Abstract

Linnaean systematics is based on evolutionary histories, degrees of difference in reproductive biology and biomechanics among animals. The question of whether people in the past also divided their animal worlds along the same lines has not been critically evaluated in zooarchaeological research. Ingold asserts in The Perception of the Environment that meaningful taxonomy can only be attained once we understand how people negotiate their relationships with one another and with their environments. Though Ingold was referring to contemporary societies, this sentiment has not been adopted in zooarchaeological studies of human-animal interactions. Furthermore, the contextual-interpretive theoretical framework has been widely adopted among archaeologists working with traditional forms of material culture, but zooarchaeology continues to be practiced within the essentialist-positivist paradigm that upholds Linnaean taxonomy as immutable. In order to achieve meaningful interpretation of faunal assemblages, I propose that analysis should be founded on a contextually situated folk taxonomy that may or may not relate to our scientific notions of animal classification.