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Robertson,
S p a c e and S p a t i a l A n a l y s i s
in A rch a eology
930.1
C2005-902763-0
I n d ivi d u a l , H o u s e h o l d , a n d C o m m u n it y Spa c e i n E a r ly
B r o n z e A g e W e s t e r n A n at o l i a a n d t h e N e a r b y I s l a n d s
Carolyn Aslan
Carolyn Aslan, Ko University, History Department, Rumeli Feneri Yolu, Sariyer, Istanbul 34450, Turkey.
A b s t r a ct
C r o s s - C u ltu r a l Stu d i e s o f
I n d ivi d u a l i s m a n d C o l l e ctivi s m
organization, and thus are often discussed with a political or moralistic slant. For these reasons, archaeologists need to be especially cautious in inadvertently
transferring modern concepts of the individual to interpretations of ancient societies. Yet, since current
ideas about the shifting balance between individual
and group priorities form a central part of explanations
of present-day social change and cultural difference,
a consideration of the material expression of the individual can broaden the understanding of ancient social
change and cultural difference.
Spati a l A n a ly s i s : P r iva c y a n d
S e g m e n tati o n
Since one cannot assume the individual as an important social category, it is necessary to work from the
ground up to try to discern the most recognizable
social categories in the remains of an ancient culture.
Only then can one begin to explore how the material
expression of those categories may have operated in
the society or changed over time. A study of the placement and position of physical boundaries and the division of space within houses and settlements can lead
to an understanding of the social categories operating
in ancient communities.
One good reason to focus on houses and the placement of houses within a community is that the home
is a primary location where ideas about the individuals relation to larger social units are learned, reinforced and negotiated. For this idea, I am working
from Bourdieus theory (1973, 1977) that the house is
an active setting for the formation and maintenance
of social structure. The physical features of a house
can encourage specific types of behaviour within the
setting that conform to expectations of proper social
action. The boundaries and spaces formed by walls
and furniture transform ideas about social relationships into a material form. In turn, the physical form
of the house reinforces the social ideas. The divisions
and arrangements within a house can set up hierarchical or other relationships between people, objects, and
activities. The daily use or practice within the space
helps to maintain and reinforce the social organization.
The house is especially important in establishing and teaching ideas about the relationship of the
s pac e a n d s paT i a l a n a ly s i s i n a rc h a e o lo g y
and the development of self-identity. Privacy mechanisms can control interactions at an individual level as
well as at the level of the family or community (Sciama
1993:9097). In some situations, the family may have
a great deal of privacy from the rest of the community,
but the individual members of the family may have
little privacy from each other.
A study of privacy mechanisms within architectural arrangements can help to discern important social
categories within the community that are kept private
or separate from one another. Donald Sanders (1990)
has developed some methods for studying privacy in
architectural remains. He defines certain measurable
privacy controls, such as walls, the position of doorways and other fixed features, which he used to determine the circulation path through the house and the
permeability of a house to the outside. Many divisions
in a house may provide a greater opportunity for privacy within the rooms. A house with many rooms has
the potential for more privacy for individuals, while a
house with only one large room gives little opportunity for privacy.
Doorways and circulation paths are another important indicator of privacy levels. Doorways that lead to
the outside of a house are places of access control as
well as a point of information leakage between the
house and the outside. Doorways inside the house are
an indication of the circulation path through the house
and the degree of privacy possible within rooms. If
the circulation paths in the house mean that one must
pass through one room to get to another, only the innermost room will be private. The creation of passage
spaces, such as hallways, indicates a greater desire for
privacy within each room along the hallway.
Segmentation is another factor that is related to
privacy. Susan Kents (1990, 1991) study of segmentation has shown how societies differ in the degree to
which they divide the space within their houses. She
also demonstrates that societies with a higher level
of social complexity tend to have a greater degree of
segmentation. The basic measure of the segmentation of a house is the number of separate rooms. The
act of dividing up the space within a house comes out
of a much deeper understanding of how the world is
ordered and organized. Humans create boundaries in
undivided space by building physical features such as
walls to enclose or to separate different areas. Space is
not segmented arbitrarily; rather it is usually divided
in order to separate activities, stored objects or people.
