• Introduction
• Overview
• Downloads
• Metadata
• Usage Statistics

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Primary contact

Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University
Box 192, 221 00
Lund
Sweden

Send e-mail enquiry

Resource identifiers

• ADS Collection: 1734
• DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1026780
• How to cite using this DOI

Overview

The dataset (15 separate files) supports analyses presented in the three regional case-studies:

• (a) Northwest Siberia (Chapter 3 in Jordan 2015): these data record the material culture traditions of Eastern Khanty communities. The primary information was generated by extensive ethnographic fieldwork surveys by the author (1998-2005). The focus is on documenting diversity in specific classes of artefact and buildings, each of which forms a particular technological tradition. The choices made at every stage in production are documented for specific artefacts or buildings in terms of the presence (or absence) of particular traits. The first two datasets cover the construction of raised storage caches and the shrines built at sacred places in the landscape. The next four datasets cover ski-making traditions across a range of Khanty communities, through to a comparative study of ski-making traditions across Siberia.
• (b) Pacific Northwest Coast (Chapter 4 in Jordan 2015): these data cover a range of material culture traditions among Coast Salish communities: housing; canoe-making; basketry and matting. Some of these are more collective social traditions (house-building), whereas other involve secret knowledge (canoe-making) or have explicit gender associations (canoe-making (males) versus basketry and matting (females)). The dataset is derived from older ethnographic surveys that have been edited into a format suitable for quantitative analysis. In contrast to the Siberia data (above), which focus explicitly on documenting specific examples of material culture, this dataset uses “ethno-linguistic communities” as the main recording category. The presence (or absence) of traits associated with the three different material culture traditions is then recorded across these social groups.
• (c) Northern California (Chapter 5 in Jordan 2015): these data also draw on older ethnographic surveys and use the concept of “ethno-linguistic communities” as the main recording category for traits associated with basketry traditions, housing styles and diversity in ceremonial dress. In addition, the two different sub-regions of Northern California have quite different cultural dynamics, and so Northwest California (especially the Klamath River area) is recorded by the first three data sheets (basketry, housing ceremonial dress), while the inland areas of Northeast California are documented in the final three data sheets (basketry, “earth lodges”, ceremonial dress).

Full ethnographic information on the lifeways and linguistic affinities of all these communities is provided in Jordan, P. (2015). Technology as Human Social Tradition: Cultural Transmission among Hunter-Gatherers. Origins of Human Behavior and Culture Series (Book 7). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN-13: 978-0520276932. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520958333 , as well as a full set of references for all original sources of information.