Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:22:18.900Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Interactions of Care and Control: Human–animal Relationships in Hunter-gatherer Communities in Near-contemporary Eastern Siberia and the Mesolithic of Northwest Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2019

Maja Pasarić  and
Graeme Warren
Maja Pasarić
Affiliation:
UCD School of Archaeology, Newman Building, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland & Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Šubićeva 42, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia Email: [email protected]
Graeme Warren
Affiliation:
UCD School of Archaeology, Newman Building, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This contribution explores modes of human–animal interactions in hunter-gatherer communities in near-contemporary eastern Siberia and the Mesolithic of northwest Europe. By discussing notions of care and control and drawing on syntheses of Russian-language ethnographic data from eastern Siberia, this paper explores the diversity and nuances of hunter-gatherers’ interactions with animals. While some contexts may reveal respectful yet diverse treatments of the hunted animals, others suggest that hunter-gatherers also might have interacted with animals kept as pets, captives or companions, thus implicating relations in which notions of care and control seem to be tightly bound.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 465 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abram, D., 2010. Becoming animal: an earthly cosmology. New York/Toronto: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Amkreutz, L. & Corbey, R., 2008. An eagle-eyed perspective: Haliaeetus albicilla in the Mesolithic and Neolithic of the Lower Rhine area, in Between Foraging and Farming, eds. Fokkens, H., Coles, B.J., Van Gijn, A.I., Kleijne, J.P. & Ponjee., H.H. (Analecta Praehistorica Leidensis 40.) Leiden: Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, 167–80.Google Scholar
Argent, G., 2016. Killing (constructed) horses – interspecies elders, empathy and emotion, and the Pazyryk horse sacrifices, in People with Animals: Perspectives & studies in ethnozooarchaeology, ed. Broderick., L.G. Oxford/Philadelphia: Oxbow, 19–32.Google Scholar
Armstrong Oma, K., 2010. Between trust and domination: social contracts between humans and animals. World Archaeology 42(2), 175–87.Google Scholar
Baranova, V.V., Bereznitskii, S.V., Gontmaher, P.Y., et al. , 2008. Istoriya i kul'tura Nivhov: istoriko-etnograficheskie ocherki. St Petersburg: Nauka.Google Scholar
Bereznitskii, S.V., Gaer, E.A., Karabanova, S.F., et al. , 2003. Istoriya i kul'tura Nanaitsev: istoriko-etnograficheskie ocherki. St Petersburg: Nauka.Google Scholar
Bereznitskii, S.V., 2003. Etnicheskie komponenty verovanii i ritualov korenyh narodov Amuro-Sahalinskogo regiona. Vladivostok: Dal'nauka.Google Scholar
Bird-David, N., 1990. The giving environment: another perspective on the economic system of gatherer-hunters. Current Anthropology 31(2), 189–96.Google Scholar
Bird-David, N., 2017. Us, Relatives: Scaling and plural life in a forager world. Oakland (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Brightman, R., 1993. Grateful Prey: Rock Cree human-animal relationships. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Brown, L.A. & Walker, W.H., 2008. Prologue: archaeology, animism and non-human agents. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15(4), 279–99.Google Scholar
Bulmer, R., 1976. Selectivity in hunting and in disposal of animal bone by the Kalam of the New Guinea Highlands, in Problems in Economic and Social Archaeology, eds. Sieveking, G.d.G., Longworth, I.H. & Wilson., K.E. London: Duckworth, 169–86.Google Scholar
Campbell, B., 2005. On ‘loving your water-buffalo more than your own mother’: relationships of animal and human care in Nepal, in Animals in Person: Cultural perspectives on human–animal intimacy, ed. Knight, J.. Oxford/New York: Berg, 79–100.Google Scholar
Cannon, A., 2011. Introduction, in Structured Worlds: The archaeology of hunter-gatherer thought and action, ed. Cannon., A. Sheffield/Oakville: Equinox, 1–11.Google Scholar
