When Smoking Pipes Grow Fins Cipolla, Craig N
Current anthropology,
10/2023, Volume:
64, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This paper chronicles how Indigenous-made stone “vasiform” smoking pipes from Ontario foster fresh perspectives on archaeological and anthropological approaches to representation and meaning. These ...discussions often undervalue the material world, whereas recent emphases on “things themselves” tend to neglect issues of representation, meaning, and symbolism. Variations in smoking pipe form, including several examples of pipes that resemble fish, point to the importance of more-than-representational approaches. Considering how and why a few pipes “grew fins” while the majority remained “bedded down” speaks to the importance of beginning discussions of representation and meaning from postanthropocentric vantages that recognize the vibrancy of matter. The pipes offer an opportunity to revisit the long-standing tension between matter and meaning, providing new angles of articulation with two complementary lines of thought—assemblage theory and Peircean semiotics. Both theories align with “nonrepresentational” critiques, postanthropocentrism, and relational ontologies, but archaeologists rarely consider the two together. The emergent relationship between vasiform pipes, assemblage theory, and Peircean semiotics documented in this article offers useful ways to continue challenging the deep-seated matter-meaning dualism in archaeological thought.
ABSTRACT
Currently on the rise in archaeology, ontological approaches promise new ways of engaging with alterity of various kinds—different people, different times, different forms, even different ...worlds. This work promises to aid in critical reflections on the arbitrary nature of the Western gaze and to recognize and incorporate non‐Western knowledge in new manners. There are, however, several challenges to address. First, as noted by several leading thinkers in this area, the present range of ontological approaches include contrasting theoretical underpinnings. Second, these approaches are rarely considered in relation to the practical challenges of specific archaeological cases, particularly contexts of settler colonialism in which practitioners are attuned to the potential colonial nature of their work. I divide ontologically engaged archaeologies into three related but distinct groups and use a small museum assemblage of seventeenth‐century Wendat materials from Ontario to help think through these three theories. In comparing approaches, I outline their respective strengths, weaknesses, and points in need of further clarification. I conclude that the ontological turns offer new and valuable angles of articulation with archaeological materials but that archaeologists must adopt them cautiously if they are to avoid repeating or continuing some of the darkest parts of our (colonial) disciplinary history. ontology, archaeology, new materialism, archaeological theory, effigies, colonialism, Iroquoian archaeology, Ontario
RESUMEN
Actualmente se están desarrollando en la arqueología, aproximaciones ontológicas que prometen nuevas formas de comprometerse con la alteridad de varios tipos—personas diferentes, tiempos diferentes, formas diferentes, aun mundos diferentes. Este trabajo promete ayudar en reflexiones críticas sobre la naturaleza arbitraria de la mirada occidental y para reconocer e incorporar conocimiento no occidental en nuevas formas. Hay, sin embargo, varios retos para abordar. Primero, como señalado por varios pensadores destacados en esta área, el rango actual de aproximaciones ontológicas incluye fundamentos teóricos contrastantes. Segundo, estas aproximaciones son consideradas raramente en relación con los retos prácticos de casos arqueológicos específicos, particularmente los contextos del colonialismo de pobladores en los cuales los profesionales están sintonizados con la naturaleza colonial potencial de su trabajo. Divido las arqueologías comprometidas ontológicamente en tres grupos relacionados pero distintos y uso un ensamblaje pequeño de museo de materiales de los hurones del siglo XVII de Ontario para ayudar a pensar a través de estas tres teorías. Comparando las aproximaciones, bosquejo sus debilidades, fortalezas respectivas, y puntos en necesidad de clarificación adicional. Concluyo que los cambios ontológicos ofrecen ángulos de articulación nuevos y valiosos con materiales arqueológicos, pero que los arqueólogos los deben adoptar con cautela si van a evitar repetir o continuar algunas de las partes más oscuras de nuestra historia disciplinaria (colonial). ontología, arqueología, materialismo nuevo, teoría arqueológica, efigies, colonialismo, arqueología Iroquesa, Ontario
RÉSUMÉ
Les démarches ontologiques offrent un cadre théorique prometteur pour l’étude de l'altérité. Elles permettent une réflexion critique sur la nature arbitraire du regard occidental et reconnaissent les savoirs non occidentaux. Il y a toutefois plusieurs défis à relever. D'abord, les approches ontologiques se basent souvent sur des assises théoriques contradictoires. Ensuite, elles prennent rarement en compte les défis pratiques associés à des cas spécifiques, comme les recherches en contexte colonial où le risque de renforcer une vision colonialiste est réel. J'utilise une collection muséologique d'objets wendats de l'Ontario du XVIIe siècle afin de comparer trois approches ontologiques utilisées en archéologie. Je souligne ainsi leurs forces et leurs faiblesses, en plus de mettre en évidence certains points nécessitant une plus grande clarification. Le tournant ontologique offre des cadres théoriques prometteurs, mais les archéologues doivent les adopter de façon critique afin d’éviter la répétition de moments sombres de l'histoire de notre discipline. ontologie, archéologie, nouveau matérialisme, théorie archéologique, effigies, colonialisme, archéologie iroquoienne, Ontario
North American brass projectile points conjure a variety of archaeological narratives. Depending on the interpreter and the context of interpretation, they serve as evidence for: simplistic ...replacement of local traditions by technologically superior European-introduced materials; the homogenizing forces of global capitalism; nuanced and complicated Indigenous-colonial histories; and/or Indigenous survivance and adaptability. Irrespective of the narratives that they inspire, however, brass projectiles remain under-studied and under-theorized in North American archaeology. This paper addresses this dearth by analyzing and rethinking a large museum assemblage of brass projectile points from Ontario. The analysis offers insights into the variability and history of brass projectiles, specifically as they relate to lithic traditions. The brass assemblage under consideration points to the significance of New Materialist perspectives on relationality, on post-anthropocentrism, and on change and history. Whereas archaeological habits tend to characterize North American brass projectiles as permutations of “old” plus “new” with minimal engagement with the objects themselves, this paper thinks with brass points, seeking out new angles of understanding that recognize their novelty.
