Circumpolar Lives and Livelihood

Circumpolar Lives and Livelihood
Author: Robert Jarvenpa
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0803226063

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Circumpolar Lives and Livelihood is a cross-cultural ethnoarchaeological study of the gendered nature of subsistence in northern hunter-gatherer-fisher societies. Based on field studies of four circumpolar societies, it documents the complexities of women?s and men?s involvement in food procurement, processing, and storage, and the relationship of such behaviors to the built landscape. Avoiding simplistic stereotypes of male and female roles, the framework of ?gendered landscapes? reveals the variability and flexibility of women?s and men?s actual lives in a manner useful for archaeological interpretations of hunter-foragers. Innovative in scope and design, this is the first study to employ a controlled, four-way, cross-cultural comparison of gender and subsistence. Members of an international team of anthropologists experienced in northern scholarship apply the same task-differentiation methodology in studies of Chipewyan hunter-fishers of Canada, Khanty hunter-fisher-herders of Western Siberia, S¾mi intensive reindeer herders of northwestern Finland, and I_upiaq maritime hunters of the Bering Strait of Alaska. This database on gender and subsistence is used to reassess one of the bedrock concepts in anthropology and social science: the sexual division of labor.

The Perception of the Environment

The Perception of the Environment
Author: Tim Ingold
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 644
Release: 2021-11-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000504662

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In this work Tim Ingold offers a persuasive new approach to understanding how human beings perceive their surroundings. He argues that what we are used to calling cultural variation consists, in the first place, of variations in skill. Neither innate nor acquired, skills are grown, incorporated into the human organism through practice and training in an environment. They are thus as much biological as cultural. To account for the generation of skills we have therefore to understand the dynamics of development. And this in turn calls for an ecological approach that situates practitioners in the context of an active engagement with the constituents of their surroundings. The twenty-three essays comprising this book focus in turn on the procurement of livelihood, on what it means to ‘dwell’, and on the nature of skill, weaving together approaches from social anthropology, ecological psychology, developmental biology and phenomenology in a way that has never been attempted before. The book is set to revolutionise the way we think about what is ‘biological’ and ‘cultural’ in humans, about evolution and history, and indeed about what it means for human beings – at once organisms and persons – to inhabit an environment. The Perception of the Environment will be essential reading not only for anthropologists but also for biologists, psychologists, archaeologists, geographers and philosophers. This edition includes a new Preface by the author.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers
Author: Vicki Cummings
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 1683
Release: 2014-04-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191025267

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For more than a century, the study of hunting and gathering societies has been central to the development of both archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines, and has also generated widespread public interest and debate. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies to date, including critical engagements with older debates, new theoretical perspectives, and renewed obligations for greater engagement between researchers and indigenous communities. Chapters provide in-depth archaeological, historical, and anthropological case-studies, and examine far-reaching questions about human social relations, attitudes to technology, ecology, and management of resources and the environment, as well as issues of diet, health, and gender relations - all central topics in hunter-gatherer research, but also themes that have great relevance for modern global society and its future challenges. The Handbook also provides a strategic vision for how the integration of new methods, approaches, and study regions can ensure that future research into the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers will continue to deliver penetrating insights into the factors that underlie all human diversity.

Identity and Subsistence

Identity and Subsistence
Author: Sarah M. Nelson
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2007
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780759111141

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Throughout human history, gender has served as one of the ways in which human beings form their identities and then make their way in the world. But it is not the only way: We also discover ourselves through race, age, class, and other categories. Increasingly, archaeologists are recovering evidence of the ways in which gender has been important in identity-formation in the past, especially in its interaction with other social factors. In Identity and Subsistence, a number of scholars look at how the idea of gender has worked with respect to the formation of the self, masculinity and femininity, human evolution, and the development of early agrarian and pastoralist societies.

When Worlds Collide

When Worlds Collide
Author: T. Max Friesen
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2013-05-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816599939

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Interactions between societies are among the most powerful forces in human history. However, because they are difficult to reconstruct from archaeological data, they have often been overlooked and understudied by archaeologists. This is particularly true for hunter-gatherer societies, which are frequently seen as adapting to local conditions rather than developing in the context of large-scale networks. When Worlds Collide presents a new model for discerning interaction networks based on the archaeological record, and then applies the model to long-term change in an Arctic society. Max Friesen has adapted and expanded world-system theory in order to develop a model that explains how hunter-gatherer interaction networks, or world-systems, are structured—and why they change. He has utilized this model to better understand the development of Inuvialuit society in the western Canadian Arctic over a 500-year span, from the pre-contact period to the early twentieth century. As Friesen combines local archaeological data with more extensive ethnographic and archaeological evidence from the surrounding region, a picture emerges of a dynamic Inuvialuit world-system characterized by bounded territories, trade, warfare, and other forms of interaction. This world-system gradually intensified as the impacts of Euroamerican colonial activities increased. This intensification, Friesen suggests, was based on pre-existing Inuvialuit social and economic structures rather than on patterns imposed from outside. Ultimately, this intense interacting network collapsed near the end of the nineteenth century. When Worlds Collide offers a new way to comprehend small-scale world-systems from the point of view of indigenous people. Its approach will prove valuable for understanding hunter-gatherer societies around the globe.

