La
gestión de los recursos minerales en las sociedades cazadoras-recolectoras,
by Xavier Terradas
Treballs D’Etnoarqueologia, 4, CSIC,
Madrid, 2001, ISBN: 84-00-06322-8 When
critically applied to modern archaeology, anthropological studies can
challenge the knowledge of past social structures, after the exhaustive
and ordered organization of evidence collected in the field. To do this,
social archaeologists must strive for an extended
interpretation of the material remains and implement with theory the
appreciation of forms, techniques, and other collected data Additional
issues, about environmental and chronological contexts for example,
have to be integrated in the investigation.
Such a methodology is the subject of study pursued
by Xavier Terradas, whose research aims at the achievement of a theoretical-methodological
model designed to reconstruct the social conduct, in prehistory, concerned
with the production of lithic objects. Terradas works at the laboratory
of archaeology of the “Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Cientificas” in Barcelona (Spain). His previous publications
dealt with the traditional aspects of lithic production - likewise morphology
and typology - and covered provenance studies as well as what was necessary
for the exploitation of raw lithic materials. But, with respect to conventional
studies, his focal point is shifted onto the socio-cultural information
that goes beyond descriptive archaeology. This explains why the hunter-gatherer
societies of the Yamana people, in the “Tierra del Fuego”,
have frequently been addressed by Terradas as privileged subjects of
investigation, for the insights they offer into life experiences. Yamana
communities, which adapted to the exploitation of sea littoral resources,
were observed and described in the XIX century by many travelers and
ethnologists. As a result, a significant number of bibliographical sources
is available, referring to their way of life and specific character.
Terradas focused on the hunter-gatherer ethno-archaeological
contexts, in Argentina and Chile, with the intention of utilizing the
historical data as elements in the validation of his socio-archaeological
hypothesis. To accomplish this, a methodology suitable for any prehistoric
society and geographical context had to be developed. As a result, the
preliminary stages of the theoretical methodology are described in the
present volume, collecting the materials of a PhD thesis discussed in
1996. The text tries to demonstrate that fruitful relationships are
deducible by the integrated analysis of the remains of stone objects
and the strategy in general adopted by hunter-gatherers to obtain stone
materials and utensils.
In the “Introduction” (Chapter
I), the author asserts that most of the so-called “ethnographic
analogies”, used to assume social aspects of tool production inaccessible
to direct investigation, they originate after the analysis of the finished
products, without consideration that the same might be the outcome of
different causes. In the best cases, ethnographic interpretations are
used to complete the archaeological information, but in a complex manner
that the author considers frequently ahistorical. Terradas explains
that conventional studies of lithic resources in prehistory usually
focus on the petrography and quantitative appreciation of the mineral
resources, rarely entering the sphere of the social events concurrent
to the exploitation of lithic resources. But, according to his rationale,
for what concerns the production and reproduction of stone resources
in prehistoric societies, the assessment of the technological improvements
offers a clue also to understand how experiences were gradually accumulated
and strategies implemented. As an example, the experience of the Tierra
del Fuego has shown that technological changes are accepted more
easily when they do not involve a reform in the social affairs of reproduction;
when a reform eventually happens it involves social and economic rearrangement.
Unfortunately, the aspects relating to the modes of
production and use of stone tools are not always considered worthy of
evaluation and, in some cases, they are not even mentioned in the publications.
In the specific literature, the accent is more frequently on the consequences
of the processes (appearance) than on the explication of its causes
(significance). This limitation is widely recognized, but not obviated,
and it becomes complicated when only written sources are involved. However,
modern approaches entrenched with analytical investigation can aim at
clarifying the strategies of hunter-gatherers to supply raw matters
and tools able to solve societal requirements.
Thus, the present volume attempts, preliminarily,
to compare and contrast the trove of lithic records in archaeology with
the scarce bibliographical references about the procurement of raw material
and its transformation into consumer goods or utensils for further production.
The idea is that any new result can contribute to reveal the series
of sequential processes, which, starting from the obtainment of the
rough pieces, led to the final transformed objects.
In the second part, “Revisión crítica
de las distintas propuestas” (Chapter 2), Terradas tries
to establish the place for his proposal within the current scholarship,
through a critical revision of modern understandings of the topic. Among
the most influent perspectives applied to study hunter-gatherer societies,
is that of the French tradition within which an “archaeographic”
construct is embedded within the empirical and cultural conventions
typical of Structuralism. The author complains of a reduced appreciation
of the theoretical approach, since the “archaeographic”
view prefers a comprehensive description of the material remains integrated
with a positivist context. The Anglo-Saxon school represents another
standing outlook characterized by an explicative and inferential dimension,
which after the insurgence of the “New Archaeology” generated
a procedural-functional perspective (the “operative chain”).
