Society for American Archaeology

Beyond Willow Smoke and Dogs

'
Tails: A Comment on Binford
'
s Analysis of Hunter-Gatherer
Settlement Systems
Author(s): Polly Wiessner
Source: American Antiquity, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Jan., 1982), pp. 171-178
Published by: Society for Aerican Archaeology
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COMMENTS 171
Acknowledgments. Credit is due to Ron Bishop for creation of the title; thanks are also due to Diane Z.
Chase, Robert J. Sharer, and Bernard Wailes for their constructiva criticisms and readings of earlier versions
of this paper. The author, however, is entirely responsible for the contents. The subject matter here presentad
will be more fully discussed in the final publication of the University of Pennsylvania-University Museum
Tayasal Project.
REFERENCES CITED
Bullard, William R., Jr.
1973 Postclassic culture in Central Peten and adjacent British Honduras. In The CJassic Maya collapse,
edited by T. P. Culbert, pp. 221-241. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Chase, Arlen F.
1976 Topoxte and Tayasal: ethnohistory in archaeology. American Antiquity 41:154-167.
1979a Regional development in the Tayasal-Paxcaman Zone, El Peten, Guatemala: a preliminary state
ment. Cermica de Cultura Maya 11:86-119.
1979b Postclassic Peten interaction spheres: the view from Tayasal. Paper presentad at 78th Annual
Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Cincinnati. To appear in The LowJand Maya Post
dassic: questions and answers, edited by A. Chase and P. Rice.
Chase, Diane Z.
1979 The Postclassic period at Nohmul and Santa Rita, Northern Belize. Paper presentad at 78th Annual
Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Cincinnati. To appear in The LowJand Maya
Postdassic: questions and answers, edited by A. Chase and P. Rice.
1980 The Coroza! Postclassic Project: the 1979 excavations at Santa Rita and Nohmul. Paper presentad
at the 1980 Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Philadelphia.
1981 The Maya Postclassic at Santa Rita Corozo!. ArchaeoJogy 34:1.
Cowgill, G. L.
1963 Postdassic period culture in the vicinity of Flores, Peten, Guatemala. Unpublished Ph.D. disserta
tion, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Jones, G. D., D. S. Rice, and P. M. Rice
1981 The location of Tayasal: a reconsideration in light of Peten Maya ethnohistory and archaeology.
American Antiquity 46:530-547.
Pendergast, D. M.
1977 Royal Ontario museum excavation: finds at Lamanai, Belize. ArchaeoJogy 30:129-131.
Rice, Prudence M.
1979 Ceramic and nonceramic artifacts of Lakes Yaxha-Sacnab, El Petn, Guatemala. Part I. The
ceramics. Section B. Postclassic pottery from Topoxt. Cermica de Cultura Maya 11:1-85.
Sharer, Robert J., and Arlen F. Chase
1976 New Town ceramic complex. In Prehistoric pottery analysis and the ceramics of Barton Ramie in
the Belize Valley, by James C. Gifford. Peabody Museum Memoirs 18:288-314.
Willey, Gordon R., T. P. Cubert, and R. E. W. Adams
1967 Maya Lowland ceramics: a report from the 1965 Guatemala City Conference. American Antiquity
32:289-315.
BEYOND WILLOW SMOKE AND DOGS' TAILS: A COMMENT ON
BINFORD'S ANAL YSIS OF HUNTER-GA THERER SETLEMENT SYSTEMS
Polly Wiessner
lt is suggested that archaeoJogists would benefit by conceiving organizationaJ variation in hunter-gatherer
societies to be the resuJt of both organization around resources and organization around other persons in
social relations of production. This approach allows for predictions to be made about the pattering of
material remains which are the producs of intergroup and intragroup interaction. such as interar si te struc
ture. profiles of exchange, stylistic variation in artifacts, etc. To illustrate this point. I outline a number of
social strategies for reducing risk in social and natural resources and derive hypotheses about their material
Polly Wiessner, Institut for Forhistorisk ArkaeoJogi, Arhus Universitet, Moesgaard. DK-270, H,jbjerg, Den
mark
172 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 47, No. 1, 1982]
correlates. While 1 emphasize the importance of understanding these strategies within a framework of adapta
tion, 1 question whether it is possible to predict strategies of organization from environmentaJ variables aJone.
