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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