Ethnoarchaeology

Permanent link to open access version: http://hdl.handle.net/10523/10586

Materialising Ancestral Madang documents the emergence of pottery production processes and exchange networks along the northeast coast of New Guinea during the last millennium before the present. This dynamic period in the Pacific’s human past involved important fluctuations to people’s mobility, social interaction, and technological organisation. It therefore remains crucial to understanding and historicising the expansive maritime subsistence trading networks that famously characterised the coast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This book investigates these transformations by exploring the archaeology of Madang District; the heart of the Madang exchange network that revolved around the production and distribution of distinctive red-slipped pots. Potsherds of this style have been previously found spanning a 200 km radius, reaching Karkar Island, the Bismarck Archipelago, and even the New Guinea Highlands. By combining archaeological survey, excavation, craft ethnography, and archaeometric analyses, the volume systematically delineates the production groups that were working within this broader community of practice. The study shows that pre-colonial potters made use of a range of local raw materials and were free to improvise with their forming and decorating techniques but learned and reproduced similar technological sequences over the past 500–600 years. It is likely that social restrictions permitted only potters from a small number of clans to produce ceramics and that the finished vessels were then distributed both informally within the local area and strategically during extensive trade voyages along the northeast coast of New Guinea. These results therefore cast light on an important but previously obscured aspect of Pacific culture history and provide a model for how craft production and exchange processes have manifested and co-modified across the generations

Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar (1922-1990), a spiritual guru (also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) and social philosopher, describes remarkable previously unknown facts about the evolution of the earth and human civilization, and the birthplace of the first human beings in Ráŕh, an ancient area of India. This spoken discourse “Geology and Human Civilization” was given in Anandanagar, India on 28 December 1987.  –  Richard Gauthier, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California, USA, September 13, 2020.

"Vienna’s Museum für Vökerkunde holds in its collections a rare sixteenth-century Taíno cotton
belt from Hispaniola (today’s Dominican Republic/Haiti) – one of only two surviving Taíno
cotton artefacts to feature European ‘exotics’, including mirrors, jet beads and brass. This complex
woven structure – a wearable work of art – offers a rare window on to one of the most prestigious
of Taı´no valuables, a personal ornament that literally wrapped the wearer in wealth, status and
spiritual power. The paper charts the original context and use of Taı´no belts, and provides a
detailed account of the Vienna belt’s collection history, its construction and its chronological
placement (radiocarbon-dated using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to AD 1475–1635). The
question of how and when the European materials were incorporated into the belt is explored,
critically engaging the entangled histories of association between the two."

In molti contesti preistorici e protostorici italiani sono largamente rinvenuti resti strutturali in terra e conglomerati architettonici combusti o parzialmente cementati. La loro caratterizzazione tecnologica è un passo importante per ottenere dati rigurdanti la paleoeconomia,  lo sfruttamento delle risorse e l’esistenza di tradizioni costruttive su scala locale o regionale. L’integrazione al protocollo di analisi tecnologica di osservazioni effettuate ad occhio nudo o con microscopio ottico su sezioni levigate può aiutare ad una migliore comprensione dei resti in una fase intermedia dello studio, successiva alla loro caratterizzazione morfologica ed al riconoscimento di classi di impasto, ma preliminare all’approfondimento dello studio per mezzo di analisi specialistiche. La realizzazione su alcuni campioni di una sezione rettificata e polita (sezione levigata) permette infatti di descrivere con maggiore completezza l’organizzazione e la natura dei componenti, nonché le alterazioni subite dal materiale, ad esempio in caso di esposizione al calore. Si tratta dunque di associare le caratteristiche osservate ai meccanismi di deformazione della materia e a gesti specifici, che una volta messi in sequenza potranno permettere di ricostruire materie prime utilizzate, tecniche e catene operative. Qualche osservazione rilevante può riguardare anche le dinamiche di funzionamento delle strutture o il loro ingresso nel record archeologico. Sono qua presentati alcuni casi studio e chiavi di lettura preliminari, da completare ed affinare con l’avanzamento delle ricerche. Le prime applicazioni di tale tecnica hanno fornito risultati incoraggianti, soprattutto per il rapporto positivo tra massa di dati prodotta e costo finanziario ridotto.

