Households at the Dawn of the Bronze Age

»Households at the Dawn of the Bronze Age« examines the role of households during Early Bronze Age (EBA, beginning of the 3^rd millennium BCE) in the Aegean basin from socio-cultural anthropological perspectives. The project deals with households and social organization at two prehistoric sites: Platia Magoula Zarkou (Thessaly, Greece) and Çukuriçi Höyük (western Anatolia, Turkey). The study relies on household archaeology approach to analyse prehistoric material finds, which are being contextualized through methods of historical anthropology. The first objective of this project addresses the role of households: Were households at Çukuriçi Höyük and Platia Magula Zarkou ›domestic mode of production‹ households or were they more specialized units primarily geared to production for exchange and/or tribute? The second objective questions which of the ideal types of non-state social organization (e. g. segmentary (lineage) systems, big man society, great man society, and chiefdom with and without conical clan) is appropriate to describe social organizations in these settlements, if any?

Methods

This interdisciplinary study relies mainly on previously published anthropological and archaeological data and DOC-team results from Platia Magoula Zarkou and Çukuriçi Höyük. Due to space and time limitations on conducting meaningful participant observation relevant to the empirical archaeological material, this project relies on methods of historical anthropology. The archaeological data from Çukuriçi Höyük and Platia Magoula Zarkou are in this project addressed through comparative insights based on fieldwork conducted by other researchers, centred on more or less non-state societies. As a trained socio-cultural anthropologist, Sabina Cveček has also joined her DOC-team colleagues at the Austrian Archaeological Institute in the field, namely in Larisa/Greece, and Selçuk/Turkey,

Outcomes

The main outcome of this Post-DocTrack project will be a publication of monograph submitted to the OeAI book series of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. Alongside the monograph titled »Çukuriçi Höyük 4: Household Economics in the Early Bronze Age Aegean«, authored by Sabina Cveček, she is also preparing a few joint publications with her DOC-team colleagues.