Socioeconomics of agrarian production: considering rural cooperatives in the archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean through the lens of 2nd millennium BCE Cyprus

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper re-examines the archaeological and geographical criteria, as well as ethnographic paradigms used to write the history of the agrarian communities of the eastern Mediterranean. It combines anthropological research and archaeological evidence to examine the socio-economic dimensions of rural cooperatives, and subsequently attends to their formative role in increasingly complex agrarian economies. This paper argues for a middle ground between enduring top-down vs bottom-up perspectives to consider alternative views that highlight agency and entrepreneurship coexisting with cooperation and consensus in agrarian production. It subsequently discusses the contentious evidence for rural cooperatives by considering evidence for their presence within a more nuanced rural history, using the case of Cyprus in the 2nd millennium BCE.