The Anthropology of Human Residues

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Abstract
Ethnoarchaeology is a new kind of anthropology—the anthropology of human residue formation. Since discard behavior and residue formation, like language, are universal human characteristics, their patterning can be studied in a manner akin to grammar in languages. Consistent observed relationships between human behavior and material residues in contemporary societies may be posited as propositions for cross‐cultural testing and comparison with prehistoric human residues. Two aspects of ethnoarchaeology—the derivation of these lawlike propositions and the materialist approach that this effort represents—are demonstrated with data on ethnographic behavior relating to lithic raw materials among the Western Desert aborigines of Australia. In particular, this study examines the amounts of lithic raw material that are selected, used, and ultimately discarded by an aborigine man during an average year and the way in which the presence of raw materials from distant sources (“exotic” stones) in aboriginal habitation campsites can be explained in terms of nonmaterial, i.e., ideational, aspects of behavior. The argument here is that the ethnoarchaeologist is most effective when he uses a materialist approach in studying patterns of human residue formation to discover the totality of behavior that best explains these patterns. [ethnoarchaeology, discard behavior, materialist approach, Australian desert aborigines]