Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California

Abstract

This paper presents an archaeological approach to the study of culture change and persistence in multi-ethnic communities through the study of daily practices and based on a crucial tenet of practice theory-that individuals will enact and construct their underlying organizational principles, worldviews, and social identities in the ordering of daily life. The study of habitual routines is undertaken in a broadly diachronic and comparative framework by examining daily practices from a multiscalar perspective. The approach is employed in a case study on the organization of daily life of interethnic households composed of Native Californian women and Native Alaskan men at the Russian colony of Fort Ross in northern California. Recognizing that different opportunities and choices existed for household members in this colonial setting, we explore how they constructed their own unique identities by examining the spatial layout of residential space, the ordering of domestic tasks, and the structure of trash disposal. We argue that trash deposits and middens in built environments, which often accumulate through routinized tasks, present great promise for examining the processes of culture change and persistence in archaeology.

The Archaeology of Sylvester Manor

“…By looking also at diet, architecture and trash-disposal patterns Deagan and Lightfoot have been successful in discerning evidence that points to both the persistence of cultural traditions as well as evidence of culture change (Deagan 1983;Lightfoot, Martinez and Schiff 1998). In a slightly different context, Trigg (2003,2005) has found similar results.…”

“…The domestic spaces (space as lived, to recall Lefebvre's term) can be intertwined or separate from the more public representational spaces, but more often than not it is here that daily practices are played out in a more private setting. It is in the representational spaces that archaeological evidence of organized or large scale cultural expression is most often found (Beaudry and Mrozowski 2001: 118-122;Deagan 1983Deagan , 1985Deagan , 2003Lightfoot 2003Lightfoot , 2005Lightfoot, Martinez and Schiff 1998).…”

“…Drawing on case studies in Spanish and Russian colonial contexts, Deagan (1983) and Lightfoot and his colleagues (Lightfoot, Martinez and Schiff 1998) have been able to compare artifacts recovered from households that were themselves pluralistic, often comprised of men and women from culturally different groups. By looking also at diet, architecture and trash-disposal patterns Deagan and Lightfoot have been successful in discerning evidence that points to both the persistence of cultural traditions as well as evidence of culture change (Deagan 1983;Lightfoot, Martinez and Schiff 1998).…”

“…Deagan 1983Deagan , 1985Deagan , 2003Lightfoot 1995Lightfoot , 2003Lightfoot , 2005Lightfoot, Martinez and Schiff 1998;Pauls 2006;Rothschild 2003;Trigg 2003Trigg , 2005. Rather than stressing the need to isolate the archaeological signatures of different cultural groups, these archaeologists have focused instead on searching for evidence of cultural interaction.…”

Temporal Scales and Archaeological Landscapes from the Eastern Desert of Australia and Intermontane North America

“…Group ethnicity provides one way of dividing the material record into classes for analysis, and the nature of their economic pursuits forms another, but these are not the only possible analytical units nor are they oftentimes obtainable. As historical archaeologists have been able to show (e.g., Lightfoot, 1995;Lightfoot, et at, 1998), the ethnic identity of the people who used and abandoned artifacts is much less interesting than the fact that the artifacts were used and abandoned at a particular place and time.…”