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Humanized Nature: Symbolic Representation of Fauna in Pottery from the Paraná River of South America

TL;DR: The economic and symbolic relations between animals and pre-Hispanic indigenous people from the Middle and Lower Parana River of Argentina, South America are discussed in this paper, where the analysis of pottery zoomorphic appendages, which represent birds, mammals, reptiles and mollusks, are assigned to the Goya-Malabrigo archaeological entity (~2000 14C yrs BP to seventeenth century).
Abstract: In this chapter, the economic and symbolic relations between animals and pre-Hispanic indigenous people from the Middle and Lower Parana River of Argentina, South America are discussed. This issue is approached throughout the analyses of pottery zoomorphic appendages, which represent birds, mammals, reptiles and mollusks, and are assigned to the Goya-Malabrigo archaeological entity (~2000 14C yrs BP to seventeenth century). These appendages have realistic morphological details that allowed taxonomic identification at class, order, family, genus or species level. These pottery representations of the animals are contrasted with the faunal remains from the Goya-Malabrigo archaeological sites. The combination of these different information sources shows that the preys that were regularly eaten were not depicted in the appendages, and that the nutritional role of animals was not favored in these representations. The present study allows a discussion about the human-animal interrelation, which in turn contributes to global theoretical approaches, related to the humanization of nature.
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TL;DR: Canis familiaris in contextos arqueologicos resulta cada vez mas frecuente en Sudamerica. as mentioned in this paper presentan nuevos hallazgos de perros procedentes of cinco sitios arqueologos del Noreste argentino.
Abstract: El registro de Canis familiaris en contextos arqueologicos resulta cada vez mas frecuente en Sudamerica. En este escenario, este trabajo discute su rol economico y social dentro de las sociedades indigenas prehispanicas. Se presentan nuevos hallazgos de perros procedentes de cinco sitios arqueologicos del Noreste argentino. La muestra estudiada incluye siete especimenes craneales y uno poscraneal correspondientes a individuos jovenes y adultos, de tamanos medianos (13-23 kg). Algunos de los especimenes presentan huellas de corte y marcas de carnivoros. Tres nuevas fechas taxon ubican a la muestra entre aproximadamente 2500 y 900 cal aP. Se concluye que C. familiaris presenta edades y tamanos ligeramente mayores a los registrados previamente. Asimismo, la evidencia antropica indica procesamiento y consumo de esta especie. Las dataciones extienden el rango cronologico conocido previamente para este taxon en Argentina, Brasil y Uruguay. Su presencia se vincula a cazadores-recolectores-pescadores y horticultores, con una marcada adaptacion fluvial durante el Holoceno tardio.

8 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors performed modal analysis by point-counting of ceramic pastes retrieved from Middle and Lower Parana archaeological sites (ca. 1800 to 360 BP), which are attributed to the Goya-Malabrigo archaeological entity.

5 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This study provides a general framework for the evolutionary relationship among horticulture groups of C. maxima and elucidates the origins of rare variants contributing to the giant pumpkin fruit size.
Abstract: Since their introduction in Europe, pumpkins (Cucurbita maxima Duch.) have rapidly dispersed throughout the world. This is mainly because of their wide genetic diversity and Plasticity to thrive in a wide range of geographical regions across the world, their high nutritional value and suitability to integrate with local cuisines, and their long shelf life. Competition for growing the showy type or mammoth-sized pumpkins that produce the largest fruit of the entire plant kingdom has drawn attention. In this study, we used genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms to resolve admixture among different pumpkin groups. Also, to resolve population differentiation, genome-wide divergence and evolutionary forces underlying the evolution of mammoth-sized pumpkin. The admixture analysis indicates that the mammoth group (also called Display or Giant) evolved from the hubbard group with genome-wide introgressions from the buttercup group. We archived a set of private alleles underlying fruit development in mammoth group, and resolved haplotype level divergence involved in the evolutionary mechanisms. Our genome-wide association study identified three major allelic effects underlying various fruit-size genes in this study. For fruit weight, a missense variant in the homeobox-leucine zipper protein ATHB-20-like (S04_18528409) was significantly associated (false discovery rate = 0.000004) with fruit weight, while high allelic effect was consistent across the 3 years of the study. A cofactor (S08_217549) on chromosome 8 is strongly associated with fruit length, having superior allelic effect across the 3 years of this study. A missense variant (S10_4639871) on translocation protein SEC62 is a cofactor for fruit diameter. Several known molecular mechanisms are likely controlling giant fruit size, including endoreduplication, hormonal regulation, CLV-WUS signaling pathway, MADS-box family, and ubiquitin-proteasome pathway. This study provides a general framework for the evolutionary relationship among horticulture groups of C. maxima and elucidates the origins of rare variants contributing to the giant pumpkin fruit size.

