Household Archaeology

Organizzazione sociale e pratiche comunitarie. Analisi per una ricostruzione del quadro sociale delle comunità eoliane nella Media età del Bronzo

by Gianmarco Alberti

(Social Organization and Community Practices. Analysis for a reconstruction of the social framework of the Aeolian communities during the Middle Bronze Age)

PhD dissertation-2012
University of Udine
Department of History and Preservation of the Cultural Heritage

This study deals with the archaeological evidence from the Middle Bronze Age (ca 1460-1250 BC) settlements on the... more This study deals with the archaeological evidence from the Middle Bronze Age (ca 1460-1250 BC) settlements on the Acropolis of Lipari, on the Montagnola di Capo Graziano (Filicudi), at Punta Milazzese (Panarea), and Portella (Salina). The work is aimed at the reconstruction of forms of social organization, and is based on the data provided by previous researches carried on those sites. Thanks to those researches, a large amount of data has been made available to scholars interested in a number of different archaeological issues connected to the documentation of the Archipelago. In different points in time studies have been published dealing with the Aegean and Apennine ceramic imports, or with facets of local architecture, or with the problem of the connections between the Aeolian Islands and different parts of Mediterranean shores.

The reasons that pushed me to approach the subject of this study can be outlined as follows. While, on the one hand, previous literature has provided important insights into important archaeological issues, on the other hand, a study directed to the social organization of MBA Aeolian communities was still lacking.

It seemed important to this author to understand:
a) how the Aeolian MBA communities were organized in the past;
b) how material culture was used during daily activities;
c) how these are recognizable in the archaeological record;
d) where they were performed;
e) what relationship existed between those activities and the place where they were performed;
f) by what means and for what purposes those activities took place;
g) to what extent material culture was used in social relations;
h) in more general terms, how and why the material culture could have been expression of the ways in which communities organized themselves, their own life, and their social relations.
In this perspective, special interest lies in the possibility to understand how the acquisition and use of exotic goods relates to local practices and indigenous social dynamics.

To address these questions, I used a bottom-up approach, which rests on a broad body of evidences of various kind, in a perspective in which the archaeological evidence is analyzed in detail, with attention paid to both the findings and their spatial correlates, to both local and foreign artifacts. The starting point of the research is a small-scale bottom-up analysis, aimed to understand the on-site distribution and associations of objects, and to pinpoint activity areas at the on-site level.
In a broader perspective, the analysis is aimed to understand how factors like objects distribution, proportion, occurrence in specific structures, association with other kind of materials, and their occurrence in special areas, can provide insight on the kind and aim of activities performed by past communities. Ultimately, moving to a higher level of interpretation, this may help us understand how life, and the human and social relations, were organized in ancient times.

Chapter 1 presents the state of the archaeological researches in the Middle Bronze Age Aeolian horizons. It provides an history of the researches and a description of the various aspects of material culture.
Chapter 2 aims to set the archaeological evidence in the broader context of the Sicilian MBA.
Chapter 3 reviews the previous literature dealing with the archaeological evidence of the Aeolian Middle Bronze Age.
Chapter 4 provides the theoretical framework of this study. It outlines a series of "archeologically significant" questions that are relevant for this study’s sake and that the subsequent sections of the analysis seeks to address.
Chapter 5 examines the stratigraphies of the contexts being studied, with the aim to isolate, among the bulk of the published findings, only those that can be linked to the huts’ (final) use. Another topic addressed in this chapter is the quantification of artifacts and their functional classification, the latter to be used for the detection and recognition of activities carried out within the villages.
Chapters 6-9 present an in-deep analysis of findings and stratigraphies from each village structure (huts and open areas).
Chapter 10 analyzes the distribution of findings and functional classes of objects within and between the structures of each settlement. On the basis of analytical results derived from previous Chapters 6-9, the analysis is able to take into consideration cluster of objects from layers which may be considered relative to the last phase of use of each structure. The on-site distribution of findings and functional classes of objects is put in relation to other kind of data and evidences, such as the size of the structures, dimensional features of the objects, the distribution of certain decorative schemes on specific ceramic forms. For Lipari, the analysis seeks to integrate the faunal evidence with data relative to other classes of materials (ceramic, lithic). For each settlement, a final paragraph provides a sinthesis of the main achivements stemming from the analysis.
Chapter 11 discusses the achievements of the preceding sections, and try to read them in the light of the theorethical background provided in Chapter 4. On these basis, a reconstruction and interpretation of forms of community organization is proposed.
Chapter 12 provides a summary of the main achievements of the work. Building on the analysis object of Chapters 10-11, a number of aspects relevant to the social organisation of the Aeolian MBA communities are higlighted. To quote just a few:
-localisation of specific activity areas; distinction bewteen domestic and utilitarian huts;
-identification of the spatial and material correlates of both types of structures;
-identification of practices for the promotion of social solidarity by means of feasting activities and the use of a shared decorative symbolism;
-individuation of forms and loci of social integration between autonomous nuclear families with the aim to mitigate the forms of social tension;
-reconstruction of a social framework allowing to give a sounder explanation of why and in which way exotica [both of Aegean and Apennine type] were integrated and recontextualizated by local communities in local social-oriented practices.

