Table Of ContentHouses and
Households
A Comparative Study
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Houses and
Households
A Comparative Study
RICHARD E. BLANTON
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC
Llbrarv of Congr ••• Cataloglng-In-Publlcatlon Data
Blantan, RIchard E.
Hauses and hausehalds : a ca.paratlve study I RIchard E. Blantan.
p. c •• -- (Interdlsclpllnary cantrlbutlans ta archaealagy)
Includes blbllagraphlcal references and Index.
ISBN 978-1-4899-0992-3 ISBN 978-1-4899-0990-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-0990-9
1. SocIal archaealagy. 2. Dwelllngs. 3. Hausehalds. I. Tltle.
II. Ser les.
CC72.4.B67 1993
930--dc20 93-34661
CIP
ISBN 978-1-4899-0992-3
© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1994
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1994
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Preface
This book reports on a comparative study of peasant households
and their houses, based on an analysis of published ethnographic
and architectural sources from several world areas. The starting point
for my research, however, was a single locality-the ancient Zapotec
households of southern Mexico, in the Valley of Oaxaca. For more
than a decade, my colleagues and I studied the evolution of prehispa
nic Zapotec society and culture from a regional archaeological perspec
tive (Blanton 1978; Blanton et al. 1982; Flannery and Marcus, eds.,
1983; Kowalewski et al. 1989). Within the various prehispanic periods
of Oaxaca, major episodes of sociocultural change are evident, ranging
from the evolution of chiefdoms to complex states, urbanism, and
empire. Among our most intriguing discoveries is the fact that house
holds changed considerably over time in size, structure, and function
through this sequence (see, e.g., Flannery 1976). We often found
ourselves asking: How did the changed behavior of households influ
ence other aspects of society, and how were households, in turn,
influenced by transformations in the larger system?
One of the most apparent sets of changes relates to material
standard of living. The regional social structures of certain periods
resulted in what appears to have been relatively poor living standards
(particularly for rural households), whereas other structural arrange
ments seemed to distribute wealth more broadly. Why? I hoped to
pursue this, and other problems related to variability in households,
through a program of excavation of rural house remains. 1 concluded,
v
vi PREFACE
however, that such a project would be less productive than it poten
tially could be. Currently, our discipline's ability to engage in house
hold-based research is limited due to shortcomings of method, theory,
and comparative knowledge. Hence, I developed the project that is
reported here, which presents a large comparative database derived
from ethnographic and architectural sources, proposes new methods
for comparative analysis of houses, and makes use of both the methods
proposed and the data gathered in an evaluation of relevant theoretical
propositions about houses and households.
My interest in households in ancient Oaxaca is one manifestation
of an emerging household orientation in both archaeology and socio
cultural anthropology (e.g., MacEachern, Archer, and Garvin, eds.,
1989; Maclachlan, ed., 1987; Netting, Wilk, and Amould, eds., 1984;
Schmink 1984; Tringham 1991; Wilk, ed., 1989; Wilk and Ashmore,
eds., 1988; Wilk and Rathje 1982; Yanagisako 1979). Although there
are many approaches to household study to be found in these and
numerous other sources inside and outside of anthropology, my main
strategy for developing new methods and knowledge about house
holds is to investigate comparatively the formal properties of the house
itself, including floor plan, decoration, and so forth. This research
tactic is justified in theoretical terms below, but a major reason for
taking this direction is simply the lack of suitable method and theory
in relevant disciplines. Hirth (1989: 443), for example, in his discus
sion of prehispanic households in Morelos, Mexico, points out that,
although there are many techniques for the analysis of artifact distri
bution, too little emphasis has been placed on an understanding of the
formal properties of the house itself. I hope this work will serve as a
partial corrective to that deficiency.
In taking this approach, I touch upon many questions addressed
by previous researchers interested in various aspects of households and
houses, including archaeologists, sociocultural anthropologists, sociol
ogists, and architects. I would include as examples: aspects of house
hold size (e.g., Snow 1989), domestic cycle (e.g., Evans 1989), gender
relations (e.g., Pellow 1988), symbolism of the house (e.g., Moore
1986), the social structure of complex households (e.g., Healan 1989;
Storey and Widmer 1989), household decision making (e.g., Wilk,
PREFACE vii
ed., 1989), material standard of living (e.g., Smith 1987), decoration
and style (e.g., Hodder 1982: 185-191; Wobst 1977), the use of
domestic space (e.g., Kent, ed., 1990), consumer behavior (e.g., Doug
las and Isherwood 1979), and the communicative aspects of the built
environment (e.g., Rapoport 1990).
Acknowledgments
The work reported on in this book would not have been possible
without the support of several institutions and many individuals. The
major funding came from the Cultural Anthropology Program of the
National Science Foundation (BNS-8615233). I thank its director,
Stuart Plattner, and cultural anthropology panel members for their
useful comments. I was also aided through the resources of the De
partment of Sociology and Anthropology, Purdue University, and three
department heads, Robert Perrucci, Reece McGee, and Dean Knudsen.
I made use of the library resources of Purdue University; the University
of California, Berkeley; the University of Chicago; Cornell University;
Indiana University, Bloomington; the University of Michigan; and the
University of Pennsylvania. I am very indebted to the office of inter
library loan, Purdue University. Therese Kross worked diligently on the
floor plans and on many other figures in the volume.
I thank Ravina Aggarwal, Cynthia Gill, Therese Kross, and Radhika
Subramaniam for their help in the library searches. Yang Jiang pro
vided helpful comments on Chinese houses and ethnographic sources.
Uma Chandru helped me understand South Asian houses and house
holds, and she and Vijaya Chandru made useful comments on an early
version of my methodology chapter. Lee Horne guided me through a
vast literature on Islamic housing traditions; she also provided useful
comments on my coding scheme for communities and houses. I was
aided in various ways by Ruth Ann Brooks, Gary Feinman, Laura
Finsten, Kathryn Kamp, Stephen Kowalewski, Carol Kramer, Arthur
ix
X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Murphy, Peter Peregrine, Amos Rapoport, and William Sanders. Al
though they did not always agree with what I wrote, I benefited
substantially from comments made on a draft version of this book by
Carol Ember, Melvin Ember, Lee Horne, Stephen Kowalewski, Keith
Otterbein, Peter Peregrine, and Amos Rapoport. Any errors or omis
sions are my own.
