Birch, Jennifer - From Prehistoric Villages To Cities, Settlement Aggregation and Community Transformation (2013)

From Prehistoric Villages to Cities
Archaeologists have focused a great deal of attention on explaining the

evolution of village societies and the transition to a Neolithic way of life.
Considerable interest has also concentrated on urbanism and the rise of the
earliest cities. Between these two landmarks in human cultural development
lies a critical stage in social and political evolution. Throughout the world, at
various points in time, people living in small, dispersed village communities
have come together into larger and more complex social formations. These
community aggregates were, essentially, middle range; situated between the
earliest villages and emergent chiefdoms and states. This volume explores
the social processes involved in the creation and maintenance of aggregated
communities and how they brought about revolutionary transformations
that affected virtually every aspect of a society and its culture.
Although a number of studies have addressed coalescence from a regional
perspective, less is understood about how aggregated communities func-
tioned internally. The key premise explored in this volume is that large-scale,
long-term cultural transformations were ultimately enacted in the context
of daily practices, interactions, and what might be otherwise considered
the mundane aspects of everyday life. How did these processes play out
in diverse and historically contingent settings? What are the strategies and
mechanisms that people adopt to facilitate living in larger social formations?
What changes in social relations occur when people come together? This
volume employs a broadly cross-cultural approach to interrogating these
questions, employing case studies that span four continents and more than
10,000 years of human history.
Jennifer Birch is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at

the University of Georgia, USA.
Routledge Studies in Archaeology
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Archaeology to Cities
Soft Power, Hard Heritage Settlement Aggregation and
Christina Luke and Morag M. Community Transformation
Kersel Edited by Jennifer Birch
From Prehistoric Villages
to Cities
Settlement Aggregation and
Community Transformation
Edited by Jennifer Birch

First published 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
From prehistoric villages to cities : settlement aggregation and community.
pages cm. — (Routledge studies in archaeology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Land settlement patterns, Prehistoric. 2. Land settlement patterns—
History. 3. Cities and towns, Ancient—History. 4. Civilization,
Ancient. I. Birch, Jennifer.
GN799.S43F76 2013
930—dc23
2012049471
ISBN: 978-0-415-83661-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-45826-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures vii

List of Tables xi
Preface xiii
1 Between Villages and Cities: Settlement Aggregation

in Cross-Cultural Perspective 1
JENNIFER BIRCH
2 The Anatomy of a Prehistoric Community:

Reconsidering Çatalhöyük 23
BLEDA S. DÜRING
3 Coming Together, Falling Apart: A Multiscalar Approach

to Prehistoric Aggregation and Interaction on
the Great Hungarian Plain 44
PAUL R. DUFFY, WILLIAM A. PARKINSON, ATTILA GYUCHA,
AND RICHARD W. YERKES
4 Social Organization and Aggregated Settlement Structure

in an Archaic Greek City on Crete (ca. 600 BC) 63
DONALD C. HAGGIS
5 Appropriating Community: Platforms and Power on

the Formative Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia 87
ROBIN A. BECK, JR.
6 Social Integration and the Built Environment of Aggregated

Communities in the North American Puebloan Southwest 111
ALISON E. RAUTMAN
7 Competition and Cooperation: Late Classic Period

Aggregation in the Southern Tucson Basin 134
HENRY D. WALLACE AND MICHAEL W. LINDEMAN
vi Contents
8 Organizational Complexity in Ancestral Wendat Communities 153
JENNIFER BIRCH AND RONALD F. WILLIAMSON
9 Community Aggregation through Public Architecture:

Cherokee Townhouses 179
CHRISTOPHER B. RODNING
10 The Work of Making Community 201

STEPHEN A. KOWALEWSKI
Contributors 219
Index 223
Figures
1.1 Locations of sites and regions discussed in this volume:

