Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:01:31.045Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Lives of Houses: Duration, Context, and History at Neolithic Uivar, Romania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2017

Florin Draşovean
Affiliation:
National Museum of Banat, Timișoara, and Institute for Doctoral Studies, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Wolfram Schier
Affiliation:
Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Free University of Berlin, Germany
Alex Bayliss
Affiliation:
Historic England, London, and Biological & Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling, UK
Bisserka Gaydarska
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University, UK
Alasdair Whittle
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Conservation, Cardiff University, UK

Abstract

There is a considerable mix of models for house durations in the literature on Neolithic Europe. This article presents a summary of a formal chronological model for the Neolithic tell of Uivar in western Romania. We provide estimates of house duration and relate houses to other features of the development of this tell, from the later sixth to the mid-fifth millennium cal bc. Three wider implications are discussed: that the house must be contextualized case by case; that house duration gives powerful insights into the sociality of community; and that houses, surprisingly often taken rather for granted in Neolithic archaeology, should be fully integrated into the interpretation of Neolithic histories. From what perspective, anthropocentric or relational, that may best be done, is open to question; while it may be helpful to think in this case in terms of the lives and vitality of houses, the ability of people to create and vary history should not be set aside lightly.

La littérature archéologique contient un mélange de différents modèles relatifs à la durée d'occupation des maisons pendant le Néolithique en Europe. Dans cet article nous présentons un sommaire d'un schéma chronologique formel pour le tell néolithique d'Uivar en Roumanie occidentale et établissons un lien entre les estimations de la durée d'occupation des maisons et les autres éléments de l’évolution du tell entre la fin du sixième millénaire et le milieu du cinquième millénaire cal bc. Nous notons trois répercussions de plus grande envergure : qu'il faut étudier les demeures cas par cas, que la durée d'occupation des maisons nous fournit des indications importantes sur les aspects sociaux d'une communauté et que les maisons doivent être intégrées à part entière dans les interprétations et récits concernant le Néolithique, alors que curieusement on les considérait souvent pour acquises en archéologie néolithique. Il reste à savoir dans quelle perspective, qu'elle soit anthropocentrique ou relationnelle, nous pouvons le mieux atteindre ce but ; quoique dans notre cas il nous parait utile d'aborder la question du point de vue de la vie et de la vitalité des demeures, il ne faudra pas pour autant négliger la créativité des personnes et leur capacité de modifier l'histoire. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

In der archäologischen Literatur gibt es eine erhebliche Vielfalt von verschiedenen Modellen, welche die Lebensdauer der Häuser im europäischen Neolithikum betreffen. In diesem Artikel wird die formelle, chronologische Modellierung des neolithischen Tells von Uivar in Westrumänien zusammengefasst, und unsere Schätzung der Dauer der Hausstrukturen wird mit anderen Elementen der Entwicklung des Tells zwischen dem späten sechsten Jahrtausend bis in die Mitte des fünften Jahrtausends cal bc verbunden. Drei weitere Auswirkungen werden hier besprochen: erstens muss jedes Haus von Fall zu Fall und kontextspezifisch bewertet werden; zweitens liefert die Lebensdauer der Hausstrukturen maßgebliche Einblicke in die Sozialität einer Gemeinschaft; und drittens sollten Häuser, welche die neolithische Archäologie erstaunlich oft eher als selbstverständlich gehalten hat, vollständig in die Interpretation von neolithischen Geschichten eingegliedert werden. Ob eine anthropozentrische oder relationale Perspektive die geeignetste Vorgangsweise ist, bleibt eine offene Frage; obschon es in unserem Fall nützlich ist, das Thema vom Blickpunkt des Lebens und Dynamik eines Hauses zu behandeln, dürfen wir den Erfindergeist und die Fähigkeit der Menschen, ihre Geschichte zu verändern, nicht leichthin außer Acht lassen. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Literatura arheologică conține o serie de modele legate de durata de folosință a caselor din perioada neoliticului din Europa. În acest articol vom prezenta un rezumat al unei scheme cronologice pentru tellul neolitic de la Uivar din vestul României și am încercat să stabilim o legătură între estimările duratei de folosire ale caselor și alte elemente ale evoluției tellului, între sfârșitul celui de al șaselea mileniu și până la mijlocul celui de al cincilea mileniu cal. BC. Remarcăm trei idei de mare anvergură: în primul rând, necesitatea de a lua în considerare fiecare caz în parte, în al doilea rând, că durata de folosire a caselor ne oferă informații importante cu privire la aspectele sociale ale unei comunități și, în al treilea rând, că locuințele trebuie să fie integrate pe deplin în tratarea și interpretările neoliticului, cu toate că, adesea, acestea sunt considerate de la sine ca parte a abordărilor în arheologia neoliticului. Rămâne însă de văzut din ce perspectivă, relațională sau antropocentrică, vom putea să atingem acest obiectiv; deși în cazul nostru considerăm că este util de a aborda problema și din punctul de vedere al vieții și vitalității caselor și că nu trebuie să fie neglijată nici creativitatea oamenilor și capacitatea lor de a schimba istoria. Translation by the authors

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © European Association of Archaeologists 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amit, V. 2002. Reconceptualizing Community. In: Amit, V., ed. Realizing Community: Concepts, Social Relationships and Sentiments. London: Routledge, pp. 120.Google Scholar
Bailey, D.W. 1990. The Living House: Signifying Continuity. In: Samson, R., ed. The Social Archaeology of Houses. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 1948.Google Scholar
Bandy, M.S. 2010. Population Growth, Village Fissioning, and Alternative Early Village Trajectories. In: Bandy, M.S. & Fox, J.R., eds. Becoming Villagers: Comparing Early Village Societies. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 1936.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bánffy, E., Osztás, A., Oross, K., Zalai-Gaál, I., Marton, M., Nyerges, É.Á., Köhler, K., Bayliss, A., Hamilton, D. & Whittle, A. 2016. The Alsónyék Story: Towards the History of a Persistent Place. Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission, 94: 283318.Google Scholar
Barrett, J.C. 2014. The Material Constitution of Humanness. Archaeological Dialogues, 21: 6574.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, J.C. 2016. The New Antiquarianism? Antiquity, 90: 1681–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayliss, A. & Whittle, A. 2015. Uncertain on Principle: Combining Lines of Archaeological Evidence to Create Chronologies. In: Chapman, R. & Wylie, A., eds. Material Culture as Evidence: Learning from Archaeological Practice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 213–42.Google Scholar
Beck, R.A. ed. 2007. The Durable House: House Society Models in Archaeology. Carbondale (IL): Center for Archaeological Investigation Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, J. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Birch, J. 2013. Between Villages and Cities: Settlement Aggregation in Cross-cultural Perspective. In: Birch, J., ed. From Prehistoric Villages to Cities: Settlement Aggregation and Community Transformation. New York: Routledge, pp. 122.Google Scholar
Birch, J. & Williamson, R.E. 2013. Organizational Complexity in Ancestral Wendat Communities. In: Birch, J., ed. From Prehistoric Villages to Cities: Settlement Aggregation and Community Transformation. New York: Routledge, pp. 153–78.Google Scholar
Bird-David, N. 2006. Animistic Epistemology: Why Do Some Hunter-gatherers Not Depict Animals? Ethnos, 71: 3350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. 1977. The Past and the Present in the Past. Man, 12: 278–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. 1995. The Resurrection of the House amongst the Zafimaniry of Madagascar. In: Carsten, J. & Hugh-Jones, S., eds. About the House: Lévi-Strauss and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 6983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, M. 1998. How We Think They Think: Anthropological Approaches to Cognition, Memory and Literacy. Boulder (CO): Westview.Google Scholar