Historical archaeology studies once relied upon a binary view of colonialism: colonizers and colonized, the colonial period and the postcolonial period. The international contributors to this volume ...scrutinize imperialism and expansionism through an alternative lens that looks beyond simple dualities to explore the variously gendered, racialized, and occupied peoples of a multitude of faiths, desires, associations, and constraints. Colonialism is not a phase in the chronology of a people but a continuous phenomenon that spans the Old and New Worlds. Most importantly, the contributors argue that its impacts-and, in some instances, even the same processes set in place by the likes of Columbus-are ongoing.
Inciting a critical study of the lasting impacts of ancient and modern colonialism on descendant communities, this wide-ranging volume includes essays on Roman Britain, slavery in Brazil, and contemporary Native Americans. In its efforts to define the scope and comparability of colonialism, this collection challenges the field to go beyond familiar geographical and historical boundaries and draws attention to unfolding colonial futures.
Through an archaeology of Fort La Cloche, a nineteenth-century Hudson’s Bay Company post in Georgian Bay (Lake Huron, Canada), this paper explores parallels between historical archaeology and ...posthumanism. The posthumanities identify and critique three key problems familiar to historical archaeologists: (1) the arbitrary prioritization of certain types of historical actors (usually White, male, settler colonial) as the apex and standard for all humanity; (2) dichotomous modes of thought that cleave the world into discrete (opposed) categories like “nature” versus “culture”; and (3) human exceptionalism, which frames human beings as fundamentally different—and separate—from all other living and nonliving things surrounding them. An archaeology of La Cloche offers insights into how these broader philosophical goals compare with the work of historical archaeologists. The intersection of the archival record with the archaeological collection, a large and varied assemblage of patent medicine bottles, porcelain doll parts, buttons, shotgun casings, and much more, provides new perspectives on the fur trade; it offers insights into the broader community at La Cloche, peopled not just by powerful company men but by children, woman, workers of various kinds and, of course, Ojibwe and other Indigenous peoples. Historical archaeology also focuses on the material conditions of the fort, documenting complicated and sticky relationships of dependence between people of all sorts and humble, nonhuman things. The paper concludes that historical archaeology and posthumanism stand to benefit from further engagement with one another, making recommendations for further growth.
There is little doubt that Indigenous, collaborative, and community-based archaeologies offer productive means of reshaping the ways in which archaeologists conduct research in North America. ...Scholarly reporting, however, typically places less emphasis on the ways in which Indigenous and collaborative versions of archaeology influence our interpretations of the past and penetrate archaeology at the level of theory. In this article, we begin to fill this void, critically considering archaeological research and teaching at Mohegan in terms of the deeper impacts that Indigenous knowledge, interests, and sensitivities make via collaborative projects. We frame the collaboration as greater than the sum of its heterogeneous components, including its diverse human participants. From this perspective, the project produces new and valuable orientations toward current theoretical debates in archaeology. We address these themes as they relate to ongoing research and teaching at several eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sites on the Mohegan Reservation in Uncasville, Connecticut. Il ne fait aucun doute que l'archéologie des nations amérindiennes, l'archéologie collaborative et l'archéologie communautaire offrent une variété de démarches pour refaçonner la façon dont les archéologues nord-américains effectuent leur recherche. Toutefois, les publications mettent en général moins l'accent sur la façon dont les archéologies communautaire et amérindienne influencent l'interprétation du passé au niveau théorique. Dans cet article, nous cherchons à combler cette lacune en examinant de façon critique la recherche et l'enseignement effectués chez les Mohegan, surtout en ce qui a trait aux impacts profonds qu'apporte une approche collaborative sur la pratique archéologique en mettant en valeur les connaissances, les préoccupations et les sensibilités des nations amérindiennes. Nous envisageons la collaboration comme étant plus grande que la somme de ses composantes hétérogènes, y compris les participants humains. De ce point de vue, ce projet propose de nouvelles directions pour les débats théoriques en archéologie. Nous illustrons ces thèmes à travers la recherche et l'enseignement effectués sur plusieurs sites des XVIIIe et XIVe siècles situés sur la Réserve Mohegan à Uncasville, Connecticut.
