Household Archaeology Research Articles

The Archaeology of Houses and Households in the Native Southeast by Benjamin A Steere

<i>The Archaeology of Houses and Households in the Native Southeast</i> by Benjamin A Steere

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE FORMATIVE TO CLASSIC PERIOD TRANSITION AT IZAPA: A REEVALUATION

The site of Izapa, though famous for its unique “Izapan” style monuments, has lagged behind many other Mesoamerican centers in archaeological research. As revisions of important Mesoamerican chronologies are underway, Inomata and colleagues (2014) have questioned whether monument production at Izapa has been misplaced chronologically. This article applies new data from the Izapa Household Archaeology Project to assess Inomata and colleagues’ (2014) proposal for a shift in the chronology at Izapa. It specifically assesses the chronology for the Formative to Classic period transition at Izapa, from 100 BC to AD 400, with new excavation data, ceramic cross-dating, and Bayesian modeling of AMS dates from the southern periphery of the site. These data generally support the chronology developed by Gareth Lowe following the 1960s excavations at the site, though a temporal overlap appears possible for the Terminal Formative Hato and Itstapa ceramic complexes. Although results do not support Inomata and colleagues’ proposal for a shift in the Izapa chronology, ceramic cross-ties proposed between the Hato phase at Izapa and the Verbena phase at Kaminaljuyu support Inomata and colleagues’ (2014) revision for the chronology of Kaminaljuyu.

From Discovery to Explanation: The History of Gallina Archaeology

This article explores the history of Gallina Phase archaeology including the trajectory of discovery, archaeological research, intellectual thought, and cultural resource management. Discovery and description of sites in the Gallina culture area first occurred in the late 1800s followed by a period of definition and exploration of the characteristics of the Gallina Phase during the first half of the twentieth century. Scientific investigation and explanation of cultural process started between 1950 and 1970. Active management of cultural resources including inventory and excavation by Federal agencies in the Gallina area began in the 1970s. In the twenty-first century new interpretation of the Gallina Phase has evolved through diverse inquiries into this distinct culture. Current investigations include chronology, social violence, household archaeology, ceramic studies, migration routes, settlement patterns, and group identity, and are creating a more holistic portrait of Gallina lifeways.

Household Archaeology – A Transatlantic Comparative Approach

1 - The conference The papers in this issue of P@lethnology are the product of a conference that was held at the Universite de Montreal on October 24 and 25, 2014. The conference was entitled Household Archaeology: production, ideology and social inequality and was organized by Claude Chapdelaine and Adrian Burke. A total of eleven papers were presented by fourteen authors from France, Canada and the USA. The conference was set up as a symposium which allowed authors to present more detaile...

Late prehistoric household archaeology in eastern New York

Archaeological studies of households provide us with information about the interactions between past populations, the ways that they organized their settlements and the relationship of disparate segments of a community to each other. By examining the effects of households at several different scales, archaeologists can better understand the processes that underlie human behavior. This paper examines the Late Prehistoric Getman site in New York and the role of Iroquoian households as represented in the compartment, longhouse, and village contexts. Conclusions about equality, resource use, and the spatial organization of the longhouse are suggested.

Erratum to: Household Archaeology in Polynesia: Historical Context and New Directions

Erratum to: Household Archaeology in Polynesia: Historical Context and New Directions

Household Archaeology in East Asia: Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue of the Journal of Anthropological Research brings together papers highlighting archaeological research on households from East Asia. Contributing authors examine this ubiquitous social unit as a “topic of” central inquiry, treating the household as an important subject in itself as well as the locus of various human interactions that crosscut all categories and levels of society. This collection provides comparable case studies from a vast and diverse region encompassing China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan.

Simple bone tools from Early Bronze Age Tell Fadous-Kfarabida (Lebanon): a household approach

Despite their relatively limited scale, the excavations conducted at the site of Tell Fadous Kfarabida on the Lebanese coast between 2004 and 2015 have provided a large and surprisingly varied assemblage of objects made out bone and related materials from the Early Bronze Age levels. In addition to large numbers of awls and spatulae, other objects are attested as well, such as spindle whorls, beads and pendants, decorated bone tubes, a scale beam and several cylinder seals made out of bone or hippopotamus ivory. This study will present a typological study of the material from the site, investigate the raw material used for the different types, and finally conclude with some thoughts on the use of some of the simpler types within the framework of a household archaeology approach.

