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Junio 21, 2005

Draft Project: The Mapoyo Conception of Space since the 19th Century

By Ananda L. Hernández Pérez
This is the proposal for my projected thesis in order to get the Anthropologist Degree [a 10-semester/5-year career in Venezuela, that ends up with a research [may be fieldwork] and a resulting thesis dissertation about it).
Proposed thesis director: Prof. Kay Tarble
June 2005

Topic

The topic to be researched in this project is the conception of the residential space in the Mapoyo Indigenous group from the Palomo community, in Mid-Orinoco Region, Bolívar State, during the Republican Period (19th Century-present day). The approach of this research will be an ethnoarchaeological one, since an ethnographic study in that community is planned, which is to be contrasted against archaeological and historical evidence.

Precedents

In archaeology, the study of space has been developed from several approaches, specially two perspectives: a functionalist one and a symbolic one. In the same way, the ethnoarchaeological studies, that is, ethnographic studies conducted by archaeologists for comparison with archaeological evidence, also have shown a tendency towards separating into two different paths [Johnson, 2000: 89].

There can be found the ethnoarchaeological studies that mainly follow the Middle Range Theory proposed by Lewis Binford, which promotes experimental archaeological work. In this approach can be included the work done on the behavior of materials, following the Behavioral Archaeology proposed by Michael B. Schiffer; taphonomy may also be included in this approach. To understand the relations between humans and space, environmental, social and economic factors are studied [Binford, 1978; Rathje, 1992; Schiffer, 1976].

Nevertheless, this approach has overlooked other factors, such as the symbolic aspect, which may be as important or even more important than other factors when they influence the interests, prefererences and choices within a society. Then, Post-Processualist Archaeology has initiated, or at least reconsidered, the study of the symbolic aspects in order to interpret certain cultural phenomena [Moore, 1987; Tilley, 1994, 1993; Hodder, 1982ª, 1982b, 1990; Johnson, 1993; Tarble, 1994]. Not withstanding, this kind of ethnoarchaeological approach has its limitations, since it only can study the present, relying in analogies of the recent past and needing good ethnohistoric evidence. If not careful enough in the elaboration of ethnographic analogies, risk is taken in making great errors in the interpretation stage.

The Mid-Orinoco archaeological investigations have been conducted with differents goals; the first and earlier works tried to provide a regional chronology [Cruxent & Rouse, 1982]. Recent investigations within Mid-Orinoco have been varied and profuse, that is, they have dealt with different aspects of life among past and present societies in the area; aspects such as the economic [Falconi, 2003], political, commercial; or more recent studies dealing with the symbolic aspects of the life of the societies that inhabit or inhabited the region [Frías, 1993; Rivas, 1993; Scaramelli, 1993; Tarble, 1991, 1993, 1994]. The theoretical approaches given to these investigations have been varied, but of great relevance the normative, cultural-ecology and social archaeology ones. Even more recently, researchers has shown interest in symbolic archaeology and spatial archaeology.

Problem

The study to be carried deals with the symbolic conception and use of the residential [or dwelling] space, within an ethnoarchaeological approach. The area in which this research is to be undertaken is found in the Bolívar State, especifically in the village of Palomo, within the current Mapoyo territory, being the village of particular interest for our goals, because within this community we will conduct our ethnographic work to be contrasted with the archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence, being our researched temporal frame that from the early Republican period to the present day. This research is part of the Archaeological Project Suapure-Parguaza, directed by Professors Kay Tarble and Franz Scaramelli.

Our main indicators will be: ethnographic, archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence. These indicators will be useful for the interpretation of the symbolic conception of the residential space [dwelling place]. We will place our analysis at two levels: a macro-level, understood as the settlement space; and a micro-level, the residential space [dwelling place]. This study will be oriented to comprehend the changes risen in the use and symbolic conception of space, and in a minor scale that in the settlement patterns, since the 19th Century until our days.

Objectives

General

To compare the ethnographic evidence of the current population of the Palomo Mapoyo Indigenous community with the archaeological and historical data to determine the possible uses and symbolic aspects of the dwelling space and other spaces of groups that may have previously occupied this zone.

Specific

Justification

This research will be inserted within the Archaeological Project Suapure-Parguaza directed by Anthropologists Kay Tarble and Franz Scaramelli. This Project has as a goal place, recolect, and analyze archaeological and ethnohistorical information about the area between the Suapure and Parguaza rivers, in the Mid-Orinoco region of the Bolivar State.

Currently, in a great measure it is still unknown the motives and reasons behind the changes in the conception and use of domestic space in the Palomo community. Knowing this could prove useful and important to retrieve and revival the oral memory of the Mapoyo of this community about the dwelling space, and for the benefit of future research.

Theoretical Frame

A settlement pattern may be understood as the distribution of the diversity of elements of a settlement within a landscape or region, with regard to other settlements and places. The patterns may be disperse when groups are widely spread in a large region, or they may be nucleated when they circunscribe within small zones, which may be densely populated. A typical example of this is the Varzea environment in the Amazonic region. Different from the pattern, is the settlement form which is a term applied to the features of an individual element of the settlement, as the physical shape of a house, or the shape of a whole town [Roberts, 1996).

Asuming that society builds its space, according either to criteria of use/function (e. g., places such as quarries, workshops, sites where objects are constructed) or a worldview system, placed at the religious or symbolic dimension; being any of them the two general approaches to study the spatial use. Nevertheless, both approaches cannot be divorced; all human societies leave traces of their activities in the space they use, but this space appears also as a way of meaning or expressing the society itself [Ibid.].

