Houses, Households, and Changing Society in the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the Southern Levant

Abstract

Characteristics of the built environment provide a source of evidence for the complex social landscapes of the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the Southern Levant. Rather than an inexorable evolutionary progression, this evidence suggests considerable variability and fl exibility throughout these periods. At various times and places, individual houses isolated themselves from the rest of their settlement within a walled courtyard that also protected their stores and livestock. At others, we find clusters of apparently quasi-independent households sharing a courtyard enclosed by the houses themselves, and most storage space sequestered within the houses, while other activity areas were shared. Throughout, we also usually find some isolated houses not clearly associated with any courtyard or house cluster. Furthermore, we find considerable variation among contemporary houses in their size, elaboration, and storage capacity, suggesting some degree of economic differentiation, perhaps difference of rank, and possibly interhousehold competition. Some of these characteristics suggest that heads of houses made strategic choices with regard to the size of their household, its alliances with other households, the accumulation of herds or grain stores, and competitive display, in order to promote their house’s political and economic advantage. Possibly this pattern fits C. Lévi-Strauss’s concept of “ house societies.”

The changing Neolithic household: Household autonomy and social segmentation, Tell Halula, Syria

“…Studies by a number researchers (e.g., Banning, 2003Banning, , 2011BarYosef, 2001;Byrd, 1994;Flannery, 1972Flannery, , 2002Kuijt, 2001Kuijt, , 2008Peterson, 2010) allows us to build a more nuanced understanding of the changing Neolithic household. The emergence of Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic villages between 10,500 and 9500 BP embodies profound changes in social organization, ritual, and economic systems.…”

Homes for Hunters? Exploring the Concept of Home at Hunter-Gatherer Sites in Upper Paleolithic Europe and Epipaleolithic Southwest Asia

“…This broad definition of home allows one to conceive of a physical place-perhaps, but not necessarily, bounded by features like huts or tents or housesas home; places that could range from a repeatedly occupied aggregation site to a larger landscape that includes several sites and the places and pathways in between them. Homes are locations imbued with meanings and attachments often, but not always, associated with landscape modifications that can range from discrete stone or brush arrangements (Maher 2016) to broader activity areas or "taskscapes" (Ingold 1993) to rock art (McDonald and Veth 2012) or other more obtrusive built environments (Banning 2010;Bird et al, forthcoming;Watkins 2012).…”

Experimental socioecology: Integrative science for anthropocene landscape dynamics

“…Selecting households as the base agent in an ABM for simulating land-use decisions and practice mirrors the organization of known small-scale subsistence farmers (Banning, 2010;Flannery, 1993;Kohler and van der Leeuw, 2007). Household agents select patches of land needed for fields and pasture, using decision algorithms informed by past farming and herding experience, household food and fuel needs, the relative importance of plant cultivation versus page 8 animal herding and perception of potential patch productivity (Mayer et al, 2006).…”