The archaeology and ethnography of human-animal social relationships

Over the past several decades, the anthropocentric lens through which domestication has been seen as entirely human-directed has shifted to a more ecocentric view “where domestication appears as a relation between two species” ( Noske 1997 :10; see also Boyd 2017). As this volume brings into perspective, definitions of domestication as a process wherein human subjects act upon animal objects have broadened to allow for the notion of coevolution and reciprocal adaptations between and among humans, co-domesticates and the habitats they share. We now recognize that nonhuman animals (hereafter: animals) possess agential qualities that influence humans, and that the process of domestication for any given species can neither be considered as a static point in time, nor as a fixed set of characteristics. This significant paradigm shift allows for – indeed, necessitates – a reassessment of prior interpretations which have assumed interspecies relations as unidirectional. In what follows, I suggest that for one such human-horse configuration, the Iron Age Pazyryk archaeological culture, influence between the species was bi-directional and that horses influenced not only human social structures, but also political ethos – that humans mimicked horses’ ways of being.

This preliminary study deals with the figurative imagery of the European Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age found on mostly bronze artefacts. Spread over multiple regions and several centuries, this ornamentation proves to be almost exclusively zoomorphic. A level of idiosyncrasy is evident, but on the other hand some large-scale patterns emerge which are surprisingly persistent. Certain animals, most notably birds, are portrayed numerous times in hundreds of variations in every European region so far surveyed; the seeming popularity of certain animals can even be seen incorporated into various localised traditions, apparently expressed as a taste for fantastical looking beings, in the case of southern Scandinavia. These similarities in ornamentation likely mirrored different types of networks between European Bronze Age societies which were maintained via different routes and communicatory means, however the clear preference for certain animals must be significant as well. Were they bearers of some symbolic meaning that somehow transgressed territories and cultural traditions or was merely the image copied without any meaning attributed to it? A cognitive perspective might offer some suggestions as to why certain animals were seemingly favoured by the human mind - a perspective relevant for human-animal relations of the Bronze Age and beyond.

Multiple recent studies have highlighted the highly globalized nature of Scandinavian Bronze Age society, however at the same time strong localized traditions appear to be in place. The southern Scandinavian iconography on Late Bronze Age objects provides interesting perspectives on this seeming juxtaposition, as it adopts and draws on imagery that is shared across large distances throughout Europe. In this presentation, I will discuss how aspects of this pan-European imagery are reworked and reimagined within an apparent localized southern Scandinavian tradition, creating a very characteristic style involving hybridized creatures, abstract representations and seemingly mythical scenarios. I further explore how this zoomorphic imagery may have materialized aspects of animistic beliefs that entangled with large-scale European narratives. The iconography on these Nordic Bronze Age artefacts thus likely reflects a complex relationship between myth and world view within Scandinavian Bronze Age society, influenced by new means of travel, transportation and contact.

Nei 17 capitoli scritti da 15 autori di diversi paesi del Mediterraneo si descrive l'insieme dei disastri sanitari-ambientali ed economici che si riproducono in quest'area del mondo da secoli e ancor di più da dopo il 1945. Si tratta di crimini contro l'umanità di cui sono responsabili le grandi lobby e multinazionali, i poco più di 2000 miliardi e i circa 100mila milionari difesi dai governi. L'unica prospettiva di salvaguardia del mondo animale e vegetale sta nelle resistenze delle vittime insieme a professionisti e ricercatori non asserviti alle lobby e ai governi che le difendono.

This session will provide a diachronic consideration of human, animal and landscape interplay with an emphasis upon Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea area. Focusing on, amongst other aspects, periods of change it follows a multi-perspective approach. The considered time frame covers the late Palaeolithic up to the Middle Ages, and the central topic is hunting and, more broadly, human-animal-relationship, against the background of human´s dependency on landscape and climate. Thus, in particular for the period of hunters and gatherers, hunting techniques, strategies and motivations are as relevant as the union formed between human and dog and indications for the veneration of hunted animal species. For the Neolithic and later periods, hunting for the protection of acres and flocks will have to be considered alongside the hunt for the acquisition of raw materials as opposed to, for example, trophy hunting and ‚princely hunt‘. For the session, papers from various disciplines in the Natural Sciences and Humanities are welcome.
Thus, the session will bundle different aspects connected with hunting, and the overall diachronic view, given by one of the keynote speakers for parts of Northern Europa, will imply the chance to trace red threads and changes. Furthermore, the focused analysis for certain periods and regions will enable us to see specific hunting patterns and more individual solutions, in dependency of landscape. Questions, central for the session, are as follows: to which extent were intensity and purpose of hunting linked to cultural transformations (example: Neolithisation)? Were times with changing hunting patterns also times of  general changes in the  human-environmental interaction or interplay (example: wolf and bear extirpations in Christian societies)? What about the dynamics of human-animal-relationship, from dogs to other true mates of humans (example: late Paleolithic dog burial from Bonn-Oberkassel), in relation to domestic animals (example: Neolithic cattle graves) and wild beasts (example: bear symbolism)? What about the reconstruction of hunting episodes at particular sites, what about the earliest indications for the veneration of hunted animal species and, finally, what about the beginning of trophy hunting and the development of  ‚princely hunt‘?

