Can hunter-gatherers ever ‘get to know’ their prey?

Abstract

A growing interest in the ‘animal’ has produced a wealth of studies that move beyond characterisations of nonhumans as materials or objects, to explore their active roles in human lives. Archaeology has produced new accounts of complex social human–nonhuman relationships in the past, emerging through meaningful interactions, engagements and experiences. However, some anthropologists and archaeologists argue that only the close and continual human–nonhuman contact afforded in pastoral settings allows humans to come to understand nonhumans as sentient intentional ‘persons’, and to develop meaningful multispecies relationships. This has important implications for how archaeology interprets human–nonhuman relationships in past hunter-gatherer groups, and the material treatment of nonhumans manifest within the archaeological record.

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