A Relational Approach to Hunter-Gatherer Architecture and Gendered Use of Space at Port Joli Harbour, Nova Scotia

Abstract Dwellings are unique arenas in which hunter-gatherers meet socially on a daily basis. Increasingly, archaeologists recognize that the relationships between people, entities, places, and objects form the basis of hunter-gatherer ontology. The spatial patterning of dwellings and the activities within them are among the ways that relational ontologies are expressed and maintained. We consider the gendered patterning of Maritime Woodland period architecture and space at Port Joli Harbour as a way in which ancient Wabanaki, and in particular ancestral Mi'kmaq, may have expressed their cosmologies. Consistency and variability in such patterning offers insight into how people maintained a sacred ecology. Dwellings provide scales at which to consider these relationshi ps when tracking the role of history and tradition.