(1) Çatalhöyük, Konya Plain, Anatolia (Düring); (2) Körös
Region, Great Hungarian Plain, Hungary (Duffy et al.);
(3) Azoria, Kavousi area, northeastern Crete (Haggis);
(4) Taraco Peninsula, Lake Titicaca Basin (Beck); (5) Salinas
Region, Southwestern United States (Rautman); (6) Southern
Tucson Basin, Southwestern United States (Wallace and
Lindeman); (7) South-central Ontario, Canada (Birch and
Williamson); (8) Southern Appalachians, Southeastern
United States (Rodning). 4
2.1 Early Neolithic sites in Asia Minor mentioned in this chapter. 24
2.2 Spread of house sizes at Çatalhöyük (N = 105). 30
2.3 Distribution of subfloor burials in level VIB at Çatalhöyük. 32
3.1 Tells to scale with extent of horizontal settlement around them. 48
3.2 Microregional patterns in the Late Neolithic. 51
3.3 Microregional patterns in the Middle Bronze Age. 52
4.1 Map of the Kavousi area of northeastern Crete. 66
4.2 Settlement patterns in the Early Iron Age and Archaic periods in
the Kavousi area: Panagia Skali (70); Azoria (71); Vronda (77);
Kastro (80); cemeteries (68; 78–79; 81); Avgo Valley Early Iron
Age settlement cluster (83–85; 89–91). 67
4.3 Azoria South Acropolis (R. D. Fitzsimons and G. Damaskinakis). 73
4.4 Development of Building I-O-N at Vronda in LM IIIC (top)
(after Glowacki 2007: 133, Fig. 14.4); development of the
Northwest Building on the Kastro (bottom) (drawing
by M. S. Mook). 74
4.5 Northeast Building at Azoria (Archaic house) (R. D. Fitzsimons). 75
5.1 The Southern Lake Titicaca Basin. 88
5.2 Plan View, Structure 1 and Structure 2, Alto Pukara. 91
5.3 Hypothetical reconstruction of the Upper House complex,
Chiripa. 94
viii Figures
5.4 Yaya-Mama monolith, Taraco, Peru, H. 221 cm, W. 22 cm
(after Chávez 1988: Fig. 5). 104
5.5 Yaya-Mama slab, Chiripa, W. 37.5 cm, L. 53 cm (after Chávez
1988: Fig. 4a). The border of this slab was formed by notches
cut into its corners (Chávez and Chávez 1975: 55), actually
making a cross formée of the slab itself. 105
6.1 Pre-Hispanic and Hispanic Period Pueblos of the Salinas Basin,
showing the Spanish Mission sites of Quarai, Abo, and Gran
Quivira. The archaeological sites and surveys mentioned in this
chapter are located near the large late pueblo of Gran Quivira,
on the eastern flanks of Chupadera Mesa. 113
6.2 Archaeological sites near Gran Quivira (from Caperton 1981;
redrawn and updated by Marieka Brouwer). 115
6.3 Linear jacal site with activity area (redrawn from
Chamberlin 2008: Fig. 5.1). 122
6.4 Kite Pueblo (LA 199), an early adobe pueblo. 124
6.5 The Adobe Pueblo at Frank’s Pueblo (LA 9032). 125
7.1 Middle Rincon phase (AD 1000–1100) villages and Tucson
phase (AD 1300–1450) villages along the Martinez Reach
of the Santa Cruz River. 135
7.2 Casa Azul, an aggregated settlement north of Martinez Hill. 141
7.3 Martinez Hill Ruin settlement complex south of Martinez Hill. 143
7.4 Northern Gabel compound at the Martinez Hill Ruin. 144
7.5 Estimated social units consolidated in the Martinez Hill Ruin
south of Martinez Hill. 145
8.1 Map of the north-central shore of Lake Ontario indicating key
sites mentioned in the text. 159
8.2 Draper and Mantle site plans. Draper site plan reproduced from
Finlayson (1985); Mantle plan shows the early phase
of occupation. 162
8.3 Section of Mantle site settlement plan indicating three phases
of palisade construction and borrow trench. 165
9.1 Selected archaeological sites and Cherokee town areas in the
southern Appalachians (after Rodning 2009a: 628, 2011b: 132).
Sites that are known or thought to have townhouses are listed
in italics: (1) King, (2) Ustanali/New Echota, (3) Ledford Island,
(4) Great Tellico/Chatuga, (5) Mialoquo, (6) Tuskegee,
(7) Tomotley, (8) Toqua, (9) Chota-Tanassee, (10) Citico,
(11) Tallassee, (12) Chilhowee, (13) Kituwha, (14) Birdtown,
(15) Nununyi, (16) Ravensford Tract, (17) Tuckasegee,
(18) Alarka Farmstead, (19) Cowee, (20) Joree, (21) Whatoga,
(22) Nequassee, (23) Echoee, (24) Coweeta Creek,
Figures ix
(25) Dillard/Old Estatoe, (26) Peachtree/Great Hiwassee,
(27) Spike Buck/Quanasee, (28) Brasstown Valley,
(29) Nachoochee/Echota, (30) Chattooga, (31) Keowee,
(32) Seneca, (33) Chauga, (34) Tugalo, (35) Estatoe,
(36) Garden Creek, (37) Biltmore Mound, (38) Warren Wilson. 180
9.2 Early stages of the townhouse at the Coweeta Creek site in
southwestern North Carolina (after Rodning 2009a: 642,
2011b: 140). 187
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Tables
3.1 Characteristics of site networks for the Late Neolithic and