Borić, D. 2015. The End of the Vinča World: Modelling Late Neolithic to Copper Age Culture Change and the Notion of Archaeological Culture. In: Hansen, S., Raczky, P., Anders, A. & Reingruber, A., eds. Neolithic and Copper Age between the Carpathians and the Aegean Sea: Chronologies and Technologies from the 6th to 4th Millennia bce . Rahden: Marie Leidorf, pp. 167227.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice (trans. by Nice, Richard). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian Analysis of Radiocarbon Dates. Radiocarbon, 51: 3760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. & Lee, S. 2013. Recent and Planned Developments of the Program OxCal. Radiocarbon, 55: 720–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canuto, M.-A. & Yaeger, J. eds. 2000. The Archaeology of Communities: A New World Perspective. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carrithers, M. 2010. Debate: Ontology Is Just Another Word for Culture. Critique of Anthropology, 30: 156–68.Google Scholar
Carsten, J. & Hugh-Jones, S. 1995. Introduction. In: Carsten, J. & Hugh-Jones, S., eds. About the House: Lévi-Strauss and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, J. 1981. The Vinča Culture of South-East Europe: Studies in Chronology, Economy and Society. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. 1997. The Origin of Tells in Eastern Hungary. In: Topping, P., ed. Neolithic Landscapes. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 139–64.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. 1999. Burning the Ancestors: Deliberate House Firing in Balkan Prehistory. In: Gustafsson, A. & Karlsson, H., eds. Glyferoch arkeologiska rum – envanbok till Jarl Nordbladh. Gothenburg: Institute of Archaeology, pp. 113–26.Google Scholar
Creese, J.L. 2012. The Domestication of Personhood: A View from the Northern Iroquioan Longhouse. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 22: 365–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeLanda, M. 1997. A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. New York: Swerve Editions.Google Scholar
DeLanda, M. 2004. Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
DeLanda, M. 2016. Assemblage Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. 2004. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (trans. Massumi, B.). London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Descola, P. 2005. Par-delà nature et culture. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Draşovean, F. 2009. Cultural Relationships in the Late Neolithic of the Banat. In: Draşovean, F., Ciobotaru, D.L. & Maddison, M., eds. Ten Years After: The Neolithic of the Balkans, as Uncovered by the Last Decade of Research. Timişoara: Editura Marineasa, pp. 259–73.Google Scholar
Draşovean, F. & Schier, W. 2010. The Neolithic Tell Sites of Parţa and Uivar (Romanian Banat): A Comparison of their Architectural Sequence and Organization of Social Space. In: Hansen, S., ed. Leben auf dem Tell als soziale Praxis. Bonn: Habelt, pp. 166–87.Google Scholar
Ebersbach, R. 2013. Houses, Households, and Settlements: Architecture and Living Spaces. In: Menotti, F. & O'Sullivan, A., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 283301.Google Scholar
Fowles, S. 2016. The Perfect Subject (Postcolonial Object Studies). Journal of Material Culture, 21: 927.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaddis, J.L. 2002. The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, S.D. 2007. When is a House? In: Beck, R.A., ed. The Durable House: House Society Models in Archaeology. Carbondale (IL): Center for Archaeological Investigation Press, pp. 2550.Google Scholar
Hallowell, A.I. 1960. Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View. In: Diamond, S., ed. Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 1952.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1990. The Domestication of Europe: Structure and Contingency in Neolithic Societies. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I. 2013. From Diffusion to Structural Transformation: The Changing Roles of the Neolithic House in the Middle East, Turkey and Europe. In: Hofmann, D. & Smyth, J., eds. Tracking the House in Neolithic Europe: Sedentism, Architecture and Practice. New York: Springer, pp. 349–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmann, D. 2013. Living by the Lake: Domestic Architecture in the Alpine foreland. In: Hofmann, D. & Smyth, J., eds. Tracking the Neolithic House in Europe: Sedentism, Architecture and Practice. New York: Springer, pp. 197227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmann, D. & Smyth, J. eds. 2013. Tracking the House in Neolithic Europe: Sedentism, Architecture and Practice. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmann, D., Ebersbach, R., Doppler, T. & Whittle, A. 2016. The Life and Times of the House: Multi-scalar Perspectives from the Neolithic of the Northern Alpine Foreland. European Journal of Archaeology 19. doi: 10.1080/14619571.2016.1147317 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmann, R. 2013. Okolište 2 – Spätneolithische Keramik und Siedlungsentwicklung in Zentralbosnien. Bonn: Habelt.Google Scholar
Hoggett, P. ed. 1997. Contested Communities: Experiences, Struggles, Policies. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. 2011. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingold, T. 2013. The Maze and the Labyrinth: Reflections of a Fellow Traveller. In: Watts, C., ed. Relational Archaeologies: Humans, Animals, Things. London: Routledge, pp. 245–49.Google Scholar
Joyce, R.A. & Gillespie, S.D. eds. 2000. Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalicz, N. & Makkay, J. 1977. Die Linienbandkeramik in der Großen Ungarischen Tiefebene. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Lenneis, E. 2012. Zur Anwendbarkeit des rheinischen Hofplatzmodells im östlichen Mitteleuropa. In: Wolfram, S., Stäuble, H., Cladders, M. & Tischendorf, T., eds. Siedlungsstruktur und Kulturwandel in der Bandkeramik. Dresden: Landesamt für Archäologie, pp. 4752.Google Scholar
McIntosh, R.J. 1974. Archaeology and Mud Wall Decay in a West African Village. World Archaeology, 6: 154–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Y. & Alberti, B. 2014. A Matter of Difference: Karen Barad, Ontology and Archaeological Bodies. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 24: 1936.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mímisson, K. & Magnússon, S.G. 2014. Singularizing the Past: The History and Archaeology of the Small and Ordinary. Journal of Social Archaeology, 14: 356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naumov, G. 2013. Embodied Houses: The Social and Symbolic Agency of Neolithic Architecture in the Republic of Macedonia. In: Hofmann, D. & Smyth, J., eds. Tracking the House in Neolithic Europe: Sedentism, Architecture and Practice. New York: Springer, pp. 6594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pluckhahn, T. 2010. The Sacred and the Secular Revisited: The Essential Tensions of Early Village Society in the Southeastern United States. In: Bandy, M.S. & Fox, J.R., eds. Becoming Villagers: Comparing Early Village Societies. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, pp. 100–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raczky, P., Anders, A., Sebők, K., Csippán, P. & Tóth, Z. 2015. The Times of Polgár-Csőszhalom: Chronologies of Human Activities in a Late Neolithic Settlement in Northeastern Hungary. In: Hansen, S., Raczky, P., Anders, A. & Reingruber, A., eds. Neolithic and Copper Age between the Carpathians and the Aegean Sea: Chronologies and Technologies from the 6th to 4th Millennia bce . Bonn: Habelt, pp. 2148.Google Scholar
Richards, C. ed. 2005. Dwelling Among the Monuments: The Neolithic Village of Barnhouse, Maeshowe Passage Grave and Surrounding Monuments at Stenness, Orkney. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Robb, J. & Pauketat, T. 2013. From Moments to Millennia: Theorizing Scale and Change in Human History. In: Robb, J. & Pauketat, T., eds. Big Histories, Human Lives: Tackling Problems of Scale in Archaeology. Sante Fe (NM): School for Advanced Research Press, pp. 333.Google Scholar
Rück, O. 2009. New Aspects and Models for Bandkeramik Settlement Research. In: Hofmann, D. & Bickle, P., eds. Creating Communities: New Advances in Central European Neolithic Research. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 159–85.Google Scholar
Schier, W. 1996. The Relative and Absolute Chronology of Vinča: New Evidence from the Type Site. In: Draşovean, F., ed. The Vinča Culture, its Role and Cultural Connections. Timişoara: Muzeul Banatului, pp. 141–62.Google Scholar
Schier, W. 2006. Neolithic House Building and Ritual in the Late Vinča Tell Site of Uivar, Romania. In: Tasić, N. & Grozdanov, C., eds. Homage to Milutin Garašanin. Belgrade: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, pp. 325–39.Google Scholar
