A Social Archaeology of Households in Neolithic Greece: An Anthropological Approach

by Stella G. Souvatzi

Overview

The study of households and everyday life is increasingly recognized as fundamental in social archeological analysis. This volume is the first to address the household as a process and as a conceptual and analytical means through which we can interpret social organization from the bottom up. Using detailed case studies from Neolithic Greece, Stella Souvatzi examines how the household is defined socially, culturally, and historically; she discusses household and community, variability, production and reproduction, individual and collective agency, identity, change, complexity, and integration. Her study is enriched by an in-depth discussion of the framework for the household in the social sciences and the synthesis of many anthropological, historical, and sociological examples. It reverses the view of the household as passive, ahistorical, and stable, showing it instead to be active, dynamic, and continually shifting.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521836890
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/14/2008
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Archaeology
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 10.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Stella G. Souvatzi is Lecturer in Hellenic Civilization at the Hellenic Open University in Athens, Greece. A scholar of Neolithic Greece, she has conducted extensive fieldwork in Greece and has received support from the Hellenic State Scholarship Foundation, the A. G. Leventis Foundation, and the Institute for Aegean Prehistory. She has published widely on households, houses and communities in the British School at Athens Studies and in several edited collections.

Table of Contents

1. The household in the social sciences; 2. The household as process in a social archaeology; 3. The Neolithic of Greece; 4. The ideal and the real: the examples of Early Neolithic Nea Nikomedeia and Middle Neolithic Sesklo; 5. Complexity is not only about hierarchy: Late Neolithic Dimini, a detailed case study in household organisation; 6. Homogeneity or diversity? Households as variable processes; 7. Evolution or contingency? Households as transitional processes; 8. Household and beyond: implications and prospects for social archaeology.

Editorial Reviews

"... this is a useful book that adds much to our current understandings of the household. It will be of interest to those studying the Neolithic and to those interested in the variable nature of housing and households more generally. —BMCR

"...this book does make an important contribution both to our understanding of the Greek Neolithic and household archaeology and is part of a welcome growing trend." -Craig Cessford, Cambridge Archaeological Journal

"...Souvatzi provides conceptual guidance on understanding the behavioural patterns of the early settlers of the region and offers suggestions for future research in other regions using her alternative interpretations of household." -Gunes Duru, European Journal of Archaeology archaeology and the methods appropriate to it.

From the Publisher