The Nonempirical Past: Enculturated Landscapes and Other-than-Human Persons in Southwest Alaska

Abstract

In 1971, Ernest S. Burch identifi ed "nonempirical phenomena" as variables in travel and settlement decision-making among Iñupiaq Eskimo of Northwest Alaska. This article parses the term "nonempirical" and advocates the use of Hallowell's (1960) term "other-than-human" to describe the extraordinary persons known to Yupiit and Inupiat of Alaska. I discuss the ways in which place names and oral narratives can contribute to an understanding of the relational, intersubjective nature of Yupiit interactions with other-than-human persons and describe how such relations were anchored in enculturated landscapes. Finally, I address how archaeology is uniquely positioned to contribute to reconstructions of prehistoric ontologies that materialized relations between "real people" and the other-than-human persons with whom they shared the animated, dynamic landscapes of Southwest Alaska.

Re-examining stone ‘wrist-guards’ as evidence for falconry in later prehistoric Britain

“…Henare et al 2007) as wrist-guards were perhaps constituted animically (Wallis 2009(Wallis , 2013 as trophies, talismans, amulets or allies in ways resonant with structured depositions materialising relational ontologies elsewhere (e.g. Hill 2011Hill , 2012. The deposition of stone wrist-guards in some Beaker burials, occasionally with birds of prey, probably has nothing directly to do with falconry but may suggest attempts to enhance individuals' martial and/or predatory status, and negotiate human-raptor relations at the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age transition, when concepts of individuality and community, human and other-than-human, were being reconfigured.…”