Finally, Appendix 1 aims to clarify the basis of the dimensional classification of the Milazzese huts used in the analytical sections of the work.
Appendix 2 provides a primer on the Correspondence Analysis, an explorative statistical technique used in Chapter 10 to identify similarities and differences between the structures of the various settlements, on the basis of the proportion of artifacts that make up the huts’ inventories.

Zooarchaeological Analysis of the Indigenous Fishery at the Huu7ii Big House and Back Terrace, Huu-ay-aht Territory, Southwestern Vancouver Island

by Iain McKechnie

(2012) Zooarchaeological Analysis of the Indigenous Fishery at the Huu7ii Big House and Back Terrace, Huu-ay-aht Territory, Southwestern Vancouver Island. In Huu7ii: Household Archaeology at a Nuu-chah-nulth Village Site in Barkley Sound, by Alan D. McMillan and Denis E. St. Claire. Archaeology Press, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC.

This paper describes how fish overwhelmingly dominates the animal bone assemblage from the examined column sample... more This paper describes how fish overwhelmingly dominates the animal bone assemblage from the examined column sample deposits at the Huu7ii village site, the named ancestral village of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation. Fish represent 99.9% of all identified bone specimens and are present in every examined litre of sediment indicating the importance of fish in the everyday life of site occupants. The bone assemblage is numerically dominated by Pacific herring, which vastly outnumbers the next most abundant fish: anchovy, salmon, hake, greenling, dogfish, and rockfish as well as two-dozen other fish taxa. I conduct a series of descriptive, quantitative, and graphical analyses that seek to interpret resource harvesting practices at the two examined portions of the site: a very large house (17x35m) dating to the late-Holocene (ca. 1,500-400 yr BP) and mid-Holocene midden deposits recovered on a raised beach terrace (ca. 5,000-3,000 yr BP).

Más que una casa. Los navetiformes de la Edad del Bronce Balear

by David Javaloyas Molina

Draft only.
Published in: En Belarte, C. (Ed.) “El espacio doméstico y la organización de la sociedad en la protohistoria del Mediterráneo occidental (Ier milenio aC). ArqueoMediterrània vol. 11, Tarragona: ICAC. ISBN: 978-84-936769-1-9

Resumen

Tradicionalmente los navetiformes, el edificio más común en los asentamientos de la Edad del Bronce... more Resumen

Tradicionalmente los navetiformes, el edificio más común en los asentamientos de la Edad del Bronce en Mallorca y Menorca, se han interpretado como casas. Sin embargo, estas visiones han fallado a la hora de considerar las principales características de estas construcciones. Entre éstas encontramos una prolongada ocupación a lo largo de varios siglos, una cambiante división espacial interna, diferentes visibilidades y accesos del exterior al interior así como diferentes actividades realizadas en el interior.
Se defiende que estos edificios no deben entenderse como una estructura física estática en la que la gente vivía sino que eran un elemento esencial en la configuración de la vida social de esas comunidades. Se propone que los navetiformes tuvieron un papel activo y cambiante en la constitución de los grupos domésticos y las relaciones entre los grupos que conformaban la comunidad. En este artículo se replantean los conceptos de casa, espacio público y espacio doméstico en relación con los navetiformes partiendo de la premisa de que son problemáticos y tienen diferentes significados en diferentes lugares y  momentos.

