Reorienting Bioarchaeology for an Era of Reconciliation

Anthropology, in general, has recently been working toward reworking their systems to be better suited to the needs of descendent communities. Bioarchaeology, however, has been slower to adopt these efforts. In the spirit of reconciliation, it is important for all disciplines to self-reflect and critique the colonial systems that have been institutionalized their teaching and research. This paper serves as a theoretical exploration into the current practice of bioarchaeology and seeks to provide a theoretical model that could contribute toward the decolonization of the discipline to be appropriate for application in Canada. It discusses how to better orient theory to compliment ancestral knowledge and reorganize bioarchaeology so that it could be more useful to responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action (2015) and benefit the needs of descendants. It will proceed by reviewing the integration of social theory in bioarchaeol­ogy, providing a critique of the biocultural approach, and finish by proposing a theoretical model that seeks to contribute to the ongoing decolonization of bioarchaeology. The model that this paper proposes serves is a suggestion of how to better structure and conduct a project including ancient human remains to better optimize the application of archaeological theory as a compliment to traditional knowledge. It is formed on the bases of theories of personhood, shared histories, behavioral archaeology, and biocultural approaches to provide a pragmatic synthesis of theory for a community driven bioarchaeology.

Precontact Native Copper Innovation in British Columbia

Copper has figured prominently in discussions of social complexity among Northwest Coast Cultures. Coppers, shield-like sheets of copper variable in size, were a form of lineage wealth displayed, gifted, or ritually destroyed at potlatches; and copper artifacts have been recovered from human burials. The former use of copper is well-documented ethnographically and historically while the latter phenomenon is less well understood. This paper provides an overview of the occurrence of copper in precontact archaeological contexts in British Columbia using published and unpublished literature. Our investigation is framed within a Behavioral Archaeology approach that elicits ideas on copper innovation and all that it entailed. We find that copper is rare in precontact contexts from a province-wide perspective; there was likely more than one instance of native copper innovation; and contrary to previous suggestions, the copper-rich Dene region of south-central Alaska and southwestern Yukon cannot account for most of the precontact examples of copper use in the province. We offer some hypotheses to explain the precontact distribution of copper in BC, including both local invention and diffusion, not in an attempt to deliver the final verdict on this topic, but rather, to stimulate additional research.

From war material culture to popular heritage, and beyond

Using object biography and Behavioral Archaeology as main theoretical frameworks this paper will examine how the pierced steel planks (PSP), also called Marston mat, become cancelli di Venosa (Venosa’s doors) within the social context where they happen to be located – in the immediate surroundings of Venosa airfield in this casestudy – where several actions occur such as reclamation, re-crafting, functional change, etc. These objects’ biography is, however, not restricted to this study area since they were used widely in the Second World War thus the paper aims to assess their geographical and chronological evolution. Furthermore, I will focus on the modern day utilization of the PSP-cancelli di Venosa and their promotion to the category of local heritage, a phenomenon often termed as heritagization, and their agency in the reproduction of war ideology and imperialistic narratives in Twentieth century popular culture.