Middle Bronze Age. 53
3.2 Summary of settlement measures. 54
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Preface
This volume began as a symposium organized for the 2011 Society for
American Archaeology (SAA) meetings in Sacramento, California. That
session was entitled “Come Together: Regional Perspectives on Settlement
Aggregation.” Our stated aim was to explore the social processes involved
in the formation and maintenance of aggregated settlements cross-culturally
through multiple spatial and temporal scales of analysis. The participants
were invited based on work they had conducted on sites and regions that
demonstrated evidence for settlement aggregation at regional and local
scales and that had produced large data sets that permitted insights into
community-level transformations. Following the session, there was a fair
amount of discussion among the participants and audience, who agreed that
important themes had emerged that linked the papers together and that
could be fruitfully explored in greater depth.
My interest in processes of settlement aggregation stems from my work
on the coalescence of ancestral Wendat communities. In the early stages of
my dissertation research, my supervisor, Aubrey Cannon, gave me a copy
of Stephen Kowalewski’s paper “Coalescent Societies,” which is referenced
in chapter 1. Steve’s formulation of coalescent societies provided me with
a conceptual framework for exploring processes of aggregation among the
precontact Northern Iroquoian communities that were the subject of my
dissertation. My aim for the SAA session was to once again take Steve’s
formulation of coalescent societies down an order of magnitude and explore
how these processes played out in communities situated in different tempo-
ral, geographic, and cultural contexts.
Half of the chapters in this volume began as papers in that session (Hag-
gis; Beck; Rautman; Birch and Williamson; and Kowalewski as discussant),
and half were solicited based on their fit with the themes and aims of the
volume (Düring; Duffy, Parkinson, Gyutcha, and Yerkes; Wallace and Lin-
deman; and Rodning). Although the geographic scope of the chapters is
not exhaustive, they span four continents and cover diverse regions and
time periods where settlement aggregation resulted in dramatic processes
of social, political, and economic change. As such, they directly address the
processes of cultural change that are at the heart of archaeological inquiry.
xiv Preface
The chapters are presented in chronological order. This arrangement
resulted in a geographic flow that begins in Asia Minor and then moves to
Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. We then head across the Atlantic
to Bolivia, in South America, before sweeping north to two locations in the
American Southwest and on to eastern North America, with examples from
the Southern Appalachians and the Lower Great Lakes. In the final chap-
ter, Stephen Kowalewski provides a thoughtful conclusion, drawing from
cross-cultural examples that reflect the social and physical work involved
in making community. In every case examined, aggregation, whether physi-
cal or symbolic, led to a new kind (and scale) of human social community.
Issues of social ordering and integration were met with new institutions,
rituals, political systems, and cultural practices. Public buildings and com-
munal spaces were constructed, facilitating and manifesting the new social
relations that went on in and around them.
My part in bringing this volume together was facilitated by a postdoc-
toral fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at the University of
Georgia, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada. Thanks to Stephen Kowalewski for his advisement during that
time. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to each of the
contributors for their thoughtful exploration of what transpires when we
come together and endeavor to create something new.
1 Between Villages and Cities
Settlement Aggregation in Cross-Cultural
Perspective
Jennifer Birch
Archaeologists have focused a great deal of attention on explaining the