Chaix, L., Bridault, A. & Picavet, R., 1997. A tamed brown bear (Ursus arctos L.) of the late Mesolithic from La Grande-Rivoire (Isère, France)? Journal of Archaeological Science 24(12), 1067–74.Google Scholar
Chatterton, R., 2006. Ritual, in Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches, eds. Conneller, C. & Warren., G.M. Stroud: Tempus, 101–20.Google Scholar
Conneller, C., 2004. Becoming deer. Archaeological Dialogues 11, 37–56.Google Scholar
Conneller, C., 2011. An Archaeology of Materials: Substantial transformations in early prehistoric Europe. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cross, P.J., 2018. Where have all the mares gone? sex and ‘gender’ related pathology in archaeological horses: clues to horse husbandry and use practices, in Care or Neglect? Evidence of animal disease in archaeology, eds. Bartosiewicz, L. & Gal., E. Oxford/Philadelphia: Oxbow, 155–75.Google Scholar
Cummings, V. & Harris, O., 2011. Animals, people and places: the continuity of hunting and gathering practices across the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Britain. European Journal of Archaeology 14(3), 361–82.Google Scholar
Darton, Y. & Rodet-Belarbi, I., 2018. Damage caused by permanent fetters in present-day sheep on the island of Delos (Greece), in Care or Neglect? Evidence of animal disease in archaeology, eds. Bartosiewicz, L. & Gal., E. Oxford/Philadelphia: Oxbow, 240–46.Google Scholar
David, N. & Kramer, C., 2001. Ethnoarchaeology in Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Descola, P., 1994. In the Society of Nature: A native ecology in Amazonia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dwyer, P.D. & Minnegal, M., 2005. Person, place or pig: animal attachments and human transactions in New Guinea, in Animals in Person: Cultural perspectives on human–animal intimacy, ed. Knight, J.. Oxford/New York: Berg, 37–60.Google Scholar
Frantz, L.A.F., Mullin, V.E., Pionnier-Capitan, M., et al. , 2016. Genomic and archaeological evidence suggest a dual origin of domestic dogs. Science 352, 1228–31.Google Scholar
Foucault, M., 1979. Discipline and Punish. The birth of the prison. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Fuglestvedt, I., 2011. Humans, material culture and landscape: outline to an understanding of developments in worldviews on the Scandinavian Peninsula, ca. 10,000–4500 BP, in Structured Worlds: The archaeology of hunter-gatherer thought and action, ed. Cannon., A. Sheffield/Oakville: Equinox, 32–53.Google Scholar
Germonpré, M. & Hämäläinen, R., 2007. Fossil bear bones in the Belgian Upper Paleolithic: the possibility of a proto bear-ceremonialism. Arctic Anthropology 44, 1–30.Google Scholar
Hamington, M., 2004. Embodied Care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleu-Ponty, and feminist ethics. Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Haraway, D., 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto. Dogs, people, and significant otherness. Chicago (IL): Prickly Paradigm Press.Google Scholar
Haraway, D., 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Harris, D., 1985. Good to Eat: Riddles of food and culture. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Hill, E., 2013. Archaeology and animal persons: toward a prehistory of human-animal relations. Environment and Society: Advances in Research 4, 117–36.Google Scholar
Ingold, T., 1987. Hunting, sacrifice and the domestication of animals, in The Appropriation of Nature: Essays on human ecology and social relations, by Ingold., T. Iowa City (IA): University of Iowa Press, 243–76.Google Scholar
Ingold, T., 1994. From trust to domination: an alternative history of human-animal relations, in Animals and Human Society: Changing perspectives, eds. Manning, A. & Serpell., J.A. London: Routledge, 1–22.Google Scholar
Ingold, T., 2000. From trust to domination: an alternative history of human-animal relations, in The Perception of the Environment: Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. New York (NY): Routledge, 61–76.Google Scholar