Beyond the walls: new perspectives on the archaeology of historical households

Beyond the walls: new perspectives on the archaeology of historical households

Household Archaeology in Polynesia: Historical Context and New Directions

This review highlights archaeological investigations of precontact and historic house sites in Polynesia, a region noted for its diversity of chiefdoms in terms of scale and elaboration. Anthropological and historical perceptions of the Polynesian household have shifted over time, influencing the ways in which the household has been defined in archaeology. Early research emphasized houses as a unit of study within settlement pattern archaeology and as a means of delineating formal variability between sites and communities. Current studies stress a more holistic view of the household as a nexus of economic, social, and ritual activities. Diverse theoretical perspectives, such as the analytical concept of house societies, feminist archaeologies, landscape approaches, and agent-based models, have led to new archaeological approaches engaged with both the material and the nonmaterial aspects of the house and, in particular, how social relations structure the household. Current prominent themes include functional identification of house sites, understanding social variability, articulation of the household with the community, and comparative analyses of social complexity.

The Sociopolitical Economy of an Ancient Maya Village: Cerén and its Sacbe

The intellectual, artistic, and architectural accomplishments of Maya elites during the Classic period were extraordinary, and evidence of elite activities has preserved well in the archaeological record. A centuries-long research focus on elites has understandably fostered the view that they controlled the economy, politics, and religion of Maya civilization. While there has been significant progress in household archaeology, unfortunately the activities, decisions, and interactions of commoners generally preserve poorly in the archaeological record. Therefore, it has been challenging to understand the sociopolitical economy of commoners, and how it related—or did not relate—to elite authority. The exceptional volcanic preservation of the site of Cerén, El Salvador, provides a unique opportunity to explore the degree to which elites controlled or influenced commoner life. Was society organized in a top-down hierarchy in which elites controlled everything? Or did commoners have autonomy, and thus the authority to decide quotidian, seasonal, and annual issues within the village? Or was there a mixture of different loci of authority within the village and the region? Research at Cerén is beginning to shed some light on the sociopolitical economy within the community and in relation to elites in the Zapotitan valley. A domain in which there was considerable commoner-elite interaction in the Cerén area was the marketplace. Elites and their attached specialists provided products, and commoners decided which marketplace they would attend to exchange their items. Evidence from Cerén also suggests that there were numerous other domains of authority within the community that had no detectable control or influence from outside. For instance, people in the village decided what crafts or specialized agricultural products to produce as surplus to be exchanged within the community for different products from other households. Cerén community members acted independently as individuals, as households, or in other domains within the community. Understanding the multiple layers of authority at Cerén sheds light on the sociopolitical organization in one non-elite Classic period Maya community.

7 Dwelling on the Past: The Materiality of Everyday Life at Xaltocan, Mexico

ABSTRACTThis chapter explores the materiality of dwelling on the remains of the past at Postclassic Xaltocan, Mexico, using household archaeology evidence. Such continued occupation in place evinced not only practical concerns of flood control, but also materialized an ethos of repetition and duplication in which reiterative practices created a ritually charged place, an ethos also seen at monumental sites such as the Aztec Templo Mayor. Dwelling on the past created a household landscape ripe with tlazolli, polluting and symbolically powerful garbage; earthly genealogies and social memories that were marshaled as symbolic resources in household negotiations; and material resources, such as potsherds and bone, used in household production and child's play. Everyday life in this context entailed an engagement with material remains of the past at multiple temporal scales. This analytical framework for examining the materiality of household depositional practices—and reconstructing complex philosophies materialized therein—is relevant beyond Mesoamerica.

Studying Creolisation in Household Archaeology: Comparing Approaches of Archaeological Analysis in Spanish and Russian Settlements in the New World

European expansion in the New World during the fifteenth century created inter-­‐ethnic households and relationships, which led to the creation of newly creolised and distinct cultures. Inter-­‐ethinic relationships also lead to retention of culture, for both First Nations peoples and Europeans as well. Specifically focusing on Russian and Spanish settlements in North America, this paper examines creolisation by studying the household archaeologically to determine the daily activities of creole cultures, First Nations peoples, and European settlers.

