Agency and Identity in the Ancient Near East

New Paths Forward

Sharon R. Steadman, Jennifer C. Ross

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781845534431
• eBook ISBN: 9781134945511
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Agency theory examines the relationship between individuals or groups when one party is doing work on behalf of another. 'Agency and Identity in the Ancient Near East' offers a theoretical study of agency and identity in Near Eastern archaeology, an area which until now has been largely ignored by archaeologists. The book explores how agency theory can be employed in reconstructing the meaning of spaces and material culture, how agency and identity intersect, and how the availability of a textual corpus may impact on the agency approach. Ranging from the Neolithic to the Islamic period, 'Agency and Identity in the Ancient Near East' covers sites located in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. The volume includes contributions from philology, art, history, computer simulation studies, materials science, and the archaeology of settlement and architecture.

1 Agency and Identity in the Ancient Near East

DOI: 10.4324/9781315539256-1

New Paths Forward

Jennifer C. Ross and Sharon R. Steadman

Defining Agency

The concepts of ‘agency’ and ‘identity’ have been incorporated into archaeological theory, and sometimes practice, since the 1980s and 1990s, as part of a realignment of the archaeological endeavor under post-processualism. In the theoretical literature of the 1980s, scholars advocated shifting the focus of archaeology from the reconstruction of culture and from cultural and environmental constraints upon action (often termed ‘structure’) to the study of individuals as active producers of and participants in society (Hodder 1986, 2000). As is the case with much archaeo-logical theory, agency and identity concepts have been derived from other disciplines—in this case, archaeology's sister disciplines of anthropology (Bourdieu 1977, 1990) and sociology (Giddens 1979, 1984). In these fields, the study of individuals and small groups had long been emphasized, with some prominence given to verbal and material self-representation.

‘Agency’ may be defined as the human capacity for motivated, reflexive action having some consequence (if not always an expected or intended outcome). Agency pertains to individuals and groups; it may also, more controversially, be applied to objects (Geli 1998; see Feldman, this volume). ‘Identity’ studies recognize that an individual may have many simultaneous, as well as consecutive, identities during her or his lifetime (Meskell 2001). These identities may include sex, gender, age, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, religion, and occupation. An individual can choose to accentuate some aspects of her identity and to suppress others; a second person might select still other features in describing the first, demonstrating the contingent and discursive nature of identity. Often identity has a material component, as an individual may produce, manipulate or use objects or spaces in expressing identity.

It is this material expression that makes agency and identity so appropriate and conducive to archaeological analysis. The microscale implementation of excavation offers archaeologists a window onto the actions and self-representations of past individuals, within specific historical and cultural contexts. So far, archaeological work on identity and agency has been very much ‘context-dependent’, contingent on one's scholarly background and geographic and chronological focus (see Porter, this volume). British archaeologists have taken on much of the theoretical and practical work on agency, perhaps owing to the derivation of the theory from Anthony Giddens's theory of ‘structuration’ (Barrett 2001). Archaeological work on identity has been more widespread, but has focused, in particular, on ethnic and gender identity (Jones 1997; Meskell 2002; Meskell and Joyce 2003).

For scholars working in the Near East, concepts of agency and identity have penetrated very little into our practices and ideas. There has been some research on material expressions of identity, particularly ethnicity (Emberling 1997) and gender (Asher-Greve 1998). But in general, Near Eastern archaeology has long been oriented toward culture histories and particular questions of origins (agriculture, urbanism, and empires). This book attempts to address this deficiency, and to initiate a new level of theoretical discourse in the field. Toward this end, the contributions in this volume deal with three major issues of agency studies—the agency of place, of daily practice, and of power—which provide the main divisions of the book; the rest of this chapter will explore additional connections among the questions asked, and results obtained by these studies, and the ways in which the authors represented here push the theoretical dialogue forward.

Central Questions of Agency

Since its origins in the writings of Bourdieu and Giddens in the 1970s, agency theory has been extended to archaeology by a number of scholars, each of whom has confronted both its potential to open up archaeological exploration to a richer set of understandings of past action and its limitations in terms of archaeological application and theorization of an individual's potential for action. Both Bourdieu and Giddens regarded individuals as possessing previously unrecognized potential for action, particularly action that could change the social system, but that potential is limited through the constraints of structure (i.e. the ‘rules and resources’ that organize the social system, for Giddens [1984:25]), or the habitus (the ‘material dispositions’ of a society that generate and organize social practices, for Bourdieu [1990:52-53]). Both theorists also saw individual action as both intentionally and unintentionally contributing to the overarching structure. Subsequent critiques, from both archaeologists and other social scientists, have explored the degree to which individual intentions may be detected, and the means by which individuals choose particular actions in preference to others (Hodder 1998; Dobres 2000, 2001). An especially attractive component of agency theory for archaeologists derives from our capacity to observe the material outcomes of individual and group decisions, and our ability to detect and pursue long-term changes in social systems.