In his article on hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation, Binford
(1980) raises several important considerations for archaeologists by pointing out that (1) not all
hunter-gatherer societies share a similar basic organization. and (2) majar differences in
organization can have an important and predictable effect on the archaeological record. He
describes two strategies of organization around resources: first, that of foragers, who move fre
quently in arder to "map onto" resources, and second, that of collectors. who are more sedentary
and supply themselves with specific resources through logistically organized task groups. He then
relates these strategies to intersite assemblage variability. Arguing that good diagnosis is theory
dependent, he links these strategies to different environmental conditions to make them "more
understandable and predictable."
Despite many points of interest in Binford's article, 1 find that his efforts to explain variation in
hunter-gatherer societies through "a theory of adaptation," or, more accurately, through
relating organization of persons to environmental variables, provides only a very limited
framework for archaeologists to work with. Basic differences in hunter-gatherer organization
are the products of adaptive strategies which relate persons in social relations of production. Ar
chaeological data are also the products of both of these strategies. For example, the range of site
types within a settlement system, the location of sites, the content of assemblages. etc., may be
largely the consequence of direct organization around resources, but other crucial sets of data
concerning internal site structure, profiles of exchange, stylistic variation in artifacts, contents of
burials, etc., are the products of intragroup and intergroup interaction. In archaeology, when
problems of multiple occupations, preservation, and dating make it difficult to draw any but very
tentative conclusions about past organization from one set of data, it is crucial to ha ve as many in
dependent data sets as possible with which to examine these problems. Thus, if archaeologists
are to make full use of available data, hunter-gatherer organization must be viewed in light of a
theory which accounts for various forms of organization by taking the entire productive process
into account, that is, both the organization around resources and the organization around other
persons in social relations of production. Below 1 will outline a theoretical framework which has
the potential to account for the range of strategies used in the second half of the productive pro
cess: strategies to reduce risk or to reduce the variance in social and natural resources. Then 1
will briefly illustrate how "risk theory" can be used to make predictions about a much wider
range of material remains generated by different strategies of organization than do Binford's two
categories which are based on organization around resources alone. Such predictions can be
about internal site structure, distribution of faunal remains on a site, profiles of exchange, and
stylistic variation in artifacts.
MEANS OF REDUCING RISK
In any society, economic strategies are twofold: those aimed at bringing in the mean sub
sistence income needed to sustain a household throughout the average year, and those aimed at
reducing the variance around the mean. In hunting and gathering societies, in which direct
organization around resource procurement is often minimal or short in duration (Meillassoux
1973), it is often strategies for reducing risk which require the most extensive cooperation and
thus have a marked influence on social organization. In view of this, many of the organizational
differences in these societies stem from different strategies for reducing risk. Briefly, means of
reducing risk can be seen as falling under four primary strategies, where risk is defined as prob
ability of loss (Riegel and Miller 1959):
(1) Prevention of loss: reduction of hazard or minimization of actual loss. Among
hunter-gatherers this includes such preventive measures as rituals aimed at warding off misfor
tune; control of resources through burning; and allocation of land rights so that a group can plan a
yearly round without running the risk that others will ha ve come into the area unexpectedly and
COMMENTS 173
ha ve exhausted critical resources. Where there is pressure on land, defense of territory might be
included with these measures.
(2) Transfer of risk or loss from one party to another: In the recent past this strategy appears to
have been used by such groups as the Kwakiutl (Piddocke 1969; Suttles 1968), among whom a
surplus was amassed during the summer and then transferred to poorer groups during winter
ceremonies. A negative form of this strategy is the transfer of loss through expropriation of the
land or resources of another group by force.
(3) Storage, or self-assumption of risk: losses are covered by previous accumulation.
(4) Pooling of risk, or risk sharing: a social method of "insurance" which combines principies of
risk transfer with principies of storage, and storage of obligations. In pooling, risk is distributed
over a broad segment of the population, so that loss is made more predictable and shared by those
in the pool. Small everyday losses-gifts of food, assistance, etc.-are thereby substituted for
larger, more indefinite ones, such as weeks without hunting success, prolonged periods of
sickness, etc. Pooling of risk can be locally organized through widespread sharing and through in
dividually chosen partnerships of mutual reciprocity, or, it can be centrally organized through
giving tribute to a central figure for redistribution. Many hunter-gatherer societies use a form of
risk pooling described by Sahlins (1972) as generalized reciprocity, which operates under the
terms that he who has gives to him who is in need, donors and recipients alternating, as the condi
tions of have and have not may be reversed.