Handbook of Gender in Archaeology

Handbook of Gender in Archaeology
Author: Sarah M. Nelson
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 938
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780759106789

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First reference work to explore the research on gender in archaeology.

Human Behavioral Ecology

Human Behavioral Ecology
Author: Jeremy Koster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 535
Release: 2024-02-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1108386326

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Human behavioral ecology (HBE) applies the principles of evolutionary theory and optimisation to the study of human behavioural and cultural diversity. Among other things, HBE attempts to explain variation in behaviour as adaptive solutions to the competing life-history demands of growth, development, reproduction, parental care, and mate acquisition. This book is a comprehensive introduction to the theoretical orientation and specific findings of HBE. It consolidates the insights of evolution and human behaviour into a single volume that reflects the current state and future of the field. It brings together leading scholars from across the evolutionary social sciences to provide a comprehensive and thought-provoking review of the state of the topic. Throughout, the authors explain the latest developments in theory and highlight critical debates in the literature, while also engaging readers with ethnographic insights and field-based studies that remain at the core of human behavioral ecology.

From Here to There

From Here to There
Author: Michael Bond
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2020-05-12
Genre: Science
ISBN: 067424737X

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A Wired Most Fascinating Book of the Year “An important book that reminds us that navigation remains one of our most underappreciated arts.” —Tristan Gooley, author of The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs “If you want to understand what rats can teach us about better-planned cities, why walking into a different room can help you find your car keys, or how your brain’s grid, border, and speed cells combine to give us a sense of direction, this book has all the answers.” —The Scotsman How is it that some of us can walk unfamiliar streets without losing our way, while the rest of us struggle even with a GPS? Navigating in uncharted territory is a remarkable feat if you stop to think about it. In this beguiling mix of science and storytelling, Michael Bond explores how we do it: how our brains make the “cognitive maps” that keep us orientated and how that anchors our sense of wellbeing. Children are instinctive explorers, developing a spatial understanding as they roam. And yet today few of us make use of the wayfinding skills that we inherited from our nomadic ancestors. Bond tells stories of the lost and found—sailors, orienteering champions, early aviators—and explores why being lost can be such a devastating experience. He considers how our understanding of the world around us affects our psychology and helps us see how our reliance on technology may be changing who we are. “Bond concludes that, by setting aside our GPS devices, by redesigning parts of our cities and play areas, and sometimes just by letting ourselves get lost, we can indeed revivify our ability to find our way, to the benefit of our inner world no less than the outer one.” —Science “A thoughtful argument about how our ability to find our way is integral to our nature.” —Sunday Times

Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies

Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies
Author: Sophia E. Kelly
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2016-12-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1607324830

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Prehistoric economic relationships are often presented as genderless, yet mounting research highlights the critical role gendered identities play in the division of work tasks and the development of specialized production in pre-modern economic systems. In Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies, contributors combine the study of gender in the archaeological record with the examination of intensified craft production in prehistory to reassess the connection between craft specialization and the types and amount of work that men and women performed in ancient communities. Chapters are organized by four interrelated themes crucial for understanding the implications of gender in the organization of craft production: craft specialization and the political economy, combined effort in specialized production, the organization of female and male specialists, and flexibility and rigidity in the gendered division of labor. Contributors consider how changes to the gendered division of labor in craft manufacture altered other types of production or resulted from modifications in the organization of production elsewhere in the economic system. Striking a balance between theoretical and methodological approaches and presenting case studies from sites around the world, Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies offers a guide to the major issues that will frame future research on how men’s and women’s work changes, predisposes, and structures the course of economic development in various societies. Contributors: Alejandra Alonso Olvera, Traci Ardren, Michael G. Callaghan, Nigel Chang, Cathy Lynne Costin, Pilar Margarita Hernández Escontrías, A. Halliwell, Sue Harrington, James M. Heidke, Sophia E. Kelly, Brigitte Kovacevich, T. Kam Manahan, Ann Brower Stahl, Laura Swantek, Rita Wright, Andrea Yankowski

Domestication in Action

Domestication in Action
Author: Anna-Kaisa Salmi
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2022-05-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030986438

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Reindeer have been an integral part of the lives of people in Northern Fennoscandia in prehistoric and historic times. Today, reindeer herding practices are changing fast due to climate change, land use pressures and new technologies. This book outlines recent advances in the archaeology of reindeer domestication and development of reindeer herding among the Sámi of Northern Fennoscandia, focusing especially on the identification and understanding of various reindeer herding tasks and practices through archaeological evidence and traditional knowledge of reindeer herders. Covering more than a thousand years of history of reindeer herding, the book explores how reindeer herding practices have always been dynamic and adapted to the changing social, economic and environmental pressures. While reindeer herding practices have changed, they have also retained memory and tradition. The continuity and adaptation of reindeer herding testifies of the resilience of reindeer herders and their animals, and the importance of their relationship in the changing Arctic. This book will be of interest to scholars interested in archaeology, anthropology, and history of the Arctic, as well as local communities and reindeer herders.