In our exploration of agency theory and its application to archaeological settings, we asked the authors to consider several questions, including the issue of scale and whether the agency approach might be applied to all archaeological settings. We also wanted them to address whether the resolution of the archaeological record, i.e. material gaps in the record, limited areas of excavation, and a whole host of other constraining factors, might adversely affect the use of the agency model. Finally, given that one-third of the contributions deal with ancient textual material, many of us considered the issue of whether the availability of a textual corpus impacts the use of an agency model. The authors took up these challenges in their contributions and offered valuable insights that allow us to provide some answers to these questions.

The Issue of Scale

Can agency theory be applied to all archaeological settings? Is it more suitable on an intra-household basis, at the intra-community level, or for regional and state-level analyses? Alternatively, is there a scale that is too small, or too large, for a successful application of the agency approach? This is an important question for the ancient Near East given the extensive geographic area and the multitude of scalar levels available for investigation. At one end of the occupational spectrum for Near Eastern archaeologists might be a tiny Natufian hamlet in the Levant and at the other are vast cities such as Bogazkõy, the enormous capital city of the Hittites. Which investigators might logically apply the agency theoretical framework to their evidence: those working in the prehistoric past, those investigating empires, or those examining intermediate stages?

Fortunately the authors in this volume provided collective answers to this question of scale; the consensus is that an agency model is indeed useful at most levels of analysis. Although focusing on three very different sets of material culture, three chapters explore agency at the household or even individual level. Russell and Bogaard address the key decision points at which household residents at Çatalhõyiik deliberated regarding the acquisition and final deposition of plant and animal food within the household structure. The authors offer conjectures about what factors might motivate various decisions, i.e. what goals the household agents sought to accomplish. Their careful analysis of faunal and botanical remains shows how Russell and Bogaard can eventually evaluate nuanced differences in food-related activities from one Neolithic Çatalhõyiik household to the next and thereby address agency-based actions in relation to food at this site. Castro Gessner and Branting address agency at the individual level; Castro Gessner examines the craft-oriented practice of painting Halaf period ceramics while Branting, using a setting in a large city, focuses on individuals as they traverse the city's pathways on foot. Castro Gessner gets at the decisions individual painters must make almost on a stroke-by-stroke basis with regard to skill and the ultimate completed decoration of the individual pot. In a similar fashion Branting examines the decisions a pedestrian must make at various points while traversing an Iron Age city. Such decisions are motivated by numerous factors including the age, sex, and health of the individuals themselves, and a multitude of other layers of decisions the individual agent must make while walking from origin point to destination in a bustling city.

Both Steadman and Ross address the individual actor, with regard to the house-builder and scribe respectively, but also investigate these individuals’ actions and their impact at the community level. Steadman's study of Chalcolithic architecture examines the agent/builder/resident and the decisions such an individual might make in the (re)construction of a home in view of messages such actions might send to the community. Ross examines Uruk-period lexical texts made by individual scribes that feature lists of objects and materials that do not necessarily conform to the material culture in the community. Scribal action, therefore, reveals a separate sphere of knowledge from that used in daily practice by craftmakers in the community.

Jones, McMahon, and Matney offer studies at the regional scale. Jones examines how human movement across the Early Bronze Age Levantine countryside creates a symbolically and materially encultured landscape; in some cases actors intentionally created visible landscape features and in others the creation of a mental map of the region developed organically. Matney takes on the Assyrian empire and McMahon the Hittite, and while both more overtly address the subject of identity and empire, each also examines the individual actors (rulers) and the motivations that shaped their actions at both imperial and local levels. Taken as a whole, therefore, the authors in this volume have answered the query regarding agency and scale: there is the possibility of application on all levels and in all periods of the Near Eastern past.

