Many scholars who study land-based small-scale societies may overlook a volume focused on maritime groups. If they do, they will miss significant theoretical advances related to seafaring. As The Archaeology of Seafaring in Small-Scale Societies demonstrates, seafarers regularly interacted with land-based societies, making these relationships critical to understanding global antiquity and the connections between terrestrial and maritime communities.
The authors of this 13-chapter volume examine maritime societies while moving beyond traditional concerns, such as logistics and transportation. Instead, they emphasize the “transformative capacities” of watercraft (e.g., chapter 1, by editors Fauvelle, García-Piquer, and Grier), illustrating how seafaring shaped social, economic, and political life.
The chapters span diverse geographic regions, including the Pacific Northwest coast, Japan, Scandinavia, Alta and Baja California, Florida, Patagonia, Atlantic Europe, and the Arctic. The authors use a wide range of theoretical approaches, from ontology to agent-based modeling, to better understand seafaring among small-scale societies. Modeling movement on water is considerably more complex than modeling movement on land.
Alberto García-Piquer and Adam Rorabaugh take on the challenge by explicitly employing agent-based models. Focusing primarily on western Patagonia, García-Piquer proposes that watercraft types, tides, currents, winds, and site locations could either constrain or facilitate maritime travel. His models evaluate both the shortest routes and the safest routes, recognizing that minimizing risk was often as important as minimizing travel time. Rorabaugh likewise employs agent-based modeling in his study of Salish maritime mobility, using experimental archaeogaming to make modeling more accessible to a broad audience while incorporating variables such as currents, weather, and travel speed.
Although Greer Jarrett does not use formal modeling, his experimental archaeology approach provides comparable insights. Through trial voyages in six Norwegian boat types similar to those built in the late nineteenth century, he explores Viking and High Medieval seafaring worldviews, emphasizing the dynamic and often hazardous nature of maritime travel. His experiential approach effectively complements an ontological perspective.
Jordi Rivera Prince similarly uses the present to illuminate the past through her study of the caballitos de totora of Huanchaco, Peru. Drawing on iconography, ethnography, and bioarchaeology, she demonstrates remarkable continuity in the use of these reed watercraft over the past 3,500 years. Holding a single person, the caballitos are used by fisherman and are often straddled (similar to riding a horse) or kneeled upon. Prince documents both exotoses and other skeletal indications that appear around the time these boats were first used. Finally, she discusses local identities, both past and present, associated with these watercraft.
Several contributors adopt ontological approaches in addition to those centered on phenomenology. Erin Smith examines Indigenous canoe homologies of the Pacific Northwest coast, emphasizing spiritual and cosmological understandings grounded in ethnographic and contemporary Indigenous knowledge. Peter Whitridge also takes an ontological perspective in his chapter on precontact Inuit watercraft, hunting, and prey. He focuses on figurative art within the theoretical perspective of actor-network theory, including excellent descriptions of precontact Inuit watercraft. Through systematic examinations of artwork, he discovers many examples that focus on encounters between hunters in kayaks and prey, particularly caribou. Bettina Schultz Paulsson likewise draws on imagery, comparing rock art from Brittany, the Atacama Desert, and Fennoscandia to argue that large-whale hunting was a communal activity rather than the opportunistic exploitation of stranded whales. Matthew Des Lauriers and Claudia García-Des Lauriers also incorporate ontological perspectives in their discussion of the unknown when encountering the sea, remarking that the horizon line appears to be a boundary of the “real world” (p. 90). They also examine the practical aspects of seafaring, such as logistics and movement, noting that Baja California watercraft remained remarkably consistent over time and were designed to transfer people versus cargo. Therefore, they prioritized durability, stability, and resilience over speed or cargo capacity.
The chapters that most likely will appeal to a land-based audience—especially those who are interested in sociopolitical organization—are those by Mikael Fauvelle and Peter Jordan; Victor Thompson; and Nelson Aguilera Aguila, Alberto García-Piquer, and Raquel Piqué. Fauvelle and Jordan make a case that sewn plank canoes were often correlated with the development of political hierarchy. They compare the development of these types of watercraft from three regions: California (particularly the Chumash and Tongva), Scandinavia, and East Asia (the Ainu). Fauvelle and Jordan propose that greater complexity in boats originally served to address logistical problems, such as those posed by dangerous seas, transportation needs, and cargo capacity. They argue that once specific watercraft were developed, boat owners then manipulated economic activities, thereby reaping noteworthy rewards, resulting in wealth that was eventually consolidated in the formation of an elite. Victor Thompson examines the canal systems and watercraft of the Calusa in southern Florida. These engineered waterways provided direct access to the extensive inland wetlands, allowing resources to be exploited without relocating settlements. Canal construction required coordinated labor, whereas canoes cached away from settlements enabled leaders to control access to watercraft as a form of private property. Aguilera Aguila, García-Piquer, and Piqué also investigate the social implications of watercraft. In this case, they compare bark canoes, plank canoes, and dugouts, focusing on changes regarding the adoption of new watercraft in southern Patagonia, and how certain restraints of watercraft—such as their carrying capacity—could have affected issues such as population sizes and bride exchange rules.
In conclusion, this is a book that scholars throughout the world, whether focused on land-based or maritime-based societies, should read. It presents innovative theoretical approaches that will stimulate new questions about seafaring and its broader social significance. At times, a bit more context for geographic regions with which a reader is not familiar might be helpful, but this is a slight criticism.
Ken Ames, whose scholarship inspired this collection, would be pleased with the insights in this book. His theoretical and methodological contributions continue to shape archaeological research, and his influence is evident throughout these chapters.
