Bibliography: pages 194-207. / This contextual archaeological narrative explores the relationship between material culture and social relations, with reference to social, economic, environmental and political changes taking place in Himba and Herero settlements in far north-western Namibia. A starting point is that changes in the organization of space and use of material culture cannot be understood as merely expressing changed social and economic conditions and/or changed value systems. It is necessary to examine how socio-economic conditions and cultural values and ideas work together to transform, produce and maintain cultural representations. By focusing intimately on one semi-nomadic herding community over a five-year period,(where domestic space has to be reconstituted, both physically and conceptually, each time a group relocates,} the study probes how meaning is differentially invested in the spatial order that people build and live in, how the material goods they make, borrow, lend, buy and use recursively come to have and hold meaning, and how and why this meaning changes. In mapping space and material goods at more than 100 wet season and dry season camps and homesteads, a number of discourses are tracked: changing gender relations, changing relations between different generations, people's relationships with natural resources, the spatial relations of former hunter-gatherers now living as herders, as well as material culture conformities and nonconformities between Himba and Herero households. A key concern is to re-empower social actors, past and present, in the creation of (archaeological) meaning. A number of case studies show that meaning is not inherent in space or material goods; people activate meaning by their strategic interpretations. This has implications for both method and theory in archaeology, as well as for the contemporary research and rural development process in Africa. While challenging assumptions about what is knowable from the past's material remains when such remains are, inevitably, recontextualized in a particular present, the thesis contributes to knowledge about material culture and social change and thus offers a number of research directions which could contribute to a more reflexive, dialogic and socially relevant archaeology.

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The intent of this essay is to get a clearer picture of the regional differences and traditions within the funnel-beaker culture in Scandinavia during the early neolithic period. By getting a more thorough understanding of the practical labour and social aspects of the production attributed to the polygonal battle-axe, interpretations of regional divisions and the manufacture process are presented. This is done with the use of distribution patterns, ethnographic research and cultural evolution theory. / <p>Betyg: A</p>

A la limite entre le Cameroun et le Nigéria, la région du Faro est une zone d’extraordinaire diversité, tant du point de vue des populations que de la topographie. Pas moins de 13 groupes ethnolinguistiques y sont documentés, qui appartiennent à 3 grands ensembles linguistiques et se répartissent dans la plaine et les montagnes. Les données de la linguistique indiquent que les représentants des langues adamaoua seraient présents dans la plaine de la Bénoué et du Faro depuis environ quatre mille ans. Au niveau de l'ethnohistoire, on sait que les habitants des plaines sous soumis à l’autorité des Foulbé depuis deux siècles. Mais au delà de cette période, de nombreuses zones d'ombre demeurent. L’histoire des populations de cette partie du bassin de la Bénoué avant le 19ème siècle semblait donc hors d’atteinte, car la région du Faro restait vierge du point de vue archéologique. <p>Dans ce travail, j’apporte par le biais d'une approche historique et comparative des éléments susceptible d’expliquer, d’une part la complexité qui caractérise le peuplement du Faro et, d’autre part, la façon dont le peuplement de cette région a évolué au cours du dernier millénaire. Il est également question de faire progresser la réflexion méthodologique, en évaluant la façon dont les modèles obtenus par l’archéologie peuvent être confrontés avec ceux qui se basent sur les traditions orales, les éléments de la culture matérielle actuelle et la linguistique.<p>L’étude des traditions orales a permis de classer par ordre chronologique les éléments historiques importants et d’établir une histoire du peuplement durant ces derniers siècles. Elle confirme qu’il est possible de reconnaître des racines remontant au delà du 19ème siècle à la plupart des groupes qui peuplent encore la région aujourd’hui, ainsi que de nombreuses ruptures dans l’histoire du peuplement du Faro. Contrairement aux travaux antérieurs, la plus importante de ces fractures date du début du 19ème siècle, avec l’occupation des conquérants foulbé, qui ont provoqué l’insécurité généralisée, la division de la région en deux et les plus importantes déportations de populations des plaines vers les montagnes refuges.<p>L’approche archéologique a permis d’établir la première séquence chrono-culturelle du Faro au cours du dernier millénaire. Si la présence d’un peuplement ancien dans la plaine était envisagée, l’étude archéologique apporte la preuve que des communautés humaines vivent dans le Faro depuis environ 1000 ans. A partir du 15ème siècle, des modifications surviennent. Celles-ci se manifestent surtout par l’apparition d’une nouvelle poterie ornée au Blepharis sp. Lorsque l’on compare la carte de distribution des sites associés à cette céramique, au trajet suivi par les Bata, qui remontent le cours du Faro en implantant des villages et à l’aire d’extension des langues tchadiques au Faro, il semble plausible que de nouvelles populations occupent la région vers le milieu du dernier millénaire de notre ère. Pour le 19ème siècle bien documenté par les traditions orales, les données archéologiques viennent renforcer l’idée d’une profonde rupture durant cette période.<p>En abordant l’histoire du peuplement du Faro, il était nécessaire d’examiner le concept de l’ethnicité comme il est classiquement employé dans la région. D’une manière générale, l’étude conforte l’idée qu’il est très difficile d’aborder la profondeur historique des identités des groupes actuels.<p>La confrontation entre les faits des cultures vivantes et les résultats archéologiques a permis d’évaluer les potentialités de raisonnements historique et comparatif. On ne peut que constater, dans cet exemple concret, le grand intérêt qu’il y a à fonder la reconstitution du passé sur de multiples sources. <p> / Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Calgary, 1975. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-224).

