2011/01/01 by Angus Mol · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · Engineering · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Indigenous #Face (sociological concept) #Iconography #Shell (structure) #Making-of #History #Ethnology #Sociology #Archaeology #Social science #Engineering #Economics #Management #Ecology
paper · pdf · doi:10.4000/jsa.11834
openalex publication_date 2011/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
The Gift of the « Face of the Living »: Shell faces as social valuables in the Caribbean Late Ceramic Age. The peoples of the Caribbean Late Ceramic Age (AD 600/800-1492) were in contact through intensive and extensive exchange networks. This article takes a close look at the social mechanism behind one of these networks, which consists of face-depicting shell discs or cones. This is done from a gift-theoretical framework that focuses on aspects of alienability/inalienability of these shell faces in a specifically Caribbean setting. These artefacts are characterized from the indigenous concept of guaízas – « faces of the living » – as understood from ethnohistoric sources. After treating their iconography and giving an overview of their archaeological and socio-cultural contexts the discussion will focus on alienable and inalienable qualities of these artefacts. Finally, « shell faces as guaízas » will be used in an argument in which they figure as social valuables that are used to control extra-communal Others.