The evolution of simplicity: Aesthetic labour and social change in the Neolithic Near East

Abstract

Conventional accounts of early state formation have taken the explanation of innovation and complexity as their central problem. In consequence, those areas of social life which became markedly more simple during the formation of 'complex' societies—such as daily consumption—have received little attention. This paper seeks to problematize the evolution of social simplicity by introducing a concept of aesthetic labour into the analysis of social change. Aesthetic labour describes the whole complex of techniques, forms of knowledge and material objects through which a society invests the concepts it lives by with sensuous and psychological force. Taking the development of pottery production in the late prehistoric Near East as a focus, and following anthropological discussions of the development of élite culture, I aim to show how the transition from simple to complex society involved the dislocation of aesthetic labour from everyday practices, and its transposition to a restricted, and politically empowered, sector of society.