Lectura de Gould

The Anthropology
of Human Residues
RICHARD A. Goum
University of Hawaii, Honolulu


Durante su vida dentro del sistema cultural viviente, un elemento durable tal como un
artefactoltico es visto como el reflejo de cinco procesos: adquisicin, manufactura,
uso, mantenimiento y descarte. Despus de su descarte, un elemento durable deja
el sistema cultural viviente y entra en el dominio del contexto arqueolgico.

- focus of inquiry the behavior of discard. the emphasis should be on function and
disposal rather than on manufacture
- Discard behavior is a universal human trait and in some ways is much like language. Patterns of
behavior
Just as a linguist infers the rules of grammar from patterns of speech, so an ethnoarchaeologist
can infer the rules that govern the patterns of human residue behavior in particular societies.

One might wish to argue that a linguistic metaphor should be applied only to expressive behavior.
When Rowe (1959) and his colleagues showed how one could infer rules of grammar in
prehistoric Peruvian pottery styles, they were dealing with a clear case of artistic expression. At
times such expressiveness is a feature of residue behavior. For example, Australian Desert
aborigines arrange their habitation campsites to express the condition of social relationships be-
tween extended family groups, so a visitor can readily infer (or read) how increased distance
between campsite clusters reflects increased hostility or distrust or vice versa. For the
ethnoarchaeologist, however, it matters little whether or not the people being observed are
conscious of these rules, since, like the grammar of a language, these rules are operationally
defined. As Stanislawski (1975:9) has suggested, one can even explore the possibility of deep
structures in human residue formation that approximate the search by linguists and linguistically
oriented anthropologists for universal patterns in human cognition.

the process by which the archaeologist as ethnographer observes and models the residue
formation of the people he studies in order to posit lawlike relationships between material
remains and behavior, and the materialist approach that this kind of ethnoarchaeology represents.
Schiffers scheme (1972b:157) proposes a dual set of flow models that traces the life cycle of two
kinds of elements which, together, make up a complete inventory of a cultural system. These
elements are classified into durables (tools, machines and facilities- in short, transformers and
preservers of energy) and consumables (food. fuels, and other similar elements whose
consumption results in the liberation of energy).
During its life within the living cultural system, a durable element such as a stone tool is seen as
reflecting five processes: procurement, manufacture, use, maintenance, and discard. After its
discard, a durable element leaves the living cultural system and enters the realm of archaeological
context. By analyzing the life cycle of durable elements such as stone tools in an ethnographic
culture and observing their final disposal in what would be their ultimate archaeological context,
we can systematize observations that provide general principles whose use will lead to
archaeological predictions - in this case related to technology.
COMPORTAMIENTO RELACIONADO CON EL PROCESO MATERIAL EN EL SISTEMA CULTURAL
procurement manufacture use maintenance Discard (DONDE
TERMINAN LOS
OBJETOS?)
DONDE SE USAN?
HAY LUGAR DE
ALMACENAMIENTO
DE ELEMENTOS EN
DESUSO? HAY
ORDEN? O SEA,
DONDE SE
GUERDAN LOS
ELEMNTOS EN
DESUSO? EN EL
PATIO, EN LA
CASA?
DONDE
CONSIGUEN LOS
ELEMENTOS

Que materiales
son? El lugar de
obtencin
depende del
material y de las
tareas a ejecutar
con los
artefactos
Donde, como y
con que los
transforman:

Materia Prima

habitation
campsites

Que tipo de
artefactos
terminan en las
casas? Esto
habla de las
tareas
domsticas en
contraste con las
tareas que se
desarollan
afuera

Se desarollan
tareas de
Tareas:
Utilitarian &
Domestic Tasks

Clases de
artefactos

task-
specific localities

maintenance
tools - that is,
as tools for
making or
maintaining
other tools
As the preceding
analysis shows,
much more
quarried than
nonquarried raw
material
appears in
habitation
campsites, despite
the fact that
quarried stone
represents only a
Gould]
ANTHROPOLOGY
OF HUMAN
RESIDUES 823
minute fraction of
stone used in the
total cultural
system.