C h a p t e r F o u r t e e n i n d ivi d u a l , h o u s e h o l d , a n d c o m m u n it y s p a c e
135
Figure 1.
Plan of Thermi I (Lamb 1936:Plan 1, reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press).
C a s e Stu dy
certain cultural features, namely architecture and pottery types that are widely found in Western Anatolia
and the nearby islands during this time period. This
period in Anatolia is especially interesting to study
because different sites exhibit varying patterns of
emerging social complexity as they change from rather
simple village communities to ones with increasing
indications of hierarchy. Some of these experiments
are more successful and long-lived than others, while
some sites exhibit almost no changes in social complexity during this period.
The two sites I chose for this case study show how
two settlements, which are quite similar at the beginning of the third millennium, have very different histories as time progresses. While Thermi shows little
change throughout the phases of its occupation, Troy
shows a large jump in the level of social complexity
between phases I and II. In the earliest phase of both
settlements (Thermi phase I, Troy phase I), the two
sites share similar features (Figures 1 and 3). The settlements are compact with long houses sharing adjoining walls. It should be noted that both sites are either
incompletely preserved or parts of the site are unexcavated in this period, so some of the empty spaces on
s pac e a n d s paT i a l a n a ly s i s i n a rc h a e o lo g y
Figure 2.
Plan of Thermi V (Lamb 1936:Plan 6, reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press).
the plans would probably have been occupied by additional houses. The houses show only a small degree
of segmentation, with most of the space in the house
occupied by one central, large room. Occasionally
there are smaller rooms at the front or back of the
house. There is little evidence for any differentiation
between the houses in terms of size or quality of the
finds. Most of the houses in both Thermi and Troy I
have an average size of 5060 m2.
The settlement at Thermi was rebuilt several times,
but the plan remains fairly constant (Lamb 1936). An
examination of the settlement plan of the last phase of
Thermi (phase V; Figure 2) shows a similar arrangement as before, with long houses sharing party walls.
The settlement appears to have a larger number of
houses in this level, although this may also be a result
of better preservation and more complete excavation
of the upper levels of the site. This phase does have
evidence for a fortification wall, while the previous
levels were probably unfortified.
In contrast to Thermi, Troy exhibits a much larger
change between phase I and II . In the Troy II period,
the original house form of a long house with one main
central room is transformed into a monumental version
C h a p t e r F o u r t e e n i n d ivi d u a l , h o u s e h o l d , a n d c o m m u n it y s p a c e
137
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
Plan of Troy IIc (Mellaart 1959:Figure 6, reprinted with permission of James Mellaart).
size that it is almost as though the inhabitants were deliberately assigning the same amount of space to each
house when they rebuilt the settlement (Figure 2). It
is likely that this segmentation of the settlement into
separate, but equally sized units corresponds to a conceptual division of the community into equal household social groups.
Furthermore, there are privacy controls between
the houses, but little privacy within the houses. Often
the houses have additional small rooms or a porch near
the entrance of the house. These rooms help to shield
the main central room. Even though there are privacy
mechanisms between the houses of the settlement, the
houses are still quite close together, which does reduce
the privacy in the settlement. Once one is inside the
main central room, however, there was probably little
privacy within this room.
In Troy II, the houses represent a different communicative intent in which the buildings are used to display the size and possibly the wealth of the household.
At Troy, the equality between the houses that appears
in the Early Troy I period is not maintained. Possibly
as early as the late Troy I period and certainly in the
Troy II period, the house form is transformed into
a monumental building (Drpfeld 1902; Korfmann
1993; Mellaart 1959). Evidence from the finds in these
buildings makes it is likely that they would have still
served for habitation, although they may have taken
s pac e a n d s paT i a l a n a ly s i s i n a rc h a e o lo g y
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