Kristin Armstrong Oma

What happens to the understanding of past societies when animals are perceived as sentient beings, and we recognize the agentive powers and potential of animals to impact human lives and shape prehistoric societies? Utilizing new research, both within Human-Animal Studies and natural sciences, animals are considered as themselves—not as props, tools or consumables for human societies—but instead focuses upon their agential potential.
Using this perspective, this book outlines a novel solution to a longstanding puzzle in settlement archaeology: the transition from two-aisled to three-aisled houses in the Early Bronze Age Norway (c. 1500 BCE). At this time, landscape changes in Rogaland, southwestern Norway, are consistent with socio-economic changes in subsistence strategies, with wooded landscapes cleared to make space for flocks of grazing animals. At the same time, architectural changes from the traditional two-aisled longhouses (a way of building that had stood its ground for hundreds of years) to three-aisled longhouses suggest this change was to make room for animals inside the house, and that animals became household members.
The animals that entered the household of the three-aisled houses in the Bronze Age—sheep and dogs—are considered according to their particular requirements to function well in a close partnership with humans. How humans meet these requirements is a decisive factor for how animals choose to act towards humans, whether they choose to cooperate or to “act back.” This breaks up the human versus animal discourse, and introduces various types of agents into the household arena. It demonstrates how important it is to study different species as themselves, and recognize their species specific preconditions in order to understand how humans and various animals mutually impacted their shared life-world.

This contribution draws mainly on images of dogs, humans and sheep from Nordic Bronze Age rock art sources, but living arrangements within the household and depositional patterns of dog bones on settlements are also considered to extrapolate an understanding of the physical reality and ontological role of sheepdogs within the social aspects of the practice of herding. I use theories from the interdisciplinary field of human-animal studies to understand how socialisation, habituation and trust create a seamless choreography between human, dog and sheep.

Extraordinary objects, things that convey collective narratives as well as a record of conservation evoke extraordinary feelings. Both the physical characteristics of the objects and the myths surrounding them may increase their meaning, lending them an inherent power. The design, language of form, as well as the materials used are essential elements in creating the objects’ charisma and in forming the stories that are told about them. The present volume explores the concept of charismatic objects and their material world through nine papers focusing on historical examples dating from the Roman Period to the late Middle Ages. Press link to get Open Access

Abstract The construction and use of space is highly structuring in the lives of household members of both human and non-human animals. The choice of social practice is embedded in the ways in which both human and non-human animals physically organize the world around them. The architectural vestiges of houses—both in terms of the distribution of material culture within and surrounding them, and architectural choices—provide frameworks for a social practice that was shared between humans and living, domestic animals, or animal materiality. The notion of meeting points is explored via both its tangible and metaphorical aspects to approach the meetings—the physical performances and their significance—of humans and animals in the past. To gauge the potential likenesses and differences, two case studies are compared from the Late Bronze Age (900-500 BC) in Scandinavia and Early Iron Age (800-500) in Sicily. Both case studies represent societies where domestic animals were present and formed part of the household subsistence. A framework is presented that takes into consideration the spatial potential of allowing human-animal relationships to unfold within the framework of the everyday social practice of the household.

Humans, like other animals, are inextricably bound to their local complex web-of-life and cannot exist outside of relationally interwoven ecosystems. Humans are, as such, rooted in a multispecies universe. Human and non-human animals in their variety of forms and abilities have been commensal, companions, prey, and hunters, and archaeology must take this fundamental fact – the cohabiting of the world – to heart. Human societies are, therefore, not so much human as web-of-species societies. Recently, anthropological theory has explored non-modern societies from the perspective of an anthropology of life which incorporates relationality of local humans and non-human animals, a pursuit that is significant for the diverse contributions in this special section of Current Swedish Archaeology: a themed section which deals with past multispecies intra-actions in a long-term perspective.

This article deals with the longue durée of the longhouse in terms of agrarian commitments, households and ontology from the prehistory of Rogaland. The three-aisled longhouse is one of the most long-lived forms of dwelling-place known from prehistory, spanning from the Early Bronze Age (1500 BP) through the end of the Viking period (c. AD 1050). During some 2500 years, the architectural outline and form remained surprisingly similar. The three-aisled longhouse is, in terms of human culture, a longue durée institution, a materialisation of a particular lived space. The aim of this article is twofold: First, I explore the tenets of this lived space, and its implications in terms of social practice with a particular regard to the life-space shared by humans and animals inside the longhouse. Further, I examine the dynamics between patterns of change in prehistoric societies and the longhouse that endures as a basic building block for the farming household. I use the ontological turn as...

The anthropocene is a term that is rapidly gaining momentum. It presupposes that humans stepped up and took a leading role in driving processes of change in a hereto unprecedented scale. Domestication, both of plants, animals and environments, is bottom line vital to this development. Domestication from this perspective is a process that presupposes modification and manipulation of the behavioural dispositions, morphology and life world of other beings. Archaeology has played a role in trying to explain these processes by way of environmental archaeology. This strand of archaeology has epistemolgically been informed by a fundamentally cartesian, i.e. humanist/enlightenment paradigm, that has presupposed that humans have conquered animals, plants and landscapes and subjected these to the human will, as though these are passive, even inanimate, matter. The agency of plants and animals has rarely been considered. This perspective has led other disciplines to mistrust the ability of archaeology to respond to questions of domestication – and fundamentally – questions of which factors pushed the development of the anthropocene. This paper specifically deals with domestication of animals from the perspective of archaeology and seeks to counter the critique. Three case studies are discussed, and together they demonstrate the complexity of domestication as steps of becoming. First, recent research on domestication of sheep and its implications is. Second, a possible first meeting between domestic animals and a hunter-gatherer culture is discussed. Third, changes in architecture in a husbandry culture is interpreted as signifying changes in production which led to a greater intensification and a heightened human-animal bond. All case studies are considered from a perspective of reciprocity, commitment and co-authored life-ways as specific setups within an ethics of a duty of care.

