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The Continuous House: A View from the Deep Past (2000)

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Ruth Tringham at University of California, Berkeley
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... An impoverished artefact context inside a building, for instance, could be explained as either the result of cleaning, plundering prior to a deliberate conflagration, or as the result of reclamation of valuable items after an accidental fire (Akkermans and Verhoeven 1995, 31). Similarly, the presence of human (or animal) bodies inside the building can be explained as evidence for an accident (Peltenburg 1991, 29;Tringham 2005, 104) or violence (Stevanović 1997, 382;Peltenburg 2018, 463), but it has also been explained as part of a ritualised fire (Akkermans and Verhoeven 1995, 16;Tringham 2000;2005, 106;Akkermans 2008, 629;Akkermans et al. 2012, 314). So, without contextualisation, the building content does not unambiguously indicate the intentionality of the fire. ...
Where There's Smoke, There's... Ritual?
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During the Chalcolithic period in Cyprus, a fascinating phenomenon is that approximately one in seven excavated buildings exhibits evidence of significant fires. While the occurrence of burnt buildings is not uncommon in prehistoric communities, this paper takes inspiration from Peter Akkermans’ research to comprehensively outline the various potential archaeological manifestations associated with house burnings to understand the context at hand. It is found that the house fires were part of a structured, recurring practice, that most likely should be interpreted as deliberate and ceremonial in nature. The building biographies show that the structures caught fire when they were no longer serving as domestic structures. It is suggested that the conflagrations were part of a community-wide celebrations, and that the building identity was perhaps of less significance than previously assumed. It is emphasised that for such contexts a data-driven approach should be preferred over one that relies on general theories.
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... Kahn 2007;Kahn and Kirch 2013;Kuijt 2018;Kuijt et al. 2011;Schortman and Urban 2011), but most have rather emphasized its unity, continuity, and perpetuity over its potential for dispersal (e.g. Boric 2007;Chesson 2003Chesson , 2007Craig 2007;Gillespie 2000cGillespie , 2011Hendon 2010;Hodder 2007;Hodder and Cessford 2004;Joyce 2007Joyce , 2011King 2011;Kirch 2000;Marshall 2000;Tringham 2000;Watkins 2012). As Lévi-Strauss' definition implies, the notions of precedence, longevity, and perpetuity of the corporate body (personne morale) represent fundamental values of House societies (Gillespie 2000a(Gillespie :12-14, 2000b. ...
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... Dlhodobý výskum tohto javu podporil myšlienku domácnosti, v rámci ktorej obydlia vystupovali ako samostatné jednotky sociálnej reprodukcie a pri ich zániku bol každý jeden oheň založený ako samostatný požiar Tringham 1994). Neskôr bola táto teória ešte rozvinutá, a to do takej podoby, že umiestnenie každého spáleného domu predstavovalo symbolickú pohrebnú hranicu domácnosti (Chapman 1999;Stefanović 2002;Tringham 2000;. Stretávame sa však aj s odlišnými názormi, ktoré považujú vyhorenie domov (resp. ...
ARCHEOLÓGIA PRAVEKÝCH DOMÁCNOSTÍ
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Vysokoškolská učebnica „Archeológia pravekých domácností“ podáva ucelený prehľad o novej archeologickej subdisciplíne, a to archeológii domácnosti. Rozširuje tým poznatky o pravekej archeológii a prináša nový pohľad na výskum nielen neolitických sídlisk. Vhodná je pre magisterský študijný program odboru archeológia a príbuzných disciplín.
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... actual de la pr?ctica ritual de los antiguos mayas, de manera particular en la comprensi?n de la temporalidad de eventos rituales desde la perspectiva del tiempo vivido, intergeneracional o de los ritmos de vida (Boivin, 2000;Tringham, 2000). ...
Siguiendo los rastros de los depósitos rituales: esbozo de un marco arqueológico para el estudio de las prácticas rituales en Palenque
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Las excavaciones en las tierras bajas del este de México, Guatemala y Belice han revelado patrones generalizados en la práctica ritual, incluyendo patrones en los tipos de materiales usados en ofrendas rituales y entierros humanos colocados dentro de los pisos y plazas de templos públicos y casas privadas. Sin embargo, los rastros materiales de eventos ritualizados pasados parecen ser marcadamente diferentes en las Tierras Bajas occidentales, particularmente la ciudad de Palenque. Este articulo discute las ofrendas de los templos de Palenque, así como los resultados preliminares de excavaciones realizadas en un grupo residencial y encuentra que los materiales incluidos en los depósitos rituales de Palenque a menudo incluyen materiales orgánicos posibles en lugar de los materiales típicos encontrados en los ejemplos de Tierras Bajas del este. Para considerar cómo la práctica era distinta en esta región, se propone un enfoque más integral de una arqueología del ritual, que incluya una consideración para los restos de microescala de las acciones ritualizadas.