origins of village societies and the transition to a Neolithic way of life.
Considerable interest has also concentrated on urbanism and the rise of
the earliest cities and states. Between these two revolutions in human cul-
tural development lie a number of organizational forms that represent less
well-known phases in human social evolution. In this volume we attempt
to arrive at a more thorough understanding of one such intermediate social
formation: aggregated settlements.
Throughout the world, at various points in time, people living in small,
dispersed village communities came together into larger and more complex
social formations. Some of the better-known cases of settlement aggrega-
tion come from prehistoric southwestern North America. In the Mogollon,
Hohokam, and Anasazi areas after AD 1000 there was a shift in settlement
whereby populations nucleated, resulting in the abandonment of large tracts
of land. People who had been living in small villages with a hundred or
so inhabitants came together into large, aggregated pueblos with popula-
tions of up to 1,000 or more (cf. Adler 1996; Cordell 1994; Hegmon et al.
1998; Hill et al. 2004; Rautman 2000, this volume). In Neolithic Eurasia
the best known example of settlement aggregation may be the site of Çatal-
höyük. Inhabited 9,000 years ago by as many as 8,000 people, Çatalhöyük
is famous for its huge size, dense occupation, and art rife with religious sym-
bolism (Düring, this volume; Hodder 2010a, 2010b). Many other examples
of aggregation that resulted in the formation of large, densely populated
settlements have also been identified archaeologically in prehistoric Africa,
Europe, Mesoamerica, the Near East, and North America (e.g., Ethridge
and Hudson 2002; Gerritsen 2004; Kowalewski 2006; Kuijt 2000; Parkin-
son 2002) and ethnographically documented in Amazonia and New Guinea
(e.g., Gross 1979; Tuzin 2001), to name but a selection.
While these communities differ in size and historical context, what they
have in common is that they are all essentially middle range—situated
between prehistoric villages and emergent chiefdoms and states. The aim
of this volume is to explore the social processes involved in the creation
and maintenance of aggregated settlements and how they brought about
2 Jennifer Birch
transformations that affected virtually every aspect of a society and its cul-
ture. Our goal here is to draw out some of the similarities and differences
in the cultural mechanisms people developed to deal with the challenges
of living in larger, more complex social formations. A number of common
themes emerge in the chapters contained herein, including the role of the
built environment in mediating social relations, the construction of public
spaces and structures, the importance and integrative potential of religion,
ritual and mortuary behavior, changes in the social means of production
and consumption, and oscillations in interregional interaction that accom-
panied the reconfiguration of geopolitical landscapes. Because many studies
of aggregation have focused on settlement patterns at the regional scale,
one of our aims is to explore how processes of coalescence played out at
the community level, in the diverse and historically contingent settings of
everyday life.
THE PROBLEM WITH TYPES
Aggregated settlements do not fit neatly into commonly utilized taxonomies