Abstract

Traditionally navetiformes, the most common construction in the settlements of Mallorca and Minorca during the Bronze Age, have been interpreted as regular houses. However, these views have failed to consider properly the main characteristics of these constructions. These include their often extending long-term occupation, over several centuries, a dynamic internal spatial division, inside/outside visibility and access as well as a range of activities carried out indoors. We argue that these buildings should not be seen as a static physical structure where the
people lived but that they were an essential element in shaping the social life of those communities. We propose that the navetiformes had an active and changing role in the constitution of domestic groups and in the relationships between the groups making up the community.
In this paper we want to rethink the concepts of house, domestic and public space in relation
to these navetiformes, because are problematic and have multiple meanings in any culture and time.

Dissertation: Domestic Artifacts, Political Practices: An Archaeology of Women’s Reform Efforts and the Home, 1854-1939

by Kim Christensen

Power and Precedence in Ancient House Societies: A Case Study from the Society Island Chiefdoms (French Polynesia).

by Jennifer Kahn

Some Methodological Issues in Counting Communities and Households

by Richard Wilk

Published as Wilk, Richard and Stephen Miller 1997 "Some Methodological Issues in Counting Communities and Households."  Human Organization 56(1): 64-71.

In this article we discuss some of the limitations of conventional census techniques that assign all individuals to a... more In this article we discuss some of the limitations of conventional census techniques that assign all individuals to a single household in a single community. In areas with high rates of mobility and where people may belong to several households, traditional census methods can lead to very deceptive results that are poor guides for policy making and the delivery of services. The article suggests some ways census methods could be improved, so they can yield more informative and useful results.

Household Archaeology

by Richard Wilk

Co-Authored with William Rathje, Published in American Behavioral Scientist, 1982

This was the first paper I ever wrote on the archaeology of households, at a time when nobody was really thinking... more This was the first paper I ever wrote on the archaeology of households, at a time when nobody was really thinking about the topic. It grew out of an SAA session Rathje and I put together in 1981, and it draws on the work I was doing in my dissertation.

El espacio doméstico altomedieval del Tolmo de Minateda (Hellín, Albacete), entre el ámbito urbano y el rural

by Sonia Gutiérrez Lloret

GUTIÉRREZ LLORET, Sonia. "El espacio doméstico altomedieval del Tolmo de Minateda (Hellín, Albacete), entre el ámbito urbano y el rural". En: Castrum 6, Maisons et espaces domestiques dans le monde méditerranéen au Moyen Age : [actes d'une rencontre sur la maison villageoise qui s'est tenue à Erice (Sicile) du 16 au 23 octobre 1993] / sous la dir. d'André Bazzana et Etienne Hubert. Rome : Ecole française de Rome ; Madrid : Casa de Velázquez, 2000. ISBN 84-95555-08-5, pp. 151-164

2012 (Gil J. Stein) “Food Preparation, Social Context, and Ethnicity in a Prehistoric Mesopotamian Colony” Pp 47-63 in: The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation, edited by Sarah R. Graff and Enrique Rodriguez-Alegria. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, CO.

by Gil Stein

This chapter uses food preparation and consumption as a way to examine ethnicity and inter-cultural power relations in... more This chapter uses food preparation and consumption as a way to examine ethnicity and inter-cultural power relations in the worlds earliest known colonial network – that established by Mesopotamia in its surrounding regions during the Uruk period (ca. 3700-3100 BC). Food preparation and consumption often occur in different social contexts, roughly corresponding to the contrast between the domestic and more public or socially inclusive spheres. For this reason, these two activities can reflect different context-dependent assertions of social identity (gender, class, ethnicity) and different degrees of consciousness in practice (habitus vs. intentional symbolic statements). As recent analyses by New World historical archaeologists have shown, these contrasts can be especially marked in multi-ethnic culture contact situations, especially those involving cross-cultural marriage in colonial encounters.

