Exploring commensality, household and solidarity. Evidence of a medium-scale community gathering place in Neolithic Kleitos 1, north-western Greece

Abstract

This paper describes the cooking installations found inside a specific building, Building C, in the Late Neolithic site of Kleitos 1, their morphological and functional diversification, how they changed and evolved throughout time, and their spatial arrangements. Building C provided the stratigraphic information required by the authors to discern two distinct chronological phases, during which a significant change took place in the characteristics and organisation of the cooking facilities in the building. Building C underwent a transformation from a household unit during phase A to a medium-scale gathering place, capable of hosting a certain number of people, in Phase B. The identification of Building C as a medium-scale gathering place is based on the quantity and quality of its cooking facilities in comparison both to findings in other buildings on the site and to two well-explored Neolithic contexts of large-scale gatherings in Northern Greece, Makriyialos and Promachon-Topolniča. This is the first time a medium-scale gathering place has been recorded in Neolithic Greece. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of multi-scalar gatherings and the broader variability witnessed in social dynamics and site organisation in the Late Neolithic period of Northern Greece (late 6th to early 5th millennium cal BC).