Schier, W. 2009. Tell Formation and Architectural Sequence at Late Neolithic Uivar (Romania). In: Draşovean, F., Ciobotaru, D.L. & Maddison, M., eds. Ten Years After: The Neolithic of the Balkans, as Uncovered by the Last Decade of Research. Timişoara: Editura Marineasa, pp. 219–33.Google Scholar
Schier, W., Draşovean, F., Bayliss, A., Gaydarska, B. & Whittle, A. forthcoming. Scientific Dating and Chronological Modelling. In: Draşovean, F. & Schier, W., Uivar ‘Gomila’: A Prehistoric Tell Settlement in Romanian Banat. Vol. I: Site, Architecture, Stratigraphy and Dating (Prähistorische Archäologie Südosteuropas 31). Rahden: Verlag Marie Leidorf.Google Scholar
Scott, C. 2006. Spirit and Practical Knowledge in the Person of the Bear among Wemindji Cree Hunters. Ethnos, 71: 5166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Souvatzi, S. 2008. A Social Archaeology of Households in Neolithic Greece: An Anthropological Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Souvatzi, S. 2012. Space, Place and Architecture: A Major Meeting Point between Social Archaeology and Anthropology? In: Shankland, D., ed. Archaeology and Anthropology Past, Present and Future. London: Berg, pp. 173–96.Google Scholar
Stevanović, M. 2002. Burned Houses in the Neolithic of Southeast Europe. In Gheorghiu, D. ed. Fire in Archaeology (British Archaeological Reports International Series 1089). Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 5562.Google Scholar
Stevanović, M. & Jovanović, B. 1996. Revisiting Vinča-Belo Brdo. Starinar, 47: 193204.Google Scholar
Tasić, N., Marić, M., Beavan, N., Bronk Ramsey, C., Kromer, B., Barclay, A., Bayliss, A., Gaydarska, B. & Whittle, A. 2016. Vinča-Belo Brdo, Serbia: The Times of a Tell. Germania, 93: 89157.Google Scholar
Tasić, N., Marić, M., Penezić, K., Filipović, D., Borojević, K., Borić, D., Cook, G., Reimer, P., Bayliss, A., Barclay, A., Gaydarska, B. & Whittle, A. 2015. The End of the Affair: Formal Chronological Modelling for the Top of the Neolithic Tell of Vinča-Belo Brdo. Antiquity, 89: 1064–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, J. 2015. The Future of Archaeological Theory. Antiquity, 89: 1287–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trigger, B.G. 1976. The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Tringham, R. 2005. Weaving House Life and Death into Places: A Blueprint for a Hypermedia Narrative. In: Bailey, D., Whittle, A. & Cummings, V., eds. (Un)settling the Neolithic. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 98111.Google Scholar
Tringham, R., Brukner, B. & Voytek, B. 1985. The Opovo Project: A Study of Socioeconomic Change in the Balkan Neolithic. Journal of Field Archaeology, 12: 425–44.Google Scholar
van der Veen, M. 2014. The Materiality of Plants: Plant–People Entanglements. World Archaeology, 46: 799812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dyke, R.M. 2015. Materiality in Practice: An Introduction. In: Van Dyke, R.M., ed. Practicing Materiality. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, pp. 332.Google Scholar
Vigh, H.E. & Sausdal, D.B. 2014. From Essence back to Existence: Anthropology beyond the Ontological Turn. Anthropological Theory, 14: 4973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waterson, R. 1990. The Living House: An Anthropology of Architecture in South-East Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Waterson, R. 2013. Transformations in the Art of Dwelling: Some Anthropological Reflections on Neolithic Houses. In: Hofmann, D. & Smyth, J., eds. Tracking the House in Neolithic Europe: Sedentism, Architecture and Practice. New York: Springer, pp. 373–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watts, C. 2013. Relational Archaeologies: Roots and Routes. In: Watts, C., ed. Relational Archaeologies: Humans, Animals, Things. London: Routledge, pp. 120.Google Scholar
Wilshusen, R.H. & Potter, J.M. 2010. The Emergence of Villages in the American Southwest: Cultural Issues and Historical Perspectives. In: Bandy, M.S. & Fox, J.R., eds. Becoming Villagers: Comparing Early Village Societies. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, pp. 165–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmermann, A. 2012. Das Hofplatzmodell – Entwicklung, Probleme, Perspektiven. In: Wolfram, S., Stäuble, H., Cladders, M. & Tischendorf, T., eds. Siedlungsstruktur und Kulturwandel in der Bandkeramik. Dresden: Landesamt für Archäologie, pp. 1119.Google Scholar