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Öz
Globalleşen dünyanın getirdiği yeni imkânlar, farklı din ve kültür çevrelerinden gelen insanların karşılıklı etkileşimlerine geçmişe nazaran çok büyük bir ivme kazandırmıştır. Bir anlamda reel vakıa, söz konusu insanların yeknesak bir çevreden ziyade bir arada yaşamalarını zorunlu kılmıştır. Dolayısıyla bu durum, birbirlerini daha iyi anlamaya ve bir takım bir arada yaşama ilkeleri geliştirmeye sevk etmiştir. Her bir kesim, bu yeni durum karşısında geçmiş tecrübelerini de göz önünde bulundurarak bir söylem geliştirmeye çalışmıştır. Böylesine bir söylemin geliştirilmesinde hassaten çokkültürlü yaşamın banileri Müslüman toplumlar, kritik bir öneme sahiptir. Bu bağlamda İslami ilim halkasının mütemayiz bir halkası olan Mâturîdîliğin önderi İmam Mâturîdî'nin, devrinin çokkültürlü toplumunda ortaya koymuş olduğu perspektifin anlaşılmasının söz konusu çabaya ciddi katkılar sunacağı düşünülmektedir. Konu, onun Ehl-i Kitap'la ilgili görüşleriyle sınırlı tutulup, temel yaklaşımı ana hatlarıyla verilmeye çalışılacaktır.
Abstract
The new facilities of the global world have tremendously accelerated mutual interaction among the people from different religious and cultural circles compared to the past. In a sense, the current status has forced them to live in coexistence rather than homogenous society. Therefore, this status drove them into understand each other better and enhance to some principles of coexistence. Each group struggled to improve a new discourse benefiting from their experiences in the past with respect to the new situation. In this process, especially the creators' multicultural life, Muslim societies have a critical importance. It is considered that understanding better of the aspect of Imam Mâturîdî (he is the pioneer of Mâturîdism in the tradition of Islamic sciences) in his multicultural society makes a great contribution to the aforementioned struggle. The issue is confined to his opinions about Ahl al-Kitab and tried to give an overview of his approach.

English Summary:


This remarkable book is the fruit of 30 years of investigations of two archaeologists, husband and wife, Maria Magdalena and Andrzej Antczak, on the pre-Hispanic archaeology of the majestic Los Roques Archipelago, Venezuela. The uniqueness of the Los Roques Archipelago within the panorama of insular pre-colonial archaeology in the Americas centers on the discovery of more than 400 human clay figurines on one small island, Dos Mosquises, along with elaborate primary ritual contexts and the remains of a gargantuan queen conch (lobatus gigas) exploitation enterprise. This book is the winner of two of the highest scientific publication awards in Venezuela (2006 & 2009).


Resumen en Español:


Desde el título de este volumen de indiscutible valor, la palabra “prometidas” aplica oportunamente a nuestro maravilloso archipiélago venezolano de Los Roques la alegoría bíblica que coloca al final de un exigente camino hermosas tierras, donde corren ríos de leche y miel. Hacia estas islas con abundantes recursos marinos, entre los cuales destaca el gran caracol marino llamado ‘botuto’, se dirigían las canoas indígenas durante al menos cuatro siglos antes de la conquista europea. Las campañas de explotación de los recursos en las islas dependían del éxito de la actividad ceremonial, testimoniada por centenares de figurinas humanas, incensarios, ocarinas y pipas cerámicas, flautas de hueso y silbatos de concha, recuperados por los arqueólogos en complejos contextos primarios.

La presencia de esta diversidad de objetos en los campamentos temporales de las pequeñas islas oceánicas es un fenómeno excepcional en la arqueología del Caribe. En este sentido, la publicación de esta monografía es el cumplimiento de un prolongado esfuerzo y de un caro anhelo por proporcionar al lector una explicación sólida y coherente de este fenómeno arqueológico único. Es también el final de una importante etapa de ese camino verdaderamente exigente de la investigación arqueológica. A través de sus páginas, con un soporte teórico documental de inusual solidez y pertinencia, se difunde el fruto de muchos años de perseverante dedicación para sus autores, María Magdalena Mackowiak de Antczak y Andrzej Antczak, arqueólogos y antropólogos vinculados desde hace tiempo con la Universidad Simón Bolívar.

Se trata, sin duda, de una obra mayor, enriquecida por 1500 ilustraciones y más de 200 tablas, que describe hallazgos arqueológicos excepcionales recuperados de manera sistemática durante más de 60 campañas de trabajo de campo, y desarrolla propuestas verdaderamente seminales para el entendimiento del significado y la valoración del legado prehispánico en Venezuela y, en especial, en sus territorios insulares.

Este volumen ha sido concebido no solamente como lectura referencial para profesionales y estudiantes de arqueología y antropología, sino también esta dirigido al lector no especializado que puede sentirse atraído por el vibrante, colorido y desconocido pasado prehispánico presentado en estas páginas. También, a través de esta monografía los autores aspiran a infundir El Orgullo por el Pasado, el lema que orienta sus trabajos de investigación y docencia.

