Around the world, rock art has long been studied in efforts to decode its meaning and thereby understand the minds and realities of its hunter-gatherer artists. In Argentina, rupestrian art was...Show moreAround the world, rock art has long been studied in efforts to decode its meaning and thereby understand the minds and realities of its hunter-gatherer artists. In Argentina, rupestrian art was first mentioned on the record by Jesuit missionaries from the 16th century, but the first true documentation of these ‘sacred rocks’ was completed by Moreno in 1877 in northern Patagonia. Rock art has been conceived as many things, as territorial markers, evidence of contact between groups, indication of group mobility, transmission of information, and as domestic/non-domestic symbolic creations. The question is, however, what happened to the study of hunter-gatherer rock art outside of these complexes? What can an ontological approach to these pictographs tell us about the cosmologies of the communities from the far-reaching past? The aim of this study is to add to, or rather to spark up again, the discussion of early hunter-gatherer cosmologies as seen through the lens of hunter-gatherer rock art assemblages from several different sites in the central plateau of Santa Cruz, Patagonia. This is accomplished by adopting an interdisciplinary stance combining archaeology and anthropology with an ontological approach that uses ethnographic data as a means of conceptualizing new interpretations. This is all done through a bibliographical position in which previous research is re-evaluated. To this end, the thesis is guided by the following research question: Could an ontological approach to hunter-gatherer rock art from the Late Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene periods (c. 9000–3500 BP) in southern Patagonia (Argentina) help us come up with the beginnings of their cosmology? Three possible interpretations are discussed in this thesis regarding rock art and hunter-gatherer cosmologies. The first relates to the importance of the hunt and identifies handprints motifs as part of an initiation ritual into the hunting tradition. Additionally, I posit that hunter-gatherers used the depictions of hunting scenes as a means of understanding the ecological relationships in their environment and to keep track of hunting strategies, thereby ensuring the continuation of the tradition by possibly using the pictographs to teach their children. Lastly, I suggest that the iconic images of large felines and their accompanying bodily remains in situ were part of a process of symbiosis in which the animal’s favourable traits and capabilities as a prime hunter were taken on by hunter-gatherers themselves. These theories are then conceptualized by ethnographic accounts of the Aónik’enk, their mythology and traditions.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
open access
Food and its preparation are part of everyone’s daily life, and the interaction and usage of plants has always been deeply imbedded in human history. Therefore, by gaining a better understanding of...Show moreFood and its preparation are part of everyone’s daily life, and the interaction and usage of plants has always been deeply imbedded in human history. Therefore, by gaining a better understanding of how plants were processed and prepared, we can gain a better understanding of the daily lives of peoples of the past. To reconstruct the dietary practices of peoples of the past, different parts of the diet and their proxies, such as animal remains, faunal lipids, botanical lipids, isotopes and botanical macro- and microfossils can be analysed. Additionally, historical and ethnographical accounts may prove useful as a basis for these researches. However, as historical accounts are often incomplete or less clear due to the lack or prior knowledge of native plants and their preparation and consumption, these accounts could better be used as a basis for further research. One of the microfossils that can be analysed are starch grains. They are considered the only type of botanical microfossil remains which can be directly correlated with both the usage as well as the preparation of plants by humans from the past. The grains can be identified to species level based on their specific characteristics. However, he preparation of food and beverages by, for example, heating, grinding or fermenting starchy plants can damage the starch grains within. These preparation techniques do leave specific damage types however, which may be used to identify damage patterns in the archaeological record. It is therefore important to gain an understanding of these damages. This thesis aimed to research these damage patterns through conducting experiments on two crops native to the Americas, maize (Zea mays), and manioc (Manihot esculenta), and to get an answer to the research question: To what extent is it possible to identify the cultural processes involved with ancient food preparation in the circum-Caribbean area through recreating these processes and subjecting the residues to starch grain analysis? The experiments were based on ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources mentioning the foodways after the arrival of the Europeans to the New World. The results were then compared to previously published experiments, as well as archaeological starch grain analysis from two sites at the Dominican Republic. It was assessed that even though heating starch grains in humid or dry environments obscures certain damage types, some characteristic damage types could be observed. These types of damages were also encountered in the archaeological case studies, showing preparation techniques not mentioned by the ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources. This therefore shows the importance of conducting more experiments to gain a better understanding of food processing techniques in the past. More research will help with gaining a better understanding of past foodways and subsequently the daily life’s of peoples of the past.Show less