Most hunter-gatherer societies used a combination of strategies for reducing risk, sore
simultaneously, others in different seasons, still others for managing short-term and long-term
risks. Here I will muy discuss strategies for dealing with short-term variation, beca use these have a
profound influence on organization and result in a continuum of hunter-gatherer organization
which ranges from that of the Kalahari San who rely primarily on risk sharing, to that of the
Nunamiut who set aside substantial household stores, to that of groups on the Northwest (Pacific)
Coast who use storage in combination with centralized pooling of risk. It should be added that all
of these risk-reducing strategies can be linked to Binford's strategies for organization around
resources, with individually organized pooling of risk being largely associated with a foraging
strategy, and centralized pooling, transfer, and storage being most frequently associated with a
collector's approach, and so on.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPLICA TIONS
Turning to the archaeological implications of different methods for reducing risk, I will give
sore brief examples of predictions which can be made about the material correlates of different
strategies. I will limit these to societies which deal with short-term risks either primarily through
individually organized pooling of risk or through storage, so that they can be linked to Binford's
collector/forager dichotomy, making the two approaches more comparable. In future work it will
be necessary to develop similar predictions for contents of burials, as well as for the material re
mains of societies which rely on transfer of risk or centralized pooling. Such strategies may have
been much more important in the past among temperate clima te hunter-gatherers who were sur
rounded by societies with more equivalent levels of adaptation than are hunter-gatherers today.
Interna) Site Structure
Societies which rely heavily on risk sharing can be expected to have a site layout rather dif
ferent from those which rely on household storage. This will be due to different intracamp rela
tions in the two systems. Aside from the more obvious features like storage facilities. societies
which practice noncommunal storage would be expected to have a more "closed" site plan, i.e.,
one which has either widely spaced household units or closed-in eating and storage areas, in
arder to avoid the jealousy and conflict which might arise from one household visibly having more
than another. Among those who pool risk and share what is brought into the camp daily, one of the
majar means of determining who has and who is in need. is an "open" site plan which makes it
possible for members of each household to see what the others ha ve brought in and gauge their re-
174 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 47, No.1, 1982)
quests accordingly. Published camp plans from various societies which share widely within the
camp, such as those from the !Kung San (Yellen 1977a), the !Ko San (Sbrzesny 1976), the Pitjand
jara (Tindale 1972), the Birhor (Williams 1968a, 1968b), the Pygmies (Turnbull 1965), and summer
fishing camps of the Peel River Kutchin (Slodbokin 1962), depict an open site layout which allows
members of each household to see what others around them are doing at all times of the day.
When cold weather does not permit an open plan, other means of assuring visibility of food within
the camp are used. Among the Ammassilik lnuit of Greenland, the en tire band of 3-10 families in
ha bits one communal house during the winter (Thalbitzer 1914) and among the Polar Inuit, meat
brought into the camp is placed on a communal rack, so that it is visible to all members of the
camp (Freuchen 1962; Rasmussen 1905). Published plans from groups which rely on household
storage are less common, but those available do indica te both wide spacing of household units and
closed-in storage areas (Spencer 1959; Watanabe 1972). Consequently, when it is possible to
determine from the archaeological record whether a site plan is "open" or "closed," one could
formulate hypotheses about the principal means of reducing risk used at the site and test them
with independent, but complementary, data.
Distribution of Faunal Remains Within a Site
As can be predicted from the social relations accompanying household storage and sharing,
both butchering techniques and distribution of fauna! remains appear to differ significantly be
tween societies in which persons share all large game brought into the camp, from those in which
a household supplies itself largely from its own stores. Yellen (1977b), developing a theme in
troduced by White (1952, 1953, 1954, 1955), argues that !Kung San butchering practices are for
the most part determined by a set of cultural rules, and that differences in butchering practices
thus may denote cultural differences, just as might variation in pottery designs or stone too!
assemblages. My own observations on !Kung meat sharing support Yellen's views in that certain
kinsmen expect to get parcels of meat and thereby reinforce these "rules." Clase scrutiny of
Yellen's camp plans also indicate that the distribution of fauna! remains partially reveals pat
terns of meat-sharing within the camp, although more often than not such patterns will be
obscured by multiple occupations of a site and postdepositional disturbances.
