Making Places in the Prehistoric World

Themes in Settlement Archaeology

Joanna Bruck, Melissa Goodman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781135361006
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

This groundbreaking volume addresses issues central to the study of prehistoric settlement including group memory, the transmission of ideology and the impact of mobility and seasonality on the construction of social identity. Building on these themes, the contributors point to new ways of understanding the relationship between settlement and landscape by replacing Capitalist models of spatial relations with more intimate histories of place.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction: Themes for a critical archaeology of prehistoric settlement

Joanna Brück & Melissa Goodman

Introduction

The study of prehistoric settlement enjoys a central position in contemporary archaeology. The prominent role of settlement research within most regional and national traditions is confirmed by the proliferation of field projects and publications focusing primarily on ancient settlements during the 1990s. However, although the variety and abundance of these sites within the archaeological record suggests a need for careful attention to interpretative frameworks, settlements have not benefited from an evaluation of theoretical concerns particular to their study. Thus, there exists a considerable gap between the formulations of settlement presented in site reports and recent developments in archaeological theory. A clear example is the persistence of environmentally determinist interpretations of the relationship between settlement and landscape in many regional traditions. The absence of a critical review of the terminology and representation of settlement also leaves these important areas largely unexamined. The papers in this volume provide a response to these concerns by prioritizing the theoretical challenges that settlements present.

In this introductory chapter, we begin by examining the categories and conventions employed within settlement studies. The apparent neutrality of terms such as ‘domestic practice’, ‘house’ and ‘household’ is questioned and their social and ideological implications are examined. We then move on to discuss the relationship between settlement and landscape and explore how a reorientation away from functionalist models of human behaviour can expand our appreciation of settlements in prehistoric societies. One important line of enquiry is drawn from developments in landscape studies over the 1990s that suggest that landscape is a cultural construct, shaped by myth and tradition, and invested with social meaning (e.g. Bradley 1991b; Bender 1993b; Barrett 1994; Tilley 1994). In this approach, human perception plays an important role in understanding spatial relations at the landscape level. This research suggests that it is through the social construction of place that human–landscape relationships are created and maintained. These considerations have obvious implications for the study of ancient settlements. However, as settlement has not yet formed an explicit focus of concern within this body of research, the application of these insights requires considerable attention to the particular attributes of settlement. Research on settlement is concerned with a wide range of human activities including those essential to daily existence. This emphasis on daily life contrasts with recent approaches to ceremonial monuments in ancient landscapes that emphasize power relations and ideology to the exclusion of other aspects of life (e.g. Barrett 1994; Tilley 1994). Thus, although innovations in landscape studies have much to offer explorations of prehistoric settlement, we argue that there continues to be an important place in archaeological research for a distinctive settlement archaeology.

In the following sections, we identify important themes for a critically informed archaeology of settlement. These include such questions as: how do archaeologists define and identify settlement spatially and conceptually? How have ethnocentric assumptions concerning human behaviour affected settlement archaeology? How can discussions of landscape perception inform research on the location and character of settlements in the past? How do settlements mediate the relationship between humans and landscape and what is their role in land tenure? We cannot claim to exhaustively cover all aspects of settlement research but hope to demonstrate the potential to expand and revitalize the field in the light of recent developments in archaeological theory.

The meaning of settlement

Most archaeologists share a working understanding of what settlement is. Yet on closer examination, the term settlement is more ambiguous and complex than at first sight. At one level, archaeologists employ the term ‘settlement’ to characterize particular types of site, while at another it is used to describe the process by which a particular group of people inhabits or colonizes a region. In both cases, ethnocentric notions of human behaviour are often uncritically projected into the past. Settlement terminology does not simply reflect the nature of the archaeological data but also the expectations of modern researchers regarding what these data represent. In the following sections, we discuss how the term ‘settlement’ has been used to describe a particular class of site and we explore how archaeologists have employed concepts such as ‘household’ and ‘domestic practice’ to characterize the settlement site.