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Ancient Conflagration: a Reconstruction of a Middle Formative Fire at the Chiripa Mound, Bolivia
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  • J ARCHAEOL METHOD TH
In this study, we assess competing interpretations of a burnt ceremonial structure from the terminal Middle Formative period (ca. 300–100 BCE) by analyzing the stepped platform mound at Chiripa, Bolivia, through a systematic reconstruction of the fire that destroyed it. We developed a model of potential fire pathways, their social contexts, and material indicators. Our approach contrasts incipient fires from accident or arson to planned fires initiated for functional or social ends. We assessed these pathways for the Chiripa mound fire through experimental, geoarchaeological, faunal, and botanical data. Experiments were aimed at deducing the temperature, duration, and oxidation conditions of the fire. The fire temperature and duration were approximated from geoarchaeological analyses of construction materials in comparison with controls, and thermal alteration of faunal bone. Fuels were reconstructed through paleoethnobotanical analysis of charred remains from discrete areas within the burnt structure. We conclude that an intentional fire burned the structures on the Chiripa mound to temperatures of 700 °C or higher under oxidizing conditions for several hours. The pattern of heat-altered materials recovered would have required a substantial supplemental fuel load. At the 3840 masl elevation of Chiripa, the effective control of a high temperature oxidizing fire demonstrates technical expertise in fire management. Our findings indicate the fire appears intentional, likely a ritual event. We believe the structures were burned to facilitate a socio-political change during a period of social transition at the end of the Middle Formative period in Bolivia.
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Community’s House and Symbolic Dwelling. A Perspective on Power
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For anthropologists and archaeologists, the study of cultural change is the greatest challenge. Initially, the subject was considered from perspectives that included too few variables, resulting in an approximation that proved to be incomplete and inadequate. Since the end of the last century, important efforts have been made to document cultural change in a broader context, revealing the variability of the processes involved. These new studies highlight social relations and their changeability as key components to understanding the dynamic of any community or cultural system. This article explorers social and spatial organization based on one such approach, Lévi-Strauss’ “house society”. This analysis results in a view where multiple dwellings may constitute one conceptual “house”. This perspective should facilitate the archaeological investigation of contexts that nurture the power relationships that structure society.
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Iron Age Mnemonics: A Biographical Approach to Dwelling in Later Prehistoric Britain
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Domestic architecture played a central role in the identity of later prehistoric communities, particularly in creating lasting bonds between the living and the dead. Acting as a conduit of memory and legacy for successive generations of inhabitants, roundhouses straddled the divide between house and memorial. The exceptionally well preserved Late Iron Age settlement at Broxmouth in southeast Scotland demonstrates the potential of biographical approaches in understanding the central role that roundhouses played in fashioning the identity of successive households, and the role of objects in constructing genealogical narratives.
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Evolutionary household archaeology: Inter-generational cultural transmission at housepit 54, Bridge River site, British Columbia
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Anthropologists have recognized that households may have diverse histories resulting in patterns of unstable membership, a wide array of tactics for production of food and goods, and diverse rules governing the reproduction of cultural traditions and the transmission of rights and resources. Yet archaeologists rarely have the opportunity to test alternative hypotheses about the histories of specific houses and house groups. In this paper, we offer a test of multiple hypotheses regarding the nature of household groups at Housepit 54, Bridge River, British Columbia. Phylogenetic analysis permits us to assess cultural transmission patterns and examine the relationships between household history and socio-economic variables. We conclude that Housepit 54 represents a long-lived house group or “House” that benefited from a well-developed system of inter-generational cultural inheritance. We argue that such groups may have been typical of the Mid-Fraser villages pre-dating 1000 years ago. This in turn allows us to suggest that this pattern was not the result of historically recent borrowing of such concepts from Northwest Coast groups.
