Chapter 4. Pilgrimage to the Future: Toward a Comparative Ethnoarchaeology of Socioreligious Space

ABSTRACT

Some of our previous ethnoarchaeological research involved a cross‐cultural analysis of gender dynamics and subsistence systems in four Circumpolar societies. We developed a three‐way collaboration between archaeologists, ethnographers, and on‐site Indigenous consultant‐colleagues to decipher the structure and meaning of the latter's artifactual remains and built landscapes. Building upon that methodology to envision a future direction for ethnoarchaeology, we propose a comparative living archaeology of pilgrimages. A preliminary research design is offered for a four‐society, controlled cross‐cultural comparison of contemporary pilgrimages in Old World and New World cultural settings. Pilgrimages may offer insights into a variety of gatherings and extraordinary, dense, short‐term bursts of social interaction and their materializations on the landscape. At the same time, we seek an ethnoarchaeological strategy for thinking creatively about the processes that generated pilgrimages and pilgrimage‐like socioreligious gatherings in the longer run of human history. [Ethnoarchaeology, Pilgrimage dynamics, Indigenous collaboration, Cross‐cultural methodology]