Feral ecologies of the human deep past: multispecies archaeology and palaeo-synanthropy

Abstract

This article articulates recent advances in palaeo-ecology with the goals and ambitions of multispecies archaeology. It centres the synanthropic nexus as a key context for the study of early human-animal relationships and argues that its evolution yields important yet currently overlooked dynamics shaping the structure of the archaeological record. I first show how the dominant heuristic of wild versus domesticated nonhuman animals obfuscates the inherent variability and creativity of past animal agency. I then illustrate how such agency is caught up with human behaviour and ecosystem impacts from relatively early on in human history, navigating historically shifting configurations of autonomy and control. Drawing on deep-historical examples of synanthropic niches co-assembled by human foragers and nonhuman animals, I argue that such interspecies configurations require careful attention to concepts of liminality and ferality and challenge species-level approaches. I finally highlight potential human behavioural, material, and cosmological consequences of the synanthropic nexus, including integrative foraging patterns and notions of the giving animal, which play an important role in many Indigenous and ethnographic forager societies and illustrate the value of attending to this nexus as a focus of comparative multispecies research.