Este vasto y complejo proyecto editorial ha sido posible gracias a la concertación de un gran equipo profesional y una venturosa alianza de nuestra Universidad con Banesco y Petrozuata, confluencias que celebramos también como promesas felizmente cumplidas.

El libro ha recibido numerosos premios nacionales incluyendo:

IV Premio Nacional del Libro 2006, Mejor Libro Científico otorgado por el Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Cultura.

2009 Premio Alterno por Mejor Investigación en Ciencias Sociales, otorgado por la ASOVAC (Asociación Venezolana para el Avance de la Ciencia).

2007 Premio Andrés Bello para la Mejor Investigación en Ciencias Sociales otorgado por la Universidad Simón Bolívar.

A recent field survey of the elite Middle Kingdom cemetery at Beni Hassan has revealed many unusual animal motifs, including examples of creatures that are rarely attested in the artistic record and entirely new scenes. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the rich zoological repertoire at the site and its potential to enlighten our understanding of the Egyptians’ intriguing relationship with the animal world. These are confirmation of a tame Egyptian mongoose represented in the Eleventh Dynasty tomb of Baqet I (no. 29) and a new image of a pelican in full color in the Eleventh Dynasty tomb of Baqet II (no. 33).

In the early nineteenth century, members of one household of the enslaved community at Virginia’s Montpelier plantation buried their dog near the duplex they called home. This action, on its own, unfortunately does not speak directly to the broader experiences of Africans or their descendants forced into American bondage, or the specific experiences of the women and men enslaved at Montpelier. However, by contextualizing dogs in the African Atlantic and the specific landscapes of Montpelier, such narratives come into focus, allowing us to explore the roles the animal may have played in the daily life of an enslaved household.

This book provides an in-depth understanding of
human–horse relationships, interactions and the embodied
nature of equestrian sport and leisure practices. Encounters
between humans and horses are revealing about the ways
that human society is structured through intersection with
nonhuman others. Caring for, training and riding horses
are visceral, sensual experiences that require immersion of
body and mind. This results in the formation of a unique
embodied way of knowing and being in the world that
characterizes equestrian sport and leisure. This book
explores the individual and collective identities that are
performed through involvement in the horse world.

This study utilises relational and human–animal studies approaches—a goal of both of which is to decentre the human as but one element functioning within a web of connections to create human social realities—to explored aspects of the archaeologically visible burial practices within the human–horse burials carried out by the Pazyryk Iron Age archaeological culture of Inner Asia. To do this, I bring into the discussion facets of horses, and of human–horse intersubjectivities, as enlightened by ethological studies of horses and an inside auto-ethnographic research strategy utilising my position as a lifelong horse person. I present characteristics of sociality possessed by both humans and horse—including elders, empathy and emotion—that might be seen as essential qualities impacting the ways in which individuals from the two species come together. From this standpoint, I suggest some mental and emotional processes that might have caused certain behaviours of members of both species at the burial ceremony, enlightening several previously unexplained aspects of mortuary patterning. Finally I reflect on the viability of creating relational archaeologies of human–non-human animal interactions which allow for both essentialist and constructionist perspectives.

In traditional archaeological considerations of Iron Age and Romano-British landscapes, trackways are usually interpreted in largely normative terms, merely as means of getting from one settlement to another, or as purely functional features to assist with the herding of animals. In these somewhat static expositions, the role of trackways as places in themselves, and their long-term importance in constructions of social identity and memory, are often overlooked. So too are the complex relationships between people and animals enacted within trackways, field systems, and the wider landscape.

Recent theoretical ideas concerning relational agency and identity, materiality and movement have much to offer in terms of our archaeological understandings of these features. This paper explores the interpretative potential of such approaches using case studies of Iron Age and Romano-British trackways from Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Integrating theories of identity, embodiment, materiality, relationality and practice highlights the sedentarism of previous explanations, and allows for much more nuanced accounts of highly dynamic, mobile meshworks, where agency resided in complex constraints and affordances between
people, animals and the materiality of the lived-in landscape.

This paper will argue that human-animal relationships in the Predynastic period of Egypt might be understood through the analysis of zoomorphic artefacts. Supplied with this paper is a database containing 617 three-dimensional zoomorphic objects excavated from Predynastic Egyptian sites. The analysis of the database, as well as critical discussions of forms leads to several conclusions. This paper details how artefacts may have related to the nature of cosmology and how animal-spirits represented aspects of place, identity and ancestors. Certain animals are appropriate for specific artefact types, such as fish being the most common animal depicted on palettes. The use of anthropological thought and ethnographic studies also aid in the interpretation of certain practices and beliefs related to animals and humans. The rise of elite powers seems to have affected how animals were used in artwork and iconography. Forms such as the ‘bull’s head’ amulet appear more frequently towards the Early Dynastic period, but also the nature of late Predynastic ceremonial artefacts seems to have altered how humans related with animals in artwork. This paper shows how the elite appropriation of forms affected animal images in relation to official writing, but also how some aspects of hieroglyphic writing may have been anticipated on zoomorphic artefacts in the Predynastic period.