(un)settling the Neolithic

(un)settling the Neolithic

Edited by
Douglass Bailey, Alasdair Whittle
and Vicki Cummings

Oxbow Books

Published by
Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford OX1 1HN
Oxbow Books and the individual authors, 2005

ISBN 1-84217-179-8
A CIP record of this book is available from the British Library

This book is available direct from

Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford OX1 1HN
(Phone: 01865-241249; Fax: 01865-794449)
and
The David Brown Book Company
PO Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA
(Phone: 860-945-9329; Fax: 860-945-9468)
or from our website
www.oxbowbooks.com

Cover image: Disrupting the view, with apologies to Theocharis 2005;

designed by D W Bailey

Printed in the United Kingdom by

Arrowsmith, Bristol

Dedicated to the memory of John Evans (19412005) who died while this volume was at
proof stage. In many ways these papers carry on in the spirit with which John attacked,
challenged and questioned much of what we take for granted.

ghjjjd

Contents

List of Contributors .......................................................................................................................................... ix

1.

Unsettling the Neolithic: breaking down concepts, boundaries and origins

Douglass Bailey and Alasdair Whittle ................................................................................................... 1

2.

Across the border: unstable dwellings and fluid landscapes in the earliest Neolithic of Greece
Kostas Kotsakis ........................................................................................................................................ 8

3.

Deconstructing essentialisms: unsettling frontiers of the Mesolithic-Neolithic Balkans

Duan Bori ................................................................................................................................................. 16

4.

Can seasonality studies be used to identify sedentism in the past?

Nicky Milner .......................................................................................................................................... 32

5.

Resettling the Neolithic: faunal evidence for seasons of consumption and residence at Neolithic
sites in Greece Paul Halstead ............................................................................................................... 38

6.

Plain talk: animals, environment and culture in the Neolithic of the Carpathian Basin and adjacent
areas Lszl Bartosiewicz ...................................................................................................................... 51

7.

Lived experience in the Early Neolithic of the Great Hungarian Plain

Alasdair Whittle ..................................................................................................................................... 64

8.

The role of pottery in agropastoralist communities in early Neolithic southern Romania

Laurens Thissen ..................................................................................................................................... 71

9.

Sensing the place: sounds and landscape perception

Steve Mills .............................................................................................................................................. 79

10.

Beyond the meaning of Neolithic houses: specific objects and serial repetition
Douglass Bailey ..................................................................................................................................... 90

11.

Weaving house life and death into places: a blueprint for a hypermedia narrative
Ruth Tringham ....................................................................................................................................... 98

12.

Memory and ordination: environmental archaeology in tells

J.G. Evans ............................................................................................................................................ 112

13.

The spatio-temporal organization of the early town at atalhyk

Ian Hodder ........................................................................................................................................... 126

14.

Settling the Neolithic: a digestif

Andrew Sherratt ................................................................................................................................... 140

dd

List of Contributors

Douglass Bailey
School of History and Archaeology
Cardiff University
Colum Drive
Cardiff CF10 3EU
United Kingdom

Ian Hodder
Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology
Stanford University
Building 110, Main Quad
Stanford, California 94305
United States

Lszl Bartosiewicz
Institute of Archaeological Sciences
Lornd Etvs University
Mzeum kort 4/B
1088 Budapest
Hungary

Kostas Kotsakis
Department of Archaeology
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, 54124
Greece

Duan Bori
Department of Archaeology
Cambridge University
Downing Street
Cambridge CB2 3DZ
United Kingdom
John Evans
School of History and Archaeology
Cardiff University
Colum Drive
Cardiff CF10 3EU
United Kingdom
Paul Halstead
Department of Archaeology and Prehistory
University of Sheffield
Northgate House
Sheffield S1 4ET
United Kingdom

Steve Mills
School of History and Archaeology
Cardiff University
Colum Drive
Cardiff CF10 3EU
United Kingdom
Nicky Milner
Department of Archaeology
University of York
The Kings Manor
York YO1 7EP
United Kingdom
Andrew Sherratt
Ashmolean Museum
Oxford OX1 2PH
United Kingdom
Laurens Thissen
2e Jan v/d Heydenstr. 86
1074 XZ Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Ruth Tringham
Department of Anthropology
University of California at Berkeley
232 Kroeber Hall
Berkeley, California 94720-3710
United States

Alasdair Whittle
School of History and Archaeology
Cardiff University
Colum Drive
Cardiff CF10 3EU
United Kingdom