SUMMARY: Chapter 8, in Renfrew & Bahn's textbook (Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice), covers what typically survives, what constitutes an "artifact", interpreting usage, obtaining materials (e.g., quarrying; mining), transporting materials, installing materials, manufacturing items, identifying function, experimental archaeology, etc., regarding stone, bone, antler, shell, leather, wood, plant, metal, faience, glass, and other materials and diverse artifacts.  In my view, this is one of the best college textbooks available, and is invaluable for students, archaeologists, and the public in general, to obtain a top notch overview of approaching and interpreting the archaeological record.  UPDATED May 2023.

SUMMARY: Chapter 5, in Renfrew & Bahn's textbook (Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice), covers past social organizations, including hunter-gatherer groups (bands), segmentary societies (tribal societies), chiefdoms, and early state complex societies, with approaches to assessing settlement patterns, interpreting pertinent historical data, ethnoarchaeology, various ways to examine the various types of past social organizations and their variants, and looking at individuals, identity and society, gender and childhood, and other aspects.  Two additional case studies highlighting social organization in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome.  In my view, this is one of the best college textbooks available, and is invaluable for students, archaeologists, and the public in general, to obtain a top notch overview of approaching and interpreting the archaeological record.  REVISED: Feb. 2023.

In the Jebala region, NW of Morocco, the making of recipients of dung from cows or/and clay (tonna and tabtoba) was common in the past. These recipients were used for stocking cereals and their dry products, for feeding the livestock, or for transporting the céréals to the rotative mill. The élaboration of these objects, which dissapeared 20 or 30 years ago, represented a general technical knowledge which was carried out by all the women in the région, in order to satisfy their domestic needs.

The article shows the burning practices used by native northern hunters-gatherers and reindeer herders of Western Siberia as a potential factor of impact on surrounding landscapes. In this sense, the research focuses primarily on aspects of practical importance in the fields of cultural ecology and ethnoarchaeology. The controlled burning of grass, shrubs, and deadwood has been a very effective landscape management tool, though not a common practice among northern natives of Western Siberia. It helped certain groups of them restore the productivity of berry bushes, attract wild ungulates and create better conditions for reindeer herding and travelling, as well as to protect the territory from devastating forest fires. There are some Western Siberian ethnic groups who traditionally have had more freedom in the use of fire (Evenks) and others whose actions in this field have been rather rigidly regulated by traditional rules and beliefs (Ob Ugrians and Selkups). The Tundra and Forest Nenets probably combined their culture features with both of the mentioned groups. This allows us to suggest a version that a relatively freer use of fire is generally a typical feature of the nomadic population. Several areas were revealed in Western Siberia, where the peoples of the North had practiced intentional burning (or supposedly could do it) in order to obtain additional economic benefit from their lands – the Konda river valley, Upper Taz river area and interfluve of Demyanka and Turtas rivers. The local Khanty and Mansi groups of the Konda river valley adopted this use of fire from the neighboring Siberian Tatars or Russians in 1860-70th. Simultaneously, it was also a real paradigm shift in the spheres of traditional beliefs and land use practices of the Ob-Ugrian communities. The last two areas were associated with local groups of Evenks, the people who were brought into disrepute in Siberia and the Far East as arsonists of the taiga. As ethnographic data shows, on the one hand, this was a prejudiced opinion, on the other hand, there were factors that contributed to its formation.

В работе предлагается комплексный взгляд на проблему происхождения палеоэскимосов и их культуры. Показывается, что генофонд палеоэскимосов складывался из двух компонентов — древнего палеосибирского, представленного геномом индивида из Дуванного Яра, и восточноазиатского (линия D2a мтДНК), вероятно близкого к тем, что обнаружены у древних индивидов из пещеры Чертовы Ворота в Приморье и представителя китойской культуры в захоронении на оз. Ножий в Забайкалье. Миграция предков палеоэскимосов на Аляску определяется в диапазоне 7500–5500 кал. л. н. Делается вывод, что основные элементы специализированной палеоэскимосской традиции арктических морских охотников фиксируются на этапе существования культур Пре-Дорсет, Индепенденс I и Саккак. / The paper offers a comprehensive approach to the problem of origin of the Paleoskimos and their culture. It is demonstrated that the Paleoskimo gene pool was a product of two components — the Ancient Paleosiberian, represented by the genome of individual  from the Duvanny Yar, and the East Asian (mtDNA line D2a), the latter of which is probably similar to genomes of individuals from the Chertovy Vorota Cave in Primorie, and from a burial of a Kitoi culture at lake Nozhiy in the Trans-Baikal area. The ancestors of the Paleoeskimos probably migrated to Alaska between 7,500 and 5,500 cal. BP.  It is concluded that the main elements of the specialized Paleoskimo tradition of the Arctic maritime hunters may be referred to the period of existence of the Pre-Dorset, Independence I, and Saqqaq cultures.

