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Contribution to the study of the theoretical foundations of archaeozoological research on recent European and Near Eastern prehistory (Abridged version)

A detour to New Guinea and its contribution to understanding Neolithic and protohistoric farming systems
Christian Jeunesse
Cet article est une traduction de :
Contribution à l’étude des fondements théoriques des recherches archéozoologiques sur la préhistoire récente européenne et proche-orientale [fr]

Résumés

Notre dépendance vis-à-vis du sens commun lorsqu’il s’agit de transformer en récit interprétatif la documentation tronquée issue de nos campagnes de fouille, a été régulièrement soulignée depuis André Leroi-Gourhan. Son pendant, et une de ses conditions d’existence, est notre manque de culture ethnologique. Nous connaissons trop imparfaitement les caractéristiques, les propriétés et les modes de fonctionnement de la vaste catégorie des sociétés pré-étatiques, dont font après tout partie les sociétés préhistoriques européennes. L’objectif de l’ethnoarchéologie et du comparatisme ethnographique est précisément de nous familiariser avec cet univers, par certains côtés si étrange à nos yeux d’occidentaux, de la société que l’on appelait naguère « primitive ». Cet article commence par une réflexion épistémologique sur la manière dont un ensemble de présupposés conditionne les interprétations des études portant sur la relation homme-animal dans les sociétés de la préhistoire récente européenne. Nous essayons d’y montrer comment un modèle implicite inspiré notamment par notre connaissance des paysanneries historiques et une conception biaisée du fonctionnement de l’économie primitive (les deux étant partie prenante de note « habitus intellectuel », forme savante du sens commun) vient se glisser dans le processus de production des connaissances, entre l’examen des faits bruts et l’élaboration des interprétations. L’examen détaillé des formes d’élevage du cochon dans les Hautes-Terres de Nouvelle-Guinée nous sert ensuite à montrer que les présupposés de ce modèle sont tout sauf universels. Il nous conduit aussi à développer des modèles alternatifs susceptibles d’apporter des éclairages inédits sur les élevages préhistoriques, par exemple sur les conditions d’émergence des premières domestications au Proche-Orient et ailleurs. Nous souhaitons ainsi contribuer à l’élaboration d’un catalogue des formes d’élevages connues dans les sociétés pré-étatiques, pré-littéraires et animistes actuelles ou sub-actuelles dans le but d’en faire un outil de compréhension des élevages préhistoriques. L’idée sous-jacente, qui est un des « commandements » de l’ethnoarchéologie, est que la profondeur de la rupture politique, sociale et ontologique introduite par l’émergence de l’État et des religions universelles est telle que le niveau de proximité entre les sociétés pré-étatiques actuelles et préhistoriques sera forcément supérieur à celui qui relie les secondes aux sociétés historiques européennes qui sont la source d’inspiration principale de notre modèle implicite.

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Texte intégral

1This article is intended as an epistemological reflection on the mechanisms of knowledge production in archaeozoology, with particular emphasis on the role of the ethnological reference framework. We start from the premise that data compared with recent practices known to ethnology are not neutral constructs developed solely on the basis of the study of bone series, but interpretations reflecting a biased view of animal husbandry in prehistoric societies. These interpretations are reconstructions of farming systems arising from the need to use the imagination to fill in the considerable gaps inherent in our sources. There is nothing wrong with this approach in itself, and it is part of the basic mechanisms of archaeological research. The problem lies rather in the fact that interpretations are largely based on a vision of prehistoric livestock farming that is directly inspired, although this is not explicitly stated, by suppositions produced by a form of common sense that we call the “intellectual habitus”. This vision of prehistoric methods of animal husbandry is based on a number of assumptions that are analysed in the first part of the article. Our ongoing ethnoarchaeological work on the Indonesian island of Sumba has considerably enriched our understanding of livestock rearing processes in non-state societies by making us aware of the major role played by a number of non-utilitarian factors, far removed from the purely economic logics that structure our global conception of livestock rearing. These factors are directly linked to a social, political and religious context characteristic of pre-state societies and, more generally, of what used to be called “primitive society”. The disappearance and replacement of such societies by more “rational” forms, culminating in the productivism of Western capitalist societies, is a direct consequence of the disappearance of the ways in which pre-state societies related to their natural environment before the advent of the state. This is why it is so important for ethnologists to study recent pre-state settings. The only relevant frame of reference for effectively tackling the question of prehistoric pre-state economies is that of present-day or sub-present-day pre-state societies. And the one-off comparisons representing the bulk of current practice are far from sufficient. Instead, studies of this fundamental source must include a systematic table of farming systems in order to obtain the broadest possible reference framework, independently of the prejudices dictated by the intellectual habitus of 21st-century researchers.

