Kinship Trouble: What, When, Where, Why, and How-and So What?

Area of Science:

• Anthropology
• Archaeology
• Genetics

Background:

• Reconstructing ancient kin relations presents significant challenges, termed 'kinship trouble'.
• Understanding human diversity necessitates crossing disciplinary boundaries.

Purpose of the Study:

• To define and address 'kinship trouble' in reconstructing ancient kinship.
• To propose interdisciplinary and ethically grounded solutions for studying kinship.

Main Methods:

• Integration of archaeogenetic, archaeological, and socio-cultural anthropological approaches.
• Reconsidering kinship as both a biological and social phenomenon.
• Adopting ethically adequate methodologies for collaborative research.

Main Results:

• Kinship trouble highlights difficulties in ancient kin relation reconstruction.
• Interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial for resolving these difficulties.
• Adopting 'oddkin' fosters unexpected collaborations across diverse fields.

Conclusions:

• Overcoming kinship trouble requires ethical collaboration and integrating biological with social approaches.
• Kinship studies should be viewed as acts of care and mutual being.
• Fostering unexpected collaborations is key to advancing our understanding of kinship.