Abstract
Ethnology traditionally guides most research on kinship practices. However, diachronic hypotheses are inadequately tested when using synchronic and normative information from limited periods of ethnological observations. Archaeological kinship analysis on residence, descent, and marriage, using middle-range factual correspondences between social practice and material remains, enable plausible inferences on variation and change in kinship practices over long periods of time. Therefore, archaeology is ideal for independently evaluating diachronic hypotheses. Taíno, Maya, and Hohokam case studies are presented and the results obtained from archaeological kinship analyses are summarized. These analyses show that variation and change are prevalent, thereby defying normative characterizations. Several long-standing functionalist hypotheses on the emergence of residence and descent practices are evaluated, and several of these find little support from long-term diachronic archaeological testing. In addition, archaeological kinship analyses can provide new insights on kinship practices unavailable to ethnology, further demonstrating the archaeological subfield’s capacity to become a major contributor to the contemporary expansion of kinship research.
Highlights
The thesis of this chapter is that archaeological kinship analysis has the potential to address methodological problems involved in using ethnological research that has led to insufficiently tested, but long-maintained, explanations for kinship practices and beliefs
The main lessons learned from the case studies are that normative depictions of kinship practices are inaccurate; that even well-accepted ethnological explanations for kinship practices need reconsideration through the long-term and empirical capacities of archaeology; and that the production of archaeological kinship research expands our understandings of past societies, and provides new insights generally unavailable through limited periods of ethnological observation
Archaeology has a major contributory role to play in kinship research
Summary
Ethnology traditionally guides most research on kinship practices. Diachronic hypotheses are inadequately tested when using synchronic and normative information from limited periods of ethnological observations. Archaeological kinship analysis on residence, descent, and marriage, using middle-range factual correspondences between social practice and material remains, enable plausible inferences on variation and change in kinship practices over long periods of time. Archaeology is ideal for independently evaluating diachronic hypotheses. Maya, and Hohokam case studies are presented and the results obtained from archaeological kinship analyses are summarized. These analyses show that variation and change are prevalent, thereby defying normative characterizations. Several long-standing functionalist hypotheses on the emergence of residence and descent practices are evaluated, and several of these find little support from long-term diachronic archaeological testing. Archaeological kinship analyses can provide new insights on kinship practices unavailable to ethnology, further demonstrating the archaeological subfield’s capacity to become a major contributor to the contemporary expansion of kinship research
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