STRUCTURED WORLDS: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF HUNTERGATHERER THOUGHT AND ACTION Eds A. Cannon
Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2011. 288 pp, 31 figures (BW), 18 tables, ISBN
9781845530808, hb, £75
Aubrey Cannon’s edited volume of papers Structured Worlds: The Archaeology of HunterGatherer Thought and Action aims to shift the focus of hunter-gatherer archaeology away
from evolutionary ecology, ‘Neo-Darwinian’ approaches (p. 2) and social complexity,
towards an understanding of histories and variability. The origin of the book lies in a session
at the 69th Annual Meeting for Society of American Archaeology, Montreal, Canada 2004.
Following this, three extra papers were invited. A long delay in final publication has taken
place, and this is reflected in the bibliographies of individual contributions, which in many
cases, do not extend past 2004. The delay is rather unfortunate, as the volume as a whole
feels slightly less new and challenging than it might have done. Recent work on similar
themes includes the excellent Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology as Historical Process (Sassaman
& Holly 2011). I must also point out the striking similarities between McFadyen’s paper here,
and that published in 2006 (McFadyen 2006) in a book that I co-edited. Nevertheless, there is
much to commend in Structured Worlds, which raises interesting possibilities for analysis.
The ten substantial contributions range widely in approach and geographical focus, from
ethnoarchaeological discussions of the Siberian Khanty (Peter Jordan) to Jomon figurines
(Naoko Matsumoto) and late Mesolithic flint scatters in southern Britain (Lesley McFadyen).
Cannon argues that as the volume attempts to scale the ladder of inference from issues of
subsistence and technology, the resulting archaeological analyses involve more and more
evidence of different kinds. The papers are described by Cannon as practice-based and
phenomenological (p. 2-3), and by a commitment to a holistic approach (p .4), later, and
following McFadyen’s discussion, this holistic commitment is described as involving a focus
on the “ "architecture" of relationships rather than the elements themselves" (p. 204). I’m not
entirely convinced how much of this is ‘phenomenological’, at least in the sense normally
understood in landscape archaeology (e.g. Tilley 1994), but practice is heavily emphasised. In
truth, there is considerable methodological and theoretical variability in the papers, and it is
important to note that a commitment to historical and agent centred analysis does not
presuppose any particular theoretical or methodological approach.
This is made clear in discussions of analogy, which features heavily in most of the papers.
Peter Jordan’s paper draws on the ethnoarchaeological study of the Khanty which he reported
so well in Material Culture and Sacred Landscape (Jordan 2003). Here Jordan demonstrates
the absence of ethnoarchaeological work that has attempted to examine how belief systems
have material signatures amongst hunting and gathering societies – including the basic
question of whether these leave material traces. He convincingly demonstrates that Khanty
worldviews lead to very deliberate patterns of activities across the landscape with material
signatures. These include long term continuities and short term variations. Most importantly
Jordan shows that belief is not a separate aspect of practice – but integrated into subsistence
and all other aspects of life. It is therefore manifest materially throughout different spheres of
practice, for example in the ways in which different animal remains are deposited in different
parts of the landscape. He concludes that "...hunter-gatherer worldviews do appear to be
expressed via readily available archaeological evidence, more commonly the subject of
subsistence and technological interpretation. This study suggests that with the right kinds of
models we might start to gain greater access to cultural conceptions through re-examination
of commonly occurring lines of available archaeological evidence, including artefacts, animal
bones, topographic features and "settlement" patterns." (p. 29).
In methodological contrast, Knuttson’s use of analogy involves compiling a worldwide
sample of mobile and settled communities, and draws out defining characteristics of both in
order to consider the Mesoltihic-Neolithic transition in Northern Europe in terms of
inequality and how it changes over time. This use of ethnographic examples is founded on
her understanding of the centrality of “the use of analogy and the assumption of certain
cultural regularities” (p. 144). In a separate paper Matsumoto also highlights the significance
of “universal human cognition” (p. 168), but does so in order to demonstrate the “uniqueness
of Jomon worldviews” and how attitudes to figurines may change over time.
Several other papers focus on issues of change and stasis and present challenges to dominant
approaches to hunter-gatherers which regard them as effecting little change over time. An
extension of this argument is that hunter-gatherers have little history, and that they are
defined by their ecological relationships, rather than having the historical agency that allows
them to ‘step out’ of nature and effect change (see Ingold 2000). In several case studies in
this volume, a lack of change over time is reclaimed as evidence of agency. Cannon, for
example, examines the long term history of the site of Namu, British Columbia. By 5000 BC
this site was a sedentary village based on long term storage and exploitation of salmon and
herring. But it is not until c 500 BC that any other sites appear in the immediate region.
Cannon argues that the absence of other sites is not a product of taphonomy or research bias,
but a reflection of reality, and he explores possible reasons why settlement did not expand.
He suggests that "perceptions of appropriate living standards, which reinforced beliefs
concerning the role of ancestral supernatural encounters in establishing a sustaining
relationship with the natural and supernatural worlds" (p. 54) acted as a limiting factor on
potential expansion of population and therefore settlement. The village of Namu was
perceived by its inhabitants as a site of ritual permanence as well as residential permanence
and "with the ritual/resource cycle so powerfully located at one particular place, it would be
difficult to transfer residence to new locations without the sanction of comparable power" (p.
