Live stock and dead things : the archaeology of zoopolitics between domestication and modernity / Hannah Chazin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chazin, Hannah, author.

Series:

Animal lives (University of Chicago. Press)

Animal lives

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human-animal relationships--Caucasus, South.

Human-animal relationships.

Bronze age--Caucasus, South.

Bronze age.

Livestock--Social aspects--Caucasus, South.

Livestock.

Domestication--Political aspects--Caucasus, South.

Domestication.

Pastoral systems--Caucasus, South.

Pastoral systems.

Animal remains (Archaeology).

Physical Description:

266 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Other Title:

Archaeology of zoopolitics between domestication and modernity

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago, 2024.

Summary:

"In Live Stock and Dead Things, Hannah Chazin combines zooarchaeology and anthropology to challenge familiar narratives about the role of non-human animals in the rise of modern societies. Conventional views of this process tend to see a mostly linear development from hunter-gatherer societies to horticultural and pastoral ones to large-scale agricultural ones and then industrial ones. Along the way, traditional accounts argue, the custom of inheriting land, livestock, and other sources of value introduced social inequality and stratification. Against this, Chazin raises a provocative question: What if pastoral domestication wasn't just about instrumentalizing non-human animals after all? Chazin argues that these conventional narratives are inherited from conjectural histories and are based on misinterpretations of archaeological data. In her view, the category of "domestication" flattens the more complex dimensions of humans' relationship to herd animals. In the book's first half, Chazin offers a new understanding of the political possibilities of pastoralism, one that recognizes the powerful role herd animals have played in shaping human notions of power and authority. In the second half, she takes readers into her archaeological fieldwork in the South Caucuses, which sheds further light into herd animals' transformative effect on the economy, social life, and ritual. Appealing to anthropologists and archaeologists alike, this daring book offers a reconceptualization of human-animal relationships and their political significance"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Flyover history and domestication as an ontostory

Herd animals and relations of use

How to do things with herds

Unearthing politics in the Tsaghkahovit Plain

Making milk: human and animal labor

Livestock and dead things: pre- and postmortem value

Choreographies of value

New stories, new questions.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226837482

0226837483

9780226837505

0226837505

OCLC:

1430502395

Publisher Number:

90100913402