for describing societal or settlement types. The most common sociocultural
typologies identify and differentiate between mobile hunting and gathering
bands, farmers living in tribal or segmentary societies, chiefdoms, and states
with urban centers and complex political and economic systems (e.g., Mor-
gan 1877; Service 1962, 1975). Common classification schemes for types of
settlements follow a similarly evolutionary structure, progressing from iso-
lated hamlets or farmsteads to villages and towns, the latter two sometimes
belonging to a settlement hierarchy that included regional centers or cities.
On the one hand, these typologies are useful because they provide concep-
tual frameworks for cross-cultural comparison that help us organize our
thoughts about different kinds of human societies (Renfrew and Bahn 2004:
181) and settlements (Flannery 1976). However, they also have the potential
to mask diversity in the archaeological and ethnographic records and can
lead to a disproportionate concern with issues of classification. Take, for
example, arguments about whether Cahokia was a large chiefdom or an
inchoate state (Anderson 1997: 260; O’Brien 1992; Peregrine 1992, 1996).
In many ways, the societies discussed in this volume fall outside these
typological schemes and can only be placed in them with a degree of awk-
wardness. Some give the impression of being too large to be classified as
villages but retain many aspects of social organization associated with seg-
mentary village societies. Others developed a degree of social and economic
complexity that implies a protourban classification, but lack evidence for
hierarchical leadership and social stratification associated with early cities
and states. In regions where large-scale processes of aggregation resulted in
the concentration of population into fewer large sites, they may also have
functioned as regional centers. Given this range of variability, it would seem
Between Villages and Cities 3
that aggregated settlements represent processes of social evolution that dem-
onstrate precisely why anthropologists should abandon sociocultural types
or at least be critical of their explanatory utility (cf. Feinman and Neitzel
1984; Pauketat 2007; Yoffee 1993). Typologies work as tools for describ-
ing and classifying diverse phenomena, but they are far less successful in
explaining how sociocultural and sociopolitical forms changed over time.
To understand the significant degrees of similarity and variation in aggre-
gated settlements we need to identify common patterns in how processes of
aggregation were accomplished. Thus, to explain cultural change we need to
identify the mechanisms through which cultural modification occurred and
the conditions under which those processes developed. However, before we
can identify these mechanisms, we need to more carefully consider exactly
what we mean by aggregated settlement.
WHAT KINDS OF SITES ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
The societies and communities discussed here were not a product of internal
population growth. Rather, most formed through processes of aggregation
that, by and large, involved people abandoning a regional pattern of small,
dispersed settlements in favor of aggregation into larger, more nucleated
settlements. These communities were permanent and occupied year-round,
which differentiates them from seasonal aggregations of mobile bands.
While not a universal feature of hunter-gatherer societies, patterns of sea-
sonal nucleation and dispersal served both economic and social needs,
bringing people together to find mates, share information, and renew social
ties. The importance of aggregations of macrobands extended beyond
subsistence needs and included important social and ritual practices. The
cave paintings of Altamira (Conkey 1980) and the monumental megalithic
enclosures at Göbekli Tepe (Schmidt 2011), both sites of hunter-gatherer
aggregations, attest to the cultural importance of and investment into such
places. The fact that sites of seasonal nucleation have been identified around
the world throughout human history speaks to the antiquity of aggregation
as a mechanism for the transmission and reproduction of social practices
and the creation and affirmation of cultural identities.
More permanent forms of large, coresidential settlements appear in the
archaeological record relatively soon after the shift to sedentism, suggesting
that aggregation remained a deeply rooted adaptive mechanism in human
societies. This pattern has been referred to by different terms in the archae-
ological literature, including agglomeration (Hodder and Cessford 2004),
aggregation (Kuijt 2000; Rautman 2000), convergence (Tuck 1971), fusion
(Bandy 2004), nucleation (Gerritsen 2004), or coalescence (Ethridge and
Hudson 2002; Kowalewski 2006). In each case, these changes in settlement
brought about the reconfiguration of existing social relations to accommodate
larger groups and manage tensions that might arise in the resulting societal
4 Jennifer Birch
formations, resulting in dramatic, and sometimes rapid, transformations in
social organization and culture; changes that were every bit as profound as
those that accompanied the transition to village life or the rise of cities and
civilizations. By and large, rapid settlement aggregation did not favor the
emergence of centralized, hierarchical political organization. Instead, corpo-
rate or collective decision-making structures developed (Kowalewski 2006:
117). As such, these social formations do not fit traditional understandings
of complex societies. However, there is no doubt that the processes and rela-
tionships that they encompassed were complicated. In this way this volume
represents part of the ongoing effort to broaden archaeology’s focus beyond
preoccupation with the development of vertically controlled and integrated
societies to include more horizontal structures of organizational complexity
(cf. Blanton et al. 1996; Crumley 1995; Johnson 1978; McIntosh 1999; Spiel-
mann 1994) and how these sociopolitical configurations come into being.
The sites discussed in this volume span more than 10,000 years of human
history and are spread across four continents (Figure 1.1). I believe it would
be counterproductive to attempt to find a common settlement type that
defines them. It is, however, useful to review the terms that the authors use.
Düring discusses “community organization” at Çatalhöyük, which has been
described variously as a “large agglomerated village” (Hodder and Cess-
ford 2004), a “town” (Hodder 2010a), and a “city” (Mellaart 1967); though
Düring and his contemporaries reject such an urban classification. Duffy and
colleagues discuss “nucleated village” settlements in Neolithic Europe, and
Figure 1.1 Locations of sites and regions discussed in this volume: (1) Çatalhöyük,
Konya Plain, Anatolia (Düring); (2) Körös Region, Great Hungarian Plain, Hungary
(Duffy et al.); (3) Azoria, Kavousi area, northeastern Crete (Haggis); (4) Taraco Pen-
insula, Lake Titicaca Basin (Beck); (5) Salinas Region, Southwestern United States
(Rautman); (6) Southern Tucson Basin, Southwestern United States (Wallace and
Lindeman); (7) South-central Ontario, Canada (Birch and Williamson); (8) Southern
Appalachians, Southeastern United States (Rodning).
Haggis focuses on an “archaic city” in Eastern Crete. Beck’s platform com-
plexes were constructed by middle formative “villagers” in Bolivia. Rautman
refers to the pueblo settlements in her study area in the U.S. Southwest as
“village-communities.” It is worth noting that the term pueblo has its etymo-
logical roots in the Castilian word for “town.” Wallace and Lindeman, also
writing about the Southwest, refer to “villages” and, more basically, “room
blocks and platform mounds with attached rooms,” noting that while earlier
researchers described settlements in the Lower Tucson Valley as “pueblos,”
they would not in fact be called pueblos by today’s definition. Moving to
eastern North America, the Cherokee “towns” discussed by Rodning (also
deriving their name from a European lexicon) are somewhat smaller than
the aggregated ancestral Huron “villages” discussed by Birch and Wil-
liamson. In terms of how these social formations developed, some resulted
from the aggregation of numerous small village-based communities whether
physically (e.g., Birch; Düring; Haggis; Rautman; Wallace and Lindeman) or
symbolically (e.g., Beck; Rodning), others were the result of the breakdown
or reorganization of larger or more complex social formations or were living
within range of such societies (e.g., Duffy et al.). Over time some went on to
become urbanized (e.g., Haggis). Others allied into polities or confederacies
(e.g., Birch; Rodning), and some eventually dissolved, returning to a more
distributed settlement pattern (e.g., Duffy et al.; Wallace and Lindeman).
In each case, the inhabitants of these communities faced a common chal-
lenge: how to organize and sustain populations living together in larger groups
than existed before. As such, we are not so much interested in why these settle-
ments formed, but rather how they came to be and how they were maintained.
Other questions include: Once people came together, what kept them together?
How did they provide the necessities of life for these populations? What role
did shared ideologies play in fostering a sense of community? What social,
political, economic, or formal mechanisms did people develop to maintain
community cohesion? Was sustained settlement nucleation a desired outcome,
or was it a short-lived response to particular historical or environmental con-
ditions? In what ways were they different compared to what came before? It
is the relationships between households, suprahousehold units, and commu-
nitywide organizational structures that are the subject of our interest. Because
mechanisms for both integrating and ordering populations develop primarily
in the context of day-to-day interaction and decision making, the local com-
munity is the most appropriate scale of analysis for exploring changes in social
production and reproduction in the context of settlement aggregation.
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF COMMUNITIES
This study places the community at the center of historical processes of

