Micro-History and Macro Evolution: Material Geographies of Multi-Family Neolithic Households

Summary

The Near Eastern foraging to farming transition was characterized by the emergence of more powerful nuclear family and multi family households. It remains unclear, however, how this longer-term evolutionary transition was connected to small-scale daily household decision-making. Focusing on the archaeology sites of Tell Halula and Çatalhöyük, I explore archaeological evidence for the development of Neolithic multi-family households, and how they may have been connected to seasonal collective labor, and were maintained through collective burial practices that focused on linage houses. I argue that small-scale decision making related to Neolithic household food storage and population growth created the context for the long-term evolutionary development of entrenched intra-household differentiation, and the development of multi-family households living in multiple residential buildings. Although difficult to address, the short-term control of household ritual practices may have served as a means for the development of more powerful, and larger, inter-generational households.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Households and Social Evolution: Comprehensive Approaches to Social Transformation

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16786