limits to this component of archaeology's epistemology by outlining how ethnographic analogues have produced what I suspect is an inaccurate reconstruct the self in the Casas Grandes culture from Chihuahua, Mexico. My alternative builds from Philippe Descola’s proposal that Mesoamerican ontology is analogistic. Thus, I begin with the hypothesis that Casas Grandes people were multi-souled “dividuals,” and use this perspective to explore ceramic iconography and ritual architecture. This leads me to an understanding of Casas Grandes ritual practice that differs from recent reconstructions. The case study shows more generally why ethnoarchaeology should be less a quest for coeval “premodern parallels” than self-critical form of standpoint analysis that uses the cultural diversity present within modernity to address the risk of interpretive tautology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Modelling Human Behaviour through Ethnoarchaeology: Ethnoarchaeology as Long-Term Traditional Knowledge (L-TeK)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51514