The text, then surveys its own methodology; schematic
diagrams and sketches help to clarify the conceptual frame, which develops
around conventional steps, for example, of perception, recognition,
decision and execution. The different segments of the productive process
are characterized alternatively as production or use contexts. The modelling
aims at the appraisal of the causal relationships of the lithic objects
recovered in the archaeological contexts, as well as their historical
distribution and singularity. In synthesis, according to Terradas, it
is necessary to move the focus away from the lithic remains, as they
cannot be considered the final subjects of knowledge. On the contrary
they are the source of theoretical hypothesis on the social and economic
dynamics in hunter-gatherers societies. Thanks to the specificity of
the phenomenological manifestations of stone tools, a clear characterization
of working development is accessible, beginning from the observation
of the morphological modifications. Within the dynamics of lithic production,
it is possible to spot the means by which social agencies were able
to modify the working processes in space and time. The section closes
with an analysis over techno-economical approximations, suggesting that
the economic edges sovereign social features, outside the strict technical
context.
The central passages of the book develop around the
third section: “Construcción del modelo teórico,
(Chapter 3). But, before starting the description of the theoretical
model, the importance of the critical analysis is exalted citing K.
Marx and F. Engels, from “The German Ideology”: “The
real basis of any typology of society is its production route, the way
in which men produce their subsistence goods. What men are coincides
with their production: as much with the goods they produce as with the
way they obtain it. That is why what individuals are depends on the
practical conditions of their production” (p. 65, translated).
Subsequently, the text describes the categories, necessary
to explain the internal links and the fundamental dynamics of the social
processes. Terradas states: “ ‘social formation’
is an analytical category, which refers to all the elements exercising
a strategic influence on social developments ... productive forces are
the physical expression of productive processes, they need the co-presence
of different necessary elements: people to exercise labour forces and
production media, integrated with working instruments and natural resources”
(pp.62-63, translated). Afterwards, the attention shifts onto the production
of hunter-gatherer society.
The author repeatedly reminds us that his work does
not begin after investigation of material or contextual evidence; instead,
its development and its analytical procedure, although related to the
investigation of stone artefacts, are mainly structured over more fundamental
basic principles. For example: stone tool making can highlight the relationship
among human groups and the environmental resources. The large scale
productive chain can be outlined through the analysis of the labour
forces, the objects, and the tools for working. The aim of the production
can accurately be estimated along with the type of working processes
and the analysis can be accompanied by the specific attention to the
management of the mineral resources. The main factors regulating organization
and administration in hunter-gatherer society are individuated in the
social requirements, the availability of suitable stone/mineral resources,
and the level of technological development necessary to solve qualitatively
and quantitatively the demand for them. The determinant role, among
them, is the request of lithic utensils, which is established, regulated,
and determined in the context of the community. According to their capability
to solve the common needs, it is possible to appreciate the social value
of lithic production; capability itself depends on the level at which
productive strategies adjust with requirements and satisfy them.
The text enters, subsequently, into consideration
of prehistoric economics. If we consider that stone industry represents
a satisfactory accomplishment of social needs in the hunter-gatherer
society, it can be constructed as a process designed to minimize costs
and maximize benefits, i.e. to increase the yield of the products. This
tendency sets as its target the increase in efficiency of productive
strategies and the establishment of the conditions optimal to realizing
them. These considerations permit the explanation of the rationale of
the global dynamics of the society under study and they are significant
to reconstruct and characterize the practical strategies of lithic manufacture
as well as the integration of the separate working processes. These
perspectives cannot be separated from the other productive processes;
once the possible coincidences and differences have been identified,
the theory about the way mineral resources have been managed can be
considered as a basic conceptual instrument in archaeology.
In the last pages, (Ch. IV: “Conclusiones”),
a short summary closes the volume, before a valuable bibliographic list
(Ch. V: “Bibliografía”). The reminder is
that, as the book organizes and explains the rules concerning the collective
management of stone tools in hunter-gatherer society, archaeological
theory can positively challenge social relationships of communities
in the Prehistory.
In sum, the volume appears as a preliminary
exercise in describing the relationship between management and economy
of mineral resources and prehistoric social typologies, The text suffers
a little from the lack of a systematic structure to help the discussion
along, but the critical revision of past proposals in the archaeology
of hunter-gatherers is excellent. Nevertheless, it is successful in
featuring the peculiar character and the social dynamics of the hunter-gatherer
groups and, at a general level, it assists the assessment of the earliest
community systems to supply and manage coarse rock materials. Thanks
to its focus on social assumptions and the care in the reconstruction
of the theoretical contexts of material-culture in Prehistory, the book
is recommended to those concerned with education and study of social
archaeology.
Enzo Ferrara,
Materials Department,
Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale Galileo Ferraris,
Torino (Italy)
Review Submitted: September 2003
The views expressed in this review are not
necessarily those of the Society or the Reviews Editor.
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