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

Description

The study of households and everyday life is increasingly recognized as fundamental in social archaeological analysis. This volume addresses 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.

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.

'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.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review 'This book makes an important contribution both to our understanding of the Greek Neolithic and household archaeology and is part of a welcome growing trend.' 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.' European Journal of Archaeology