Re-making collectives. A study of changes in the living environments of mainland Greece, 2500-2100 BCE
This thesis investigates changes in the material remains of settlement sites excavated in central and southern mainland Greece and dating from ca. 2500 to 2100 BCE (later Early Bronze II to Early Bronze III). The 23rd and 22nd centuries BCE have long been identified as a period of significant changes in the area of the Aegean in terms of material culture, changes that, in the case of the study area, have been interpreted as manifestations of a cultural break or social rupture. These interpretations arose mainly from large-scale perspectives on changes in the archaeological remains, e.g., from diffusionist or systems theories, that shied away from investigating these transformations in relation to the material environments, i.e., settlement sites, where they occurred. This study asks what shifts in the settings of settlement sites and in the objects discovered in their vicinity can tell us about social changes. It also asks whether a comprehensive study of the remains of these material environments can challenge or reinforce extant ideas about the period under investigation. With this aim, this thesis proposes an alternative conceptual framework and research method that attempt to approach changes in settlement sites as indicative of transformations in living conditions and lifestyles. These transformations are approached through the study of three distinct, yet interconnected, material domains: (1) the built environment, (2) the ceramic tableware and (3) grounding deposits (i.e., deposits resulting from the burial of buildings, other material fragments, and of bodies underground). These three domains form the analytical chapters of this research. This thesis proposes that social transformations were gradual and diverse across the study area rather than abrupt and homogeneous as traditionally thought. It is further argued that these transformations are related to intensifying social aggregation processes, observed across the study period, and attachment of people to certain geographical territories and locations. These processes are manifested as two broad trajectories of social rearrangements involving the growth of locales operating as community hubs, on the one hand, and of residential aggregates, on the other hand, which gradually transformed into nucleated settlements. The marked changes in material culture observed around the 23rd and 22nd centuries BCE are here understood to be associated with the wider dissemination of lifestyles linked to residential aggregation, a process that was parallel to a gradual disuse of pre-existing community hubs. This thesis proposes that differences in the settings of settlement levels dating to the earlier and later part of the study period, and in the objects found therein, should no longer be treated as indications for a culture break or social rupture. Instead, changes in the material environment of settlement sites evidence social efforts to cooperate and improvise with more permanent communities – the remaking of collectives.
settlement archaeology, social change, Early and Middle Bronze Age, material environment, built space, commensality, grounding deposits, Aegean archaeology
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