2Our first foray into this field concerned forms of animal husbandry in egalitarian societies in the west of Sumba Island (Jeunesse 2016, Jeunesse and Denaire 2017). In order to provide another illustration of the potential of this type of research, our exploration continues here with the study of forms of pig rearing in traditional societies in New Guinea, with particular emphasis on the big men and “grands hommes” societies of the Highlands. This work forms the second part of our article. In the third part, we attempt to show how data collected in recent non-state contexts can help us to construct a new perspective, freed from ethnocentric prejudices, on animal husbandry practices in recent prehistoric societies in the Near East and Europe.

The hidden software: what skews our view of prehistoric forms of animal husbandry

3Although our interpretations often pretend to be the direct result of the scientific processing of raw data (bone series), they are in fact cruelly lacking in objectivity. They are based on a number of unexplained assumptions dictated by our intellectual habitus as 21st-century Westerners. These assumptions form the building blocks of a paradigm that, for the sake of simplicity, we will call utilitarian. They are inspired by two main sources. Firstly, our knowledge of historical forms of animal husbandry, primarily those that prevailed in the Middle Ages and the modern era, and secondly, to a lesser extent, a diffuse set of ethnological conceptions largely based on Marshall Sahlins’ “domestic mode of production” (Sahlins 1972).

4The first frame of reference is that of traditional European small-scale livestock farmers, who lived between the Middle Ages and the industrialisation of farming practices. The basic idea is that at least some of their economic behaviour is based on a foundation common to all farmers, past and present, in other words, on natural laws that remain constant over time and space. These act as axioms within the epistemological framework delimited by the utilitarian paradigm. Rationality and the desire to maximise are the two main characteristics of the utilitarian paradigm. The model postulates that the mechanisms for optimising production, ensuring the reproduction of livestock and the regular supply of human groups, are driven by the same logic everywhere and at all times, and take precedence over all other considerations. On the basis of these assumptions, we can thus define the infinitely more tangible behaviours identified in the “pre-industrial” breeders of historical periods and transpose them to prehistoric societies. Therefore, raising a set of historically and geographically situated behaviours to the level of a universal model lies at the origin of the epistemological trap that forms what we call the “standard model”. The underlying premise rests on two cornerstones: firstly, the idea of continuity between the ways in which prehistoric and historic European livestock farmers operated, and secondly, the existence of a common base of “rational” economic behaviours that would be shared by all human societies. The first assumes that everything would change between recent prehistoric societies and European state societies of the last millennium, except for basic forms of pastoral activity, as if these were independent of the variations in socio-political systems, religions and ontological conceptions that guide the human-animal relationship. A system that came about with the neolithization of the Near East-European area would thus have survived the millennia intact until the advent of the speculative and productivist logics engendered by the capitalist and planning economies of the last two or three centuries shattered the framework of traditional peasant life. The Neolithic mode of production would thus have miraculously survived all the great upheavals that accompanied the emergence of the state, writing, the city and the great universal religions. This is, at any rate, the underlying assumption so that we can conveniently transpose the reflexes of pre-industrial European peasants to their pre- and protohistoric counterparts without further precaution. The idea of the existence of a common base for all breeders is equally debatable. It could be justified if it were possible to pinpoint an independent economic sphere in all human societies, with no connection to the other facets of the functioning of social groups. In this framework, livestock farming would be nothing more than one of the facets of subsistence systems that could be likened to simple mechanisms for adjusting between food requirements, the technological level (the means of acting on the environment), demographics and environmental parameters, without any interference from social and ideological spheres. Criticism of this purely utilitarian vision has been commonplace in anthropology for some time now. The work of ethnologists of distant societies has shown, by contrast, that in fact the practices of historical European breeders were not universal (and therefore not “natural”). Rather, like everywhere else, they stem from a particular configuration, and are the product of their specific historical environment. Interpretations produced within the “common base” paradigm must therefore be deconstructed.

5The second group of assumptions, which is less widespread but just as often implicitly used, is based on a body of diffuse ethnological knowledge. However, to simplify matters, this knowledge revolves around the notion of the “domestic mode of production” as defined by M. Sahlins (1972). The overall image is one of egalitarian societies made up of politically and economically autonomous basic economic units that produce essentially for self-consumption. As a matter of principle, they are deemed to refuse to produce surpluses beyond what is necessary for community ceremonies in order to avoid creating conditions likely to encourage the emergence of inequalities. The reference model derived from this point of view has recently been enriched by taking into account work focusing on the economics of feasting summarised by B. Hayden (2014), who stresses the importance of individual strategies for acquiring prestige in economic choices.

