Book Chapters by Erica Hill
Sacred Nature: Animism and Materiality in Ancient Religions, 2023
Watercraft, like amulets and harpoons, were critical components of the maritime North American Ar... more Watercraft, like amulets and harpoons, were critical components of the maritime North American Arctic toolkit. Two forms of skin-covered watercraft were in use across the Western Arctic: the umiaq, a large open boat, and the smaller, decked kayak. Comprised of driftwood and animal skins and constructed through the complementary labour of men and women, watercraft mediated the realms of land, ice, and water, operating as liminal agents between human and animal worlds.
This chapter explores watercraft of the Western Arctic coast as hybrid assemblages of raw materials that were themselves implicated in relational networks. Inspired by McNiven’s (2018) view of Torres Strait canoes as ‘object-beings,’ I consider the evidence of the Late Thule and early contact period in Alaska and the islands of the Bering Sea (c. AD 1400–1850). Routine watercraft construction and maintenance, from this perspective, become complex social processes that transform, renew, and connect humans, animals, and materials (driftwood, seal skins) with their own agential properties.
Dogs in the North: Stories of Cooperation and Co-Domestication, 2018
My chapter in the new book Dogs in the North discusses the osteological, artifactual, and ethnohi... more My chapter in the new book Dogs in the North discusses the osteological, artifactual, and ethnohistoric evidence for human-dog relations in Northwest Alaska among Inupiat, with some discussion of materials from St. Lawrence Island.
Contact me if you'd like an offprint.
Chapter 1 of the edited volume The Archaeology of Ancestors, this essay reviews the historiograph... more Chapter 1 of the edited volume The Archaeology of Ancestors, this essay reviews the historiography of ancestors in anthropology. Hageman and Hill discuss the foundational works on ancestors in China and Africa and review the many and varied definitions of "ancestor" that have been proposed.
Chapter 2 of the edited volume The Archaeology of Ancestors, this essay reviews the lines of evid... more Chapter 2 of the edited volume The Archaeology of Ancestors, this essay reviews the lines of evidence archaeologists have employed to argue for ancestor veneration in the past. Taking a global perspective, Hill and Hageman discuss examples from China, Africa, and the Americas.
Chapter 8 from the edited volume The Archaeology of Ancestors suggests that ancestor veneration m... more Chapter 8 from the edited volume The Archaeology of Ancestors suggests that ancestor veneration may be inferred from the evidence of Moche architecture and iconography. Hill focuses on a scene involving two women attending a Moche prisoner.
Human and Marine Ecosystems: Archaeology and Historical Ecology of Northeastern Pacific Seals, Sea Lions, and Sea Otters, 2011
ABSTRACT: North Pacific foragers have relied upon the Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) for subs... more ABSTRACT: North Pacific foragers have relied upon the Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) for subsistence and raw materials for at least three thousand years. Zooarchaeological evidence indicates that the pattern and intensity of use differ significantly between Alaska, St. Lawrence Island, and the Chukchi coast. In this chapter, I discuss the human use of walrus in the North Pacific, considering coastal settlement and walrus migration patterns, ancient hunting strategies, use of sea ice, and prey preferences. I argue for significant time depth in the cooperative hunting of walrus and suggest that walrusing, rather than whaling, provided the foundation for the development of social complexity in the North Pacific.
For more than ten thousand years, Native Americans from Alaska to southern California relied on a... more For more than ten thousand years, Native Americans from Alaska to southern California relied on aquatic animals such as seals, sea lions, and sea otters for food and raw materials. Archaeological research on the interactions between people and these marine mammals has made great advances recently and provides a unique lens for understanding the human and ecological past. Archaeological research is also emerging as a crucial source of information on contemporary environmental issues as we improve our understanding of the ancient abundance, ecology, and natural history of these species. This groundbreaking interdisciplinary volume brings together archaeologists, biologists, and other scientists to consider how archaeology can inform the conservation and management of pinnipeds and other marine mammals along the Pacific Coast.
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Archaeological Imaginations of Religion, 2014
Ethnographic evidence indicates that animals play complex, overlapping roles as food, sacred obje... more Ethnographic evidence indicates that animals play complex, overlapping roles as food, sacred objects, and mythic creatures. Yet our reconstructions of animals in religions of the past tend to represent functional categories in which animals are objects to be dominated. In this chapter, I suggest that we fail to appreciate the range of roles animals played in prehistoric religions, in part because we have few modern Western analogs. This chapter
takes a critical look at our neglect of animals in past religions and advocates greater attention to animals as agents and mythic subjects.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2000
… sake: material culture and style across …, Jan 1, 2005
Edited by T. Meier and P. Tillessen
This book does not aim at a “true” story of prehistoric be... more Edited by T. Meier and P. Tillessen
This book does not aim at a “true” story of prehistoric belief, but rather an account of how eight different archaeologists imagine past religions. It is their purpose to observe and analyse how archaeologists think about that fuzzy thing called “religion.” Papers range from a comparative history of research to new interpretational frames of hidden art. Authors question the established sacred-profane divide and explore the concept of liminality; they tear down the borders between humans and animals, the animate and the inanimate.
