Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-c9gpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T18:13:49.452Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ethnoarchaeology of Subsistence Space and Gender: A Subarctic Dene Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Hetty Jo Brumbach  and
Robert Jarvenpa
Hetty Jo Brumbach
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY 12222
Robert Jarvenpa
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY 12222
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The interplay of gender and spatial organization of labor receives little attention in archaeological discussions of huntergatherer society. To help remedy this situation, our ethnoarchaeological research among subarctic Dene (Chipewyan) communities employs a gender-resource mapping approach, including the spatial dimension of hunting for a complex of major subsistence resources. Analysis reveals both profound differences and interconnections between female and male hunters as they procure and process materials and move across the landscape in the sociological context of three team types. The data offer a means of modeling gender dynamics in archaeological contexts as well as rectifying the often invisible role of women in archaeological interpretations of hunting in high-latitude societies. An analysis of historical shifts between “bush-centered” and “village-centered” hunts demonstrates how both women's and men's behavior can be incorporated in site formation processes and general subsistence settlement models, such as Binford's forager/logistical collector framework.

La interactión entre la organizatión espacial del trabajo y la organizatión del trabajo según género recibe poca atención en las discusiones arqueológicas sobre sociedades cazadoras-recolectoras. Para ayudar a remediar esta situatión, nuestra investigatión etnoarqueológica en las comunidades subárticas Dene (Chipewyan) emplea una perspectiva de localizatión geográfica de recursos según género, incluyendo la dimension espacial de la caza para un grupo de recursos principales de subsistencia. El análisis revela tanto profundas diferencias como interconexiones entre cazadores de ambos sexos, a la hora de conseguir y procesar materiales, así como cuando se mueven en su medio dentro del contexte sociológico de tres tipos de équipes. Los datos ofrecen un medio para modelar dinámicas de género en contextes arqueológicos y también rectificar el papel a menudo invisible de las mujeres en las interpretaciones arqueológicas sobre la caza en sociedades de altas latitudes. El análisis de los cambios históricos entre la caza centrada cerca de las aldeas y la caza centrada en el bosque demuestra cómo el comportamiento del hombre y la mujer puede ser incorporado en los procesos de formation de sitios y en modelos de asentamientos basados en la subsistencia, como el marco recolector espontáneo/recolector organizado desarrollado por Binford.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 62 , Issue 3 , July 1997 , pp. 414 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1997

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

References Cited

Albright, S. L. 1984 Tahltan Ethnoarchaeology. Department of Archaeology, Publication No. 15. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia.Google Scholar
Beardsley, R. K., Holder, P., Krieger, A. D., Meggers, B. J., Rinaldo, J. B., and Kutsche, P. 1956 Functional and Evolutionary Implications of Community Patterning. In Seminars in Archaeology: 1955, edited by Wauchope, R., pp. 129–157. Memoir No. 11. Society for American Archaeology, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1978 Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1980 Willow Smoke and Dogs’ Tails: Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems and Archaeological Site Formation. American Antiquity 45: 4–20.Google Scholar
Briggs, J. L. 1974 Eskimo Women: Makers of Men. In Many Sisters: Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Matthiasson, C. J., pp. 261–304. Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
Brambach, H. J. 1985 The Recent Fur Trade in Northwestern Saskatchewan. Historical Archaeology 19: 19–39.Google Scholar
Brumbach, H. J., and Jarvenpa, R. 1989 Ethnoarchaeological and Cultural Frontiers: Athapaskan, Algonquian and European Adaptations in the Central Subarctic. Peter Lang Publishing, New York.Google Scholar
Brumbach, H. J., and Jarvenpa, R. 1990 Archeologist-Ethnographer-Informant Relations: The Dynamics of Ethnoarcheology in the Field. In Powers of Observation: Alternative Views in Archeology, edited by Nelson, S. M. and Kehoe, A.B. pp. 39–46. Archeological Papers No. 2. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Brumbach, H. J., and Jarvenpa, R. 1997 Woman the Hunter: Ethnoarchaeological Lessons from Chipewyan Life Cycle Dynamics. In Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica, edited by Claassen, C. and Joyce, R.A. pp. 17–32. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Brumbach, H. J., Jarvenpa, R., and Buell, C. 1982 An Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Chipewyan Adaptations in the Late Fur Trade Period. Arctic Anthropology 19(1): 1–49.Google Scholar
