CADIC   02618
CENTRO AUSTRAL DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Dwellings and societal changes among marine foragers in Norway and Patagonia ? a study of technological choices in housebuilding traditions
Autor/es:
FRETHEIM, S.; PIANA, E. L.; BJERCK, H. ; ZANGRANDO, A.F.
Lugar:
Trondheim
Reunión:
Workshop; Marine Ventures, International Symposium 2013; 2013
Institución organizadora:
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Resumen:
While the pioneer marine foragers along the Norwegian coast (11 500?10 000 cal. BP) seem to have relied solely on light, fairly small campsite shelters or tents, remains of permanent dwellings in the form of pit-houses with solid wall mounds show up on coastal sites around 9500 cal. BP, and become increasingly more common towards the end of the Mesolithic (c. 6000 cal. BP). Average floor sizes also increase markedly. This shift in housbuilding traditions is seen to reflect overall societal changes towards a less mobile, more territorially bound lifestyle, and also an economy resting on a wider range of local recourses. The placing of Late Mesolithic base camps (8500?6000 cal. BP) near stable fishing grounds, and the first occurrence of stone fishing sinkers on sites after c. 9000 cal. BP, suggest that fishing gained importance in this period. This, in turn, implicates a relative loss in economic significance for the hunting of seals, believed to be a crucial recourse for the coastal pioneers. In Patagonia, zooarchaeological material from coastal sites along the Beagle Channel between c. 7000 cal. BP and recorded historical time suggests intensification in fishing at the expense of hunting sea and land mammals (guanacos and pinnipeds), starting c. 1000 cal. BP. However, there is little in the archaeological or ethnographical material to indicate a corresponding changed in settlement patterns or fishing technology within the same period. The dwellings also seem to have remained the same: Light, uniformly sized hut structures covering an unmodified or occasionally leveled floor area, surrounded by circular mounds of shell-midden material interpreted as mere waste rather than constructional elements of the dwellings. According to Pierre Lemonnier, social logics unrelated to technology tend to play a significant role in technological choices. A changing natural environment, a shift in economy or an exposure to new knowledge and ideas by cultural contacts ? all these are essential factors in explaining changes in material culture, but they cannot demand change that is incompatible with cultural views, and they do not determine the direction or success of the technological choices that are made. In this paper, we will consider and compare the factors that may have affected the different technological choices in housbuilding traditions among the marine forager of Patagonia and Norway respectively, taking into account that apparent non-change in the material culture may also be regarded as a choice. We also want to explore general ideas concerning the relationship between dwellings and societal changes, and how choices in housebulilding traditions may have affected the marine foragers in Patagonia and Norway in the long term.