Adz flakes and adz
slugs tend to be
mantenimiento?
hay produccin
domstica de
objetos?
(transformacin
de materia
prima)
SE ReCILcA?
common in
habitation sites,
where they are
most
often
manufactured,
used, maintained,
and replaced


Chopper-planes are
left where they
were used and can
generally be found
lying near
the base of any
mulga tree which
shows a scar on its
trunk to indicate
removal of a slab of
wood




THE MATERIALIST APPROACH IN ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY ( cf. Harris Marvin)
even the best ethnographic accounts of material culture sometimes lack the empirical detail
necessary to discover those aspects of behavior most crucial in explaining the patterns of discard
involved

attention to the study of present-day human material behavior.

The ethnoarchaeologist looks first at the ways in which material items are made, used, and
discarded (or collected, processed, and disposed of), and his operations involve a conscious effort
to make these observations as empirical as possible.
Although archaeologists have, at various times, examined emic categories pertaining to material
artifacts (White and Thomas 1972, White and Modjeska 1974, Gould 1974). the results for
archaeological interpretation have been essentially negative and have led to an increasing
acceptance of the idea proposed by Clarke (1968:59-62) that emic categories and cognitive codes
exist as a black box for the archaeologist. We can observe inputs and outputs in a human society
without specifying the content of the cognitive black box.
That is, instead of assuming beforehand that symbolic and social variables are somehow to be
seen as epiphenomena in explaining behavior when compared with variables of a materialist
nature, we use the materialist approach to confront the totality of variables that may account for
the observed patterns of material remains. Human beings do manipulate symbols, and their
symbolic behavior can affect the total pattern of material residues in any society. Symbolic
systems may play a vital role in human adaption. and they can be approached from the same
materialist point of view by the ethnoarchaeologist as such items of behavioral hardware as
technology and subsistence.
Though statistically of less importance than white chert, the continuous low-level use of exotic
cherts cannot be explained by simple utilitarian arguments of efficiency of use or ease of
procurement and thus constitute a subpattern that is of equal or greater anthropological interest.
Both patterns require explanation in terms of human behavior, and a further examination of
ethnographic behavior in terms of lithic material preferences affords a useful approach to
explaining the Puntutjarpa data
By far the greatest amount of time and effort in the stone-tool-making process occurred during
quarrying and transport. Not only did this behavior involve visits to specific localities where stone
could be quarried and collected, but it also included transport of the stone back to camp for
further shaping and use.
preference for white chert reflects this materials superior mechanical efficiency in terms of tasks
involved with hardwood scraping combined with relative ease of procurement.