Canada 1966 Treaty No. 10 and Reports of Commissioners. (Original edition, 1907). Queen's Printer, Ottawa, Ontario.Google Scholar
Canada 1974 English River Band, Registered Indians as of June 30, . Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Meadow Lake District, Saskatchewan.Google Scholar
Claassen, C. P. 1991 Gender, Shellfishing and the Shell Mound Archaic. In Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M.W. pp. 276–300. Basil Blackwell, London.Google Scholar
Conkey, M. W., and Spector, J. D. 1984 Archaeology and the Study of Gender. In Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 7, edited by Schiffer, M. B., pp. 1–38. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Curtis, E. S. 1928 The Chipewyan. In The North American Indian, vol. 18, edited by Hodge, F. W., pp. 3–52. Plimpton Press, Norwood, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Curtis, E. S. 1981 Woman the Gatherer. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Estioko-Griffin, A., and Griffin, P. B. 1981 Woman the Hunter: The Agta. In Woman the Gatherer, edited by Dahlberg, F., pp. 121–151. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Gamble, C. S. 1991 An Introduction to the Living Spaces of Mobile Peoples. In Ethnoarchaeological Approaches to Mobile Campsites: Hunter-Gatherer and Pastoralist Case Studies, edited by Gamble, C. S. and Boismier, W.A. pp. 1–23. Ethnoarchaeological Series No. 1. International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Gero, J. M. 1991 Genderlithics: Women's Roles in Stone Tool Production. In Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M.W. pp. 163–193. Basil Blackwell, London.Google Scholar
Gero, J. M., and Conkey, M. W. (editors) 1991 Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory. Basil Blackwell, London.Google Scholar
Gould, R. A. 1971 The Archaeologist as Ethnographer: A Case Study from the Western Desert of Australia. World Archaeology 3: 143–177.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1982 Symbols in Action: Ethnoarchaeological Studies in Material Culture. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
HBCA (Hudson's Bay Company Archives) 1838 Ile-a-la-Crosse District Indian Census, 1838. B.239/a/10: fols. 52a-57a. Provincial Archives of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba.Google Scholar
Isaac, B. L. 1995 Introduction: Hunting and Gathering: Gender as an Economic Factor. In Research in Economic Anthropology, vol. 16, edited by Isaac, B. L., pp. 1–12. Jai Press, Greenwich, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Janes, R. R. 1983 Archaeological Ethnography among Mackenzie Basin Dene, Canada. Technical Paper No. 28. Arctic Institute of North America, Calgary, Alberta. Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R. 1977 Subarctic Indian Trappers and Band Society: The Economics of Mobility. Human Ecology 5: 223–259.Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R. 1979 Recent Ethnographic Research: Upper Churchill River Drainage, Saskatchewan, Canada. Arctic 32: 355–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarvenpa, R. 1980 The Trappers ofPatuanak: Toward a Spatial Ecology of Modern Hunters. Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Publication No. 67. National Museum of Man, Ottawa, Ontario.Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R. 1982a Intergroup Behavior and Imagery: The Case of Chipewyan and Cree. Ethnology 21: 283–299.Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R. 1982b Symbolism and Inter-Ethnic Relations among Hunter-Gatherers: Chipewyan Conflict Lore. Anthropologica 14: 43–76.Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R. 1987 The Hudson's Bay Company, the Roman Catholic Church and the Chipewyan in the Late Fur Trade Period. In Le Castor Fait Tout: Selected Papers of the Fifth North American Fur Trade Conference, 1985, edited by Trigger, B., Morantz, T., and Dechene, L., pp. 485–517. St Louis Historical Society, Montreal.Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R., and Brumbach, H. J. 1983 Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives on an Athapaskan Moose Kill. Arctic 36: 174–184.Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R., and Brumbach, H. J. 1984 The Microeconomics of Southern Chipewyan Fur Trade History. In The Subarctic Fur Trade: Native Social and Economic Adaptations, edited by Krech, S. III, pp. 147–183. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver.Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R., and Brumbach, H. J. 1985 Occupational Status, Ethnicity and Ecology: Metis Cree Adaptations in a Canadian Trading Frontier. Human Ecology 13: 309–329.Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R., and Brumbach, H. J. 1988 Socio-Spatial Organization and Decision Making Processes: Observations from the Chipewyan. American Anthropologist 90: 598–618.Google Scholar