This paper discusses territorial markers in the Late Mesolithic based on ethnoarchaeological data as well as findings from modern social psychology. On the basis of the archaeological evidence from Southern Scandinavia, it is suggested that Late Mesolithic graves, which often appear to have had visual markers above ground and probably, in some instances, were ‘air graves’ located in trees or on platforms, were used as the primary territorial markers, whereas coeval shell middens played a role as site markers at archaeological sites where molluscs were collected.

On the basis of the evidence from the mouth of the River Muge in Portugal, it is suggested that the shell middens here may have constituted the primary territorial markers.

In general, the picture that emerges is of aggressive, territorial and non-egalitarian Late Mesolithic societies, in good accordance with the skeletal record .

When we analyse the work of a cultural anthropologist, we can see them using a sewing technique called “reverse sewing,” which involves turning the fabric inside out. However, because it is the anthropologist who “reverses,” cuts and patches, the method is basically devoid of the term’s negative implications. Textiles produced with that method are associated with poverty, which directly juxtaposes the wealth of contents and meanings supplied by anthropology. Naturally, the matter we work with may be stubborn. However, thanks to that quality, the end results are often so varied and different. That is how we would summarise the contents of the “New Ethnography’s” newest issue you are holding. Reverse sewing is understood here as a metaphor for a wide range of anthropologic writings. The analogy attempts to illustrate the ways of the anthropologist’s mind and the way the narrative is shaped. The authors take the seemingly uniform and comprehensible space of a socio-cultural reality, and turn it inside out, revealing the stitching made of meanings and myths, the
worn-out fabric of the ways for building, understanding, and experiencing the elements of the world they study. During the work they adopt different perspectives and utilize various methodological tools and interpretation mechanisms.

This paper discusses a couple of basic methodological problems inherent in predictive modelling as used today in mapping the location of Stone Age settlements based solely on landscape topography/bathymetry. It argues that the modelling approach employed is based on elements adopted from a type of landscape ecology that was abandoned more than 20 years ago, because it was unable to produce reasonable results, and that it can be
difficult to develop prediction methodology based on the present understanding of landscape ecology as being
extremely complex and dynamic. Furthermore, it maintains that the modelling approach currently employed in Stone Age archaeology is based on assumptions about prehistoric resource-strategic behaviour that are simplistic and out of tune with what we now know. It therefore questions whether it is possible to develop a precise and efficient predictive procedure for modelling the locations of Stone Age sites.

Zooarchaeologists often assume that changes in the frequencies of cut marks are a proxy indicator of prey availability. The assumption is that as animals become scarce, people spend more time intensively processing prey and that this is reflected by an increase in the number of cut marks present on bone. In this paper, we test this idea against a series of bone assemblages generated by contemporary Paraguayan Aché foragers in an area with marked prey depression adjacent (or 1 days walk) to long-term residential villages. We compare different measures of cut mark frequencies from a sample of prey bones from temporary camps generated during a 10-day forest trek to procure prey not normally accessible in close proximity to residential villages. We expect cut mark frequencies to intensify in response to variation in prey availability as a function of increasing distances between temporary camps and long-term residential villages.

Agricultural processes involved before bread baking in pre-industrial Crete. (NOTE: Some of the figures are corrected from the faulty ones in the book!)
The volume is the outcome of collaborative European research among archaeologists, archaeobotanists, ethnographers, historians and agronomists, and frequently uses experiments in archaeology. It aims to establish new common ground for integrating different approaches and for viewing agriculture from the standpoint of the human actors involved. Each chapter provides an interdisciplinary overview of the skills used and the social context of the pursuit of agriculture, highlighting examples of tools, technologies and processes from land clearance to cereal processing and food preparation. This is part of the second of three volumes in the EARTH monograph series, The dynamics of non-industrial agriculture: 8,000 years of resilience and innovation , which shows the great variety of agricultural practices in human terms, in their social, political, cultural and legal contexts.