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Socio-Material Archaeological Networks at Çatalhöyük a Community Detection Approach
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Vast in scale and densely inhabited, Late Neolithic Near Eastern megasites have been variously considered in relation to urbanity. Often viewed as failed experiments on the path to proper urbanism or proto-urban sites, these settlements reveal few signs of hierarchical social stratification despite their large size; as such, they represent a challenge for the understanding of early processes of community formation and social integration. Drawing upon a wide range of data and using socio-material network analysis as a methodological tool, this paper explores the way the late Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük was organized internally and specifically the way individual houses were embedded in the wider social fabric of the site. This study sheds light on the nature of the networks of social engagement and affiliation that emerge in the Holocene within large early agricultural communities and the way such networks were manifested.
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Conclusion: Selevac in the wider context of European prehistory
Article
Full-text available
  • Dec 1990
Tringham, Ruth and Dusan Krstic (1990) Conclusion: Selevac in the wider context of European prehistory. In Selevac: a Neolithic village in Yugoslavia, edited by R. Tringham and D. Krstic, pp. 567-616. Monumenta Archaeologica #15. UCLA Institute of Archaeology Press, Los Angeles.
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The Opovo Project: A Study of Socioeconomic Change in the Balkan Neolithic
Article
Full-text available
  • Jan 1985
This report provides the preliminary results of an archaeological project currently underway in the Vojvodina, Yugoslavia. The project focuses on the site of Opovo-Ugar Bajbuk, which lies in the lower valley of the Tamiš River, north of the Danube. Excavation of the site began in the summer of 1983. Materials so far uncovered indicate that the site represents a late neolithic/early eneolithic settlement, belonging to the Vinča-Pločnik culture. The project is designed to investigate problems generated by earlier research efforts in the area of the late neolithic and early eneolithic of SE Europe. In addition, it provides an opportunity to study variation within the Vinča culture, in terms of its regional setting and its economic activities.
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Household Archaeology
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 1982
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Houses and hierarchies in island Southeast Asia
Chapter
  • May 1995
The domestic unit is inseparable from its homestead, and the 'house', at once a physical place and a social unit, is often also a unit of production and consumption, a cult group, and even a political faction. Inspired by Lévi-Strauss's suggestion that the multi-functional noble houses of medieval Europe were simply the best-known examples of a widespread social institution, the contributors to this collection analyse 'house' systems in Southeast Asia and South America, exploring the interrelationships between buildings, people, and ideas. They reveal some of the ways in which houses can stand for social groups and serve as images of process and order.
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On the transition to farming in Europe, or what was spreading with the Neolithic: A reply to Ammerman (1989)
Article
  • Jun 1989
Zvelebil here rejoins to Ammerman's criticisms, published in the March issue, of his earlier paper on Indo-European languages and the dispersal of agriculture into Europe, and takes the opportunity to make a broader statement about the character of Neolithic settlement on the full continental scale.
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[Book Review of]: "The Domestication of the Human Species," by Peter J. Wilson, 1989.
Article
  • Jan 1990
[Book Review of]: Peter J. Wilson's "The Domestication of the Human Species". Yale University Press, 1989. xvi + 201 pp., references, index. From the review: "Wilson’s insightful and engaging volume poses the question: What are the social consequences of sedentary life? The trail of discussion down which this question leads him and down which he in turn leads the reader is both fascinating and productive. . . . Wilson’s study is both concise and far-reaching and will provide an important new stimulus to anthropologists interested in the origins and evolution of houses and house-life and their implications for the understanding of human society." —Michael Blake, Anthropologica
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The Interplay of Evidential Constraints and Political Interests: Recent Archaeological Research on Gender
Article
  • Jan 1992
In the last few years, conference programs and publications have begun to appear that reflect a growing interest, among North American archaeologists, in research initiatives that focus on women and gender as subjects of investigation. One of the central questions raised by these developments has to do with their "objectivity" and that of archaeology as a whole. To the extent that they are inspired by or aligned with explicitly political (feminist) commitments, the question arises of whether they do not themselves represent an inherently partial and interest-specific standpoint, and whether their acceptance does not undermine the commitment to value neutrality and empirical rigor associated with scientific approaches to archaeology. I will argue that, in fact, a feminist perspective, among other critical, explicitly political perspectives, may well enhance the conceptual integrity and empirical adequacy of archaeological knowledge claims, where this is centrally a matter of deploying evidential constraints.
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