Book review: Stella Souvatzi and Athena Hadji (eds.) Space and Time in Mediterranean Prehistory (Routledge Studies in Archaeology)

The collection of papers Space and Time in Medi- terranean Prehistory is an outcome of the collabo- ration between Stella Souvatzi, who regularly writes on spatiality within social archaeological themes such as households, as in her recent book A Social Archaeology of Households in Neolithic Greece, and Athena Hadji, whose Berkeley PhD thesis was entitled on The Construction of Time in Aegean Archaeology. The editors invited researchers from a predominantly interpretative (post-processual) ar- chaeological tradition who deal with Mediterranean prehistory and included a few selected revised contributions to the similarly named session at the 16th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in the Hague. The collection of papers contains 15 chapters by archaeologists, anthropologists and an architect.

Everyday Practice and Ritual Space: the Organization of Domestic Ritual in Pre-Aztec Xaltocan, Mexico

This article offers new understanding to commoner ritual in central Mexico before the rise of the Aztec Empire through an examination of domestic ritual and everyday practice in Early to Middle Postclassic (AD 900–1350) households in Xaltocan. It also seeks to better understand the ways in which elites negotiate and reinvent ritual traditions to gain and maintain power. In this study, I integrate multiple lines of evidence including ethnohistory, household archaeology and burials to understand the organization, practice and meaning of ritual among commoners before the rise of the Aztec Empire. I argue that pre-Aztec commoner ritual worked to foster solidarity, social continuity and collective memory and was intimately concerned with the protection of household members and the maintenance of household and universal equilibrium. While some of the symbolism and rituals documented in pre-Aztec domestic contexts appear similar to those depicted in Aztec contexts, I argue that state rituals held different meanings as Aztec elites adopted and transformed widely-held commoner rituals and symbols to craft an ideology that promoted their own political agenda. Ultimately, domestic- and state-level ritual should be seen as part of an ever-changing, but necessarily intertwined, historical and political process.

The Cambridge companion to historical archaeology

1. Introduction: the place of historical archaeology Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry Part I. Archaeology and History: 2. Documentary archaeology Laurie Wilkie 3. Historical archaeology and time Gavin Lucas 4. Writing historical archaeology Rosemary Joyce Part II. Key Themes in Historical Archaeology: 5. Historical archaeology and colonialism Susan Lawrence and Nick Shepherd 6. Urban historical archaeology Tadhg O'Keeffe and Rebecca Yamin 7. Archaeology, heritage and the recent and contemporary past John Schofield and Bill Johnson 8. Marxism and capitalism in historical archaeology Randall McGuire 9. Archaeology and industrialisation Jim Symonds and Eleanor Casella 10. Historical maritime archaeology Joe Flatman and Mark Staniforth Part III. Historical Archaeology and Material Culture: 11. Material culture studies and historical archaeology Matthew D. Cochran and Mary C. Beaudry 12. Ceramic studies in historical archaeology David Barker and Teresita Majewski Part IV. Historical Archaeology and Landscapes: 13. Landscapes and memories Cornelius Holtorf and Howard Williams 14. Landscapes, ideology and experience in historical archaeology Lu Ann De Cunzo and Julie Ernstein Part V. Historical Archaeology and Buildings: 15. Historical archaeology and buildings Dan Hicks and Audrey Horning 16. Household archaeology, difference and identity Julia King 17. Afterword: historical archaeology in the wider discipline Barry Cunliffe.

New Perspectives on Household Archaeology. Edited by Bradley J. Parker and Catherine P. Foster. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012. Pp. xii + 572. $69.50 (cloth).

<i>New Perspectives on Household Archaeology</i>. Edited by Bradley J. Parker and Catherine P. Foster. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012. Pp. xii + 572. $69.50 (cloth).