One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. This article is an excerpt of pages 98-99 from the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson with a numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depicting the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Mural photograph: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

""Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century cross-cuts the ranks of important books on social history, consumerism, contemporary culture, the meaning of material culture, domestic architecture, and household ethnoarchaeology. Far richer in information and more incisive than America at Home (Smolan and Erwitt), it also moves well beyond Rick Smolan's Day in the Life series. It is a distant cousin of Material World and Hungry Planet in content and style, but represents a blend of rigorous science and photography that none of these books can claim. Using archaeological approaches to human material culture, this volume offers unprecedented access to the middle-class American home through the kaleidoscopic lens of no-limits photography and many kinds of never-before acquired data about how people actually live their lives at home. Media reactions to early findings from the nine-year project that spawned this book indicate that it will appeal not only to scientists but also to the book-buying public, people who share intense curiosity about what goes on at home in their neighborhoods. Many who read the book will see their own lives mirrored in these pages and can reflect on how other people cope with their mountains of possessions and other daily challenges. Readers abroad will be equally fascinated by the contrasts between their own kinds of materialism and the typical American experience, as a sample of Italians' and Swedes' responses to our corpus of photographs and our study's findings have demonstrated. The book will interest a range of designers, builders, and architects as well as scholars and students who research various facets of U.S. and global consumerism, cultural history, and economic history."

Winner of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize - 2012

The first edition (July 2012) sold out in late summer 2012.  The second printing is available on as of October 15, 2012.

Available at the UNM Press: http://www.unmpress.com/books.php?ID=20000000005616&Page=book

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/life.at.home.in.the.twentyfirst.century?ref=hl""

The focus of the present paper is the spatial organisation of daily life in dwellings related by their occupying households, or to sub-groups of these. Experimental social psychology and ethnoarchaeological data provide a basic syntax for human spatial behaviour in dwellings. The present paper makes use of this in outlining and discussing a framework for the interpretation of the
spatial organisation of archaeological dwellings, on the basis of repeated organisational patterns observed in excavated dwellings, drawing further on the analysis of recent ethnographic contexts
and existing experimental social-psychological data about humans’ non-verbal interaction in space. This paper deliberately engages with a very broad chronological and cultural range of
domestic buildings, in order to make the best use of the detailed recording of prehistoric, as well as historic material.

This paper discusses the cultivation, harvesting and consumption of
anchote and examines the social and environmental factors that
frame the practice. Anchote, an indigenous tuber crop propagated
by seed, is primarily cultivated for its edible tubers. In addition to
forming part of the dietary staple of the Wallaga Oromo, the tuber
is central to the culture and identity of the people. The tuber is
anthropomorphized and often referred to as a relative of fertile
women. Indeed, the tuber, women and pottery form a nexus of
metaphorical meaning integral to Oromo cosmology. Moreover,
cultivation of the tuber is framed by the daily interaction between
farmers. The perceived agency of farmland is key to
understanding how the Wallaga Oromo struggle to retain, modify
or alter anchote culture in a swiftly changing world. Anchote is
steamed in a clay pot and its processing results in formation of
diagnostic use-alteration. This use-alteration may help to envisage
antiquity of tuber production and consumption in the Wallaga
region of the southwestern Ethiopian highlands.

Zusammenfassung: Von 2007 bis 2016 untersuchte ein interdisziplinäres Projekt im Unterengadin (Graubünden, Schweiz) die alpine Weidewirtschaft. Im Fimbertal/Val Fenga wurden in über 2000 m Höhe spätbronzezeitliche bzw. hallstattzeitliche Baustrukturen entdeckt, die in Verbindung mit zeitgleichen Talsiedlungen um Ramosch als Nachweis für eigentliche Alpwirtschaft in prähistori-scher Zeit interpretiert werden. Um diese idealtypische Kombination eines gestuften Tal-Alp-Systems und die gesamtwirtschaftliche Bedeutung der Viehwirtschaft besser zu verstehen, wurde eine GIS-gestützte Szenario-evaluation der prähistorischen Landschaftsnutzung ausgeführt. Da zur Größe und Struktur der Siedlungen keine ausreichenden Daten vorhanden sind, wurde eine theoretische Berechnung der maximalen Bevölkerungs- bzw. Vieh-/Herdenzahl angestrebt. Die Basis dazu bildet ein komplexes Subsistenzmodell, das aus der archäologischen, physiologischen und landwirtschaftlichen Fachliteratur ausgearbeitet wurde und den Flächenbedarf von Ackerbau und Viehzucht berücksichtigt. Anhand separat modellierter landwirtschaftlicher Nutzungsflächen im Einzugsgebiet (site catchment) der jeweiligen Siedlung lässt sich so die maximale Tragkraft (carrying capacity) bzw. Bevölkerungszahl ermitteln. Die alpine Topografie wird dabei als landwirtschaftlich stark limitierender Faktor betrachtet, sodass eine wachsende Siedlung bzw. Bevölkerung dazu gezwungen wäre, das Vieh im Sommer auf weiter entfernte Hochweiden auszulagern. Aus den Modellen kann allerdings kein ökonomischer oder ökologischer Druck als primärer Grund für die Ausformung der Alpwirtschaft belegt werden. Es wäre in den Talsiedlungen möglich, Ackerbau und Viehwirtschaft für bis zu 200 Personen ganzjährig in unmittelbarer Siedlungsnähe zu bewerkstelligen. Die saisonale vertikale Mobilität muss daher aus anderen Gründen eingeführt worden sein, möglicherweise für die strategische Mehrproduktion landwirtschaftlicher Erzeugnisse für den inner- und transalpinen Gütertausch.

