An Ethnoarchaeological approach to the selknam ceremony of Hain. A discussion of the impact of ritual on social organization in hunter-gatherer societies.

MANSUR MARÍA ESTELA Y PIQUÉ RAQUEL.

Archaeological invisibility and forgotten knowledge

B.A.R.,

Lugar: Oxford. ; Año: 2008;

A basic problem for the archaeological study of ritual is that the focus of archaeology is mainly on the material record from past societies whereas ritual is dominated by non-material features. As a consequence of this archaeological research has largely focused on the study of environmental and economic aspects (reduced to technology and subsistence), that is, aspects that can produce material results that can be correlated with the study of the archaeological record. This implies that the interpretative possibilities of archaeology would be restricted by a limited archaeological record, which would not permit the consideration of such aspects as symbolism or social relations, merely because of the generalized idea that they are not "materialized" in the archaeological record.  It has been a general assumption that ritual activities can be recognized merely through the existence of particular material remains or through elements whose characteristics suggest little or no functional use. Likewise, employment of unusual spaces or spatial contexts point to ritual. The analysis of ritual in archaeology has generally been oriented towards archaeological remains qualified as "exceptional". Such is the case of rock or mobile art, burials, etc., to which a certain symbolic significance is attributed. It is frequently also the case with unique singular artefacts, which have been classified as “ceremonial” or "ritual" simply because of their particular outstanding features, colour or size for example, which make them differ from others of the same type and suggest that they were not utilitarian. However, the question remains; how one can identify symbolic significance, which presumably is linked to ideology, in material remains and in their contexts. Archaeology has used ethnographic models to assist in the interpretation of the symbolic world in general and ritual in particular.