Nonhuman animals have traditionally played a key role in archaeological research as knowledge on past human behaviour often hinges on the study of past animal remains and other traces of their behaviour. Yet archaeologists, due to the long-standing and pervasive human-oriented research focus of the discipline, have mostly concentrated their efforts on understanding what animals can do for human societies. This has obfuscated the archaeological gaze for what humans can equally do, and have variously done, for other animals, and how animal flourishing has long depended on human agency. Foregrounding these questions, I argue, ultimately requires to embark on the broader journey of exploring and comparing human-animal coexistence in the archaeological record. Such a research programme requires to interrogate human-animal relationalities beyond the purview of traditional zooarchaeology and material culture-focused research. I explore these relationalities at the interface of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene hunter-gatherers in Europe and animal others such as elephants, whales, bears, corvids, and beavers. I work towards a typology of human-animal interaction destabilising binary wild-domestic categorisations of animal agency and pivoting new attention to diverse and situated forms of animal synanthropy, interspecies mutualism and multispecies landscape learning in order to re-map and re-imagine the deep human past. I suggest that such new attention to modes and logics of human-animal coexistence can disclose a rich archive of inspiration to re-think how we want to live together with other animals in the Anthropocene and beyond.
Information on participating / attending:
Date:
05/13/2024 16:15 - 05/13/2024 17:45
Event venue:
ZMB, Am Botanischen Garten 11, R.4.003 + Foyer, Followed by a get-together until 19:00
24118 Kiel
Schleswig-Holstein
Germany
Target group:
Scientists and scholars, all interested persons
Relevance:
regional
Subject areas:
Cultural sciences, Environment / ecology, Geosciences, History / archaeology, Oceanology / climate
Types of events:
Presentation / colloquium / lecture
Entry:
02/29/2024
Sender/author:
Jan Steffen
Department:
Media and Public Outreach
Event is free:
yes
Language of the text:
English
URL of this event: http://idw-online.de/en/event76396
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