Long-term Memory, the Individual and the Community in the later Prehistory of the Levant

Summary

Shared historical memory is a given feature of every human society as a basic component of group identity and cohesion. With increasing tendencies towards sedentism the material culture evidence for communal memory increases, as reflected in spatial correlates at both the inter- and intra-site levels. It appears that social stress, deriving from increased community sizes and staying together for prolonged periods of time in close proximity, amongst others, raised the need for mechanisms to booster the sense of cohesion. Emphasis upon shared history through repetitive actions became focal in the behavioural repertoire. This would enmesh the entire community through to its individual members in complex webs of activities. Such circumstances would have played a role in the creation and retention of social memory, with historical ties to locations and to ancestors prior to the emergence of agriculture.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Religion, history and place in the origins of settled life in the Middle East.

Keywords

Spatial Coverage