Archaeological discontinuities in the southern hemisphere: A working agenda

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2016.08.007

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Volume 46, June 2017, Pages 1-11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2016.08.007 Get rights and content

Highlights

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We introduce the volume on Archaeological Discontinuities in the southern hemisphere.
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We deconstruct discontinuities to assess what phenomena may produce them.
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Discontinuities recorded at different scales involve different mechanisms.
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We select issues worthy of comparative attention impinging on theory and methods.

Abstract

This introductory overview presents the frame of research and general goals of the special volume “Archaeological Discontinuities: Comparative Frameworks for the southern hemisphere”. We begin by deconstructing archaeological discontinuities in terms of time and space in order to assess what sort of past phenomena are we dealing with when assessing discontinuities in different scales. It is one of our main contentions that we need theory and data connecting discontinuities as recorded on different analytical scales, thereby contributing to evaluate often-undescribed mechanisms that produce archaeological discontinuities. On this basis, we face the key task of deconstructing archaeological discontinuities from ‘top to bottom’, moving from the averaged material record that is visible in archaeological scale toward the short-term human decisions and interactions that, when occurring cumulatively, produce those discontinuities. Nevertheless, while an understanding of the short-term behavioral mechanisms and social agency behind discontinuities is necessary, it is certainly not sufficient for building a frame in which to make sense of the long-term record.

Archaeological discontinuities recorded at different spatial scales require different explanatory mechanisms that can be connected hierarchically. The most productive analytical take here would be to move from the bottom to the top, building from the site or local scales to the regional and continental levels. This strategy provides a solid frame for assessing the genesis of discontinuities at different scales by disentangling the incidence of sampling deficiencies in the field, the selection of samples for chronometric dating, taphonomic biases, the reorganization of mobility and technology, local and regional abandonments, and actual demographic changes.

We finish by selecting a few issues that we consider worthy of systematic comparative attention in the years to come. These issues impinge on different levels of theory and methods and can only be pursued with an interdisciplinary focus that encompasses not only archaeology but also ethnography, genetics, linguistics, paleoclimatology and paleoecology. We are convinced that there is much to learn from a comparative perspective in terms of structural similitudes in historical processes across regions and continents. The conceptual structure of a number of debates from South America, Africa, and Australia on is remarkably similar, notwithstanding important differences in terms of chronology and tempo. We look forward to international joint endeavors such as this one that help to formalize questions and data-collecting strategies for the southern drylands and beyond.

Section snippets

Archaeological discontinuities: An introduction

Change is the norm rather than the exception in archaeological scale, though its rate and mode are not uniform in time or space. Change accelerates its pace at given times and places along the course of human history, producing what we perceive as discontinuities or transitions in archaeological scale. Beyond its empirical or historical basis, recording and –above all – explaining archaeological discontinuities are eminently theoretical endeavors. Two of the most important sources of

Deconstructing discontinuities I: time

As championed from different backgrounds by Braudel’s (1958) Annales school and Bailey’s time perspectivism, ‘differing timescales bring into focus different features of behavior, requiring different sorts of explanatory principles’ (Bailey, 1981, 103; see also Bailey, 2007). This insightful assertion is nowhere more valid and in need of current attention than in the interpretation of archaeological discontinuities. What sort of past phenomena are we dealing with when assessing discontinuities

Deconstructing discontinuities II: space

Archaeological discontinuities recorded at different spatial scales would require different explanatory mechanisms that can be connected hierarchically (Delcourt and Delcourt, 1988). As Barberena, Méndez and de Porras (this volume) argue, we can use the multi-level character of historic processes in our favor by shifting spatial scales in order to visualize archaeological patterns. Complementing the strategy mentioned above for deconstructing discontinuities in time, the most productive

A working agenda

As we have already mentioned, archaeological discontinuities are a multi-dimensional set of phenomena with distinct expressions throughout the southern continents, though as we argue below, there are many shared processual aspects. Neither this introductory essay nor the papers contained in this volume encompass the full range of topics or approaches to this field. In this section we select a few issues that we consider worthy of systematic comparative attention in the years to come. These

Acknowledgments

We deeply thank Gustavo Politis and John M. O’Shea for their help and advice during the production of this volume. We acknowledge the support of Wenner-Gren Foundation in funding the workshop held in the context of the 4th Southern Deserts Conference from which this volume developed. Valeria Cortegoso offered comments that helped to improve the manuscript, while discussions with César Méndez contributed to build some arguments. Alejandra Gasco kindly allowed us to use the photo represented in

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Archaeological discontinuities in the southern hemisphere: A working agenda

Highlights

Abstract

Section snippets

Archaeological discontinuities: An introduction

Deconstructing discontinuities I: time

Deconstructing discontinuities II: space

A working agenda

Acknowledgments

J. Anthropol. Archaeol.

J. Archaeol. Sci.

Quatern. Sci. Rev.

J. Anthropol. Archaeol.

J. Anthropol. Archaeol.

J. Anthropol. Archaeol.

J. Archaeol. Sci.

Anthropocene

J. Archaeol. Sci.

Quatern. Int.

Quatern. Sci. Rev.

Chile. Quatern. Int.

J. Anthropol. Archaeol.

J. Anthropol. Archaeol.

The Languages of the Andes

Social and ecological models for the Middle Stone Age in Southern Africa

Dates and demography: are radiometric dates a robust proxy for long-term prehistoric demographic change?

Archaeol. Oceania

Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples

The importance of past population for prehistory

Taphonomy and paleobiology

Paleobiology

Holocene hunter-gatherers

The Numic Spread: Great Basin cultures in competition

Am. Antiq.

A consideration of archaeological research design

Am. Antiq.

The “fire stick farming” hypothesis: Australian aboriginal foraging strategies, biodiversity, and anthropogenic fire mosaics

Proc. Nat. Acad. USA

A landscape architecture of fire. Cultural emergence and ecological pyrodiversity in Australia’s Western Desert

Curr. Anthropol.

Soils and Geomorphology

Some population problems involving Pleistocene man

Cold Spring Harb. Sym.

The Naron: A Bushman Tribe of the Central Kalahari

The global process and local ecology: How should we explain differences between the Hadza and !Kung?

Los vencedores. Historia del pueblo Mapuche en la época colonial

Cambios, Continuidades, Discontinuidades: Discusiones sobre Arqueología Fuego-Patagónica

Histoire et sciences sociales. La longue durée. Annales. Économies, Sociétés

Civilisations

Deposition models for chronological records

Quatern. Sci. Rev.

Abandonment and archaeological interpretation

Hunter-gatherers of the northern Kalahari

Creolisation on the nineteenth-century frontiers of southern Africa: a case study of the AmaTola ‘Bushmen’ in the Maloti-Drakensberg

J. South. Afr. Stud.

Binding beliefs: The creolisation process in a ‘bushman’ raider group in nineteenth-century Southern Africa

Geology of mankind

Nature

Quaternary landscape ecology: relevant scales in space and time

Landscape Ecol.

Late Holocene burial cluster at Diaz Street Midden, Saldanha Bay, Western Cape, South Africa

Azania Archaeol. Res. Afr.

Subsistence, settlement and material culture on the central Namaqualand coastline

Monuments, Empires, and Resistance. The Araucanian Polity and Ritual Narratives

Challenges for comparative study of early complex societies

Coevolution. Genes, Culture and Human Diversity

Discontinuity in the stratigraphic record: snapshots from Franchthi Cave

Archaeological sediments in rockshelters and caves

The extended evolutionary synthesis, ethnography, and the human niche: toward an integrated anthropology

Curr. Anthropol.