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the diffusion of neolithic practices from anatolia to europe PDF

355 Pages·2014·13.09 MB·English
by  BramiMaxime
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THE DIFFUSION OF NEOLITHIC PRACTICES FROM ANATOLIA TO EUROPE A Contextual Study of Residential And Construction Practices 8,500-5,500 BC cal. THESIS SUBMITTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY Maxime Nicolas Brami June 2014 ii Supervisor: Professor D. Baird Co-supervisors: Dr. D.P. Shankland Professor J.A.J. Gowlett Examiners: Dr. J.A. Pearson Professor S.J. Shennan iii iv The Diffusion of Neolithic Practices from Anatolia to Europe. A Contextual Study of Residential and Construction Practices. 8,500-5,500 BC cal. Maxime N. Brami Ever since Vere Gordon Childe’s seminal work on The Dawn of European Civilization (Childe 1925), it has been widely accepted that European agriculture originated in Southwest Asia. Exactly how farming spread to Europe from its origins in Southwest Asia remains, however, a matter of debate. Much of the argument has revolved around the manners of spreading of the Neolithic, whether through colonisation, acculturation or a combination of both. Far less attention has been given to the actual content of the Neolithic pattern of existence that spread into Europe. In my thesis, I review one particular type of content, practices, defined by reference to the theories of social action as normative acts or ways of doing. Practices are marked out by repetitive patterns in the material record, such as burnt houses for the practice of house- burning. Accordingly, practices are inferred, rather than instantiated, from their material expression, using information about the context and the sequence of stratigraphic events. Beyond farming practices, the Neolithic witnessed the inception of a new set of residential and construction practices, pertaining to the way in which houses were built, lived in and discarded at the end of their use-lives. This research tracks each of five main areas of practices from their origins in the Near East: house ‘closure’, house replacement, residential burial, spatial organisation in the rectangular house and agglutination. The aim is to examine whether some of the more distinctive Near Eastern practices, such as the deliberate infilling of houses at ‘closure’, the vertical superimposition of houses, the burial of the dead under active households, the spatial division of the main room into two flooring areas and the agglutination of houses in cellular house patterns, spread into Europe. I find that this older habitus of practices, which was involved in upholding a static repetition, house upon house, of the same pattern of existence, did not spread or only marginally into Europe. Over the course of the 7th millennium BC cal., however, it was superseded by another habitus of practices with a focus on collective action, which had wider relevance and appeal. The sequence of Çatalhöyük East, which spans both horizons of practices, serves as a guide to examine the broader dynamics of change in this period. My thesis claims, on the basis of inference drawn from compiling together a database of 848 radiocarbon dates from 59 sites, uniformly re-calibrated and displayed with the same confidence interval in an interactive interface, the 14C Backbone, that there was a two-thousand year lag, plus or minus a few hundred years, between the advent of Neolithic economy on the Central Anatolian Plateau and in the Aegean Basin. As it stands, the Western Anatolian Neolithic, which starts at or shortly before 6,500 BC cal., matches the Southeast European sequence more than it does the Southwest Asian one. New research in Western Anatolia suggests that there is ground to link up Thessaly and Macedonia with the Lake District and the Aegean coast of Anatolia, and Thrace with the Eastern Marmara region, regarding the advent of Neolithic practices. v Table of Contents List of Figures ........................................................................................................................ ix List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... xv Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1. A Fast-Tracked Revolution? The Neolithic Transition in Europe as Seen in the East .................................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 The Neolithic: a changing definition ........................................................................................... 5 1.1.1 The Neolithic stage of culture ............................................................................................. 6 1.1.2 Food-gatherers and food-producers .................................................................................... 7 1.1.3 The Neolithic ‘Revolution’ ................................................................................................. 9 1.1.4 More than one Neolithic? .................................................................................................. 10 1.2 The two Neolithics of Anatolia ................................................................................................. 13 1.2.1 Anatolia, a land of two continents .................................................................................... 14 1.2.2 The two thousand year lag: introducing the 14C Backbone ............................................... 17 1.2.3 A fault-line between Central and Western Anatolia ......................................................... 23 1.3 Statement of the hypothesis ....................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 2. Approaches to the Spread of the Neolithic into Europe ................................ 33 2.1 A brief history of the research question ..................................................................................... 33 2.1.1 The search for the missing link ......................................................................................... 34 2.1.2 Regionalisation of scholarship? ........................................................................................ 37 2.1.3 Reviving the grand narrative ............................................................................................. 40 2.2 Current approaches of the spread of farming............................................................................. 