A recent example: pig farming in New Guinea

6The study focused mainly on Highland groups, big men societies at the centre with “grands hommes” on the periphery. Both are politically egalitarian, since privileged status is acquired in both cases through merit, is not transmitted by heredity and, with some notable exceptions, does not confer any power of coercion. Highland big men derive their position from their ability to distribute goods in societies where social life is organised around major ceremonial exchange systems, the two most widely discussed examples of which are the te of the Enga and the mocha of the Melpa. “Grand homme” status, on the other hand, is reserved for individuals with particular aptitudes for hunting, warfare, horticulture, salt production and magic, or who possess inherited ritual knowledge, as is the case, for example, for the master of initiations among the Baruya (Godelier 1982 and 1990). The role of the pig differs greatly in the two contexts. It plays a central role in big men societies, where it is vested with strong symbolic value and is the main commodity exchanged at major ceremonies. The need to produce large quantities for these ceremonies governs livestock rearing and agricultural choices. In “grands hommes” societies, this ritual role is fulfilled by hunted animals, which also provide the bulk of the meat diet. Pig farming is much less developed in these societies and, generally speaking, a significant proportion, and in some cases even the majority, of the food supply comes from the exploitation of spontaneous forest resources. In big men societies, the two main ceremonial exchange systems consume the most: on the one hand, cycles based on the circulation of live animals, such as te and mocha; on the other, celebrations (pig festivals) marked by mass slaughter and where cooked meat is exchanged. These two institutions and their impact on forms of pig farming are described in detail.

7D. Dwyer proposed a typology of farming systems (1996, 2006). He distinguishes three configurations, and describes their characteristics and forms of human-animal relationship in his article:

  • Reproductive alienation involves building up a domestic herd by taking young pigs from wild populations. Both genitors of the animals taken are, in fact, wild animals, which rules out any control over reproduction.
  • Female breeding is a mixed formula in which breeding females are systematically domesticated and the genitors are always wild. It works by systematically castrating domestic males.
  • In male and female breeding, both parents come from the domestic herd. This system is practised exclusively in densely populated regions where the forest has been massively eradicated and where it is combined with intensive sweet potato cultivation.

8We would also like to highlight a number of thematic aspects:

  • The great mobility of animals, particularly in societies with large ceremonial exchange systems where pigs, produced mainly for exchange, can cover dozens of kilometres and are, for the most part, consumed outside the original domestic setting.
  • Questions of scale are marked by the sheer size of both domestic herds and animals slaughtered in ceremonial contexts. The quantity of produced and consumed animals is astonishing for tribal societies with a low level of technology. Domestic herds can reach the hundreds, and up to 2,000 animals can be slaughtered in a single ceremony. This “ritual economy” naturally implies the production of huge surpluses.
  • Another important aspect is that of rhythms. Consumption peaks do not correspond to ordinary festivals with regular intervals (e.g., agrarian rituals), but to unpredictable events such as funerals, or to irregular intervals such as the great mocha, te or pig festival ceremonies, which are frequently separated by intervals of several years. They involve massive slaughtering requiring specific forms of production management. The interval between two ceremonies is highly variable, ranging from three to fifteen years, for example, in the case of pig festivals. The duration of the ceremonies, ranging from a few days to a year, is also an important parameter. The te or moka live pig exchange cycles, for their part, are spread over several years, generally between three and five (Feil 1987, 66, 241). There is no regular calendar. It is therefore illusory to try and identify something like “average annual production”.
  • We also examine the way in which the massive production of pigs generated by social competition in big men societies has largely contributed to mass deforestation, which explains the open landscapes of certain regions in the Highlands.
  • A study of the ontological dimension of the human-pig relationship shows that economic and social factors do not explain all the breeding strategy choices. The pig is at the interface between the domestic and the wild, and is a major symbolic and ritual actor. Reproductive alienation and female breeding represent two stages in the progression towards full domestication, and two ways of preserving the interests of the animals in the confrontation between humanised space and the world of forest spirits and animal masters.