Schlüsselworte: Alpen; Landschaftsarchäologie; Vieh-wirtschaft; Alpwirtschaft; Subsistenzmodell; GIS; Tragfä-higkeit; Mehrproduktion; Bronzezeit; Eisenzeit.

Abstract: Between 2007 and 2016 an interdisciplinary project explored the Alpine pastoral economy in the Lower Engadine region (Grisons, Switzerland). Late Bronze Age or Hallstatt-period structures were discov-ered at 2000  m a.s.  l. in the Fimbertal/Val Fenga valley and were, in association with contemporary settlements in the valley around Ramosch, interpreted as evidence of an actual Alpine pastoral economy in prehistoric times. To gain a better understanding of such an ideal combination of a tiered Alp-valley system on one hand and the overall economic significance of livestock farming on the other, a GIS-based scenario evaluation of prehistoric land use was carried out. Since the data available on the size and structure of the settlement is not sufficiently large, the aim was to achieve a theoretical calculation of the maximum number of people and livestock. This calculation was based on a complex subsistence model which was devel-oped from archaeological, physiological and agricul-tural specialist literature and took into account the area required for crop cultivation and animal husbandry. Based on separately modelled areas of farmland within each site catchment, this allowed us to calculate the maximum car-rying capacity or population sizes. The Alpine topography was seen as a severely limiting factor with regard to agri-cultural output, which would mean that an expanding settlement or population group would be forced to move their livestock to higher pastures further afield during the summer months. The models, however, have not allowed us to state that economic or ecological pressure was the primary reason for the evolution of an Alpine pastoral economy. It would have been possible by means of crop cultivation and animal husbandry to sustain a population of up to 200 people living in or around each valley set-tlement all year round. Seasonal vertical mobility must therefore have been established for other reasons, possi-bly in order to increase the output of agricultural produce for exchange within and beyond the Alpine region.

Keywords: Alps; landscape archaeology; livestock farming; pastoral economy; subsistence model; GIS; car-rying capacity; produce of exchange; Bronze Age; Iron Age.