Ivashenko, L.Y., Kile, N.B., Smolyak, A.F., et al. , 1994. Istorya i kul'tura Ul'cheii v XVII–XX vv: istoriko etnograficheskie ocherki. St Petersburg: Nauka.Google Scholar
Jessen, A.C., Buck Pedersen, K., Christensen, C., Olsen, J., Fisher Mortensen, M. & Møller Hansen, K., 2015. Early Maglemosian culture in the Preboreal landscape: archaeology and vegetation from the earliest Mesolithic site in Denmark at Lundby Mose, Sjælland. Quaternary International 378, 73–87.Google Scholar
Jordan, P., 2003a. Material Culture and Sacred Landscape: The anthropology of the Siberian Khanty. London: Altamira.Google Scholar
Jordan, P., 2003b. Investigating post-glacial hunter-gatherer landscape enculturation: ethnographic analogy and interpretative methodologies, in Mesolithic on the Move: Papers presented at the sixth international conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, Stockholm 2000, eds. Larsson, L., Kindgren, H., Knutsson, K., Loeffler, D. & Åkerlund, A.. Oxford: Oxbow, 128–38.Google Scholar
Jordan, P., 2011. Landscape and culture in northern Eurasia: an introduction, in Landscape and Culture in Northern Eurasia, ed. Jordan., P. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press, 19–45.Google Scholar
Knight, J., 2005. Introduction, in Animals in Person: Cultural perspectives on human-animal intimacy, ed. Knight., J. Oxford/New York: Berg, 1–13.Google Scholar
Knight, J., 2012. The anonymity of the hunt: a critique of hunting as sharing. Current Anthropology 53(3), 334–55.Google Scholar
Kreinovich, E.A., 1935. Ohota na beluhu u Gilyakov derevni Puir. Sovetskaya Etnografiya 5, 108–15.Google Scholar
Larsson, L., 1989. Late Mesolithic settlements and cemeteries at Skateholm, southern Sweden, in The Mesolithic in Europe: Papers presented at the third international symposium, Edinburgh 1985, ed. Bonsall., C. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 367–78.Google Scholar
Larsson, L., 1990. Dogs in fraction: symbols in action, in Contributions to the Mesolithic in Europe, eds. Vermeersch, P. & Van Peer., P. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 153–60.Google Scholar
Larsson, L., 2013. Tooth-beads, antlers, nuts and fishes: examples of social bioarchaeology. Archaeological Dialogues 20, 148–52.Google Scholar
Leduc, C. & Verjux, C., 2014. Mesolithic occupation patterns at Auneau ‘Le Parc du Château’ (Eure-et-Loire, France): contribution of zooarchaeological analysis from two main pits to the understanding of type and length of occupation. Journal of Archaeological Science 47, 39–52.Google Scholar
Legge, A. & Rowley-Conwy, P., 1988. Starr Carr Revisited. London: Birkbeck College.Google Scholar
Loovers, J.P.L., 2015. Dog-craft. Hunter Gatherer Research 1, 387–419.Google Scholar
Lyon, D., 2009. Surveillance, power, and everyday life, in The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies, eds. Avgerou, C., Mansell, R., Quah, D. & Silverstone, R.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 449–72.Google Scholar
Lyublyanovics, K., 2018. Pelvic fracture in a horse: a late medieval case from Karcag-Orgondaszentmiklós, eastern Hungary, in Care or Neglect? Evidence of animal disease in archaeology, eds. Bartosiewicz, L. & Gal., E. Oxford/Philadelphia: Oxbow, 176–84.Google Scholar
Marciniak, A. & Pollard, J., 2015. Animals and social relations, in The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe, eds. Fowler, C., Harding, J. & Hofman., D. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 745–59.Google Scholar
Noe-Nygaard, N., 1975. Two shoulder blades with healed lesions from Starr Carr. Proceeding of the Prehistoric Society 41, 10–16.Google Scholar
Ostrovskii, A.B., 1997. Mifologiya i verovaniya Nivhov. St Petersburg: Peterburgskoe Vostokovednie.Google Scholar
Overton, N.J., 2016. More than skin deep: reconsidering isolated remains of ‘fur-bearing species’ in the British and European Mesolithic. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 26(4), 561–78.Google Scholar
Overton, N.J. & Hamilakis, Y., 2013. A manifesto for a social zooarchaeology. Swans and other beings in the Mesolithic. Archaeological Dialogues 20(02), 111–36.Google Scholar