3 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper , the differences in the artistic modalities used to represent these groups of birds could be related to the positioning of these animals within different metaphorical domains and opposable conceptual categories.
Abstract: The pre-Hispanic art of the Lowlands of Paraná comprises very realistic to extremely simplified ceramic figurines made by complex hunter-gatherer groups during the Late Holocene. In particular, the article seeks to discuss the differences found between parrot and raptor figures, which are the most frequent motifs. Alternative styles of representation were involved in the visual symbolism of the two groups of birds with well-differentiated morphological and behavioural attributes. Whereas parrot images were elaborated with greater naturalism in sites mostly located in the middle Paraná, birds of prey exhibit a higher degree of stylization and schematization, especially in the lower Paraná. It is proposed that the differences in the artistic modalities used to represent these groups of birds could be related to the positioning of these animals within different metaphorical domains and opposable conceptual categories. It is also suggested that this iconography could be specifically linked to a totemic ontology, which implies a particular attitude towards nature. This study attempts to contribute to broadening our knowledge about the symbolic relationships between humans and animals in pre-Columbian America.
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A línea de indagación que se centra en un motivo zoomorfo que no había sido aún estudiado sistemáticamente: the quirquinchos as mentioned in this paper .
Abstract: Las relaciones entre humanos y animales han sido objeto de debates profundos que indican que estas exceden lo meramente económico, implicando diálogos, acuerdos y desacuerdos. El análisis de sus representaciones desplegadas en soportes que circulaban en contextos específicos constituye una vía de entrada para explorar estos sentidos. Aquí profundizaremos una línea de indagación que se centra en un motivo zoomorfo que no había sido aún estudiado sistemáticamente: los quirquinchos. El análisis realizado sobre el material Belén relevado por el Proyecto Arqueológico Chaschuil-Abaucán (PACh-A) en la región de Fiambalá (Catamarca) se orientó a: (i) identificar las características anatómicas distintivas de las representaciones de quirquinchos; (ii) estimar su intensidad de representación; y (iii) definir los recursos plásticos y compositivos utilizados en su creación. El abordaje propuesto develó que, aunque no ocupe una posición destacada dentro de las piezas, el quirquincho es el animal más intensamente representado dentro del repertorio estudiado.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the signification du perspectivisme amerindien, i.e., the idees which concernent la facon dont les humains, les animaux et les esprits se percoivent eux-memes and se percivent les uns les autres dans les cosmologies amerinien.
Abstract: Cet article discute la signification du perspectivisme amerindien, c'est-a-dire les idees qui concernent la facon dont les humains, les animaux et les esprits se percoivent eux-memes et se percoivent les uns les autres dans les cosmologies amerindiennes. Ces idees suggerent la possibilite de redefinir les categories classiques de nature, culture et supernature sur la base des concepts de perspective ou de point de vue. L'article soutient plus particulierement que l'antinomie entre deux caracterisations de la pensee indigene - d'une part l'ethnocentrisme selon lequel les attributs de l'humanite seraient refuses aux humains appartenant a d'autres groupes, et d'autre part l'animisme, qui appliquerait ces qualites humaines par extension a des etres appartenant a d'autres especes - peut etre resolue si l'on considere la difference entre les aspects spirituels et corporels des etres.