Humans, like other animals, are inextricably bound to their local complex web-of-life and cannot exist outside of relationally interwoven ecosystems. Humans are, as such, rooted in a multispecies universe. Human and non-human animals in their variety of forms and abilities have been commensal, companions, prey, and hunters, and archaeology must take this fundamental fact – the cohabiting of the world – to heart. Human societies are, therefore, not so much human as web-of-species societies. Recently, anthropological theory has explored non-modern societies from the perspective of an anthropology of life which incorporates relationality of local humans and non-human animals, a pursuit that is significant for the diverse contributions in this special section of Current Swedish Archaeology: a themed section which deals with past multispecies intra-actions in a long-term perspective.

This book pushes the boundaries of classic archaeology to venture beyond the human. A few archaeologists have been drawing upon the anthropology literature and other disciplines to take animal agency into account, for example, Gala Argent’s (2010) work with regard to Pazyryk horse burials; or Robert Losey’s et al.’s (2011) work relating to dog burials in Siberia. The Sheep People (2018) is a groundbreaking book for seriously taking the ontological status and agency of sheep and sheepdogs into account. As it is likely that there will be some opposition to a less economic-oriented approach towards animals, the author has been careful to foreground the burgeoning Human-Animal Studies literature within this book. Indeed, the first three chapters are a means of carefully laying the groundwork for how anthropology, ethology and animal psychology can be drawn upon to provide insights for archaeological research with a focus on humans and other animals. I am writing this review from an anthropological perspective, based on extensive field experience with herders co-existing with herd animals in Mongolia (see Fijn 2011). A particular strength of the book is how the author has drawn on the human-animal studies literature and applied the findings to a particular place and a particular period of time. Chapter 4 outlines the empirical evidence for the significance of sheep and dogs in the lives of people inhabiting the Rogaland region in Early Bronze Age Norway. One setback in relation to the research was that the evidence from faunal remains within the three-aisled longhouses was scant with only a few sheep (or goat) bones and no dog bones. The author admits that it is hard to tell the difference between sheep and goat bones, while it is unlikely that dogs were consumed at all. For her book, instead of the faunal remains, Armstrong Oma relies heavily on one particular piece of rock art (featured within the book as Figure 1.1). She interprets the scene as a dog with its tail tucked low to the ground, signifying that it is a sheepdog. She also perceives the herd animal figures as sheep with horns, but they could also feasibly be interpreted as goats, cattle, or even wild deer, while an Early Bronze Age dog is unlikely to have occupied a specific role herding sheep alone. The English sheepdog has developed specific herding traits that have been influenced by human selective breeding within the past few centuries. I suspect the dog depicted in the rock art could have held a number of different roles, including hunting and guarding the home, similar to the native Buhund breed found in Norway today. From my ethnographic experience with Mongolian herders and from the work of Tani (2017), analysing herding practices in the Ancient Near East, the herd could have feasibly been comprised of both sheep and goats, or as a mixed herd. The structure of the household is likely to have not been as specialized as farmers’ lives are now, where there is a focus on just one species: the sheep. The scenario could have been similar to some other cultures found throughout Central Asia, where there are multiple species cohabiting with humans, including horses, cattle, sheep, goats and dogs. The author is upfront about making some assumptions to form the narrative of how life may have been in the Early Bronze Age, where she states: ‘I will take a leap of faith and consider my hypothesis, that sheep became household members of the three-aisled longhouse – as

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This contribution draws mainly on images of dogs, humans and sheep from Nordic Bronze Age rock art sources, but living arrangements within the household and depositional patterns of dog bones on settlements are also considered to extrapolate an understanding of the physical reality and ontological role of sheepdogs within the social aspects of the practice of herding. I use theories from the interdisciplinary field of human-animal studies to understand how socialisation, habituation and trust create a seamless choreography between human, dog and sheep.

«[...] that tree, of which nobody knows where its roots run.» Religion in the pre-Christian era.
The poem Håvamål describes how the world tree, Yggdrasil, has three roots and their place of origin is unknown. Their unknown origin is in accordance with our knowledge of the deep roots of pagan religion in Scandinavia. This article seeks to understand the development from prehistoric pagan religion in Scandinavia until the advent of Christianity, especially with regard to its implications for the development of ontological status for humans and animals. I draw upon Norwegian archaeological material and written sources to explore first the pagan religion, and second the transition between it and Christianity. Pagan religion changed through the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, and was not a uniform phenomenon.
It is, however, argued that there are some common themes in these pagan religious practices that came to an end with the onset of Christianity. Studying arenas of conflict between the Norse pagan religion and Christianity help us to identify such themes. I suggest that among these we find the ontological status of animals, as well as of gender configurations and their transgressions in relation to the pagan Gods.