Archaeologists have focused a great deal of attention on explaining the evolution of village societies and the transition to a ‘Neolithic’ way of life. Considerable interest has also concentrated on urbanism and the rise of the earliest cities. Between these two landmarks in human cultural development lies a critical stage in social and political evolution. Throughout world, at various points in time, people living in small, dispersed village communities have come together into larger and more complex social formations. These community aggregates were, essentially, middle-range; situated between the earliest villages and emergent chiefdoms and states. This volume explores the social processes involved in the creation and maintenance of aggregated communities and how they brought about revolutionary transformations that affected virtually every aspect of a society and its culture.
While there have been a number of studies that address coalescence from a regional perspective, less is understood about how aggregated communities functioned internally. The key premise explored in this volume is that large-scale, long-term cultural transformations were ultimately enacted in the context of daily practices, interactions, and what might be otherwise considered the mundane aspects of everyday life. How did these processes play out "on the ground" in diverse and historically contingent settings? What are the strategies and mechanisms that people adopt in order to facilitate living in larger social formations? What changes in social relations occur when people come together? This volume employs a broadly cross-cultural approach to interrogating these questions, employing case studies which span four continents and more than 10,000 years of human history.
Author(s): Jennifer Birch
Series: Routledge Studies in Archaeology 10
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: xiv+225
From Prehistoric Villages to Cities: Settlement Aggregation and Community Transformation
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
1 Between Villages and Cities: Settlement Aggregation in Cross-Cultural Perspective
THE PROBLEM WITH TYPES
WHAT KINDS OF SITES ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF COMMUNITIES
STUDYING SETTLEMENT AGGREGATION
COALESCENT SOCIETIES
HISTORY, PROCESS, AND PRACTICE
THE MATERIALITY OF COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH
SUMMARY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
2 The Anatomy of a Prehistoric Community: Reconsidering Çatalhöyük
SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND SOCIETAL ARCHAEOLOGY
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS
THE ANATOMY OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AT ÇATALHÖYÜK
Households at Çatalhöyük
Ritual Differentiation in Çatalhöyük Houses
Neighborhoods at Çatalhöyük
The Local Community at Çatalhöyük
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
3 Coming Together, Falling Apart: A Multiscalar Approach to Prehistoric Aggregation and Interaction on the Great Hungarian Plain
ANALYTICAL DIMENSIONS AND SCALES
BACKGROUND—THE GREAT HUNGARIAN PLAIN IN PREHISTORY
THE NEIGHBORHOOD SCALE: THE TELL
THE LOCAL SCALE: THE SETTLEMENT COMPLEX
THE MICROREGIONAL SCALE: THE SETTLEMENT CLUSTER
THE REGIONAL SCALE: THE LOWER KÖRÖS BASIN
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSIONS: COMING TOGETHER AND FALLING APART
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
4 Social Organization and Aggregated Settlement Structure in an Archaic Greek City on Crete (ca. 600 BC)
BACKGROUND OF ARCHAIC AGGREGATION: THE EARLY IRON AGE VILLAGE PATTERN ON CRETE
AGGREGATION IN THE ARCHAIC PERIOD (LATE SEVENTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES BC)
ARCHAIC HOUSES AND HOUSEHOLDS
THE ARCHAIC PUBLIC BUILDINGS
COMMENTS ON SETTLEMENT STRUCTURE
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
5 Appropriating Community: Platforms and Power on the Formative Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia
EARLY PLATFORM COMPLEXES ON THE TARACO PENINSULA
THE UPPER HOUSE COMPLEX AT CHIRIPA
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF APPROPRIATION
Lake Level Change
The Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition
CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES
6 Social Integration and the Built Environment of Aggregated Communities in the North American Puebloan Southwest
QUESTIONING COMMUNITY INTEGRATION
AGGREGATION AND VILLAGE-COMMUNITIES IN THE SALINAS PROVINCE
PROCESSES OF AGGREGATION AND NUCLEATION IN SALINAS
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION IN SALINAS JACAL SITES
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION IN EARLY PUEBLO SITES
UNDERSTANDING AGGREGATION IN SALINAS
ARCHITECTURAL ITERATION AND INTEGRATION
SUMMARY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
7 Competition and Cooperation: Late Classic Period Aggregation in the Southern Tucson Basin
THE MARTINEZ REACH OF THE SANTA CRUZ RIVER
MIDDLE RINCON SETTLEMENT ALONG THE MARTINEZ REACH
LATE RINCON AND TANQUE VERDE PHASE SETTLEMENT ALONG THE MARTINEZ REACH
TUCSON PHASE AGGREGATED SETTLEMENT
THE MARTINEZ HILL SETTLEMENT FOCUS
SOCIAL STRUCTURAL IMPLICATIONS
CONCLUSIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
8 Organizational Complexity in Ancestral Wendat Communities
IROQUOIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOHISTORY
ORGANIZATIONAL COMPLEXITY
SETTLEMENT AGGREGATION IN THE IROQUOIAN WORLD
FIFTEENTH-CENTURY COALESCENCE AND CONFLICT
COALESCENT COMMUNITIES: THE DRAPER AND MANTLE SITES
MANAGING MANTLE: PLANNING AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Public Building Programs—Construction and Maintenance
The Necessities of Life—Food and Clothing
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
9 Community Aggregation through Public Architecture: Cherokee Townhouses
LATE PREHISTORIC AND PROTOHISTORIC SOCIETIES OF THE SOUTHEAST
ARCHITECTURE AND EMPLACEMENT IN THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS
CONCLUSIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
10 The Work of Making Community
MAKING A LIVING
BUILDING THINGS
THE LABOR PROCESS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
Contributors
Index
