Hunter‐Gatherer Cosmologies
The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology September 5, 2018 DOI: 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2185 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key findings | The review argues that since the 1980s anthropologists have problematized traditional categories of hunter-gatherer cosmology, moving the field from "primitive" religion and spirits toward human relations with other humans and nonhuman persons. It contends that by questioning inherited European assumptions about subject-object relations and human relationships with nature, scholars are reuniting scientific and philosophical knowledge separated since the nineteenth century. |
Abstract
Cosmology is one of the three key domains used by anthropologists to define hunter‐gatherers. Although there is much variety found among hunter‐gatherers, broad continuities are typically envisaged across a range of cosmological themes including animism, shamanism, double creation, sacred geographies, tricksters, and worldview. Since the 1980s, researchers have problematized many of these categories and taken cosmology from the field of “primitive” religion and spirits to human relations with other humans, and human relations with nonhuman persons. By interrogating many of the assumptions about subject–object relations and human relationships with nature, which anthropologists have received as part of their European intellectual heritage, scholars of hunter‐gatherer cosmology are reuniting spheres of knowledge of science and philosophy that have been divorced since the nineteenth century.