The goal of this thesis was to offer a functional database of stone sculptures, ceramics and textiles to scholars investigating Recuay iconography, through which human figures, their attributes, clothing styles, functions and possible status in society could be examined. A second objective was to enrich the general knowledge of Recuay society and the agencies acting in it. Based on this research, one main conclusion is that the Recuay culture was a stratified society in which warriorhood and ancestry played vital roles. Analyses of the monoliths reveal that only men were represented as petrified ancestors by the Recuay. The central position and larger size of men in the representations of ceremonies on the ceramics also imply the predominance of men in religious life. Among the Recuay men, however, hierarchical differences appear to have also existed. The different sizes and positions of male figures within scenes, and the variations of attributes and clothing styles among warriors and guardians all seem to refer to different social positions. The smaller sizes, less elaborately decorated clothes and often auxiliary positions of women in iconographical representations, on the other hand, seem to suggest that women held lower ceremonial statuses. Nevertheless, the presence of women – often associated with cups or shells, represented in copulation scenes or holding a child - seems to have been a crucial element of the ceremonies. In this dissertation, it is proposed that women’s procreative abilities made them vital aspects of religious life as they added significance to the rituals by their overt reference to fertility. By profiling themselves mainly as warriors or at the centre of libation scenes, men, on the other hand, could extract power from the rituals in which they were key players. Ceramics were therefore not only used within ancestry ceremonies in order to carry out libations, but they were probably also commissioned in order to enhance, the ceremonial status of certain men, and perhaps also to accentuate their political position in society. / Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In South Sweden the third millennium BC is characterised by coastal settlements of marine hunter-gatherers known as the Pitted Ware culture, and inland settlements of the Battle Axe culture. This thesis outlines the history of research of the Middle Neolithic B in general and that of the pottery and burial practices in particular. Material culture must be understood as the result of both conscious preferences and embodied practices: technology can be deliberately cultural just as style can be un-selfconscious routine. Anthropological and ethnoarchaeological research into craft and the transmission of learning in traditional societies shows how archaeologists must take into consideration the interdependence of mind and body when interpreting style, technology and change in prehistory. The pottery crafts of the Pitted Ware and Battle Axe cultures were not just fundamentally different technologically, but even more so in the attitudes toward authority, tradition, variation and the social role of the potter in the community. The Battle Axe beakers represent a wholly new chaîne opératoire, probably introduced by a small group of relocated Beaker potters at the beginning of the period. The different attitudes toward living bodies is highlighted further in the attitudes toward the dead bodies. In the mortuary ritual the Battle Axe culture was intent upon the creation and control of a perfect body which acted as a representative of the idealised notion of what it was to belong to the community. This focus upon completeness, continuation and control is echoed in the making of beakers using the ground up remains of old vessels as temper. In contrast, the Pitted Ware culture people broke the bodies of the dead by defleshing, removal of body parts, cremation, sorting, dispersal and/or reburial of the bones on the settlements. The individuality of the living body was destroyed leaving the durable but depersonalised bones to be returned to the joint collective of the ancestors. Just as the bodies were fragmented so were the pots, sherds and bases being deposited in large quantities on the settlements and occasionally in graves. Some of the pots were also tempered with burnt and crushed bones. At the end of the Middle Neolithic the material and human remains show evidence of a growing effort to find a common ground in the two societies through sharing certain mortuary rituals and making beakers with a mix of both traditions, stylistically and technologically.

Les rituels d’appel à la pluie, du nettoyage des canaux d’irrigation et du marquage du bétail sont analysés et reconstitués à l’aide d’un modèle qui utilise les sources ethnographiques, ethnohistoriques et archéologiques disponibles. Ce modèle permet une approche interdisciplinaire diachronique et dynamique des pratiques des populations actuelles et anciennes et des modes de pensée qui les sous-tendent. Les artéfacts découverts en fouilles sur le site de Huacosmarca sont confrontés aux chroniques et documents de l’époque coloniale et ceux-ci éclairent les données ethnographiques recueillies lors d’observations participantes des rituels actuels de la même zone géographique: le haut Chillón. Selon le rituel étudié, la porte d’entrée pour l’application du modèle peut varier mais l’analyse et la reconstruction s’effectuent toujours à travers les étapes bien identifiées du même processus. La démarche se veut résolument critique de la vision structuraliste et du postulat de la continuité des pratiques rituelles préhispaniques à travers les siècles. Elle est ancrée<p>dans la recherche et la mise en évidence des contingences historiques et géographiques locales, celles d'une zone des Andes Centrales.<p><p>The rituals related to the appeal for rain, to the cleaning of irrigation channels and to the cattle branding are analyzed and reconstituted with a pattern using the ethnographic, ethnohistorical and archaeological sources available. This pattern allows an interdisciplinary, diachronic and dynamic approach to the current and ancient population’s practices and to the patterns of thought that underlie them. The artefacts found in<p>excavations on the site of Huacosmarca are confronted with chronicles and documents of the colonial era and these throw light on ethnographic data collected from participant observation of those current rituals from the same geographic area: the high Chillon’s valley.<p>According to the ritual studied in this research, the gateway to the pattern’s application may vary but the analysis and reconstruction is always done through identified stages of<p>the same process. This approach criticizes the structuralist vision and the assumption of the continuity of prehispanic ritual practices through the centuries. It takes root in the research into the historical and geographical contingencies of the local area, those of the Central Andes. / Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished