Come on you bone people,what exactly does it means when you
write 'they practised subsistence farming'?  How do you 
define and use this term? 

Proposed session for TAG 2000 (Oxford)

Session organizers
Jacqui Mulville (English Heritage, Oxford University 
Museum, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PW. E-mail: 
[log in to unmask]) & 
Mark Pluciennik (Department of Archaeology, University of 
Wales, Lampeter, Ceredigion SA48 7ED, Wales, UK. E-mail: 
[log in to unmask])


All or nothing: human existence and subsistence

For much of prehistory and perhaps especially for 
hunter-gatherers, materialist perspectives and especially 
those related to subsistence still dominate. In Britain 
this may be seen partly as the legacy of the Higgsian 
'palaeoeconomy' school and the narrow interpretation of 
'economy' to mean subsistence. More generally one may argue
that the apparently 'obvious' and quantifiable nature of 
food remains has tended to encourage a polarisation between
functionalist interpretations and symbolic interpretations 
for remains found in 'ritual' contexts such as graves, or 
pits with structured deposition, for example. 

The session organizers wish to discuss ways in which we can
integrate and interpret material from archaeobotany and 
archaeozoology so as to be sensitive to aspects including 
the ecological and functional and yet without assigning 
'problematic' remains to the realm of ritual. 

Part of the session will explore the ways in which the term
subsistence has been used to identify an apparently 
separate sphere of activity, as well as to classify whole 
societies, and to ask whether alternative and perhaps 
looser terms such as 'lifeways' are more helpful or merely 
reproduce other equally rigid categories. The session will 
encourage debate and demonstration of possibilities other 
than the trajectory of subsistence as the focus especially 
of prehistories. 

In order to facilitate other viewpoints we will be inviting
anthropologists' comments on notions of subsistence in 
living populations and how this concept shapes our 
acceptance, understanding and 'control' of indigenous 
peoples, but we are interested in an inclusive approach. 
Papers are invited from critically aware archaeologists and
others which offer new light on 'subsistence activities' 
and their interpretation in the light of the comments 
offered above. Please contact either of the organizers, 
preferably by email, at the addresses above.



----------------------
Jacqui Mulville,
EH Regional Science Advisor (E. Mids)
Oxford University Museum,
Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PW
Tel: 01865-272996 Fax: 01865-272970




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