Página 57 - Pyrenae46-1

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G ustavo G. Politis Reflections on Contemporary Ethnoarchaeology
PYRENAE, núm. 46 vol. 1 (2015)ISSN: 0079-8215 EISSN: 2339-9171 (p. 41-83)
controlled, as it happens with, for example, ceramics production, use and abandonment
(i.e., García, 1993; Williams, 1994; López Varela, 2005); the spatial distribution of discar-
ded bones (Borrero and Yacobaccio, 1989; Stahl and Zeidler, 1990; Jones, 1993); or the
management and exploitation of camelids among Andean herders (Yacobaccio et al., 1998).
Also, study of the technological organization of the Pumé of Venezuela made by Greaves
(1997) would be included in this approach. This line of research has points in common
with the French logicism we have summarized above (see Roux, 2013). The scholars
working from this perspective argue that effort should be directed toward particular cases
within general theoretical models (Yacobaccio and Madero, 1995). This approach empha-
sizes the technoeconomic function of material culture and the ecological constraints in
the resource’s exploitation, although, in many cases, the social context is informed and
taken into account for the interpretations. We can include here a strong line of research
named “ceramic ecology” which made significant contributions to the ethnoarchaeology
of the Andes and Mexico (Ph. Arnold, 2005; D. Arnold, 1985, 1993).
The second trend deals with the study of more complex systems, whose variables are
harder to control but take into account more diverse phenomena and attempt to discern
the non-technoeconomic meaning of objects through ethnographic case studies (for exam-
ple, Hosler, 1996; Sillar, 2000; Silva, 2000, Ramón, 2008, 2013) (fig. 3). Of course, both
Fig. 3.Peruvian ethnoarchaeologist Gabriel Ramón Joffré recording the production of pottery in Lanche Bajo, Piura (Peru), in 2004.
Photo courtesy of Gabriel Ramón Joffré.