Jarvenpa, R., and Brumbach, H. J. 1995 Ethnoarchaeology and Gender: Chipewyan Women as Hunters. Research in Economic Anthropology 16: 39–82.Google Scholar
Kehoe, A. B. 1990 Points and Lines. In Powers of Observation: Alternative Views in Archeology, edited by Nelson, S. M. and Kehoe, A.B. pp. 23–37. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association Number 2, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Leacock, E. B. 1978 Women's Status in Egalitarian Society: Implications for Social Evolution. Current Anthropology 19: 247–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leacock, E. B. 1981 Myths of Male Dominance. Monthly Review Press, New York.Google Scholar
Leacock, E. B. 1983 Ideologies of Male Dominance as Divide and Rule Politics: An Anthropologist's View. In Women's Nature, edited by Lowe, M. and Hubbard, R., pp. 111–121. Pergamon Press, New York.Google Scholar
Le Blanc, R. J. 1984 The Rat Indian Creek Site and the Late Prehistoric Period in the Interior Northern Yukon. Mercury Series. Archaeological Survey of Canada Paper No. 120. National Museum of Man, Ottawa, Ontario.Google Scholar
McClellan, C. 1975 My Old People Say: An Ethnographic Survey of Southern Yukon Territory, Part 2. Publications in Ethnology No. 6. National Museum of Man, Ottawa, Ontario.Google Scholar
Morgen, S. (editor) 1989 Gender and Anthropology. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Nelson, S. M. 1990 Diversity of the Upper Paleolithic “Venus” Figurines and Archeological Mythology. In Powers of Observation: Alternative Views in Archeology, edited by Nelson, S. M. and Kehoe, A.B. pp. 11–22. Archeological Papers No. 2. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Ortner, S., and Whitehead, H. 1981 Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Quinn, N. 1977 Anthropological Studies on Women's Status. Annual Review of Anthropology 6: 181–225.Google Scholar
Reiter, R. R. 1975 Toward an Anthropology of Women. Monthly Review Press, New York.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, M. 1980 The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-cultural Understanding. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5: 389–417.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, M., and Lamphere, L. (editors) 1974 Women, Culture and Society. Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, California.Google Scholar
Sacks, K. 1979 Sisters and Wives: The Past and Future of Sexual Inequality. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Sanday, P. 1981 Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sharp, H. S. 1988 The Transformation ofBigfoot: Maleness, Power and Belief Among the Chipewyan. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Simms, S. R. 1992 Ethnoarchaeology: Obnoxious Spectator, Trivial Pursuit, or Keys to a Time Machine? In Quandaries and Quests: Visions of Archaeology's Future, edited by Windsnider, L., pp. 186–198. Occasional Paper No. 20. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Smith, D. M. 1982 Moose-Deer Island House People: A History of the Native People of Fort Resolution. Mercury Series. Canadian Ethnology Service Publication No. 81. National Museum of Man, Ottawa, Ontario.Google Scholar
Spector, J. D. 1983 Male/Female Task Differentiation among the Hidatsa: Toward the Development of an Archeological Approach to the Study of Gender. In The Hidden Half, edited by Albers, P. and Medicine, B., pp. 77–99. University Press of America, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Spector, J. D., and Whelan, M. K. 1989 Incorporating Gender into Archaeology Courses. In Gender and Anthropology, edited by Morgen, S., pp. 65–94. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Stein Mandryk, C. A. 1993 Hunter-Gatherer Social Costs and the Nonviability of Submarginal Environments. Journal of Anthropological Research 49: 39–71.Google Scholar
VanStone, J. W. 1971 Historical Settlement Patterns in the Nushagak River Region, Alaska. Fieldiana: Anthropology Vol. 61. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VanStone, J. W. 1974 Athapaskan Adaptations: Hunters and Fishermen of the Subarctic Forests. Aldine Publishing, Chicago.Google Scholar
Washburn, S. L., and Lancaster, C. S. 1968 The Evolution of Hunting. In Man the Hunter, edited by Lee, R. B. and DeVore, I., pp. 293–303. Aldine Publishing, Chicago.Google Scholar
Watson, P. J., and Kennedy, M. C. 1991 The Development of Horticulture in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. In Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory, edited by Gero, J. M. and Conkey, M.W. pp. 255–275. Basil Blackwell, London.Google Scholar