Birdstones are an enigmatic and diverse group of objects found across eastern North America with concentrations around the Great Lakes region. Via speculative interpretations of form, analogical ...comparison with other regions, and consideration of basic contextual information, archaeologists think of birdstones as parts of canoes, flutes, unspecified ceremonial assemblages, and, most frequently, atlatls. Discourse and debate about birdstones largely neglects issues of material vibrancy and semiotic process, including the processes by which archaeologists and others began to name and typify these objects in the late nineteenth century. This paper rethinks birdstones through a 'more than representational' approach that combines assemblage theory with Peircean semiotics. Although both lines of thought align with relational ontologies, non-representational critiques, and post-anthropocentrism, archaeologists rarely consider the two together. This approach helps us chart how birdstones emerged and evolved through a complicated set of human-nonhuman interactions that continue into the present.
The typologies that archaeologists use to classify artefacts and situate them chronologically and culturally are crucial tools of the discipline; when left unquestioned, however, they tend to produce ...reductive and essentializing understandings of the past. Like all theoretical interventions, assemblage theory questions the unquestioned, in this case, asking archaeologists to radically rethink the relationality of the world and the power and vibrancy of nonhuman and nonliving things like stone. In this article, we take an assemblage-based approach to an old typological problem - sorting birdstones. Since the mid-19th century, collectors and archaeologists categorized birdstones found throughout the American Northeast according to evolutionary or culture-historical principles. These approaches paid little attention to different varieties of stone, often regarding birdstones as if they were passive reflections of normative mindsets that came in only three culture-specific types. Here, we explore how archaeologists might 'reassemble' typological thought, analysing and thinking through a large sample of materially varied birdstones to find much more than three little birds. Recognizing how the shared and specific capacities of different stones actively contributed to the multiplicity of birdstone morphologies resituates them as singular and changing assemblages while highlighting the potentials of questioning the fixity of both typological and material categories at large.
In this introduction to the special edition, we argue that the theories of philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce have the potential to bridge some of the deepest divides in archaeology. We also ...demonstrate that the adoption of an extreme 'anti-representational' position in thing-centred turns in the discipline is misguided, as scholars recognize diverse modalities of representation beyond symbols and immaterial signifiers. By combining the insights of Peircean semiotics, assemblage theory, and new approaches inspired by the ontological turn, we rehabilitate representation as a fundamental material process in the exercise of agency and the making and transformation of 'meaningfully constituted worlds.' Mobilizing theories on semiotic ideologies in particular, we further contend that the material worlds assembled through representational processes can often be harmful, unjust, contradictory, challenged and potentially reconfigured. Ultimately, as a semiotic science in its own right, archaeology must devise new ways to analyse the mediated representations of the past subjects they study. The diverse articles of this issue have made an important contribution exploring this central problem in archaeological research.
Revisiting fur trade collections at the Royal Ontario Museum, this essay explores connections and potential interplay between historical archaeology and assemblage theory. With few exceptions, ...archaeologists studying "modernity" over the last 500 years—including those studying the fur trade—have paid little attention to assemblage theory. Also referred to as "new materialisms," assemblage theory highlights the qualities and vibrancies of substances, their relationality, and their part in energy flows. These distinctly non-anthropocentric emphases present challenges to standard notions of humanity employed in historical archaeology. Building on this general premise, we experiment with "(re)assembling" historical archaeology by rethinking and reframing aspects of the North American fur trade as it relates to rivers. Archaeological assemblages collected from the beds of several major riverways in Ontario speak to common themes studied in historical archaeology, yet also attest to the ways in which the fur trade depended upon harnessing river power that often acted back in unpredictable and sometimes violent ways. Brought into dialogue with records kept by traders, the collections offer useful perspectives on the deep entanglements between fur trade histories and rivers. From an assemblage perspective, we use these examples to reframe the role of non-human forces in the fur trade and to further challenge dualisms between nature/culture and human/non-human in historical archaeology.
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