42 2.2.1 When did farming spread to Europe? ............................................................................... 44 2.2.2 Who spread farming? ........................................................................................................ 46 2.2.3 Along which routes did farming spread? .......................................................................... 49 2.2.4 What was spread? ............................................................................................................. 51 2.3 Statement of the aims ................................................................................................................ 55 Chapter 3. A Method Based on Practices ........................................................................... 57 3.1 Beyond similarities in material culture ...................................................................................... 57 3.2 Theoretical basis ........................................................................................................................ 60 3.2.1 A theory of action without agency .................................................................................... 61 3.2.2 Practice and habitus .......................................................................................................... 61 3.2.3 Change of practice ............................................................................................................ 63 3.3 Outline of the approach ............................................................................................................. 64 3.3.1 Practices with a material expression ................................................................................. 64 3.3.2 Residential and construction practices .............................................................................. 65 3.3.3 Contextual evidence .......................................................................................................... 68 3.3.4 Interrelationship of practices ............................................................................................. 69 3.4 Data collection ........................................................................................................................... 70 3.4.1 Fieldwork .......................................................................................................................... 71 3.4.2 Nature of sources .............................................................................................................. 72 3.4.3 Scope and terminology ..................................................................................................... 73 3.5 Structure of the results ............................................................................................................... 74 vi Chapter 4. House ‘Closure’ .................................................................................................. 75 4.1 House infilling ........................................................................................................................... 76 4.1.1 Deliberate infilling and utilitarian levelling ...................................................................... 77 4.1.2 Types of infill deposits ...................................................................................................... 78 4.1.3 ‘Closure’ and renewal ....................................................................................................... 79 4.2 The case of Building 80 at Çatalhöyük and the dynamics of change ........................................ 80 4.3 House burning ........................................................................................................................... 84 4.3.1 The intentionality of burning ............................................................................................ 85 4.3.2 Burnt houses in Central and Southwest Anatolia .............................................................. 86 4.3.3 The destruction of entire horizons of houses .................................................................... 89 4.3.4 Why ‘close’ houses with fire? ........................................................................................... 92 4.4 Summary.................................................................................................................................... 95 Chapter 5. House Replacement............................................................................................ 97 5.1 Building on a tell ....................................................................................................................... 98 5.1.1 Tells and non-tells ............................................................................................................. 99 5.1.2 On the distribution of tells .............................................................................................. 101 5.1.3 Mound formation and social practices ............................................................................ 103 5.2 Vertical superimposition of houses.......................................................................................... 106 5.2.1 Re-cut houses and the onset of sedentism ....................................................................... 107 5.2.2 Walls upon walls in Central Anatolia ............................................................................. 110 5.2.3 Building plots in the Eastern Marmara region ................................................................ 115 5.2.4 Repeated houses in Greece ............................................................................................. 116 5.3 Horizontal displacement of houses .......................................................................................... 119 5.3.1 Shifts in the focus of occupation in Çatalhöyük V-IV .................................................... 120 5.3.2 Horizontally drifting villages: Hacılar IX-I .................................................................... 121 5.4 Summary.................................................................................................................................. 124 Chapter 6. Residential Burial ............................................................................................ 127 6.1 Sub-floor burial ....................................................................................................................... 