Contents
Thomas Meier and Petra Tillessen / Archaeological imaginations of religion
John Bintliff / Sacred worlds or sacred cows? Can we paramaterize past rituals?
Erica Hill / Imagining animals in prehistoric religions
Robert J. Wallis / Animism, ancestors and adjusted styles of communication: Hidden art in Irish passage tombs
Miranda Aldhouse-Green / Style over content
Liv Nilsson Stutz / Dialogues with the dead. Imagining mesolithic mortuary rituals
Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET / Conceptualization of space through folklore. On the mythical and ritual significance of community limits
Tiina ÄIKÄS / The concept of liminality and Sámi sacred landscapes
Journal Articles by Erica Hill
Études Inuit Studies, 2017
Nineteenth-century ethnohistoric sources describe rituals and beliefs related to the exploitation... more Nineteenth-century ethnohistoric sources describe rituals and beliefs related to the exploitation of walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) on the islands of the Bering Sea and the coast of Chukotka. These small-scale rites practiced by St. Lawrence Islanders, Siberian Yupiget, and Chukchi were intended to thank walrus and ensure future hunting success. Rituals conducted by walrus boat captains also facilitated integration of walrus hunting crews and their families. Archaeological evidence for the antiquity of walrus-related ritual is provided by concentrations of walrus skulls in structures and deposition of walrus bones in cemeteries. The centrality of walrus to subsistence, material culture, and ritual life of coastal peoples deserves more scholarly attention in both archaeological and historical reconstructions of Yupik and Chukchi multispecies pasts.
Archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence from the coast of western Alaska and St. Lawrence Islan... more Archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence from the coast of western Alaska and St. Lawrence Island indicate that human inhabitants over the past 1500–2000 years incorporated birds into their diets, cosmologies, material culture, and daily activities. Following a brief discussion of the archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence for human–bird relations, this article explores the evidence for birds as both an economic and cosmological resource at the Ipiutak site on the northwest coast of Alaska. Several lines of evidence indicate that hunters and shamans have consistently attempted to mimic or acquire the abilities and physical attributes of select bird taxa, reflecting a sophisticated knowledge of bird behaviours and life histories. A specific concern with vision – shamanic, predatory, and post-mortem – is inferred from an unusual Ipiutak burial assemblage that contained a loon skull with ivory eyes. Considered in light of the broader cemetery assemblage, which includes artefacts with bird imagery, the Ipiutak material is interpreted as evidence of perspectivism in western arctic prehistory.
Environment & Society: Advances in Research, 2013
The discipline of archaeology has long engaged with animals in a utilitarian mode, constructing a... more The discipline of archaeology has long engaged with animals in a utilitarian mode, constructing animals as objects to be hunted, manipulated, domesticated, and consumed. Only recently, in tandem with the rising interest in animals in the humanities and the development of interdisciplinary animal studies research, has archaeology begun to systematically engage with animals as subjects. This article describes some of the ways in which archaeologists are reconstructing human engagements with animals in the past, focusing on relational modes of interaction documented in many hunting and gathering societies. Among the most productive lines of evidence for human-animal relations in the past are animal burials and structured deposits of animal bones. These archaeological features provide material evidence for relational ontologies in which animals, like humans, were vested with sentience and agency.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2011
In this article, I discuss the ways in which animals act as ontological subjects -as otherthan-hu... more In this article, I discuss the ways in which animals act as ontological subjects -as otherthan-human persons and as agents in myth and ritual. First I outline how humans conceive of and behave with animals and their remains in indigenous cosmologies using ethnographic and ethnohistoric examples from the Arctic, Subarctic and Amazonia. I then explore the archaeological evidence for indigenous ontologies along the coasts of Chukotka and Alaska, arguing that prehistoric hunters interacted with animals as agential persons, engaging in social practices intended to facilitate hunting success and avoid offending prey. Two forms of ritual activities are discussed: the use of hunting amulets and the caching of animal bones and antlers.
