TIME AND HISTORY IN

PREHISTORY

Time and History in Prehistory explores the many processes through which time and
history are conceptualized and constructed, challenging the perception of prehistoric
societies as ahistorical. Drawing equally on contemporary theory and illustrative
case studies, and firmly rooted in material evidence, this book rearticulates concepts
of time and history, questions the kind of narratives to be written about the past and
underlines the fundamentally historical nature of prehistory.
From a range of multi-disciplinary perspectives, the authors of this volume
address the scales at which archaeological evidence and narrative are interwoven,
from a single day to deep history and from a solitary pot to a complete city. In doing
so, they argue the need for a multi-scalar approach to prehistoric data that allows for
the interplay between short and long term, and for analytical units that encourage
us to move continuously between scales.
The growing interest in time and history in archaeology and across a wide
range of disciplines concerned with human action and the human past highlights
that these are exceptionally active fields. By juxtaposing varied viewpoints, this
volume bridges gaps in narrative, finds a place for inclusive histories and makes
clear the benefit of integrative and interdisciplinary approaches, including different
disciplines and types of data.

Stella Souvatzi is Adjunct Professor of Archaeology at the Hellenic Open

University. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2000 and
her BA and MA degrees from the University of Athens. Her research focuses on the
Neolithic archaeology of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, the archaeology
of household, theory of archaeology and anthropology, and cultural heritage and
identity. She is the author of A Social Archaeology of Households in Neolithic Greece:
An Anthropological Approach (2008) and co-editor of Space and Time in Mediterranean
Prehistory (2014).
Adnan Baysal is Associate Professor of Prehistory at Trakya University, Turkey.
He received his PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2010. He specializes in
the Anatolian Neolithic and has worked extensively on the social and economic
implications of ground stone assemblages from Çatalhöyük and other contemporary
Central Anatolia sites. He has edited volumes on networks and social organization
(2015) and stone tools in Anatolian archaeology (forthcoming).

Emma L. Baysal is Assistant Professor of Prehistory at Trakya University, Turkey.

She works on material culture of the Epipalaeolithic to Early Bronze Age, with
particular interest in the relationship between artefacts, the body and identity and
the movements and networks of raw materials and small artefacts. She is co-editor
of Bordered Places | Bounded Times (with L. Karakatsanis, 2017) and author of Personal
Ornaments in Prehistory (forthcoming).
TIME AND HISTORY IN
PREHISTORY

Edited by Stella Souvatzi, Adnan Baysal

and Emma L. Baysal
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Stella Souvatzi, Adnan Baysal and
Emma L. Baysal; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Stella Souvatzi, Adnan Baysal and Emma L. Baysal to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 978-1-138-69269-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-69270-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-53185-4 (ebk)
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CONTENTS CONTENTSCONTENTS

List of figures viii

List of tables xi
List of contributors xii
Preface xvii

1 Is there pre-history? 1
Stella Souvatzi, Adnan Baysal and Emma L. Baysal

PART I
Perceptions of the past 29

2 The Uexküll calibration: chronology and critical flicker

fusion frequency 31
Doug Bailey

3 Timescales and telescopes. Optics in the study of prehistory 42

Cristián Simonetti

4 Ontology unveiled, serpents remembered, time reconfigured 58

Peter R. Schmidt

5 Periodization in archaeology: starting in the ground 77

Gavin Lucas
vi Contents

PART II
Narrative construction 95

6 Locked in the Neolithic between evolution and history 97

Trevor Watkins

7 Illustrating waves of time in prehistory and the

Annales’ solution 109
John Bintliff

8 What kind of history in prehistory? 123

Alex Bayliss and Alasdair Whittle

9 Concepts of time and history on Chalcolithic tell

settlements and Trypillia mega-sites 147
John Chapman and Bisserka Gaydarska

10 Prehistoric histories of Hohokam kin groups 172

Bradley E. Ensor

PART III
Objects and making history 193

11 Hyperobjects and prehistory 195

Graham Harman

12 Time matters: faces, externalized knowledge

and transcendence 210
Barbara Adam and Sandra Kemp

13 “I make this standing stone to be a sign”: material

presence and the temporality of the trace in highland
Madagascar 229
Zoë Crossland

14 Contested history-making as part of the building of social

networks at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey 250
Ian Hodder
 Contents vii

Epilogue 263

15 Primevalism: saluting a renamed prehistory 265

Penelope J. Corfield

Index 283