Online-Only Content

Previous articleNext article FreeOPEN ACCESS ON AJA ONLINE (www.ajaonline.org)Online-Only ContentPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreOnline-only content accompanying American Journal of ArchaeologyVolume 118, Number 2 (April 2014)SUPPLEMENTARY CONTENT Appendix: Life and Death of a Bronze Age House: Excavation of Early Minoan I Levels at Priniatikos Pyrgos, by Barry Molloy, Jo Day, Sue Bridgford, Valasia Isaakidou, Eleni Nodarou, Georgia Kotzamani, Marina Milić, Tristan Carter, Polly Westlake, Vera Klontza-Jaklova, Ellinor Larsson, and Barbara J. Hayden BOOK REVIEWS Archaeology: The Discipline of Things, by Bjørnar Olsen, Michael Shanks, Timothy Webmoor, and Christopher Witmore. Reviewed by Thomas E. Emerson Social Zooarchaeology: Humans and Animals in Prehistory, by Nerissa Russell. Reviewed by Deborah Ruscillo Earth Resistance for Archaeologists, by Armin Schmidt. Reviewed by Apostolos Sarris DNA for Archaeologists, by Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith and K. Ann Horsburgh. Reviewed by Zuzana Chovanec All the King’s Horses: Essays on the Impact of Looting and the Illicit Antiquities Trade on Our Knowledge of the Past, edited by Paula K. Lazrus and Alex W. Barker. Reviewed by Ellis E. McDowell-Loudan Thirst: Water and Power in the Ancient World, by Steven J. Mithen. Reviewed by Adam Rogers Commerce and Colonization in the Ancient Near East, by María Eugenia Aubet. Reviewed by Philip Boyes The Late MBA and LBA Pottery Horizons at Qatna: Innovation and Conservation in the Ceramic Tradition of a Regional Capital and the Implications for Second Millennium Syrian Chronology, by Marco Iamoni. Reviewed by Felix Höflmayer Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond, edited by Assaf Yasur-Landau, Jennie R. Ebeling, and Laura B. Mazow. Reviewed by Miriam Müller Cities and the Shaping of Memory in the Ancient Near East, by Ömür Harmanşah. Reviewed by Geoff Emberling Eastern Mediterranean Metallurgy and Metalwork in the Second Millennium BC: A Conference in Honour of James D. Muhly, Nicosia, 10th–11th October 2009, edited by Vasiliki Kassianidou and George Papasavvas. Reviewed by Nicholas G. BlackwellMateriality and Consumption in the Bronze Age Mediterranean, by Louise Steel. Reviewed by Jorrit M. Kelder Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos, by Dimitri Nakassis. Reviewed by Katie Lantzas Vessels and Variety: New Aspects of Ancient Pottery, edited by Hanne Thomasen, Annette Rathje, and Kristen Bøggild Johannsen. Reviewed by Justin St. P. Walsh Dei nello spazio degli uomini: I culti dell’agora e la costruzione di Corinto arcaica, by Rachele Dubbini. Reviewed by Paul D. Scotton Das Heiligtum der Artemis Hemera in Lousoi: Kleinfunde aus den Grabungen 1986–2000, by Veronika Mitsopoulos-Leon. Reviewed by Joannis Mylonopoulos Medusa’s Gaze: The Extraordinary Journey of the Tazza Farnese, by Marina Belozerskaya. Reviewed by Glenda Middleton Swan Regional Pathways to Complexity: Settlement and Land-Use Dynamics in Early Italy from the Bronze Age to the Republican Period, by Peter Attema, Gert Jan Burgers, and Martijn van Leusen. Reviewed by Simon Stoddart Veii, the Historical Topography of the Ancient City: A Restudy of John Ward-Perkins’s Survey, edited by Roberta Cascino, Helga Di Giuseppe, and Helen L. Patterson. Reviewed by Lucy Shipley Women and Visual Replication in Roman Imperial Art and Culture, by Jennifer Trimble. Reviewed by Barbara Kellum Vesuvian Sigillata at Pompeii, by Jaye McKenzie-Clark. Reviewed by Kathleen Warner Slane Imperial Cult and Imperial Representation in Roman Cyprus, by Takashi Fujii. Reviewed by Jody Michael Gordon The Ceremonial Sculptures of the Roman Gods, by Brian Madigan. Reviewed by Philip Kiernan List of Books Received Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 118, Number 2April 2014 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 23Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.3764/aja.118.2.online Views: 23Total views on this site Copyright © 2014 by the Archaeological Institute of America. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond (Book Review)

Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond (Book Review)

Conversations and Material Memories: Insights into Outback Household Practices at the Old Kinchega Homestead

Since 1996, the Kinchega Archaeological Research Project (KARP) has been conducting a household archaeology project at the late-19th- to mid-20th-century Old Kinchega Homestead in outback New South Wales, Australia. The research is driven by investigations of the homestead’s material remains, but interactions with the local community are providing oral and documentary evidence that play a significant role, both as a contextual framework and in steering the project’s research agenda. This article discusses how different people, and different types of interactions and processes involved in gathering personal histories throughout the project, are impacting the interpretative procedures used for investigating household consumption practices at Old Kinchega Homestead.