ABSTRACT

Using archaeological materials from the pre-Hispanic American Southwest, we explore how insights from both new materialism/posthumanism and Peircean semiotics enrich our understanding of object meanings. We highlight two artefact classes commonly found in contexts interpreted as ritual: avian osteological remains and red pigment. Drawing on archaeological evidence and a rich ethnographic record, we consider their diverse associations and uses with regard to their positions within relational assemblages and their qualities as material signs. Focusing specifically on the increase in avian remains in the Middle Rio Grande region in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the association of red pigment with lapidary production in Chaco Canyon in the tenth to twelfth centuries, we identify how these materials are linked to disparate objects and contexts through iconicity and indexicality. We point to the relational constitution of object meaning as confounding analytical taxonomies that are traditionally applied to these materials.

摘要

使用来自前西班牙裔美国西南部的考古材料，我们探索了新唯物主义/后人类主义和皮尔斯符号学的见解如何丰富我们对物体意义的理解。我们强调在被解释为仪式的上下文中常见的两种人工制品类别：鸟类骨骼遗骸和红色素。利用考古证据和丰富的人种学记录，我们考虑了它们在关系组合中的位置及其作为物质标志的品质的不同关联和用途。特别关注 14 和 15 世纪中里奥格兰德地区鸟类遗骸的增加，以及 10 到 12 世纪查科峡谷中红色颜料与宝石生产的关联，我们通过图像性和索引性来确定这些材料如何与不同的对象和环境相关联。我们指出客体意义的关系构成是传统上应用于这些材料的混淆分析分类法。