The study of building remains, even when mundane in nature, constitutes an appropriate field for the understanding of prehistoric house-based societies. Domestic dwellings, apart from spatial-organisational features and key analytical social units, constitute technological and social products that can be subjected to similar conceptual schemes as other artefact categories (Stevanović 1997). Following this, the present paper will address some of the entwined components of building technology in Neolithic northern Greece (Macedonia and Thrace). The main objective is to synthesise the principal characteristics and workings of house construction, as well as to trace recognisable patterns of homogeneity or variability and continuity or discontinuity within different spatiotemporal scales.
During the last few decades, intensive fieldwork in the form of rescue excavations or more systematic projects has considerably enriched the architectural record of the area under consideration. The large number of excavated settlements and, therefore, dwellings has offered the potential for a more comprehensive regional analysis of building practices. It will be supported that, although portraying a more or less mutually tangible ‘architectural vocabulary’, the available evidence indicates a significant degree of intra-regional variability. This refers not only to certain stages of the building process, but also to the fundamentals of house construction. The plurality of ways in which Neolithic inhabitants built their dwellings can only partly be attributed to external broad-limiting factors or ‘pragmatic’ considerations (including material and environmental constraints or the differential level of technological know-how and skills). As a result, the adoption and distribution of specific technological conceptions or solutions will also be viewed as the outcome of social and culturally defined choices. In addition, their circulation can be indicative for the operation of overlapping networks of communication and social interaction between contiguous or more distant communities.
Reference
Stevanović, M. 1997. The age of clay: the social dynamics of house destruction. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16, 334–95.