61). As such, the absence of change over time, and the failure to expand is recast as a result
of an active history of limiting population expansion, by choosing to remain in one place, and
living in a certain way – in the face of wide scale environmental and other changes. The shift
in settlement at c 500 cal BC is associated with the rise of investment of labour in fish traps,
which are argued to be the first real investments in increasing productivity. Cannon argues
that "(a) shift in worldview is evident in the transition from hunter-fisher-gatherers that take
resources as they are provided, with or without the necessity of supernatural intercession, to
producers that actively transform the landscape in lasting ways to enhance resource
production and harvest. I suggest this can only happen with some loss of the primacy of
belief in a supernatural origin of food. Together with an acceptance of increased labour input
and waning living standards, shifts in belief that allow for greater human control over the
natural world also establish the conditions for further population growth and settlement
expansion." (p. 64)
Ingrid Fuglestvedt suggests something similar in discussing the pioneer colonisation of
Northern Europe. She argues that reindeer were vital to the spiritual life of Ahrensburgian
communities, ‘reindeer people’, in her terminology. This animic relationship provided
stability in a world of significant landscape flux. The colonisation of Norway was undertaken
by these reindeer people: "(i)n order to maintain their reindeer relation of give and take, and
thereby their common life generative abilities, they were seeking out their co-inhabitants by
moving to these undiscovered worlds" (p42). In contrast to Cannon’s study, here the attempt
to maintain such a relationship leads to change.
Landscapes feature heavily in these papers. Brooke Milne’s discussion of ‘Landscape
Learning and Lithic Technology’ argues that early Palaeo-Eskimo worldviews on Baffin
Island were mediated through routine practices and place. The endurance, over time, of forms
of lithics is therefore seen to be a successful reproduction of wider bodies of knowledge and
practice. Gerald and Joy Oetelaar show how landscape and narrative were entwined among
the Niitsitapi of the Northern Plains. Again, the emphasis is on the holistic, the connections
between practices, the impossibility of separating simple subsistence from broader meaning
and historical practice, so that "movement over the landscape becomes a ritual pilgrimage
designed to renew ties with the spirits, the ancestors and living communities as well as ensure
the regeneration of the resources and the land for future generations…travel across the
landscape is much more than an annual pilgrimage; it is a spirtual, social and educational
journey through the archive of the group.” (p. 70). Lesley McFadyen’s paper is also about
landscapes, and in particular about how we can use the specific nature of archaeological
materials to understand how the connections between places and objects enabled things to
have meanings. Landscapes have been a significant focus of interest in hunter-gatherer
archaeology for some time now, and these papers, although interesting, are not unfamiliar.
Both papers on the Jomon show the benefit of good chronology in understanding histories.
Matsumoto’s account of Jomon female figurines, and Kaner’s discussion of shifting
residences both demonstrated dynamic histories and flux. Matsumoto shows that the role of
figurines changes over time, and this may be connected to the role of females and female
descent. Kaner argues that the dominant narratives of cultural ecology and complexity : "...
has not addressed how we can interpret the specific remains of Jomon settlements in terms of
the social processes embodied in the production, reproduction and transformation of Jomon
built space" (p. 201). In contrast, he suggests that the specific dynamics of residential shift
practices - moving and rebuilding dwellings - were key to social reproduction and that over
time this faced increasing constraints as the landscape filled up. In both papers the
comparatively high temporal resolution allows the construction of histories. All too often our
chronologies for hunter-gatherer contexts in Britain are crude, and the implications for our
narratives are profound. If the Jomon papers show change over time, Janik’s review of food
preferences amongst hunter-gatherers of the Baltic, shows variation across space; arguing that
we should be more sensitive to small scale cultural variation rather than lumping past
communities together into homogenous analytical units.
The papers in this volume offer an image of an archaeology of hunter-gatherers that allows us
to understand variation and complexity (rather than complex hunter-gatherers) and to
consider change over time and space: histories, set in landscapes. Some of the common
themes provide inspiration for considering more familiar data sets. Throughout the papers the
emphasis on the inter-connected nature of hunter-gatherer worlds reminds us that our
analyses must be holistic, and that crude reductionism is problematic. To return to Jordan’s
ethnographies, for example, it is clear that without attempting to understand the role of world
view in structuring the material actions of the Khanty, any archaeological analyses of the
remains of these activities might be misleading. The significance of hunter-gatherer
worldviews in shaping their archaeology cannot be an optional extra in our analyses, but has
to be the first set of questions we ask of our data.
References
Ingold, T. 2000. The perception of the environment: essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill.
London: Routledge
Jordan, P, 2003. Material Culture and Sacred Landscape: the anthropology of the Siberian
Khanty. London: Alta Mira
McFadyen, L, 2006. Landscape, in C. Conneller and G. M. Warren (eds). Mesolithic Britain
and Ireland: new approaches, 121-138. Stroud: Tempus
Sassaman, K. E., and D. H. Holly, (eds). 2011. Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology as Historical
Process. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press
Tilley, C, 1994. A phenomenology of landscape. Oxford: Berg
Dr Graeme Warren
University College Dublin
April 2012
“The reviews expressed in this review are not necessarily those of the Society or the Reviews
Editor”