Powell, L., Southwell-Wright, W. & Gowland, R. (eds.), 2016. Care in the Past: Archaeological and interdisciplinary perspectives. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Puig de la Bellacasa, M., 2012. ‘Nothing comes without its world’: thinking with care. The Sociological Review 60(2), 197–215.Google Scholar
Rathbone, S., 2017. Anarchist literature and the development of anarchist counter-archaeologies. World Archaeology. DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2017.1333921Google Scholar
Robb, J. & Miracle, P., 2007. Beyond ‘migration’ versus ‘acculturation’: new models for the spread of agriculture, in Going Over: The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in north-west Europe, eds. Whittle, A. & Cummings., V. (Proceedings of the British Academy 144.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 99–155.Google Scholar
Russell, N., 2012. Social Zooarchaeology: Humans and animals in prehistory. New York (NY): Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Serpell, J.A., 1986. In the Company of Animals: A study of human-animal relationships. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Shnirelman, V.A., 1999. Introduction. North Eurasia, in Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, eds. Lee, R.B. & Heywood Daly, R.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 119–26.Google Scholar
Startsev, A.F., 2005. Kul'tura i byt Udegeitsev (vtoraya polovina XIX–XX v.). Vladivostok: Dal'nauka.Google Scholar
Tanner, A., 1979. Bringing Home Animals: Religious ideology and mode of production of the Mistassini Cree hunters. New York (NY): St Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Theodossopoulos, D., 2005. Care, order and usefulness: the context of the human-animal relationship in a Greek island community, in Animals in Person: Cultural perspectives on human–animal intimacy, ed. Knight., J. Oxford/New York: Berg, 15–35.Google Scholar
Thomas, R., 2016. Towards zooarchaeology of animal care, in Care in the Past: Archaeological and interdisciplinary perspectives, eds. Powell, L., Southwell-Wright, W. & Gowland., R. Oxford: Oxbow, 169–88.Google Scholar
Tilley, L. & Schrenk, A.A. (ed.), 2017. New Developments in the Bioarchaeology of Care: Further case studies and expanded theory. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Tresset, A., 2015. Moving animals and plants in the early Neolithic of north-western Europe, in The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe, eds. Fowler, C., Harding, J. & Hofman, D.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 121–31.Google Scholar
Vang Petersen, P. 2013. Mesolithic dogs, in Hunting in Northern Europe until 1500 AD. Old traditions and regional developments, continental sources and continental influences, eds. Grimm, O. & Schmölcke., U. Neumünster: Wachholtz, 147–61.Google Scholar
Warren, G.M., 2018. From moments to histories: a social archaeology of the Mesolithic? Journal of World Prehistory 31, 421–33.Google Scholar
Warren, G.M., Davis, S., McClatchie, M. & Sands, R., 2014. The potential role of humans in structuring the wooded landscapes of Mesolithic Ireland: a review of data and discussion of approaches. Journal of Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 22(5), 629–46.Google Scholar
Willerslev, R., 2007. Soul Hunters: Hunting, animism and personhood among the Siberian Yukhagirs. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M., 1997. Hunter-gatherer ritual landscapes: spatial organisation, social structure and ideology among hunter-gatherers of northern Europe and western Siberia, in Ideology and Social Structure of Hunting, Gathering and Farming Communities in Stone Age Europe, eds. Gijn, A.V. & Zvelebil, M.. (Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 29.) Leiden: Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, 33–50.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M., 2003. People behind the lithics. Social life and social conditions of Mesolithic communities in temperate Europe, in Peopling the Mesolithic in a Northern Environment, eds. Bevan, L. & Moore, J.. (BAR International series S1157.) Oxford: Archaeopress, 1–27.Google Scholar