Ethnoarchaeology Of The Gabbra: The Distribution Of Material Culture Items In Occupied And Abandoned Settlements

Abstract

This study presents a site oriented study of Gabbra material culture and its distribution in different settlements. It is based on observations made in inhabited and abandoned settlements and on the material remains excavated from the latter by the author in December and January 1981. In the inhabited settlements (OlIa), the various settlement structures and their relative locations were recorded and a complete inventory was made of all traditional material culture items including their names, uses, raw materials for manufacture and where obtained, their makers (men/women, young/adult), where kept, where used and where finally discarded when no longer serving the purposes for which they were made. The different activities carried out in the settlement were also observed, together with the areas involved, the reasons for using these particular areas and the material remains which the activities may generate. In the abandoned settlements (Onna) , observations were made of the nature and distribution of cultural material remains, the state of settlements and their structures for purposes of identifying activities and activity areas. These yielded a few materials such as food debris, and material culture objects that were no longer in use. Observations showed that, although this society has very many material culture items used in performing diverse activities that take place in different activity areas, few of them are left behind in the area of usage once they wear out, break or cease to perform functions for which they were made. The majority are discarded elsewhere and even then there is a tendency for archaeological site disturbing agents to relocate them a phenomenon that was confirmed in visited. The few remains found undisturbed were complete hearths, from which one cannot only deduce the number of huts a settlement contained and their positions but also one activity area - that of food preparation. The rest of the activities may not be reconstructable. The same may be said of other pastoral societies in the past and the present.