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G
ustavo
G. P
olitis
Reflections on Contemporary Ethnoarchaeology
62
PYRENAE,
núm.
46
vol.
1
(2015)
ISSN: 0079-8215 EISSN: 2339-9171 (p. 41-83)
anthropological research should have first priority; these include full respect for the com-
munity and its customs, minimal interference, and informed consent. This last point is
sometimes difficult to obtain in its entirety, due to both linguistic and cultural diffe-
rences. It is often difficult to explain the ethnoarchaeologists’ passion for systematically
recording everyday activities and preserving what the people under study consider junk
(sherds, broken bones, wrecked artifacts, etc.). This is, of course, related to the degree of
“Westernization” of the group in question, but for many traditional societies the actions
carried out by ethnoarchaeologists remain incomprehensible: why pick up and put in bags
a lot of dirty bones that do not have any meat? Why draw and map an abandoned camp
full of garbage? Why do ethnoarchaeologists ask absolutely obvious questions once and
again, and seem to never fully understand the answers? I suspect that the people under
study have a poor image of the ethnoarchaeologists and little respect for our work. Full
and real informed consent can be obtained quite easily in some cases, but it is unrealistic,
for example, from communities which are in an early stage of contact with modern society
such as the Nukak (Cabrera
et al
., 1999; Politis, 2007), the Awá (Forline, 1997; Hernando
et
al
., 2006) or the Hotï (Politis and Jaimes, 2005) (fig. 7), or from people with very different
rationality patterns. What is usually obtained from the community or from their leaders
Fig. 7.
A Hotï man entering into his recently built dome-shaped hut in the savannha-tropical rainforest border. The construction of
such shelters is still made in the traditional way. It takes about 10 days, and during this period the people stay in temporary lean to
shelter in the nearby, inside the rainforest. High Parucito River (Venezuela), 2002. Photo of the author.