sociocultural change. The term community is frequently used in archaeo-
logical discourse yet remains somewhat amorphous in definition. In the
6 Jennifer Birch
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a multitude of sociologi-
cal and ethnographic studies have attempted to define the community as
a geographic area, a group of people living in a particular place, an area of
common life, and, in political discourse, a powerful organizing ideal (Cohen
1985; Etzioni 1995; Hoggett 1997; Suttles 1972). While the concept of com-
munity is put to different uses by scholars in various fields, the consensus
seems to be that the local community is one of the most important contexts
for social action, interaction, and identity formation (e.g., Boulware 2011;
Mac Sweeney 2011).
Most understandings of community have a sociospatial basis. Situated
between domestic household groups and societies writ large, the village
community is often the largest sociopolitical unit in small-scale societies
(Gerritsen 2003; Williamson and Robertson 1994). Early perspectives envi-
sioned communities as relatively static, closed, and homogeneous social
units composed of household clusters, discrete activity areas, and a shared
material culture, neatly compatible with archaeological definitions of “site”
(Flannery 1976; Murdock 1949). Later definitions favored a functionalist
and behavioralist characterization informed by theories based in political
economy. In this perspective, the community serves three broad functions:
social reproduction, subsistence production, and self-identification or group
association, which together create a sociospatial setting against which theo-
retical concepts can be examined (Kolb and Snead 1997). The emergence of
new perspectives on communities, both natural and imagined, has enriched
our interpretive frameworks for understanding their form and function
(cf. Anderson 1991; Canuto and Yaeger 2000; Isbell 2000). Rather than
reify communities as static building blocks of societies, these frameworks
are flexible and allow us to interrogate at various scales the relationships
between settlement remains, sociopolitical and economic practices, and cul-
tural production and reproduction.
A number of authors in this volume note that shared community identi-
ties likely preceded and may have facilitated physical aggregation in the
regions studied (Birch and Williamson; Haggis; Rautman; Wallace and Lin-
deman). Others discuss how architectural forms appropriated or extended
community relationships beyond the coresidential settlement (Beck; Rod-
ning). On the other hand, in her chapter, Alison Rautman asks the very
relevant question of whether aggregated settlements can justifiably be
called communities. If human communities are defined by sets of inter-
actions that play out in a sociospatial setting (Yaeger and Canuto 2000:
5), then they are never static, but always in a state of becoming through
politicized practices of negotiation and affiliation (Pauketat 2007: 107).
As the title of Beck’s conference paper (2011) in the session that prompted
this volume suggested, communities must be made from aggregations. My
work on ancestral Wendat settlements in Ontario has shown that the con-
struction of community-based identities does not occur immediately with
aggregation but evolves over multiple generations as people adapt to new
circumstances, both internal and external to their sociospatial environ-
ment, and foster new, community-based identities (Birch 2012). Peoples do
not immediately become a people. Furthermore, because people are often
pressed to aggregate because of negative or immediate external pressures
(Kowalewski 2006) or because aggregations were thought to be a tempo-
rary phenomenon (see Wallace and Lindeman, this volume), the creation of
common, community-based identities may not have been desirous or even
possible. Furthermore, while aggregation often has a macroregional basis,
each community develops within a set of uniquely constituted local contin-
gencies, and what is true for one aggregated settlement within a particular
region will not necessarily be for another.
As discussed below, while processes of cultural change might be visible
as long-term, large-scale phenomena, to understand how those localized
processes played out within individual communities we must adopt a mul-
tiscalar analytical approach that considers how local contingencies relate to
cultural change writ large. Only then can we compare how community-level
processes relate to regional trajectories of change and then make compari-
sons within and between regions. In other words, to answer big questions in
anthropological archaeology we need equally big data sets.
STUDYING SETTLEMENT AGGREGATION
Archaeological studies of settlement aggregation can generally be grouped

