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Domestication as Enskilment: Harnessing Reindeer in Arctic Siberia

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory volume 28, pages 197–231 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

The study of reindeer domestication provides a unique opportunity to examine how domestication involves more than bodily changes in animals produced through selection. Domestication requires enskilment among humans and animals, and this process of pragmatic learning is dependent on specific forms of material culture. Particularly with the domestication of working animals, the use of such material culture may predate phenotypic and genetic changes produced through selective breeding. The Iamal region of Arctic Siberia is generating an increasingly diverse set of archeological data for reindeer domestication that evidences such processes. Three early sites, Ust’-Polui, Tiutei-Sale I, and Iarte VI, contain artifacts proposed to be parts of headgear worn by transport reindeer, the earliest dating to just over 2000 years ago. Contemporary Nenets reindeer herders scrutinized replicas of these archeological objects, and comparisons with historic reindeer harness parts from Arctic Russia were also made. Nenets consistently interpreted barbed L-shaped antler pieces from Iamal as parts of headgear for training young reindeer in pulling sleds. Some types of swivels were also interpreted as transport reindeer headgear. Based on these consultations with Nenets and observations of their ongoing reindeer domestication practices, we argue that material things such as headgear, harnesses, and sleds are not merely technological means of using or controlling reindeer in transportation but instead were part of the meshwork within which some reindeer became enskilled to being domestic. Domestication of reindeer and other animals involves ongoing efforts, landscapes, and made things, all of which form the environment within which domestic relationships emerge.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Nenets families, the Okotettos and Yaungads, who hosted us during our stay in Iamal, which is greatly appreciated. Special thanks are also offered to the staff of Iamal-Nenets Autonomous District, and the staff of the Iamal-Nenets Regional Museum and Exhibition Complex of I.S. Shemanovskii, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, and British Museum for providing access to their collections.

Funding

Funding for this project was provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation (SFR1725) to R. Losey, the JPI HUMANOR project (ESRC ES/M011054/1) to D. Anderson, ERC GRETPOL to D. Arzyutov, and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research to N. Fedorova (18-09-40011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Tory Building 13-15 HM, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2H4, Canada

    Robert J. Losey

  2. Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Saskatchewan, 55 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5B1, Canada

    Tatiana Nomokonova

  3. Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Royal Institute for Technology, Teknikringen 74D, 100 44, Stockholm, Sweden

    Dmitry V. Arzyutov

  4. Scientific Center of Arctic Studies, Respublika St. 20, Salekhard, Iamal-Nenets Autonomous District, Russian Federation

    Andrei V. Gusev, Andrei V. Plekhanov & Natalia V. Fedorova

  5. Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 4QY, UK

    David G. Anderson

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Losey, R.J., Nomokonova, T., Arzyutov, D.V. et al. Domestication as Enskilment: Harnessing Reindeer in Arctic Siberia. J Archaeol Method Theory 28, 197–231 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-020-09455-w

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