Home sweet home. Mapping of the settlement decisions in the Nenets´ landscape (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, Northwestern Siberia)

0566857 - ARÚB 2023 RIV RO eng A - Abstrakt
Sázelová, Sandra - Novák, Martin - Kosintsev, P. A.
Home sweet home. Mapping of the settlement decisions in the Nenets´ landscape (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, Northwestern Siberia).
Book of Abstracts. Online section. Iasi: Editura Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, 2022 - (Bodi, G.; Asăndulesei, A.; Vasiliu, C.; Mîndrescu, M.; Mihailescu-Bîrliba, L.; Vasiliniuc, I.). s. 103-104. ISBN 978-606-714-716-2.
[International Landscape Archaeology Conference /7/. 10.09.2022-15.09.2022, Suceava]
Grant CEP: GA ČR(CZ) GA20-26094S
Klíčová slova: ethnoarcheology * settlement strategy * seasonality * hunter-gatherers * reindeer herders
Obor OECD: Archaeology
https://www.editura.uaic.ro/produse/editura/aparitii-recente/book-of-abstracts-online-section-7th-international-landscape-archaeology-conference-10-15-september-2022-iasi-suceava-romania-1894/1/1

The ethnological analogies collected among recent hunter-gatherers and reindeer herders from the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions are being exploited since the beginning of Paleolithic research around the mid-19th century. The pros lie in its ability to recover past and static finding situations through the dynamic lens observed in recent social, economic, and symbolic activities (and especially those not leaving behind any archeological traces). The extreme variety in recent human social and economic adaptations fitting to most of the archeological hypothesis, and an absence of direct several-generation ancestral linkage to recent societies present important cons in this approach. Nevertheless, the ethnoarcheological research expects that recent sub-Arctic and Arctic environmental pressure shifts necessary human adaptations, behavior and motivations in social, economic-subsistence and ritual strategies, and material objects (e.g. clothes, dwelling shape, household, and hunting/herding artifacts, inner and outer settlement structure, landscape orientation) to such a degree, which offers a comparison between recent societies and last Glacial hunter-gatherers adapted to open and cold climate landscape of a mammoth steppe. Thus, we can simultaneously document similarities, e.g. repeated usage of settlement placement, position of the central and dominant hearth in a dwelling, the circular or oval dwelling shape with the highest thermoregulation impact, number of expected inhabitants, winter hunting of furbearers and seasonal fur processing, as well as the differences, e.g. placement of the human burial outside the settlement and of course a usage of new types of raw material and nourishment resources. The complex ethnoarcheological research allows us to evaluate equally the past and recent societies and to increase our ability to discern and denude the smallest social, economic, and symbolic nuances, in our case a decision strategy, where to settle within the recent and Mid-Upper Paleolithic open landscape. In order to fill the above-mentioned gap we have collected series of ethnoarcheological data concerning the Nenets´ settlement activities and their usage of natural barriers for moderation of animal behavior at the Jangana Pe micro-region in 2009 and 2012 and at the Yambuto lake micro-region in 2018. Although the reindeer herding prevails in subsistence strategies of recent Nenets, their landscape orientation possessing rather aspects of hunters than animal herders, e.g. Komi, has been repeatedly stressed out. Finally, we believe that such a comparative model based on the recent model might definitely help us to cross our socio-cultural border by adding important piece into the puzzle of settlement decision making among the MidUpper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers in Moravia, and perhaps help us to understand its importance to our ancestors.
Trvalý link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0341589