Agency and the Archaeological Record

While the application of the agency approach to all levels of the archaeological past may be quite successful, the resolution of the archaeological record may hinder somewhat, or even severely, the results of the application. This is a hurdle that several of the volume's authors faced and attempted to solve using a variety of approaches. Russell and Bogaard grappled with the issue of taphonomic processes and the impact they may have on the accurate representation of food-related remains. Steadman notes that ideally, entire settlements would be exposed in order to achieve a complete understanding of agents and decision-making regarding the building of one's home vis-à-vis intended goals; in the absence of this rare occasion she undertook comparative research at contemporary sites in order to evaluate more accurately the architectural layout at her own. Jones and Castro Gessner turn to the ethnographic record to fill in knowledge gaps—Jones for the richly layered moral and gendered aspects that cultures weave into the landscape and Castro Gessner to examine learning patterns within and across generations of painters. Branting simply notes that trying to examine movement through a city or any landscape is extremely challenging, whether one is applying an agency or other type of model. The resolution of the archaeological record certainly hinders the successful attainment of results from the agency approach, but this differs not at all from other model-based research programs. The resolution of the archaeological record is perhaps our greatest challenge as our discipline attempts to piece together the lives of peoples and cultures past; this has not stopped archaeologists from undertaking model-based research, it has only driven them to necessary and valuable efforts to complement the record with ethnographic or comparative research where possible.

There is no doubt that the use of model-based archaeology has allowed the discipline to move far beyond a field that engages in object-by-object typological lists of form, function, and use. While an agency framework may not be the most powerful means in today's archaeology to investigate past actors, it has clearly opened many doors for researchers included in this volume. A number of the authors here have commented to the editors that using an agency model forced them to think about the past, whether focused on people, objects, buildings, texts, or landscapes, in different ways than they had previously. Feldman was moved to ask whether objects might have agency and McMahon pondered the intentions of the earliest Hittite king with regard to his multi-ethnic peoples. Ross was able not only to identify where Uruk period scribal lexical lists differed from the material record but to delve into why that might be so; Steadman asked not only whether architecture shapes societal structure, a fairly standard notion, but whether actors in return shape architecture for their own purposes. Each of the contributors to this volume used agency to forge new paths for thinking about peoples, places, and things in the ancient Near East. That alone makes an agency model a powerful tool for studying the production of meaning in the archaeological past.

Agency and the Textual Corpus

More than many other geographical regions, archaeology in the Near East has been driven by the recovery and reconstruction of textual sources. Study of the ancient Near East was, for a long time, predominantly an historical discipline; the chapter by Porter, in this volume, provides a particularly apt critique of the dominance of the historical paradigm in Near Eastern archaeology. Although this situation changed with the advent of New Archaeology in the 1960s, which stressed environmental and economic change as factors in the development of ancient societies and encouraged, especially, exploration of prehistoric cultures, the relationship between philologists and archaeologists working in the Middle East remains both close and contested. The tension between textual and material culture scholars is exposed even in the scheduling of conferences of Near Eastern scholars. The Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, for instance, meets each year at the beginning of July, a time when the majority of university-based archaeologists are in the field and unable to prepare papers or attend. At the same time, increasing numbers of archaeologists and Assyriologists find themselves relying on one another's methods and results, and a spirit of rapprochement has begun to arise (see, especially, the work of art historian Irene Winter, and the cooperative projects of scholars working on the Archaic texts from Uruk, including Robert Englund and Hans J. Nissen). These changing circumstances are also reflected in a number of contributions to this volume.

Archaeologists who specialize in periods and areas for which texts are available have contributed a fiercely analytical attitude to the study of those texts. Specifically, they question how representative those texts are of society as a whole, and to what degree the textual corpus represents a propagandistic instrument for those in power; Matney's chapter here fronts this issue in his analysis of Neo-Assyrian texts concerning conquered territories. Agency studies encourage this questioning by regarding individual texts as expressions of t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Agency and Identity in the Ancient Near East: New Paths Forward
• I. THE AGENCY OF PLACE
• 2. Movement Across the Landscape and Residential Stability: Agency and Place in the Southern Levantine Early Bronze Age
• 3. Agency, Architecture, and Archaeology: Prehistoric Settlements in Central Anatolia
• 4. Agents in Motion
• II. THE AGENCY OF DAILY PRACTICE
• 5. Subsistence Actions at Çatalhöyük
• 6. The Scribal Artifact: Technological Innovation in the Uruk Period
• 7. Shared Painting: The Practice of Decorating Late Neolithic Pottery in Northern Mesopotamia
• 8. Early Islamic Pottery: Evidence of a Revolution in Diet and Dining Habits?
• III. THE AGENCY OF POWER
• 9. Material Culture and Identity: Assyrians, Aramaeans, and the Indigenous Peoples of Iron Age Southeastern Anatolia
• 10. Object Agency? Spatial Perspective, Social Relations, and the Stele of Hammurabi
• 11. Akkad and Agency, Archaeology and Annals: Considering Power and Intent in Third-Millennium BCE Mesopotamia
• 12. Agency, Identity, and the Hittite State
• IV. BEYOND AGENCY
• 13. Beyond Agency: Identity and Individuals in Archaeology
• About the Contributors
• Index