In his thorough study, Binford finds the opposite to be true for both Nunamiut butchering prac
tices and distribution of fauna! remains within a site. For butchering he demonstrates that
"variability is the name of the game" (1978:87), and that butchering practices hinge on such fac
tors as current needs, future requirements, transport and preservation costs, etc. He argues that
the presence and distribution of fauna on a site are the products of the utility index of various
anatomical parts of an animal, with low utility parts being consumed immediately and high utility
parts being stored. He goes on to suggest that apparent differences between !Kung and Nunamiut
butchering practices stem from strategies of sharing, "mapping (parts of an animal) onto
persons," and storage, "mapping (parts of an animal) into different places at different times"
(1978:133). Thus, in societies which rely primarily on sharing, one might expect a greater
regularity of butchering practices and a distribution of fauna! remains which reflects sharing;
while among those which re! y on household storage, the expectation is for less regular butchering
practices and a distribution of fauna! remains which reflects a choice of parts for immediate con
sumption or storage, according to current and future needs.
Intersite Variability
Since Binford's prediction for greater intersite variability in collector systems is based largely
on the premise that more types of collector sites will be visible archaeologically, as a consequence
of the bulk of material processed at them, increased intersite variability should also be linked to
increased reduction of risk through storage. It might be added, however, that because different
settlement patterns can be the result of many variables pertaining to resources exploited and to
the means of exploiting them, high intersite variability may not turn out to be a good indicator of a
COMMENTS 175
collector/storage adaptation. Site variability can be produced by a number of factors which are
not necessarily linked to a collector/storage system. For example, until recently, the !Kung and
other San groups occasionally shot animals from blinds. which were substantial constructions
(Brooks 1980; Crowell and Hitchcock 1980), and tracked them the next day, thus adding a field
camp/station to their repertoire without changing their basic organization.
Exchange
From strategies for reducing risk, one might predict that among those who rely on pooling, the
distribution of exchange items would not drop off directly with distance as it would among those
who rely on household storage. This is because, in arder to insure that their needs will be met,
those who pool risk must integrate themselves into a much wider segment of the population than
do those who meet their own needs through storage. Little quantitative work has been done on
profiles of exchange over space among hunter-gatherers, but data from the !Kung (Wiessner
1977) indica te that exchange ties do not fall off directly with distance but are often more intense
with distant groups who have complementary resources than with adjacent groups who have
similar ones. Further work might reveal that among semisedentary groups who rely on storage,
exchange ties drop off more directly with distance.
Stylistic Variation in Artifacts
Profiles of stylistic variation can also be expected to vary according to means of reducing risk.
Among those who pool risk, an effort is made to blend the individual into the greater population
rather than to emphasize household or band identity. The opposite should be the case for those
who use prvate storage within the household or band and thus have reason to function as a unit
and emphasize group boundaries. Data from analysis of stylistic variation in !Kung San projectile
points (Wiessner 1980b) show that stylistic differences do not occur prior to the emergence of
dialect or linguistic group boundaries. In contrast, it is interesting to note that ownership marks
are most frequently reported among hunter-gatherers who rely on storage (Spencer 1959,
Watanabe 1972).
Implications for Change
During a switch to agriculture, the differences in the changes required between those who rely
on storage and those who pool risk are impressive. Those relying on prvate storage would only
have to undergo gradual change in arder to become more sedentary and begin food production,
for once storage is established, strategies for increasing mean income and decreasing the
variance around the mean can be one and the same-to produce more. Among those who share
widely on a daily basis, however, these two strategies can contradict one another. Because of the
terms of sharing relationships, i.e .. that he who has gives to him who is in need, members of a
family which produces more must also give away more to friends and relatives. However, doing so
beyond a certain point will not necessarily increase their own security. The change required for
those who pool risk to switch to food production is so great that Meillassoux (1973) has suggested
that the origins of agriculture might not be found in such societies. His view may be extreme, but it
does call attention to the fact that it is not just the switch to agriculture which must be accounted
for, but prior to that the origins of priva te or semiprivate storage. It is also possible that Binford's
correlation between low effective temperature and storage can be partially explained by the
possibility that hunter-gatherers in more temperate environments in the past, who practiced ex
tensive storage, gradually changed to food production, and only those in societies in which low ef
fective temperature made food production difficult did not change.
It might be added here that in arder to gain further understanding of the choice of certain op
tions in different natural and social environments, all of these strategies for reducing risk can and
should be put within a framework of adaptation. This issue is beyond the scope of this comment.
