-
15. New Frontiers in Kinship Research
- University of Arizona Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
299 CHAPTer fIfTeen new frontiers in Kinship research This book begins with a defensive argument that kinship should be important to archaeologists. The pessimism within archaeology on the possibilities to address kinship is argued to be based on misunderstandings of the subject matter. Kinship analysis is then argued to be relevant to a wide range of topics in contemporary archaeology, followed by a justification for archaeological assessment of ethnologically derived hypotheses. Parts II through IV of the book clarify kinship behaviors and their significance , illustrate how interpretations free of ethnological bias are indeed within the reach of archaeology, and interpret a wide range of practices among the Hohokam, leading to new alternative perspectives on Phoenix Basin prehistory. In the last chapter, the archaeological case study is used to evaluate a wide range of ethnologically derived hypotheses on the origins of kinship systems and on their political economic dynamics. some of the most widely accepted hypotheses from ethnology—the long presumed only reliable source of knowledge for kinship theory—are found to be inadequate, while other hypotheses are supported or modified. of course, many more tests from different regions and periods are required to fully evaluate any hypotheses. The book has gone a long way toward demonstrating how we can transform archaeology from a skeptical and hesitant passive consumer of ethnological hypotheses on kinship to a source for interpretation and an important evaluator of ethnology. Anthropological archaeology should be 300 chapter fifteen more meaningful than just applying ethnological theory to interpret the past. Archaeologists should be just as critical of the biases in ethnological data and interpretations as they are with their own sources of data, interpretations , and paradigms. ethnological theory should be consumed for culture-specific hypotheses to test with archaeological means, which advances knowledge on those societies, but never for final interpretations. At the same time, ethnological hypotheses should be evaluated in archaeology , with the hopes of sending both ethnologists and archaeologists scrambling back to the drawing board occasionally to stimulate new observations and hypotheses. It is my hope that this book stimulates such endeavors. As an end to the book, the following pages present some ideas on further productive directions for an archaeology of kinship. Undoubtedly , many archaeologists would find additional questions to pose and avenues to pursue. Methods for Interpretation The need for independent archaeological interpretations on kinship behaviors —to test ethnohistorical reconstructions, to test ethnological hypotheses , and to explain change through prehistory leading up to the historical patterns—favored a focus on dwelling sizes and their spatial arrangements. The dwelling patterns for most forms of postmarital residence strategies (see Chapter 5), and for the community patterns for descent groups and bilateral descent (see Chapter 8), are well documented through cross-cultural associations allowing these to be recognized and interpreted with a high degree of confidence. However, some of the arrangements appearing in the Hohokam case study were not predicted . Those arrangements are discussed in Chapter 6, forcing interpretations primarily based on logic. Those interpretations, in turn, could benefit from future scrutiny by serving as hypotheses for cross-cultural research. The cross-cultural dwelling arrangements for patrilocal residential groups are described in Chapter 5 as consisting of multiple conjugal family dwellings surrounding a small plaza space. In the case study, the degree of formality for this pattern is varied. In many cases, there are formal arrangements of dwellings having entryways obviously focused toward the small plaza space, which clearly reflects patrilocality. In other cases, however, multiple dwellings encircle a small common space yet their entryways and orientations are less formally arranged. This nuanced difference between formal and informal expressions of the cross-cultural pattern for patrilocal residential groups are interpreted as differences in [44.200.74.73] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:10 GMT) New Frontiers in Kinship Research 301 de facto versus de jure patrilineal household groups. I surmise that de jure patrilineal household groups had a greater ideological need to express unilineal ancestry in the built environment, much the same way as descent groups need to express their social organization in formal community patterns. some of the households for cognatic residential groups in the case study also illustrate biases in matrilocality or patrilocality. This is not anticipated in Chapter 5, yet perhaps should be. with either form of cognatic residential behavior, some individuals will practice matrilocality while others will practice patrilocality. Meanwhile, others will find themselves at residential groups that are neither their nor their spouse’s natal residence. The occasional observations of large...