Sacred Association as a Factor in Stone Procurement
some adzes and circumcision knives of unusual stone were ob- served in use
brightly colored cherts, and interviews showed that these items came from specific localities
distant
the aborigine possessing such imported stone artifacts was able to indicate the exact locality
where the material was collected and give its totemic affiliation (that is, he was able to name the
ancestral Dreaming character connected to that place), even though the man being interviewed
may not himself have gone to the place to collect this stone.
these cherts were collected from various sacred sites, where they occurred in close proximity to
landmarks of totemic significance
Adzes of such chert (and a few of Wingelinna chrysoprase as well) were not regarded as sacred
objects themselves, they were carried openly in camp where women and children could see them.
When I inquired about these items, the response was invariably one of pride, not in the
craftsmanship of the tool (which was often poor) but in the raw material.
tools of imported stone were relics that had acquired importance in the eyes of the owner and
his associates because of their close physical proximity to some important sacred event. It was
almost like a pilgrim showing off a piece of the True Cross or some other souvenir of sacred
importance. The stone had been collected at or near the particular sacred site and carried away by
a member of the patrilineal cult lodge affiliated with that site, in many cases then to be passed on
to other members of the same cult lodge as a token of their mutual affiliation. Worn adz slugs
made of these materials were simply discarded in the habitation camp area. No attempt was made
to curate these items beyond their normal use-life.
Since the presence of exotic raw materials, as defined in this paper, is, in itself, evidence of
social networks along which such materials flowed, we need to consider the role of such networks
in relation to the problems of adapting to life in the Western Desert.
Fascination with the complexities of how these networks operate, especially in terms of kin-
.terminology, sections and subsections, and cult lodge affilia- tions, should not obscure the
overriding concern particular groups of aborigines have with using these networks as a means of
overcoming risks of drought and other problems of scarcity in their respective habitats. In a region
where water and other basic resources are not regularly available on an annual seasonal basis, and
where amounts of these resources may be limited even in the best of years, the ability of families
to move long distances to other areas, better favored than their own, is essential. Marriage.
totemic cult lodges, naming, and other social relationships involving obligatory sharing are all
consistent with the basic ecological requirement that people be able to move into distant, better
favored areas and take up temporary residence with the people living in these places as a means
of overcoming the economic uncertainties that act as limiting factors in the human settlement of
the Western Desert.
exotic lithic raw materials in the toolkits of present-day aborigines in the Western Desert is
circumstantial evidence for such long-distance social networks and the resource sharing upon
which they are based

Widely ramified, long-distance, kin-based social networks arise in societies that live directly off
the land where basic resources are subject to extreme fluctuations on an irregular and
unpredictable basis. The more unpredictable these fluctuations are, the more widely these social
networks will extend from any given point within the region.
means of an adaptive mechanism -long-distance social networks - that can be observed
exotic stones do presuppose some kind of symbolic attachment that supported such exchanges,
since their presence cannot be explained in terms of their functional efficiency or ease of
procurement.

examination of the procurement, usage, and discard of certain kinds of lithic raw materials and
their relationship to adaptive behavior.. reveals that ideational factors do affect patterns of
residue formation. The materialistic approach, in this case, permits us to appreciate the role of
symbolic, nonmaterialbehavior as a significant variable in relation to the material requirements
for successful hunting and gathering adaptation
ethnoarchaeology is a systematic exercise in the use of circumstantial evidence to explain human
behavior.
material circumstances that demand some kind of behavioral explanations
discover such apparently anomalous circumstances as a way of finding out when and under what
conditions ideational or nonmaterial factors may be important in understanding the totality of
human behavior with which he is concerned. Residues are the human species ultimate form of
circumstantial evidence.
learn how human beings behave in relation to the physical residues of their existence
RESUMEN:
En trminos antropolgicos, la observacin emprica de la INEFICACIA DEL MECANISMO DE
PREVENCION ENTOMOLGICO dados los altos ndices de infestacin de las casas, nos lleva analizar
etnogrficamente el hbito de los pobladores oraneses. Debemos asumir la acumulacin de
objetos como un hecho antropolgico lo cual implica INTENCIONALIDAD. En este trabajo
queremos dilucidar en una primera instancia las razones y sus determinantes socioculturales
(materiales y simblicas) de la prctica de la acumulacin de objetos. La bsqueda de patrones en
el comportamiento para la formacin de residuos solidos (materiales) entre diferentes grupos
sociales y como estos patrones puede afectar potencialmente (epidemiolgicamente) la salud del
total de la poblacin en relacin al Dengue a la luz de los servicios de salud y la Salud Publica en
general. En este sentido se trata de un ejercicio sistemtico en el uso de datos cualitativos y
cuantitativos obtenidos multi- metdicamente para explicar un comportamiento humano: la
produccin/reproduccin de residuos.
Circunstancias materiales han de sumarse a los condicionantes ideacionales (o no-materiales) para
comprender el accionar humano con respecto a los residuos fsicos de su existencia.