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Ethnoarchaeological Research in Asia
... Pottery also has great ethnoarchaeological significances. Studies on earthen vessels form an important area of ethnoarchaeological study both in south (Sinopoli 1991) and southeast Asia (Griffin and Solheim 1990). In this part of the country, first attempt on this archaeological issue was made on ceramics (ManiBabu 2005). ...
This book provides comprehensive information on enlargement of methodological and empirical choices in a multidisciplinary perspective by breaking down the monopoly of possessing tribal studies in the confinement of conventional disciplinary boundaries. Focusing on anyone of the core themes of history, archaeology or anthropology, the chapters are suggestive of grand theories of tribal interaction over time and space within a frame of composite understanding of human civilization. With distinct cross-disciplinary analytical frames, the chapters maximize reader insights into the emerging trend of perspective shifts in tribal studies, thus mapping multi-dimensional growth of knowledge in the field and providing a road-map of empirical and theoretical understanding of tribal issues in contemporary academics. This book will be useful for researchers and scholars of anthropology, ethnohistory ethnoarchaeology and of allied subjects like sociology, social work, geography who are interested in tribal studies. Finally, the book can also prove useful to policy makers to better understand the historical context of tribal societies for whom new policies are being created and implemented.
The present chapter attempts to establish a linkage between traditional knowledge systems and Indian archaeology, raising some problems and perspectives. To begin with, there is a clear distinction between the Indigenous population and the settler population with regard to the United States, Canada and Australia. However, In India, it is difficult to get such a clear division since migration and population movement have taken place in various phases in historical periods. Therefore, either the term ‘Indigenous’ is not appropriate, or even if used, its connotation is not the same in India as in the West. Hence, in the Indian context, it is perhaps more useful to use the term ‘traditional’ knowledge systems (TKS), although the term ‘traditional’ is also not full proof. In order to appreciate the theme of unsettling archaeology in India, three issues are discussed as background: traditional knowledge system with the possibility of more diverse interpretations in archaeology; ‘new museology’ with a bearing on more community engagement and lastly, autoethnography—which contextualises and interrogates colonial stereotypes in colonial ethnography—paving the way for the emergence of autoarchaeology in India. The consequence of all these would hopefully lead to a more inclusive and more democratising form of archaeological practice and knowledge system in India.
This chapter introduces to the growing scope of the discipline of archaeology in terms of the emergence of ethnoarchaeology as one of the growing sub-discipline; and aims at developing better explanatory models of past human culture through engagement with living societies; recording observable behaviour and consequent residues. It conceptualizes theoretical paradigm of ethnoarchaeology as it rests on the construct of ethnographic analogy and the principles of uniformitarianism; with a premise that living ‘premodern’ indigenous population acts as proxies for the people in the past and are deemed appropriate to be compared with archaeological contexts; and thereby forms important sources of interpretative information for the archaeologists. In view of this; the chapter is designed to throw light on the significances of pursuing such an endeavour on the indigenous tribal populations; particularly of Manipur and their counterparts of other northeastern India in general; as one of the immediate agenda of prehistoric archaeologists well before the life ways of these people are totally corrupted owing to the extraneous influence; such as globalization and the like.
An ethno-archaeological study of the people of Thongjao village considered to be one of the ancient pottery makers in Manipur provided a detailed account of the techniques and procedures of pottery making. The present study attempts to bridge the gap between the present ethnographic account and past archaeological account in respect of the ceramics of Manipur by drawing similarities between the Thongjao village and prehistoric ceramics of Manipur on the one hand and by making analogical interpretations of the latter on the basis of parallelism that exists between the two on the other. This study also highlighted the use of raw materials and their techniques used in making pottery and their prehistoric similarities in respect of their composition. The paper studies the different types of pottery found in this village and also reveals the socio-cultural association of the people, changes and continuity.
In the late 1960s, archaeological theory underwent a period of rapid and significant change. A group of scholars became known as progenitors of an approach termed New Archaeology. Some of these changes have been critized as lacking in substance, but it cannot be denied that much archaeological research and analysis performed during the 1970s and 1980s followed a new and more constructive agenda.
