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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Houses, Households, and Changing Society in the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the Southern Levant
Contributor:
Banning, Edward B.
Published:
PERSEE Program, 2010
Published in:
Paléorient, 36 (2010) 1, Seite 49-87
Language:
French
DOI:
10.3406/paleo.2010.5311
ISSN:
0153-9345
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
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.”