Excavations at the site of Hacınebi along the Euphrates valley trade route in southeast Turkey. Excavations indicate that in the mid fourth millennium BC, the earliest state societies of the Uruk culture in southern Mesopotamia established a trading enclave in the midst of this local Anatolian settlement. The Uruk enclave at Hacnebi forms part of the broader phenomenon called the “Uruk expansion” – the world’s earliest known colonial network. The organization of economic, social, and political relations between Uruk settlements and local communities in the Uruk expansion remains a hotly debated topic. Evidence for long term peaceful co-existence of Mesopotamians and Anatolians at Hacınebi suggests that social and economic relations were based on strategies of alliance rather than colonialist domination. In this paper I compare several aspects of food preparation (food choice, butchery, cooking practices and cooking vessels) with the social context of food consumption. Artifacts from the more domestic social context of food preparation are strongly Anatolian in style, while those from more public contexts of consumption are predominantly of Uruk Mesopotamian styles. Significantly, local Anatolian cooking pot styles predominate even in archaeological contexts that are otherwise overwhelmingly Uruk Mesopotamian in character. The evidence is consistent with the interpretation of gendered ethnic differences between the social arenas of food preparation and consumption. I suggest that the Mesopotamian colonists at Hacınebi forged marriage alliances with local elites, forming multi-cultural households composed of Uruk males and Anatolian females.

Fitolitkutatási adatok a Hódmezővásárhely-Kopáncs II. lelőhely (Csongrád megye) környezeti rekonstrukciójához és archaeobotanikai elemzéséhez – Phytolith research data for the environ mental reconstruction and archaeobotanical analysis of Hódmezővásárhely-Kopáncs II (Csongrád County) archaeological site

by Ákos Pető

Pető, Á. – Herendi, O., 2012. Fitolitkutatási adatok a Hódmezővásárhely-Kopáncs II. lelőhely (Csongrád megye) környezeti rekonstrukciójához és archaeobotanikai elemzéséhez – Phytolith research data for the environmental reconstruction and archaeobotanical analysis of Hódmezővásárhely-Kopáncs II (Csongrád County) archaeological site. In: Kvassay, J. (Szerk. / Ed.) Évkönyv és jelentés a Kulturális Örökségvédelmi Szakszogálat 2009. évi feltárásairól – 2009 Field Service for Cultural Heritage Yearbook and Review of Archaeological Investigations. Budapest, 431–459. (Bilingual paper)

“Notes on History and Archaeology of Early Clazomenae”, in J. Cobet, V. von Graeve, W.-D. Niemeier and K. Zimmermann (eds), Milesische Forschungen 5. Frühes Ionien: eine Bestandaufnahme. Akten des Internationalen Kolloquiums zum einhundertjāhrigen Jubilāum der Ausgrabungen in Milet, Panionion/Güzelçamlı, 26.09.-01.10.1999 (Frankfurt am Mainz, 2007), 149-178.

by Yasar Ersoy

Milka: Burials upon the ruins of abandoned houses in the MH Argolid

by Sofia Voutsaki

(2010) Milka, E. Burials upon the ruins of abandoned houses in the MH Argolid. In: A. Philippa-Touchais, G. Touchais, S. Voutsaki & J. Wright, eds. MESOHELLADIKA: The Greek Mainland in the Middle Bronze Age. Supplément, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique.

The MH burials found in the Argolid are usually divided into two broad categories:
A. intramural burials more The MH burials found in the Argolid are usually divided into two broad categories:
A. intramural burials
B. extramural burials
However, many graves were neither extramural nor contemporary with the houses in which they were dug. They were rather placed upon ruined houses. The most characteristic example is the cemetery at Barbouna in Asine, where the pre-existing extramural cemetery expanded towards the houses after the houses were abandoned. In Lerna on the other hand, a different pattern observed; graves were opened upon ruins of earlier houses and these graves were later overbuilt by new houses. Thus, successive episodes of house construction, house destruction and abandonment, and construction of graves existed in Lerna.
It becomes thus obvious that the dual distinction between intramural and extramural graves is insufficient to describe the various locations the MH people chose in order to bury their dead. In this paper I shall look more closely at the context of the graves and their relation to houses, and I shall examine how many of the MH burials in the Argolid were really contemporary with the houses in which they were dug.

Relationships among Households in the Prehispanic Community of Mesitas in San Agustín, Colombia

by Víctor González Fernández

In Ancient Households of the Americas: Conceptualizing What Households Do
by John G. Douglass and Nancy Gonlin (editors). ISBN: 978-1-60732-173-6. University Press of Colorado 2012. (Pp. 353-380)

In Ancient Households of the Americas archaeologists investigate the fundamental role of household production in... more In Ancient Households of the Americas archaeologists investigate the fundamental role of household production in ancient, colonial, and contemporary households.

