Forging Identities in the Prehistory of Old Europe : : Dividuals, Individuals and Communities, 7000-3000 BC.

• Author: Chapman, J.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden : : Sidestone Press,, 2020.; ©2020.
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (464 pages)

Balkan prehistory conjures up images of the Exotic and the Other in comparison with the better-known prehistory of Western Europe - often written in unfamiliar languages about lesser known places. Combined with the information revolution in archaeology, these factors have meant that no new synthesis of Old Europe has been written in the last 20 years. This has left a backlog of rich settlement data and object-rich landscapes which have rarely been presented in theoretically challenging ways. This material is an important, and greatly neglected, part of European prehistory.This research monograph is a synthesis of the archaeology of South East, Central and Eastern Europe over four millennia (7000 - 3000 BC). The varied cultural development of the region is treated as a mosaic of local prehistories, in which people responded to major change and, in at least two cases - the development of farming and metallurgy - profound structural change through modifications of all the dimensions of their identities. Informed by a gendered perspective, this book seeks to structure the Mesolithic, Neolithic and the Chalcolithic periods in terms of a nested set of identities - the person, the household, the settlement and the regional network. This book is intended for all those prehistorians who seek to expand their general knowledge of Old Europe, as well as undergraduates, postgraduates and specialists in Balkan prehistory. The book will also attract social anthropologists and sociologists with an interest in the creation and maintenance of nested social identities in the past.

Table of Contents

Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1 -- Introduction -- Introducing the research questions -- The study region -- The palaeo-environment -- Temporality -- The cultural framework -- Research in social archaeologies -- Research questions -- Book contents -- Chapter 2 -- Framing the enquiry -- Introduction: living within the rules -- Questions of scale -- Basic terms -- Relations -- Settlements and the mortuary domain -- The proliferation of objects -- Chapter Summary -- Chapter 3 -- Foodways - foraging and agro-pastoral practices -- Introduction -- Stage 1: catching and collecting, growing and tending -- Stage 2: food allocation and storage -- Stages 3-4: cooking and eating -- Stage 5 -- Chapter Summary -- Persons -- Introducing some special persons -- Life courses -- The life course in death: mortuary costumes and personhood -- Personal skills -- Personhood and the production of images -- Chapter summary -- Chapter 5 -- Houses and households -- Introduction: building an experimental 'Neolithic' house -- Definitions and general issues -- Building forager houses in Phases 1 (7000-6300 BC) and 2 (6300-5300 BC) -- Phase 2 houses -- Phase 3 houses -- Phase 4 houses -- Phase 5 houses -- Chapter summary -- Chapter 6 -- Settlement planning -- Introduction -- Settlement form -- A diversity of site types -- Planning at forager settlements? -- Phase 2 settlements -- Phase 3 - the spread of settlement planning -- Phase 4 planning - the displacement of concentricity -- Phase 5 - the triumph of concentricity in Eastern Europe -- Chapter summary -- Chapter 7 -- The mortuary zone -- Introduction -- The absent, the bone, the body and the cemetery -- Cemeteries in Old Europe -- Summary of Chapters 6 and 7: the mortuary and domestic domains -- Chapter 8 -- Long-term settlement dynamics -- Introduction -- Settlement patterns by modern state -- Bulgaria.

The lands of 'former Yugoslavia' (Serbia, Republic of North Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Kosova and Bosnia - Hercegovina) -- Settlement in Hungary -- Settlement in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine -- Chapter summary -- Chapter 9 -- Networks -- Introduction: an exotic pumice-stone -- Settlement networks -- Phase 1 networks -- Phase 2 networks -- Phase 3 networks -- Phase 4 networks -- Phase 5 networks -- Chapter summary -- Chapter 10 -- Change and continuity -- Introduction -- The emergence of farming: a network model -- The onset of copper and gold metallurgy -- The emergence of urbanism in the Ukrainian forest-steppe -- Chapter summary -- Chapter 11 -- Summary and conclusions -- Summarising without writing a Grand Narrative -- Research question (1): how to form relations -- Research Questions (2 and 3): material culture and the settlement domain -- In conclusion -- Bibliography -- Indices -- General index -- Index of people -- Index of places -- Blank Page -- Blank Page.