129 6.1.1 Burial under the floor of an active household: an archaeological definition ................... 131 6.1.2 Living with the dead in Central Anatolia ........................................................................ 133 6.1.3 Burial under floorboards in Northwest Anatolia? ........................................................... 137 6.2 In-fill and inter-dwelling burials .............................................................................................. 141 6.2.1 New burial forms on the Anatolian Plateau .................................................................... 142 6.2.2 Intra-settlement burial: context of deposition and methodological implications ............ 144 6.2.3 Communal burial grounds in the Eastern Marmara region ............................................. 146 6.2.4 A conspicuous absence of burials: accounting for the exception .................................... 149 6.3 Summary.................................................................................................................................. 153 Chapter 7. Spatial Organisation in the Rectangular House ............................................ 155 7.1 Large room with an open floor plan ........................................................................................ 156 7.1.1 Near Eastern origins of the rectangular plan ................................................................... 157 7.1.2 Multi-roomed buildings in the Northern Levant ............................................................. 159 7.1.3 Scale up of the main room .............................................................................................. 162 7.1.4 Incorporation of domestic features in the fabric of the building ..................................... 166 7.2 Division of the space into two flooring areas .......................................................................... 168 7.2.1 The Çatalhöyük East house ............................................................................................. 169 7.2.2 The Ilıpınar VI house ...................................................................................................... 172 7.3 Axial orientation of the oven and the main doorway ............................................................... 174 7.3.1 Changes at Çatalhöyük.................................................................................................... 175 7.3.2 The Hacılar VI house ...................................................................................................... 176 7.3.3 The ‘big house’ at Sofia-Slatina ...................................................................................... 178 7.4 Summary.................................................................................................................................. 180 vii Chapter 8. Agglutination ................................................................................................... 183 8.1 Cellular house pattern .............................................................................................................. 184 8.1.1 Contemporaneity on a horizontal plan ............................................................................ 185 8.1.2 Radial boundaries ........................................................................................................... 188 8.1.3 Terraces ........................................................................................................................... 192 8.2 Courtyard-house complexes .................................................................................................... 194 8.2.1 Emergence of courtyards at Çatalhöyük ......................................................................... 196 8.2.2 Defended ‘farmsteads’ in Southwest Anatolia ................................................................ 197 8.2.3 Houses and courts in Middle Neolithic Greece ............................................................... 200 8.3 Row houses.............................................................................................................................. 201 8.3.1 ‘Boundary’ houses in the Eastern Marmara Region ....................................................... 203 8.3.2 Anatolian influence in Thrace? ....................................................................................... 205 8.4 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 207 Chapter 9. Synthesis and Discussion ................................................................................ 209 9.1 Chronological trajectories ....................................................................................................... 209 9.1.1 A Neolithic frontier between Central and Western Anatolia (8,300-6,500 BC cal.)....... 210 9.1.2 Two pathways of Neolithic expansion (7,000-5,500 BC cal.) ........................................ 214 9.2 Sorting practices into habitus of practices ............................................................................... 217 9.2.1 The older set of practices ................................................................................................ 217 9.2.2 The younger set of practices ........................................................................................... 221 9.3 Step by step ............................................................................................................................. 224 9.3.1 From Central Anatolia to the Aegean Basin ................................................................... 225 9.3.2 From Central Anatolia to Thrace .................................................................................... 232 9.4 Implications of the work for other aspects of the Neolithic ..................................................... 239 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 245 References ........................................................................................................................... 249 APPENDIX A. Attributes of Neolithic Sites .................................................................... 292 APPENDIX B. Attributes of Neolithic Buildings ............................................................ 296 APPENDIX C. Quantitative Distribution of Neolithic Burials ...................................... 302 APPENDIX D. Supporting Material: Plans and Drawings ............................................ 