Relational Identities and Other-than-Human Agency in Archaeology

303 Pages·2018·5.36 MB·English

by  Eleanor Harrison-Buck and Julia A. Hendon

Relational Identities
and Other-than-Human
Agency in Archaeology

Relational Identities
and Other-than-Human
Agency in Archaeology
edited by
Eleanor Harrison-Buck
and Julia A. Hendon
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO
Louisville
© 2018 by University Press of Colorado
Published by University Press of Colorado
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Printed in the United States of America
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The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part,
by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan
State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern
Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University.
∞ This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
ISBN: 978-1-60732-746-2 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-1-60732-747-9 (ebook)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5876/9781607327479
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Harrison-Buck, Eleanor, editor. | Hendon, Julia A. (Julia Ann), editor.
Title: Relational identities and other-than-human agency in archaeology / edited by Eleanor
Harrison-Buck and Julia A. Hendon.
Description: Boulder : University Press of Colorado, [2018] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017054090| ISBN 9781607327462 (cloth) | ISBN 9781607327479 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Social archaeology—Case studies. | Agent (Philosophy)—Case studies. |
Material culture—Philosophy. | Archaeology—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC CC72.4 .R456 2018 | DDC 930.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017054090
The University Press of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the College
of Liberal Arts and the Center for the Humanities at theUniversity of New Hampshire toward
the publication of this book.
The financial support provided by a Research and Professional Development grant from
Gettysburg College is gratefully acknowledged.
Cover photograph by Justin Kerr.
Contents
1 An Introduction to Relational Personhood and
Other-than-Human Agency in Archaeology
Eleanor Harrison-Buck
and Julia A. Hendon 3
2 Personhood and Agency in Eskimo
Interactions with the Other-than-Human
Erica Hill 29
3 Dead Kettles and Indigenous Afterworlds in
Early Colonial Encounters in the Maritimes
Meghan C. L. Howey 51
4 Water and Shells in Bodies and Pots:
Mississippian Rhizome, Cahokian Poiesis
Timothy R. Pauketat
and Susan M. Alt 72
5 The Inalienable-Commodity Continuum
in the Circulation of Birds on the North
American Plains
María Nieves Zedeño,
Wendi Field Murray,
and Kaitlyn Chandler 100
6 Objects with Voices among the Ancient Maya
Matthew Looper 126
7 Can Tools Have Souls? Maya Views on the
Relations between Human and Other-than-
Human Persons
Julia A. Hendon 147
8 Torres Strait Canoes as Social and Predatory
Object-Beings
Ian J. McNiven 167
9 Efficacious Objects and Techniques of the
Subject: “Ornaments” and Their Depositional
Contexts in Banda, Ghana
Ann B. Stahl 197
10 Finding Objects, Making Persons: Fossils in
British Early Bronze Age Burials
Joanna Brück and
Andrew Meirion Jones 237
11 Relational Matters of Being: Personhood and
Agency in Archaeology
Eleanor Harrison-Buck 263
Contributors 283
Index 285
vi CONTENTS
Relational Identities
and Other-than-Human
Agency in Archaeology

1
Archaeologists who engage in relational personhood An Introduction to
and other-than-human agency, often characterized as Relational Personhood
a relational or ontological archaeology (Alberti 2016; and Other-than-Human
Watts 2013a), variously identify as post-humanist, Agency in Archaeology
(neo-)materialist, non-representationalist, or realist,
among other labels. Bruno Latour’s (1993, 2013) work
has been hugely influential among this diverse body of Eleanor Harrison-Buck
scholarship, recently labeled the “new ontological real- and Julia A. Hendon
ism” (Gabriel 2015) or, alternatively, the “new materialist”
archaeology (Thomas 2015). Generally speaking, these
scholars reject the classic “humanist” divides, such as
culture-nature, human-animal, and animate-inanimate
(Watts 2013b:16). In studies of relational personhood,
this so-called post-humanist approach is not anti-
human but rather considers personhood more broadly
to include both human and other-than-human beings,
such as animals, plants, spirits, and inanimate things
(Thomas 2002; Fowler 2004, 2016).
Some of the most prominent “problem domains”
in studies of ontological archaeology involve agency
and personhood. There is a long history of attention
given to studies of relational personhood in archae-
ology (Brück 2001; Fowler 2004, 2016; Thomas 2002;
Gillespie 2001; Wilkinson 2013, 2017, among others)
and in recent years a burgeoning of literature focused
specifically on object-based agencies, biographies, and
itineraries (Gosden and Marshall 1999; Hodder 2012;
Joyce and Gillespie 2015b; Knappett and Malafouris
2008; Mills and Walker 2008; Olsen 2010; Webmoor DOI: 10.5876/9781607327479.c001
3