176 AMERICAN ANTIQUITY [Vol. 47, No. 1, 1982]
However, although Binford does demonstrate sore interesting trends about the correlation
of storage with low effective temperature and incongruity in resources, 1 do not think that
this correlation between environmental variables on the one hand, and forms of organization on
the other, is as straightforward as he suggests. For instance, there is no reason why spatial in
congruity in resources is limited to areas of low effective temperature, nor why storage is the best
method for dealing with spatial incongruity in resources. Hunters and gatherers may also solve
this problem through functional equivalents, such as creating social ties which allow them to
"map onto" the resources of other groups, when resources in their areas are low and those in
other areas are more abundan t. The !Kung. for example, are faced with the problem of incongrui
ty in resources every year, when the most abundant resources are far from water points.
However, they do not solve this problem by storing mongongo nuts. but by visiting friends and
relatives in other areas, who ha ve more ample resources in a given season, or by falling back on
secondary resources (Wiessner 1977; 1980a). Binford himself recognizes these exceptions to the
cold climate/storage correlation in mentioning 10 societies which do not conform to his predictions.
Environmental variables, then, can set the bounds within which certain strategies work effec
tively according to abundance, spatial and temporal distribution, and patterns of variation of
resources, but in most environments there are a number of organizational strategies which can
fill certain needs. Unless one makes the tenuous assumption that there exists an optimal solution
to living in a given environment and that most societies arrive at this solution, it is dubious
whether environmental variables can be used to make accurate predictions about organization in
prehistoric societies. This point has been well demonstrated by lngold (1980) who argues that
hunting, pastoralism, and ranching are all based on the same animal, in the same environment,
and with similar technologies and organization around work, yet with radically different relations
of production. Because of problems posed by (1) the optimization assumption, (2) differences in
reconstructing past environments. and (3) the impact of surrounding sociopolitical environments
as well as the natural environment on organization, 1 suggest that ideas about the effectiveness of
certain organizational forms in given environments are better employed to examine inferences
about organization which are derived from patterns of material remains, rather than to predict
such patterns.
CONCLUSION
Despite sore discrepancies over the role of environmental data in reconstructing past social
organization, Binford's approach nd mine share a common goal. That is, we both try to specify a
spectrum of organizational strategies which hunter-gatherers use to adapt to various en
vironments, and to relate these strategies to regular and predictable patterns of material re
mains. Certainy Binford's paper provides a stimulating beginning in this direction. But, if this ap
proach is to take us very far, it will be necessary to consider variation in hunter-gatherer
organization in the light of strategies used in the entire productive process-those strategies used
for organization around resources, as well as those used in organization around other persons in
social relations of production. For instance, the addition of risk-reducing strategies to those for
organization around resources, as outlined here, provides, for a number of reasons, a more pro
ductive framework with which the archaeologist can view hunter-gatherer organization. First, it
has the potential to add many more strategies of adaptation to Binford's two categories of collec
tor and forager. Second, the strategies for reducing risk described here differ considerably from
one another. This is unlike Binford's forager and collector systems, which he describes as being a
graded series from simple to complex, with "logistically organized systems having all the proper
ties of a forager system and then sore" (1980:12). Consequently, unlike Binford's hypotheses, the
risk-derived hypotheses are usually dichotomous, making them in principie easier to assess with
archaeological data. Finally, the consideration of strategies for reducing risk makes a much wider
range of data available to the archaeologist, data which are the product of intergroup and in
tragroup interaction (exchange, style, interna! site structure, etc.), rather than direct organiza
tion around resources. The use of such information is essential if conclusions are to be well tested
with independent data.
COMMENTS
REFERENCES CITED
Binford, Lewis R.
1978 Nunomiut ethnoarchaeology. Academic Press, New York.
177
1980 Willow smoke and dogs' tails: hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site forma
tion. American Antiquity 45:4-20.
Brooks, Alison
1980 A Note on the Late Stone Age features at f Gi: analogies from historie San hunting practices. Bots
wono Notes ond Records 10:1-3.
Crowell, A. L., and Hitchcock, R. K.
1980 Barsarwa ambush hunting in Botswana. Botswono Notes ond Records 10:37-51.
Freuchen, Peter
1962 Peter Freuchen's book of Eskimos. The World Publishing Co., New York.
Ingold, Tim
1980 Hunters. postoroJists ond ronchers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Meillassoux, Claude
1973 On the mode of production of the hunting band. In French perspectives in Africon studies. edited by
P. Alexandre, pp. 187-204. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Piddocke, Stuart
1969 The potlatch system of the southern Kwakuitl: a new perspective. In Environment ond cultural be
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Rasmussen, Knud
1905 Nye Mennesker. Kbenhavn og Kristiania, Kbenhavn.
Riegel, R., and ). S. Miller
1959 Insuronce principies ond proctices. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.).
Sahlins, Marshall
1972 Stone oge economics. Aldine-Atherton, Chicago.
Sbrzesny, Heide
1976 Die SpieJe der !Ko-Buschleute. R. Piper & Co., Mnchen.
Slodbokin, Richard
1962 Band organization of the Peel River Kutchin. Bulletin of the Notionol Museum of Ganada 179. Ottawa.
Spencer, Robert F.