305 APPENDIX E. Geographic Distribution of Southwest Asian And European Sites ..... 336 APPENDIX F. Content of the CD-Rom: 14C Backbone ................................................ 338 viii List of Figures All illustrations by the author, except where otherwise stated. Figure 1. Geographical distribution of 59 radiocarbon-dated Neolithic sites in Anatolia and Southeast Europe. Figure 2. 14C Backbone distribution of 492 calibrated radiocarbon intervals, at 2 standard deviations (95.4% probability), from 12 sites in Central Anatolia (red) and 14 sites in Western Anatolia (blue) during the interval 9,000-5,500 BC cal. Figure 3. 14C Backbone Distribution of 538 calibrated radiocarbon intervals, at 2 standard deviations (95.4% probability), from 14 sites in Western Anatolia (blue), 17 sites in Greece (orange) and 16 sites in Thrace (green) during the interval 9,000-5,500 BC cal. Figure 4. Comparison chart of the advent of selected components of the Neolithic pattern of existence in Central and Western Anatolia. Figure 5. Building 80 after removal of the post-abandonment deposits. Adapted from Regan (2010, 14). Photograph by Jason Quinlan, Çatalhöyük Research Project. Figure 6. Diagram illustrating the range of abandonment practices observed in Building 80 at Çatalhöyük. Figure 7. Incidence of fire-related house destruction in Central and Western Anatolia. Chronological chart adapted from Thissen (2010, fig.13). Figure 8. Distribution of selected Neolithic sites in Anatolia and Southeast Europe according to the maximum depth of stratified deposits. Figure 9. Aşıklı; schematic section of the deep sounding in trenches 4 G-H. Building phases of Levels 2-3 (Esin and Harmankaya 1999, fig.9). Figure 10. Lerna; diagrammatic section through Square E7 in area JA-JB, as seen from the east (Caskey 1957, fig.5). Figure 11. Plan of Hacılar with the three main building-levels (Brami and Heyd 2011, fig.1). Figure 12. Quantitative distribution of Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic ‘burials’ in Anatolia and Southeast Europe during the interval 8,500-5,500 BC cal. Figure 13. Typical sequence of stratigraphic contexts associated with sub-floor burial. Figure 14. Typical sequence of stratigraphic contexts associated with in-fill burial. Figure 15. Barcιn; adult skeleton in extreme ‘hocker’ position in an inter-dwelling space, Trench M13. Figure 16. Geographical distribution of curvilinear and rectilinear forms of architecture in Anatolia and Southeast Europe during the interval 8,500-5,500 BC cal. Figure 17. Floor plans of typical multi-roomed buildings from the Northern Levant. Figure 18. Comparison scatter plot of interior dimensions of fully excavated rooms in selected Neolithic houses from Anatolia and Southeast Europe. Method and Çatalhöyük xy points after Düring (2006, fig.6.9). Figure 19. Comparison scatter plot of number of rooms in building against minimum interior size of fully excavated rooms in Anatolia and Southeast Europe. Figure 20. Çatalhöyük; ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ areas of a typical main room. Text and line/shapes on an isometric drawing by Mellaart (1967, fig.11). Figure 21. Floor plans of selected Neolithic houses in the Eastern Marmara region. Figure 22. Floor plans of selected Neolithic houses in Anatolia and Southeast Europe. Figure 23. Çatalhöyük; diagrammatic section through the South excavation area with the position of the levels (Mellaart 1964b, fig.3). ix Figure 24. Radial lines and terraces in the northwest quadrant of Aşıklı (A) and the south area in Çatalhöyük VIB (B). Figure 25. Courtyard-house complexes in Çatalhöyük, Level IV (A), Hacılar VI (B) and Hacılar IIA (C). Figure 26. ‘Boundary’ settlements in Northwest Anatolia and Thrace: Aktopraklık B (A), Aşağı Pınar 6 (B) and Ilıpınar 6 (C). Figure 27. 14C Backbone distribution of 848 calibrated radiocarbon intervals, at 2 standard deviations (95.4% probability), from 59 Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in Central Anatolia (red), Western Anatolia (blue), Greece (orange) and Thrace (green) during the interval 9,000-5,500 BC cal. Figure 28. Geographical distribution of important Epi-Palaeolithic/Mesolithic sites, known and potential aceramic Neolithic sites, in Anatolia and Southeast Europe. Figure 29. 14C Backbone distribution of 230 calibrated radiocarbon intervals, at 2 standard deviations (95.4% probability), from Çatalhöyük East (red) and 9 Southwest Anatolian sites (blue): Bademağacı, Çukuriçi, Ege Gübre, Hacılar, Höyücek, Karain B, Kuruçay, Ulucak and Yeşilova, during the interval 9,000-5,500 BC cal. Figure 30. 14C Backbone distribution of 188 calibrated radiocarbon intervals, at 2 standard deviations (95.4% probability), from 9 Southwest Anatolian sites (blue) and 7 Thessalian sites (orange): Achilleion, Argissa, Elateia, Otzaki, Platia Magoula Zarkou, Sesklo and Theopetra Cave, during the interval 9,000-5,500 BC cal. Figure 31. 14C Backbone distribution of 222 calibrated radiocarbon intervals, at 2 standard deviations (95.4% probability), from Çatalhöyük East (red) and 5 Northwest Anatolian sites (blue): Aktopraklık, Barcın, Ilıpınar, Menteşe and Yarimburgaz Cave, during the interval 9,000-5,500 BC cal. Figure 32. 14C Backbone distribution of 178 calibrated radiocarbon intervals, at 2 standard deviations (95.4% probability), from 5 Northwest Anatolian sites (blue) and 9 North Aegean and West Bulgarian sites (green): Dikili Tash, Dobrinište, Elešnica, Gălăbnik, Hoca Çeşme, Kovačevo, Kremenik, Makri, Uğurlu, during the interval 9,000-5,500 BC cal. Figure 33. 14C Backbone distribution of 180 calibrated radiocarbon intervals, at 2 standard deviations (95.4% probability), from 5 Northwest Anatolian sites (blue) and 7 Upper Thracian and Sofia Plain sites (green): Aşağı Pınar, Azmak, Čavdar, Karanovo, Sofia- Slatina, Stara Zagora – Okražna Bolnica, during the interval 9,000-5,500 BC cal. Figure 34. Contents of two cultural ‘packages’ (adapted from Özdoğan 2005; 2006a). x

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Civilization (Childe 1925), it has been widely accepted that European agriculture originated . Chapter 1. 5. 1.1 The Neolithic: a changing definition . 8.2.3 Houses and courts in Middle Neolithic Greece . Fokke Gerritsen and Rana Özbal for incorporating me in their team at Barcın and entrusting
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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.