Arctic Anthropology, 2012
In 1971, Ernest S. Burch identifi ed "nonempirical phenomena" as variables in travel and settleme... more In 1971, Ernest S. Burch identifi ed "nonempirical phenomena" as variables in travel and settlement decision-making among Iñupiaq Eskimo of Northwest Alaska. This article parses the term "nonempirical" and advocates the use of term "other-than-human" to describe the extraordinary persons known to Yupiit and Inupiat of Alaska. I discuss the ways in which place names and oral narratives can contribute to an understanding of the relational, intersubjective nature of Yupiit interactions with other-than-human persons and describe how such relations were anchored in enculturated landscapes. Finally, I address how archaeology is uniquely positioned to contribute to reconstructions of prehistoric ontologies that materialized relations between "real people" and the other-than-human persons with whom they shared the animated, dynamic landscapes of Southwest Alaska.
ABSTRACT: The application of van Gennep's rites of passage structure to iconography and mortuary ... more ABSTRACT: The application of van Gennep's rites of passage structure to iconography and mortuary contexts in the Late Moche period of Peru offers an original means of exploring prehistoric concepts of death.
Journal of Material Culture, Jan 1, 2003
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Book Chapters by Erica Hill
This chapter explores watercraft of the Western Arctic coast as hybrid assemblages of raw materials that were themselves implicated in relational networks. Inspired by McNiven’s (2018) view of Torres Strait canoes as ‘object-beings,’ I consider the evidence of the Late Thule and early contact period in Alaska and the islands of the Bering Sea (c. AD 1400–1850). Routine watercraft construction and maintenance, from this perspective, become complex social processes that transform, renew, and connect humans, animals, and materials (driftwood, seal skins) with their own agential properties.
Contact me if you'd like an offprint.
""
takes a critical look at our neglect of animals in past religions and advocates greater attention to animals as agents and mythic subjects.
This book does not aim at a “true” story of prehistoric belief, but rather an account of how eight different archaeologists imagine past religions. It is their purpose to observe and analyse how archaeologists think about that fuzzy thing called “religion.” Papers range from a comparative history of research to new interpretational frames of hidden art. Authors question the established sacred-profane divide and explore the concept of liminality; they tear down the borders between humans and animals, the animate and the inanimate.
Contents
Thomas Meier and Petra Tillessen / Archaeological imaginations of religion
John Bintliff / Sacred worlds or sacred cows? Can we paramaterize past rituals?
Erica Hill / Imagining animals in prehistoric religions
Robert J. Wallis / Animism, ancestors and adjusted styles of communication: Hidden art in Irish passage tombs
Miranda Aldhouse-Green / Style over content
Liv Nilsson Stutz / Dialogues with the dead. Imagining mesolithic mortuary rituals
Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET / Conceptualization of space through folklore. On the mythical and ritual significance of community limits
Tiina ÄIKÄS / The concept of liminality and Sámi sacred landscapes
Journal Articles by Erica Hill
This chapter explores watercraft of the Western Arctic coast as hybrid assemblages of raw materials that were themselves implicated in relational networks. Inspired by McNiven’s (2018) view of Torres Strait canoes as ‘object-beings,’ I consider the evidence of the Late Thule and early contact period in Alaska and the islands of the Bering Sea (c. AD 1400–1850). Routine watercraft construction and maintenance, from this perspective, become complex social processes that transform, renew, and connect humans, animals, and materials (driftwood, seal skins) with their own agential properties.
Contact me if you'd like an offprint.
""
takes a critical look at our neglect of animals in past religions and advocates greater attention to animals as agents and mythic subjects.
This book does not aim at a “true” story of prehistoric belief, but rather an account of how eight different archaeologists imagine past religions. It is their purpose to observe and analyse how archaeologists think about that fuzzy thing called “religion.” Papers range from a comparative history of research to new interpretational frames of hidden art. Authors question the established sacred-profane divide and explore the concept of liminality; they tear down the borders between humans and animals, the animate and the inanimate.
Contents
Thomas Meier and Petra Tillessen / Archaeological imaginations of religion
John Bintliff / Sacred worlds or sacred cows? Can we paramaterize past rituals?
Erica Hill / Imagining animals in prehistoric religions
Robert J. Wallis / Animism, ancestors and adjusted styles of communication: Hidden art in Irish passage tombs
Miranda Aldhouse-Green / Style over content
Liv Nilsson Stutz / Dialogues with the dead. Imagining mesolithic mortuary rituals
Katja HROBAT VIRLOGET / Conceptualization of space through folklore. On the mythical and ritual significance of community limits
Tiina ÄIKÄS / The concept of liminality and Sámi sacred landscapes