1959 The north Alaskan Eskimo: a study in ecology and society. Bureou of American Ethnology BuJletin
171. Washington, D.C.
Suttles, Wayne
1968 Coping with abundance: subsistence on the Northwest Coast. In Mon the hunter. edited by R. B. Lee
and l. DeVore, pp. 56-68. Aldine. Chicago.
Thalbitzer, William [editor)
1914 The Ammassilik Eskimo. Meddelelser om Grnland 40, Copenhagen.
Tindale, Norman B.
1972 The Pitjandjara. In Hunters ond gatherers toda y. edited by M. Bicchieri, pp. 217-268. Holt, Rinehart
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Turnbull, Colin M.
1965 Woyword servants. The two worlds of the Africon Pygmies. Natural History Press, Garden City,
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Watanabe, Hitoshi
1972 The Ainu. In Hunters ond gotherers today. edited by M. Bicchieri, pp. 451-484. Holt, Rinehart &
Winston, New York.
White, T. E.
1952 Observations on the butchering techniques of sore aboriginal peoples. no. l. American Antiquity
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Wiessner, Polly
1977 Hxoro: A regional system of reciprocity for reducing risk omong the !Kung Son. Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Michigan, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.
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cieties. edited by E. R. Leacock and R. B. Lee. Cambridge University Press, London, in press.
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Williams, Bobby jo
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1968b Establishing cultural heterogeneities in settlement patterns: an ethnographic example. In New per
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TOWARDS A RATIO NAL NOMENCLATURE
IN FAUNAL AND ECOLOGICAL STUDIES
Engelbert Schramm
Two new terms are recommended for the disciplines of fauna! and ecological studies in historical perspec
tive. They are congruent with terms in related sciences.
Following their precise comparison of nomenclature, S. L. Olsen and J. W. Olsen ( 1981) conclud
ed that "Zooarchaeology seems to be the most appropriate term to describe the entire discipline
of fauna! studies in archaeology."
Nevertheless, 1 have two objections to the use of "zooarchaeology": (1) the definition by Olsen
and Olsen as "fauna! studies in archaeology" is unnecessarily restrictive because such studies
need not necessarily be done under archaeological auspices: they may also occur in a zoological
context. Methods and materials are the same. Sore biologists cannot identify themselves with the
role of an archaeological scientist and would not accept a !abe! ending in "-archaeology" for their
research into the history of animal domestication. (2) "zooarchaeology" and "archaeozoology"
are formed from the same roots, and it may be possible to interchange them by mistake. Such con
fusion would not only be of concern to the general public but would also concern scientific col
leagues from many countries where the term "zooarchaeology" is not in use at al!.
l. therefore, prefer another term: "palaeo-ethnozoology", which is synthesized by analogy to
"palaeo-ethnobotany" ("the study of the plants cultivated or utilized by man in ancient times,
which have survived in archaeological contexts [Renfrew 1973:11" ). The central problem of
"palaeo-ethnozoology" is the study of animals which ha ve been bred or utilized by man, or at least
have been living within or near human sites in the past. "Palaeo-ethnozoology" provides the
linkage between palaeozoology and ethnozoology (the science of domestic animals). This is in
dicated by the radical words forming the term: "Palaeo" connotes the historical dimension of the
discipline, and "ethno" implica tes man's role and the epochal limitation to the Holocene (in which
human influence on natural history has become manifest).
In addition, another term may be derived from the same prefixes as "palaeo-ethnozoology" and
"palaeo-ethnobotany." This is "palaeo-ethnoecology.'' The subject of this discipline is the study of
the historical interactions between man and nature, and especially of the environmental changes
caused by human influence in the past. The ecological situation as modified by human labor can
not be reduced to that of earlier epochs, the regularities of which are studied by palaeoecology.
The investigation of the epoch of human natural history needs a distinct discip!inary !abe!, such
Engelbert Schramm. Okologie!Biologie (Fb 16), f. W. Goethe-Universitat. Siesmayerstr. 70. D-6000 Frankfurt/
Main, Federal Republic of Germany