9In Melanesia, human-animal relations and pig farming are very different from the systems put forward by the standard model. In sum, they are characterised by high animal mobility, much larger numbers of animals than generally assumed in European prehistory, economically “absurd” domestic herd management according to the criteria dictated by our intellectual habitus and, finally, at least two ontologically distinct ways of managing the opposition between wild and domestic. The history of societies with important ceremonial exchange systems exemplifies the spectacular—and environmentally devastating—expansion of production for purposes other than subsistence needs. Massive surplus production and a very high degree of animal mobility can exist in economies without markets and which can be referred to as “Neolithic” in terms of how they act on the environment. All these aspects form part of a system that we call the “ritual economy”. The main features and the different variants of this “ritual economy” differ according to the respective influence of three main factors; economic choices, social choices and imperatives dictated by ontological positions.

10In this way, reproductive alienation and female breeding are the markers of a transitional situation between pure predation, as found in hunter-gatherer societies, and domestication in the full sense of the term, which implies total control over the domestic herd. Societies with pig festivals and ceremonial exchange cycles illustrate the regional variant of the latter. The domesticated pig is completely cut off from its congeners living in the wild, and is entirely at the service of humans. For the bulk of the herd, however, control does not extend beyond separation from the wild. The next stage, which involves controlling reproduction, only exists, and not yet everywhere, in an “experimental” state in societies where humans breed a few males with a particular ritual role. In this case, the use of significantly more sophisticated techniques than for the mass of animals illustrates a ritual economy that is clearly “ahead” of the food economy, where the sacred acts as an incubation environment for the most daring innovations.

The lessons of ethnological cases on our way of perceiving prehistoric animal husbandry.

11In this section, we attempt to show that systems similar to those observed in New Guinea may well have existed in European prehistory, with animal mobility and numbers far removed from the modest estimates generated by the interpretative mechanisms of the hegemonic standard model. We therefore need to move away from the pastoral image of small village societies made up of small economic units with modest production intended essentially for domestic consumption. Cases of long-distance circulation, such as those revealed by isotope analyses at Neolithic sites such as Durrington Walls, illustrate the value of breaking out of the rigid confines of the dominant paradigm by broadening the spectrum of working hypotheses.

12As an illustration of a transitional situation between pure predation, as seen in hunter-gatherer societies, and domestication in the full sense of the term, reproductive alienation and female breeding are vital models for understanding domestication processes in prehistoric times. They are therefore likely to make a useful contribution to classification. In this article, from an evolutionary perspective, we propose a four-stage sequence:

  1. Among hunter-gatherers, the physical relationship between humans and animals is limited to hunting; a variant of this first system includes the presence of the dog. The dual relationship between hunted animals and animals that are tamed but not eaten (Amazonia) can also be included in this system.
  2. Breeding without reproductive control of animals taken from wild populations, with the two variants identified by Dwyer in the hunter-gatherer-horticulturalist groups of New Guinea. Currently available data do not confirm that this formula offers an economic advantage over the hunter-gatherer system.
  3. Mass rearing of animals for ritual needs, a system found in the big men societies of New Guinea, in hierarchical societies and in at least some stratified societies in Southeast Asia. This system is based on the extensive breeding of animals with similar phenotypes to wild forms. There are also forms of intensive breeding, reserved for certain animals, where the control of reproduction and the clear separation between wild and domestic forms warrant the use of the notion of domestication.
  4. “Animal resource” systems in state and post-animist societies, which differ from the previous one in that their uses are purely secular and there is a tendency to commodify domestic animals. Here, utilitarian factors take precedence over social and ritual dimensions.

13In conclusion, we return to the difficulties associated with the hegemonic position of the dominant utilitarian paradigm in our interpretations. The problem obviously does not stem from the existence of a general theory and speculative postulates, which is a fundamental aspect of any scientific approach, but from the almost monopolistic position of dominant theory in the archaeozoology of European prehistoric societies, its implicit use and, to say the least, the elementary vision it portrays of economic behaviour in pre-state societies. Our aim was to contribute to its deconstruction, and to develop a more satisfactory reference model, which should be explicit and made up of a range of hypotheses reflecting the diversity of configurations found in living societies. This approach must take account of livestock farming systems and the way in which they fit into all aspects of the human-animal relationship. To evolve into a genuine theory, this range of hypotheses must incorporate reasoned grouping, and therefore classification. And this is where the fundamental tool of ethnological comparatism comes into play, whether the data are taken from specialist literature or collected by ethnoarchaeologists.

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Christian Jeunesse, « Contribution to the study of the theoretical foundations of archaeozoological research on recent European and Near Eastern prehistory (Abridged version) »Gallia Préhistoire [En ligne], 64 | 2024, mis en ligne le 15 janvier 2025, consulté le 13 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/galliap/5074 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/133bu

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Christian Jeunesse

Université de Strasbourg, UMR 7044 Archimède, Strasbourg | France

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