All individuals, and therefore, all human groups possess complex relations with space, which surrounds them and shapes a structure for their lives. Because of this, difficulties rise for the researchers when trying to explain human relations with [within] space, even so that functionalist interpretations are made, as they engage in studying features as the use of space focused to economic activities, for example, seeing just a small part of this human-space relations or, quite the contrary, they may engage in an idealist perspective, where human beings think and changes [just by thought] the environment or the landscape. These relational networks need to be considered more complex, but in order to simplify our task we have decided to take into account the various dimensions that may exist in the perception of space.

Therefore, we think as fundamental for this research the classification made by Tilley [1994] of the types of space. Tilley is placed within the postprocessual current, concentrating his work in the study of the construction of space by human groups in a symbolic level. The archaeologists who follow this theoretical current are conscious about the impossibility of reconstructing such perspective for past and extinct societies, if there is not a historical continuity during time that may allow the use of analogies.

Tilley sees space as a medium, not as a simple container of actions. Space cannot exist separated from events and activities that relate to it. This space is socially produced, and it is constructed in different ways in each society. Also, the notion may vary within individuals, and therefore there is not a space, but many spaces, which conform themselves according to daily practice. The meaning of space always possesses a subjective dimension and it cannot be understood as separate from the human world and life. It is symbolically built by social actors. Space does not possess an essential substance per se; it is only when it relates to people and places that it conveys meaning. Spaces are always created, reproduced and transformed, in relation to spaces previously built. They are intimately related with the creation of biographies and social relationships [Tilley, 1994].

Tilley studies space from a phenomenological approach, which may be understood as the way people experiences and understands the world. Phenomenology involves the comprehension and the description of things as experienced by the subject; it deals with the relationship of Being [self] with Being-in-the-World, this being the process that makes the wolrd objective, standing the self apart from it.

It is important to point the difference, noted by Tilley, between the concept of place and that of space. Places are the central spaces of human meaning; their singularity manifests in daily experience [Tilley, 1994].

Space is an more abstract construction than place, since it provides a situational context for places, but draws its meaning from particular places. Without places there are no spaces. The first are centers of bodily activity, human meaning and emotional attachment. They have an ontological sense. Places have distinct values and meanings for people. Place only can exist in relation to things or other places (either in space or time); there may be a dichotomy between places, there is a place to eat and another to bathe; rarely there is a single place for this two activities [Tilley, 1994].

As previously said, Tilley makes a classification of space that functions only as a heuristical tool. He divides space in five types, each one mutually related to each other:

  1. Somatic space: It is the space of habitual and unconscious action, of sensorial experiences, of the human body abilities to move itself.
  2. Perceptual space: It is the egocentric (individual) space. This space is always relative and qualitative. It links the patterns of intentional individuality with bodily movements and perception.
  3. Existential space: It is the (living) space built by the concrete experiences of the (social) individual with [within] the group. It transcends the individual. It is in a constant process of production and reproduction through the movements and activities of a group.
  4. Architectural [architectonic] space: It only makes sense in relation to the other spaces. It creates and limits spaces (such as interior/exterior).
  5. Cognitive space: Provides the bases for reflection and theorization for the understanding of others. It is the space of discussion and analysis, such as the space of the sciences, for example. [Idem].

This classification will prove useful when we engage in the analysis of the conceptions of space within the Indigenous community, in order to establish such conceptions, and also the reasons of the past changes through time in the landscape, and therefore, in the settlement patterns.

References

Cruxent, J.M. y Irving Rouse (1982): Arqueología Cronológica de Venezuela. Caracas: Ernesto Armitano Editor. Vol. I.

Falconi; M. (2003): Arqueología del período republicano (1831- 1940) en el Orinoco medio, Estado Bolívar: características del encuentro económico, social y cultural entre indígenas y extranjeros. Trabajo Final de Grado para optar al titulo de Antropólogo. Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas.

Frías, I. (1993): “Ajuar cerámico de los Piapoco: Un caso de estilo como transmisor de información” En: Contribuciones a la Arqueología Regional Venezolana. Caracas: Fondo Editorial Acta Científica Venezolana.

Johnson, M. (2000): Teoría Arqueológica: una introducción. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel.

Rivas, P. (1993): Estudio preliminar de los petroglifos de Punta Cedeño. Caicara del Orinoco, Edo. Bolívar”. En: Contribuciones a la Arqueología Regional Venezolana. Caracas: Fondo Editorial Acta Científica Venezolana.

Roberts, B. (1996): Landscapes of Settlement: prehistory to the present. Londres: Routledge.

Tarble, K. (1991): “Piedras y potencia, pintura y poder: estilos sagrados en el Orinoco Medio”. En: Antropológica 75-76: 141-64.

Tarble, K. (1993): “Criterios para la ubicación de los asentamientos Prehispánicos en el área del Barraguan. Edo. Bolívar”. En: Contribuciones a la Arqueología Regional Venezolana. Caracas: Fondo Editorial Acta Científica Venezolana.

Tarble, K. (1994): Concepción y uso del espacio en la época precolombina tardía, en el área del Barraguan, Estado Bolívar. Universidad Central de Venezuela. Trabajo de ascenso para optar a Profesor Asistente.

Tilley, C. (1994): A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, paths and monuments. Explorations in Anthropology. Oxford: University College London.

[Poorly translated by Daniel. It's going to be continually corrected, at least as for the translation. Please send us your input]

Posted by ananda at Junio 21, 2005 09:46 AM Posted to Arqueología venezolana | Universidad

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Al preproyecto de Ananda lo han citado en el blog de arqueoastronomía de Alun More Classical and other blogs. Creo que el trackback es éste.

Posted by: Daniel Alberto [TypeKey Profile Page] at Julio 16, 2005 10:36 AM

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