The settlement site: houses and domestic practice

Settlements form a fundamental element of site typologies. In many archaeological traditions, ‘settlement sites’ are conceptualized as distinct, bounded categories of space and practice that are distinguishable from the landscape around them and from other types of site within that landscape (see Carman, Chapter 2, this volume). Settlements are usually described as having predominantly domestic or residential functions that may be contrasted with other site types such as cemeteries and monuments. The recognition of settlement sites is therefore dependent on our ability to identify domestic practice in the archaeological record. The primary activities carried out in our own homes include cooking and eating, reproduction and the nurturing of children and it is widely assumed that these are the defining features of settlement sites in all cultural contexts. Such activities serve an essential role in the creation and maintenance of gender ideology, age roles, and kinship relations in modern Western society. The house is the locus of these activities and provides an intuitively recognizable context for such supposedly universal practices. It is not surprising that these associations have led researchers since early this century to focus on houses as a major source of information about the past. For example, Woolley states that ‘an ancient building … is important, not merely as illustrating the history of architecture but as the setting for the lives of men and women, and as one of their chief forms of self-expression’ (1954 [1930]: 76). For Woolley, the comparison of house plans was essential to this study and allowed him to confidently identify separate functional spaces in familiar terms such as kitchens, parlours, lavatories and the like (ibid.: 77).

However, the early optimism of Woolley and his contemporaries has not always been borne out. When it comes to identifying domestic practice and houses in the past, a number of problems are frequently encountered. In some instances, this may be the result of methodological difficulties. For example, Iron Age ‘round-houses’ in Britain could have been used as dwellings, byres or for storage, but it is often difficult to distinguish these functions archaeologically. Another concern for archaeologists arises from ethnographic accounts documenting the sequential use of buildings for several different activities within a single generation (e.g. Weismantel 1989). Although each activity may leave archaeological traces, the distinct layers of each short phase of use may collapse into a single archaeological layer over time. In some cases, fine resolution techniques such as soil micromorphology may suggest a sequence of activities (e.g. Matthews & Postgate 1994) but interpretative frameworks must be able to cope with these possibilities. A further complication is the apparent absence of houses from the archaeological record of several cultural traditions, a question that cannot always be explained away as the result of inadequate recovery techniques (see Brück, Chapter 4, this volume). In other instances, abundant structural evidence may be recovered but, as at Catalhoyuk (Melaart 1967; Hodder 1987, 1996), it may be difficult to distinguish between houses and other types of building, for example shrines (see Hayden, Chapter 7, this volume).

At a more fundamental level, many of the problems encountered in contemporary settlement archaeology stem from the interpretative frameworks we employ. The assumption that a discrete set of ‘domestic practices’ located in ‘houses’ is a universal characteristic of settlements leads to the expectation that both houses and domestic activities should be easily identifiable archaeologically. However, the structure and elaboration of the house in modern Western society is closely related to a specific ideological construct, the ‘home’, and depends on ideals of possession and permanence that may be absent in other cultural contexts (see Hayden, Chapter 7, and Brück, Chapter 4, this volume). A less culturally laden term for residential architecture may be ‘dwelling’ and, as anthropologists have amply demonstrated, dwellings appear in a variety of forms in different societies (e.g. Oliver 1987; Bourdier & Alsayad 1989; MacEachern et al. 1989). The cultural values and social relations realized through dwellings are equally variable. Employing the appellation ‘house’ to familiar-looking structures can result in the uncritical imposition of attributes common to Western social life. Boyd’s study of Natufian ‘houses’ provides a good example (1995). Although these stone-footed structures seem to indicate permanent, year-round settlement, the bone assemblages recovered from these buildings in fact provide good evidence for shortterm, seasonal use.