Several different cultures-Iroquois, Coosa, Anasazi, Hohokam, San Agustín, Wankarani, Formative Gulf Coast Mexico, and Formative, Classic, Colonial, and contemporary Maya-are analyzed through the lens of household archaeology in concrete, data-driven case studies. The text is divided into three sections: Section I examines the spatial and social organization and context of household production; Section II looks at the role and results of households as primary producers; and Section III investigates the role of, and interplay among, households in their greater political and socioeconomic communities.

In the past few decades, household archaeology has made substantial contributions to our understanding and explanation of the past through the documentation of the household as a social unit-whether small or large, rural or urban, commoner or elite. These case studies from a broad swath of the Americas make Ancient Households of the Americas extremely valuable for continuing the comparative interdisciplinary study of households.

La muerte visita la casa: mujeres, cuidados y memorias familiares en los rituales funerarios fenicio-púnicos

by Ana Delgado

Published in: L. Prados (ed.): La Arqueología funeraria desde una perspectiva de género. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, 2012.

The Emergence of Tiwanaku: Domestic Practices and Regional Traditions at Khonkho Wankane and Kk’araña

by Erik Marsh

This link is to the large (92 MB), uncompressed version of the Dissertation.

This version has high res images, while the other version's compressed images are at times lacking. This version has high res images, while the other version's compressed images are at times lacking.

El urbanismo ibérico en el área valenciana. El oppidum como centro de poder y reflejo del tejido social.

by Consuelo Mata

co-authored with H. Bonet

The studies of the Iberian settlements in Valencia over the last thirty years have provided important documentation of... more The studies of the Iberian settlements in Valencia over the last thirty years have provided important documentation of dealing with such complex subjects as territorial organisation, urbanism and the society that gave rise to them. In this welldeserved homage to Dr. T. Hauschild we present, from a wide perpective, a synthesis of the most innovative aspects of Iberian urbanism, i.e. the planning of the landscape inside and outside the settlements.

Dolfini, A. 2002. Distribuzione spaziale dei materiali all’interno di una struttura protostorica: il caso dell’abitazione 2 di Sorgenti della Nova, in N. Negroni Catacchio (ed.) Preistoria e Protostoria in Etruria. Atti del V Incontro di Studi: 637-650. Milan: Centro Studi di Preistoria e Archeologia.

by Andrea Dolfini

Bridging the Gap: The Function of the Houses and Residential Neighbourhoods in MM III at Phaistos

by Luca Girella

ΣΤΕΓΑ: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF HOUSES AND HOUSEHOLDS IN ANCIENT CRETE, edited by Kevin T. Glowacki and Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan, Hesperia Suppl. 44, 2011: 81-97

El proceso de neolitización a través de los espacios domésticos en los yacimientos neolíticos al aire libre

by Magda Gomez

Co-authored with Agustín Diez Castillo

Regional Integration and the Built Environment in Middle-Range Societies: Paracas and Early Nasca Houses and Communities

by Hendrik Van Gijseghem

co-authored with Kevin Vaughn, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 2008

We use the built environment of residential sites (house form and community layout) to investigate the effects of... more We use the built environment of residential sites (house form and community layout) to investigate the effects of increasing regional
integration at the level of the community in middle-range societies. We consider spatial data on house form, arrangement of residences within settlements, site location, and organization of non-residential spaces to reveal specific social phenomena linked with pan-regional political organization and ethnic identity formation, and evaluate how macro-scale processes affect micro-scale phenomena. Specifically, we argue that architecture reflects different community patterns of ritual, integration, and inequality. As a case study, we employ a diachronic perspective for two periods in Peruvian south coastal prehistory to assess the magnitude of changes implied by the genesis of Nasca society out of the preceding Paracas. Survey and excavation data from residential sites in the southern Nasca region indicate that
important modifications in local community organization accompanied the regional, wide-ranging effects of Nasca society and its innovative form of regional integration. Comparison of the residential built environment from both periods suggests important changes in ritual and patterns of status acquisition and maintenance. In addition, house form indicates that a greater level of household autonomy accompanied increasing regional integration and a decrease in conflict.