Pour une modélisation du cycle annuel de nomadisation des chasseurs-cueilleurs : données ethnographiques et conditions d’applications archéologiques

Abstract

Changes in the social morphology of hunter-gatherer groups during their annual nomadic cycle can be reduced to three categories : a group in residential short or long-term camps (nomadic or semi-sedentary) ; an aggregate of several residential groups ; and the division of a residential group. Each of these categories refers to the organization of the group according to rules and socioeconomic standards unchanged by the departure or arrival of mere individuals. The residential group is made up of domestic units also forming interconnected domestic groups. It is materialized in the residential camp. The aggregate brings together residential groups exploiting the same territory or nearby territories. The aggregate camp is a place in which social and religious intensity is revealed, thus signalling that the residential groups belong to the same regional band. The phenomenon of division occurs when an age – and often a gender – group leaves the residential camp in order to supply it. This change in the sociological composition of the whole residential group turns the residential camp into a base camp. This third category of socioeconomic organization is thus materialized in two forms : the logistic expedition camp(s) of those who leave and in parallel a base camp. We shall illustrate these categories through three examples : Ammassalimiuts (Greenland), Nunamiuts (Alaska) and Akas (central Africa). In order to gain an archaeological perception of this phenomenon, we have to start with its materialisation. We then encounter two levels of analysis : the first is that of the different categories of settlement patterns corresponding to the sociological change and the second is that of production and consumption activities carried out in those settlements. In order to pass from the first level to the second, the settlement categories are compared with the availability of natural resources. Scattered nomadic residential groups would indicate easy access to plentiful and diversified resources ; logistic expeditions would point to the difficult acquisition of scattered game ; and, finally, the aggregate would not necessarily correspond to the exploitation of a located and plentiful resource, but would often occur during times of supply difficulties. While our categories do not thus belong exclusively to the economic domain, a possibility of apprehending them in terms of availability and exploitation of resource types nevertheless emerges. The possibility of bringing out tendencies by adopting a type of settlement according to the distribution of resources highlights the economic role of these settlements. The remains of operational sequences (“ chaîne opératoire ”) in the acquisition, treatment, consumption, preservation or transport of the resources found on a site allow the complementary nature of their economic links with other sites to be felt. Without taphonomic disturbances on a wide scale, intrasite spatial analysis, the type of structure recorded as well as their association with the distribution of remains, provides information about the location of activities, the contemporaneousness of the structures, their nature and their number. The aggregate and residential sites should show evidence of the daily activities of production and consumption. For the aggregate site, artefacts emblematic of social or symbolic activities should be expected. A logistic expedition site materializes the acquisition of a specific resource and its transport ; the resource may sometimes have been treated in order to facilitate its transport. The operational sequence of the activity started on the spot will be incomplete and will occur without any other types of activity. The typological discrimination then slips from the sociologic to the economic field, more within the reach of archaeology. However, even when there are not any important natural taphonomical disruptions, the determination of functions according to the site can be hindered for two reasons : the way the artefacts have been accumulated may involve a mixing of settlement patterns, and the disappearance of remains can go as far as the obliteration of some settlement categories.