The impact of ethnocentric expectations can be further illustrated through inspection of the features used to functionally define structures as houses. The role of the hearth may be the best example as it has played an important role in Western domestic culture for many centuries and occupied a prominent, even central, location within household space in many regional traditions of architecture. In European ideology, the hearth is synonymous with the domestic circle or home. It is symbolically linked to a life-giving force related to motherhood and nourishment that may have its ideological roots in the Greek goddess Hera. However, the primacy of the hearth, or modern kitchen, in Western houses and social life cannot be considered universal defining features of the domestic sphere. There are many cultural contexts where cooking hearths are routinely located outside of dwellings (e.g. Fewster, Chapter 11, this volume) or are found in other locations such as ceremonial architecture.

These observations help to illustrate the difficulty in attempting to construct a universally applicable list of characteristics for domestic practice. In many modern societies, domestic practice is seen as a private, passive, female sphere which can be contrasted with the active, public and male world of politics, ritual and the market economy. Perhaps the clearest examples are in Muslim communities where a strict segregation of the sexes is observed and many women live secluded in purdah. However, among other peoples, activities such as cooking and the socialization of children do not have their own separate spatial sphere and settlements may be focal points for a wide range of ritual, economic and political practices (for discussion see Brück, Chapter 4, Hayden, Chapter 7, and Price, Chapter 3, this volume). In other words, the activities that constitute settlement may differ considerably according to historical context. This suggests that structuralist dichotomies such as public: private or sacred: profane may not always be reproduced through the existence of a separate domestic sphere that can be identified in structural remains (cf. Tiffany 1978; MacCormack & Strathern 1980; La Fontaine 1981; Price, Chapter 3, this volume). If the presence of a distinct domestic domain cannot be taken as a universal, then the association of prehistoric women with passive, domestic social roles must be called into question (Moore 1988: 21–4; Waterson 1990: 169–71).

This challenges us to rethink certain aspects of archaeological research on the internal organization of settlement space. Such studies were originally popularized under the New Archaeology and early investigations into intra-site analysis have become classics in settlement research. A notable example is Clarke’s study (1972) of Iron Age buildings at Glastonbury. By analysing the spatial segregation of artefacts and features, Clarke developed a model of domestic organization that related the performance of gender-specific activities to mappable site locations. However, these assignments relied on normative ideas concerning the sexual division of labour. For example, evidence for activities such as the preparation of food was unquestioningly taken to indicate a women’s activity area. An emphasis on the identification of universal qualities of intra-site patterning continues to characterize research in this genre (e.g. Kent 1984, 1990).

Similar problems are evident in more recent studies by authors working within a broadly postprocessual framework. These researchers argue that settlement space is invested with cultural meanings that influence how it is ordered, used and valued (e.g. Hodder 1990; Richards 1990; Parker Pearson & Richards 1994a, b). This perspective challenges strictly functional interpretations of activity areas. However, ethnocentric assumptions concerning the nature of domestic practice still show through. A common thread linking many of these writings is the use of structuralism to infer meaning from the archaeological data. For example...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• 1. Introduction: Themes for a critical archaeology of prehistoric settlement
• 2. Settling on sites: Constraining concepts
• 3. All in the family: The impact of gender and family constructs on the study of prehistoric settlement
• 4. What’s in a settlement?: Domestic practice and residential mobility in Early Bronze Age southern England
• 5. ‘These places have their moments’: Thoughts on settlement practices in the British Neolithic
• 6. What is a tell?: Settlement in fifth millennium Bulgaria
• 7. Houses and monuments: Two aspects of settlements in Neolithic and Copper Age Sardinia
• 8. Kinship, tradition and settlement pattern: An archaeology of prehistoric Middle Missouri community life
• 9. Temporalities of prehistoric life: Household development and community continuity
• 10. Memory and pueblo space
• 11. The uses of ethnoarchaeology in settlement studies: The case of the Bamangwato and Basarwa of Serowe, Botswana
• 12. Debating marginality: Archaeologists on the edge?
• Index