Fuel Ethnoarchaeology. An Archaeological Approach to Social Interactions between Forests, Trees and People

Abstract

In this article I depict some considerations about the use of ethnoarchaeology as a scene for the study of the relations between humans and the environment. On the basis of a bibliographical revision (which do not intend to be exhaustive) and from diverse cases of study from my fieldwork in Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, I discuss how relations between people and trees for the use of wood – firewood – as fuel constitutes an arena of social interaction between humans and non-humans. I analyze how these everyday practices of energetic supply and consumption in the forest, far from being monotonous practices away from social creativity, are integrated and participate in the materialization of the diverse forms in which human societies perceive the environment and socialize it through material action. In this sense, diverse discussions arise and allow (i) generating archaeological approaches to this kind of culture-nature interactions; and (ii) integrating perspectives, approaches, practices and narratives between the so-called “scientific archaeology” (with special emphasis on anthracology, the discipline studying the material remains of trees and shrubs - wood and charcoal - in archaeological sites) and “theoretical or anthropological archaeology”.