Erica Hill

Animals as Agents: Hunting Ritual and Relational Ontologies in Prehistoric Alaska and Chukotka

In this article, I discuss the ways in which animals act as ontological subjects — as other-than-human persons and as agents in myth and ritual. First I outline how humans conceive of and behave with animals and their remains in indigenous cosmologies using ethnographic and ethnohistoric examples from the Arctic, Subarctic and Amazonia. I then explore the archaeological evidence for indigenous ontologies along the coasts of Chukotka and Alaska, arguing that prehistoric hunters interacted with animals as agential persons, engaging in social practices intended to facilitate hunting success and avoid offending prey. Two forms of ritual activities are discussed: the use of hunting amulets and the caching of animal bones and antlers. I conclude that focusing on shamanism in the study of hunter-gatherer belief obscures the roles of hunters and their wives. Their thoughts and actions established and maintained relationships with prey animals and may be more productively conceptualized as dynamic social behaviours embedded within the context of daily life than as privileged ritual acts.

The contextual analysis of animal interments and ritual practice in Southwestern North America.

ABSTRACT Animal burials are often encountered in excavations in southwestern North America. This paper identifies and contextually analyzes bird and mammal remains recovered from interment contexts in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. These data are presented in tabular form, followed by a contextual evaluation of patterns of interment. Three forms of interment are identified: 1) ceremonial trash, 2) dedicatory offerings, and 3) simple interment, including expedient disposal. While bird interments take the form of sacrifice followed by disposal as ceremonial trash, dogs are generally interred on the floors of pithouses or kivas as dedicatory offerings. Bird interments clustered around the period from A.D. 1050 to 1400; dog interments had substantially greater time depth. This contextual analysis demonstrates that patterning in animal interments can be recognized on a regional scale; similar analyses may be usefully applied to faunal data in other regions of the Americas in order to reconstruct the complex social and ritual relationships that humans maintained with animals prehistorically.

The embodied sacrifice

The interest in the study of the body that is emerging in European archaeologies has not yet penetrated Americanist approaches to prehistoric iconography. Nevertheless, American materials provide an excellent data base with which to work. This article employs the complex human representational imagery of the Moche (Peruvian North Coast, c.AD 100–800) to explore how the body was situated within the context of ritual sacrifice. Employing both the Foucauldian concept of the disciplined body and the work of Mary Douglas, two forms of bodily representation are discussed: the naked male prisoner and the spread-eagled female sacrifice. These bodies are defined iconographically not only by their sex, but also by their qualities of anonymity or individuality. While the sacrificed female represents an individual who is notable because of who she is (i.e. who she embodies), the male prisoners represent an undifferentiated and anonymous group. These two examples suggest that the body can be read as an individual symbolic field (the female body) and, alternatively, can serve as an undifferentiated forum (the bodies of prisoners) for sacrificial discourse. Despite these differences in representation, both forms of the body present potentially liminal sites within the context of sacrificial ritual. This liminality is essential for the discursive re-ordering of the body politic to occur.

Sacrificing Moche Bodies

The Moche of Peru (AD 100–800) practiced two forms of bodily transformation: human sacrifice and dismemberment. The sacrificial process converted the body into a sacred object and imbued it with meaning. The second transformation – dismemberment – partitioned the cathected body into ritually efficacious body parts suitable for use as offerings to the supernatural. In contrast to classic perspectives on sacrifice, which focus on the act of immolation, I expand this perspective to include post-sacrifice transformations, including dismemberment, consumption, and distribution.The Moche of Peru (AD 100–800) practiced two forms of bodily transformation: human sacrifice and dismemberment. The sacrificial process converted the body into a sacred object and imbued it with meaning. The second transformation – dismemberment – partitioned the cathected body into ritually efficacious body parts suitable for use as offerings to the supernatural. In contrast to classic perspectives on sacrifice, which focus on the act of immolation, I expand this perspective to include post-sacrifice transformations, including dismemberment, consumption, and distribution.

