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BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 1 / / Circumpolar Lives / Jarvenpa and Brumbach 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 [First Page] [1], (1) Lines: 0 to 51 ——— 2.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [1], (1) 1. Introduction Gender, Subsistence, and Ethnoarchaeology Robert Jarvenpa and Hetty Jo Brumbach Scene 1: The woman quickly butchered the seal her husband had deposited on the boulder-strewn shore. Her young daughter observed attentively . Deft slices from two different-sized ulus (woman’s butchering knives) separated the hide and, in turn, transformed the hindquarters, forequarters, rib cage, and other sections into neat packets of meat, which were placed in plastic sacks. As the woman finished her task the daughter began hauling the meat homeward up a steep slope. The woman’s eldest son arrived to retrieve the hide. Remaining packets were quickly distributed to those who wanted them. A middle-aged man selected a “bag of ribs for frying,” and the final packet was given to a small boy with explicit instructions about who should receive the meat. (Iñupiaq community on Little Diomede Island, Bering Strait, Alaska) Scene 2: The moose is an unexpected windfall that the two men interpret as a sign indicating future hunting and trapping success in the area. Clearly, however, one man is more enthusiastic about the kill. He values the prospect of fresh meat in camp and is eager to replenish the larders of his family and relatives in the village. The second man certainly values the meat, but he is concerned about logistical problems. The two hunting partners are to return to the village in six days, by which time they must have their trapping cabin built. In their isolated situation the men are without women to complete the fine butchering and smoke drying of the meat. The second man is uneasy that the time needed to process the meat properly will interfere with their primary goal of cabin construction. (Near the Chipewyan community of Patuanak , Saskatchewan, Canada) Scene 3: “The mordy [fish basket traps] were about 7 kilometers away from home at the farthest. I was allowed to check them when I was BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 2 / / Circumpolar Lives / Jarvenpa and Brumbach 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 [2], (2) Lines: 51 to 63 ——— 8.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [2], (2) 14, and until then I wasn’t strong enough for that. But there was a morda near our house which I used to check since the age of 11 or 12. I wasn’t allowed to check them because a morda is rather big and, when soaked with water and considering the fish inside, it wasn’t an easy matter for a girl to pull it ashore. But when I grew older, I did it in a cunning way. A morda can be opened, so I tried to pull the end out and put it on the ground and then scooped the fish out. It was much easier.”(Middle-aged Khanty woman from Trom’Agan drainage, western Siberia, Russia) Scene 4: “We have a very good division of labor. We do not talk about those tasks, and they are not written down anywhere, but they get done, however. . . . We kind of have a system that nobody is irreplaceable . . . . My man says that if you put water in a drinking glass and put your finger in the glass, if a hole stays, then you are irreplaceable.” (Sámi woman from Kultima, Finland) Overture Daily events and conversations such as those described above are part of the empirical backbone of this book, which examines the interplay of gender dynamics and subsistence systems among hunter–gatherer and hunter–herder societies . More pointedly, how do variability and subtlety in female and male economic behaviors both reflect and affect utilization of the landscape and the way that tools, structures, and facilities are constructed, used, and discarded? This volume’s authors are concerned with relationships between gender roles and ideologies, on the one hand, and processes that influence the formation of the archaeological record, on the other. Ultimately, we seek to bridge the...

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