into two categories: regional studies and intrasite analyses of individual set-
tlements. Patterns of settlement aggregation are, by their very nature, often
identified at the regional level. Regional studies tend to focus on document-
ing and explaining population movement in large areas over long periods
of time, including demographic trends, changes in site size, migration, and
the abandonment of large tracts of land (e.g., Baird 2006; Goring-Morris
and Belfer-Cohen 2010; Hegmon et al. 1998; Hill et al. 2004; Simmons
2007). Many of these studies focus on external stimuli that are thought to
have caused migration and aggregation into larger settlements. These forces
include population growth (Bandy 2004; Warrick 2008), environmental and
climatic factors (Adler 1996; Hill et al. 2004), warfare (Arkush 2009; Le-
Blanc 1999), encroachment, colonization (Ethridge and Shuck-Hall 2009),
and the cycling of sociopolitical units (Anderson 1994; Parkinson 2002).
The second type of study focuses on intrasite analyses of individual settle-
ments, their histories of occupation, and the social, spatial, and temporal
dynamics they encapsulate (e.g., Hodder and Cessford 2004; Kintigh et al.
2004; Riggs 2001; Rodning 2009; Stone 2000). Site-specific studies have
produced a great deal of insight into the life histories of settlements and
how they were physically, ideologically, and symbolically constituted. Some
studies have also systematically addressed how aggregation produced orga-
nizational changes within communities (Kujit 2000; Tringham 2000). This
8 Jennifer Birch
is particularly true in the American Southwest, where settlement aggrega-
tion has consistently been a subject of scholarly interest (e.g., Adler 1996;
Kintigh et al. 2004; Lowell 1996; Rautman 2000; Riggs 2001; Stone 2000;
Wills and Leonard 1994).
Respectively, regional and site-level scales of analysis provide important
insights into broad settlement trajectories and intrasite dynamics. However,
less has been done to reconcile these two scales of analysis. It is only by
integrating insights from multiple spatial and temporal scales that we can
understand the relationships between long-term processes of cultural change
and the lived experience of everyday life, a relationship that is critical to
an anthropological archaeology of human societal evolution (Kuijt 2000;
Trigger 1967).
Most archaeological models that deal with settlement growth and the
development of organizational complexity treat population increases as a
result of mechanical growth (e.g., Bandy 2008; Carniero 1970; