Christian Gates St-Pierre
Assistant Professor, Département d'anthropologie, Université de Montréal.
Address: Département d'anthropologie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada, H3C 3J7
https://anthropo.umontreal.ca/repertoire-departement/professeurs/professeur/in/in15476/sg/Christian%20Gates%20St-Pierre/
Address: Département d'anthropologie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada, H3C 3J7
https://anthropo.umontreal.ca/repertoire-departement/professeurs/professeur/in/in15476/sg/Christian%20Gates%20St-Pierre/
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The decolonization of science and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples are leading archaeologists to adopt a new praxis that is more collaborative and more respectful of Indigenous issues, considerations and perspectives. Despite the generally positive consequences emanating from this type of project, tensions can arise between the stakeholders when their needs and objectives do not concur. The fictive case study presented here illustrates the complexity of such situations and the ethical dilemmas that can arise from them.
Prehistoric archeology in North America is driven by a process of decolonization that forces us to question and redefine its practices, as well as its links with Aboriginal communities and their archaeological heritage. No longer having the monopoly of discourse on this heritage, archaeologists are developing new approaches that are more collaborative, multivocal and socially relevant. The appropriation of the past remains problematic, however, as it is subject to debates opposing sociopolitical and interpretative positions that are sometimes difficult to reconcile. This article provides an overview of the situation and the resulting ethical challenges, illustrated by a contemporary case study located in Montreal.
influence on fire regime before European settlement has been debated, mainly because of a paucity of sites and paleoecological techniques that can distinguish human influences unequivocally from climate. We applied a multiproxy analysis to a 12 000-year-old paleoecological sequence from a site in the vicinity of known settlement areas that were occupied over more than 7000 years. From this analysis, we were able detect the human influence on the fire regime before and after European colonization. Fire occurrence and fire return intervals (FRI) were based on analysis of sedimentary charcoals at a high temporal and spatial resolution. Fire occurrence was then compared to vegetation that was reconstructed from pollen analysis, from population densities deduced from archeological site dating, from demographic and technological models, and from climate reconstructed using general circulation models and ice-core isotopes. Holocene mean FRI was short (164 ± 134 years) and associated with small charcoal peaks that were likely indicative of surface fires affecting small areas. After 1500 BP, large vegetation changes and human demographic growth that was demonstrated through increased settlement evidence likely caused the observed FRI lengthening (301 ± 201 years), which occurred without significant changes in climate. Permanent settlement by Europeans in the area around 1800 AD was followed by a substantial demographic increase, leading to the establishment of Gatineau, Hull and Ottawa. This trend was accompanied by a shift in the charcoal record toward anthropogenic particles that were reflective of fossil fuel burning and an apparent absence of wood charcoal that would be indicative of complete fire suppression. An anthropogenic fire regime that was characterized by severe and large fires and long firereturn intervals occurred more than 1000 years ago, concomitant with the spread of native agriculture,
which intensified with European colonization over the past two centuries.
subsistence, as well as a series of complex and changing relations with neighbouring populations. This paper presents a brief overview of this rich and complex occupation history.
The decolonization of science and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples are leading archaeologists to adopt a new praxis that is more collaborative and more respectful of Indigenous issues, considerations and perspectives. Despite the generally positive consequences emanating from this type of project, tensions can arise between the stakeholders when their needs and objectives do not concur. The fictive case study presented here illustrates the complexity of such situations and the ethical dilemmas that can arise from them.
Prehistoric archeology in North America is driven by a process of decolonization that forces us to question and redefine its practices, as well as its links with Aboriginal communities and their archaeological heritage. No longer having the monopoly of discourse on this heritage, archaeologists are developing new approaches that are more collaborative, multivocal and socially relevant. The appropriation of the past remains problematic, however, as it is subject to debates opposing sociopolitical and interpretative positions that are sometimes difficult to reconcile. This article provides an overview of the situation and the resulting ethical challenges, illustrated by a contemporary case study located in Montreal.
influence on fire regime before European settlement has been debated, mainly because of a paucity of sites and paleoecological techniques that can distinguish human influences unequivocally from climate. We applied a multiproxy analysis to a 12 000-year-old paleoecological sequence from a site in the vicinity of known settlement areas that were occupied over more than 7000 years. From this analysis, we were able detect the human influence on the fire regime before and after European colonization. Fire occurrence and fire return intervals (FRI) were based on analysis of sedimentary charcoals at a high temporal and spatial resolution. Fire occurrence was then compared to vegetation that was reconstructed from pollen analysis, from population densities deduced from archeological site dating, from demographic and technological models, and from climate reconstructed using general circulation models and ice-core isotopes. Holocene mean FRI was short (164 ± 134 years) and associated with small charcoal peaks that were likely indicative of surface fires affecting small areas. After 1500 BP, large vegetation changes and human demographic growth that was demonstrated through increased settlement evidence likely caused the observed FRI lengthening (301 ± 201 years), which occurred without significant changes in climate. Permanent settlement by Europeans in the area around 1800 AD was followed by a substantial demographic increase, leading to the establishment of Gatineau, Hull and Ottawa. This trend was accompanied by a shift in the charcoal record toward anthropogenic particles that were reflective of fossil fuel burning and an apparent absence of wood charcoal that would be indicative of complete fire suppression. An anthropogenic fire regime that was characterized by severe and large fires and long firereturn intervals occurred more than 1000 years ago, concomitant with the spread of native agriculture,
which intensified with European colonization over the past two centuries.
subsistence, as well as a series of complex and changing relations with neighbouring populations. This paper presents a brief overview of this rich and complex occupation history.
The papers in this volume follow this direction by adopting various forms of dialogue and integration between old and new methods and approaches, including technological analysis, usewear analysis, typology, zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, experimental archaeology or spatial analysis. They represent a mixture of methodological issues, case studies, and discussions of larger cultural and historical phenomena that span thousands of years and many parts of the World, from South Asia to the Near East and Europe, and from North to South America. The synergies deriving from these multi-perspective approaches lead to the repeated identification of diverse social aspects of past societies, including the identification of general social contexts of bone tool production and use, transmission of knowledge, the symbolic dimensions of artifacts, and intergroup relations as well as warfare and state formation processes.
All these papers grew out of communications presented at the 13th meeting of the Worked Bone Research Group (WBRG) on October 7th–13th, 2019, at the Département d’anthropologie, Université de Montréal, Canada. The WBRG is an official working group of the International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ) dealing with the study of worked faunal remains from archaeological sites.