Gender-informed archaeology: The priority of definition, the use of analogy, and the multivariate approach

Despite recent efforts to construct gender theory in archaeology, I assert that no methodological or theoretical breakthroughs have occurred. This lack of progress is due to several factors. First, fundamental terms such as “theory,” “gender,” and “sex” have been used inconsistently; I suggest some working definitions for these terms. Second, researchers have resorted to the use of analogical arguments that implicitly deny the role of gender in the organization of human relations. Third, feminist political agendas have been conflated with research questions. In order to address some of these issues, I suggest that the application of a multivariate approach to the study of gender can avoid the problems inherent in any one line of evidence. Finally, I argue that a consideration of the scale of gender questions is essential to the application of existing theoretical frameworks to gender archaeologically.

Death as a rite of passage: the iconography of the Moche Burial Theme

The application of van Genneps Rites of Passage structure to iconography and mortuary contexts in the Late Moche period of Peru offers an original means of exploring prehistoric concepts of death.

The Nonempirical Past: Enculturated Landscapes and Other-than-Human Persons in Southwest Alaska

In 1971, Ernest S. Burch identified “nonempirical phenomena” as variables in travel and settlement decision-making among Iñupiaq Eskimo of Northwest Alaska. This article parses the term “nonempirical” and advocates the use of Hallowell’s (1960) term “other-than-human” to describe the extraordinary persons known to Yupiit and Inupiat of Alaska. I discuss the ways in which place names and oral narratives can contribute to an understanding of the relational, intersubjective nature of Yupiit interactions with other-than-human persons and describe how such relations were anchored in enculturated landscapes. Finally, I address how archaeology is uniquely positioned to contribute to reconstructions of prehistoric ontologies that materialized relations between “real people” and the other-than-human persons with whom they shared the animated, dynamic landscapes of Southwest Alaska.

Lineage interests and nonreproductive strategies

The nonreproductive role of religious women in the European Middle Ages presents the ideal forum for the discussion of elite family strategies within a historical context. I apply the evolutionary concept of kin selection to this group of women in order to explain how a social formation in which religious women failed to reproduce benefited medieval noble lineages. After a brief review of the roles of noble women in the later Middle Ages, I identify two benefits that nonreproductive women provided within a patrilineal inheritance system. First, spatial segregation and Christian ideology together served to curtail the production of offspring who could pose a threat to lineage interests. Second, cloistered noble women served as a strong political and economic bloc that could further lineage interests within a religious context. Finally, I discuss the evolutionary basis for the formation of groups of nonreproductive women. Using the foundation provided by animal behavioral studies, I apply the twin concepts of cooperative breeding and parental manipulation to noble lineages of the medieval period.

Thimbles and thimble rings from the circum-Caribbean region, 1500–1800: Chronology and identification

This paper provides an overview of literature on the subject of thimbles. Particular attention is devoted to the identification of functional categories and determining the gender and age composition of a site using thimbles. Major innovations in construction, decorative patterning, and shape are identified as well. Archaeologically, thimbles are often recovered at European domestic sites, in aboriginal burials, and as trade goods. This omnipresent artifact has considerable potential for general dating and demographic purposes.

Humans, Birds and Burial Practices at Ipiutak, Alaska: Perspectivism in the Western Arctic

ABSTRACT Archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence from the coast of western Alaska and St. Lawrence Island indicate that human inhabitants over the past 1500–2000 years incorporated birds into their diets, cosmologies, material culture, and daily activities. Following a brief discussion of the archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence for human–bird relations, this article explores the evidence for birds as both an economic and cosmological resource at the Ipiutak site on the northwest coast of Alaska. Several lines of evidence indicate that hunters and shamans have consistently attempted to mimic or acquire the abilities and physical attributes of select bird taxa, reflecting a sophisticated knowledge of bird behaviours and life histories. A specific concern with vision – shamanic, predatory, and post-mortem – is inferred from an unusual Ipiutak burial assemblage that contained a loon skull with ivory eyes. Considered in light of the broader cemetery assemblage, which includes artefacts with bird imagery, the Ipiutak material is interpreted as evidence of perspectivism in western arctic prehistory.