Abstract
Archaeologists trained in Western canons of knowledge are accustomed to using onto-epistemological categories that codify the world into animate/inanimate and human/nonhuman realms of experience. Consequently, the presence of artifacts possessing personhood, exemplified by and articulated in object agency and the New Animism, present unique challenges to the researcher. Based on the analysis of culturally and naturally modified trees from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we investigate how the interpretation of certain artifacts and archaeological contexts are shaped by the onto-epistemological frameworks (the study of being, and of what knowledge is and how it is possible) through which data are analyzed. Employing the approach of conceptual pathways based on principals of behavioral archaeology, we identify repeating performance characteristics among modified trees utilized for the commemoration of individual and social memories among Ojibway communities.
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