Résumé: De 2007 à 2016, un projet interdisciplinaire pour la Basse Engadine (canton des Grisons, Suisse) s’est consacré à l’économie pastorale en milieu alpin. A plus de 2000  m d’altitude, dans la vallée du Fimber/Val Fenga, on a découvert des structures d’habitat datant du Bronze final et de l’époque de Hallstatt. Elles peuvent être corré-lées avec certaines occupations contemporaines de fond de vallée s’articulant autour de Ramosch, et témoignent d’une véritable économie alpestre à l’époque préhisto-rique. Pour mieux comprendre un système qui correspond à une combinaison idéale entre vallée et alpages, de même que pour cerner l’importance économique de l’élevage, on a effectué une évaluation de différents scénarios d’ex-ploitation du paysage à l’époque préhistorique, basée sur les SIG. Comme on ne dispose pas de données suffisantes concernant les dimensions et la structuration des habi-tats, on a procédé au calcul de la population théorique maximale, répétant l’exercice pour le nombre d’animaux ou de troupeaux. A cette fin, on a eu recours à un modèle de subsistance complexe, mis en place grâce aux données fournies par la littérature spécialisée et tenant compte de données archéologiques, physiologiques et agricoles, sans oublier les surfaces nécessaires à l’agriculture et à l’élevage. Sur la base des zones d’exploitation agricole régionales, modélisées individuellement (site catchment) pour chacun des sites, on peut établir quels étaient la charge maximale (carrying capacity) et le nombre d’habi-tants. Dans ce modèle, la topographie du milieu alpin est considérée comme un facteur particulièrement contrai-gnant pour l’agriculture, impliquant que la croissance d’un village ou de sa population devait déboucher sur le déplacement du bétail durant l’été vers des pâturages d’al-titude éloignés. Ces modèles ne permettent toutefois pas d’établir la présence d’une pression économique ou écolo-gique qui aurait été la cause majeure de la mise en place d’une économie alpestre. Dans les habitats de vallée, il était possible de subvenir, grâce à l’agriculture et à l’éle-vage, aux besoins d’une communauté comptant jusqu’à 200 personnes, durant toute l’année et à proximité immé-diate des villages. La mobilité saisonnière, avec des dépla-cements en altitude, relève donc d’autres intentions, peut-être une surproduction stratégique de produits agricoles, destinée à l’échange de biens intra-alpin et transalpin.

Mots-clés: Alpes; archéologie du paysage; économie agro-pastorale; exploitation des alpages; modèle de sub-sistance; SIG; carrying capacity; surproduction; âge du Bronze; âge du Fer.

Ce projet de recherche propose d'étudier les stratégies d'adaptation en milieu fragile (désert, steppe) au travers des « desert kites », de grandes constructions faites d’alignements de pierres convergeant vers un enclos (fig. 1). Longtemps considérés comme des pièges de chasse, les kites pourraient aussi avoir servi à la domestication animale. Dans un contexte archéologique large, où les kites semblent avoir été utilisés du Néolithique aux époques subactuelles, nous proposons une approche interdisciplinaire à la croisée de l’anthropologie (archéologie et ethnologie), de la géomatique et des sciences géoarchéologiques et bioarchéologiques.
Le projet couvre un domaine géographique important, qui s’étend du Caucase et de l’Asie Centrale au sud de la péninsule Arabique (Échallier & Braemer, 1995). Un premier inventaire bibliographique et des observations préliminaires d’images satellitaires ont révélé l’existence de plus de 1300 structures, dont 61 % connues et 39 % inédites (fig. 2). Ces découvertes récentes soulignent le potentiel tout à fait exceptionnel du projet : l'étude des kites à travers le temps et l'espace permettra de définir les stratégies d'exploitation des ressources animales en milieux bio-climatiques à fortes contraintes et d'analyser leurs conséquences, directes ou indirectes, sur le milieu.

Che cosa portare con sé in un viaggio della speranza verso l’Europa? Se lo chiede l’antropologo Luca Pisoni, quando decide di vivere un anno con i migranti di passaggio al Brennero e quelli residenti in un centro di accoglienza di Trento. Un viaggio tra bibbie, corani, amuleti vudù, mazze da cricket e magliette da calcio. Su tutto, però, domina la figura dello smartphone, dentro al quale sono custoditi i più intimi e privati ricordi e fotografie. Come in una sorta di archeologia del presente, Il bagaglio intimo, corredato da un’ampia documentazione fotografica, restituisce l’essenza degli oggetti, che sono in grado di consolare la nostalgia di casa e fanno reagire alle dure circostanze del viaggio.

Plaitworks are fundamental in basic activities among Amerindian peoples, such as transporting and food processing. They also occupy a prominent position in their ontology, expressing and turning active aesthetic precepts and worldviews. These objects offer excellent opportunities for studies on the multiple relationships between humans and the material world, such as artifact variability, technology, corporeality, as well as others possibilities. Even so, they are understudied by Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology. This small research investment is perhaps due to the low potential for preservation of these materials in the archaeological record, which leads to a lack of knowledge and dissemination on the different possibilities of plaitworks studies, both from empirical and theoretical points of view. Plaitworks are perishable, however, they persist in Amerindians’ life,  entangled with others technologies. If Archaeology serves to understand the relationship of Amerindian peoples and the material world holistically, then it is also necessary to include these artifacts in the Archaeology agenda. This paper, therefore, aims to highlight the research potential that plaitworks provide for ethnoarchaeological approach. Some inquiry possibilities are indicated by previous studies, and through my ongoing doctoral research.