1,575 citations

Book
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, Descola proposed the four ontologies of animism, totemism, naturalism, and analogism to account for all the ways we relate ourselves to nature.
Abstract: Successor to Claude Levi-Strauss at the College de France, Philippe Descola has become one of the most important anthropologists working today, and Beyond Nature and Culture has been a major influence in European intellectual life since its French publication in 2005. Here, finally, it is brought to English-language readers. At its heart is a question central to both anthropology and philosophy: what is the relationship between nature and culture? Culture - as a collective human making, of art, language, and so forth - is often seen as essentially different than nature, which is portrayed as a collective of the nonhuman world, of plants, animals, geology, and natural forces. Descola shows this essential difference to be, however, not only a specifically Western notion, but also a very recent one. Drawing on ethnographic examples from around the world and theoretical understandings from cognitive science, structural analysis, and phenomenology, he formulates a sophisticated new framework, the "four ontologies" - animism, totemism, naturalism, and analogism - to account for all the ways we relate ourselves to nature. By thinking beyond nature and culture as a simple dichotomy, Descola offers nothing short of a fundamental reformulation by which anthropologists and philosophers can see the world afresh.

614 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the Domus in the Neolithic of SE Europe is discussed. But the focus is on the later Neolithic in Central Europe and not the earlier Neolithic.
Abstract: Acknowledgements Preface 1. Introduction 2. The Domestication of Society 3. The Domus in the Neolithic of SE Europe 4. Domus and Agrios in SE Europe 5. Dominating Boundaries and Entrances: The Earlier Neolithic in Central Europe 6. Towards a Higher Domain: The Later Neolithic in Central Europe 7. Domes of Rock: The Neolithic in Southern Scandinavia 8. Dames and Axes: Parallel Lines of Development in Northern France 9. Taming the Landscape: Changing Idioms of Power in the Neolithic of Lowland Britain 10. Beginning by Ending References.

266 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a discussion of relations entre le corps et l'âme, entre humanite and corporalite, is presented, with a focus on the relation between le corps and le ême.
Abstract: Sur la base d'un materiel ethnographique recueilli chez les Wari' (Rondonia, Bresil), cet article remet en question quelques-uns des presupposes de la litterature anthropologique contemporaine concernant les conceptions indigenes du corps, en etudiant une composante essentielle de la corporalite des peuples amazoniens, peu evoquee dans les etudes ethnographiques de l'Amazonie: son caractere instable et transformationnel. Cette dimension n'apparait que lorsque l'analyse suppose un elargissement de la notion d'humanite (signalee pour la premiere fois a notre attention par Levy-Bruhl et Leenhardt, entre autres) qui inclurait non seulement les etres que nous considerons comme humains, mais aussi d'autres entites subjectives telles que les animaux et les esprits. L'elaboration de cette problematique est centree sur la discussion des relations entre le corps et l'âme, entre humanite et corporalite.

232 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the status of hunting and food consumption in societies whose ontology is not founded upon a distinction between humans and animals is discussed. And a new theoretical formulation for this partibility sheds light on warfare and funerary anthropophagy in Amazonia.
Abstract: A problem of particular concern in the literature on animistic systems is the status of hunting and food consumption in societies whose ontology is not founded upon a distinction between humans and animals. If animals are people, how can one distinguish between everyday eating and cannibalism? Commensality is a vector for producing kinship among humans, a mechanism which depends on the transformation of the animal prey into an object devoid of intentionality. Indigenous techniques for desubjectivizing prey are based on a specific conception of the person that is not reducible to a simple body‐and‐soul dualism. A new theoretical formulation for this partibility sheds light on warfare and funerary anthropophagy in Amazonia.

215 citations

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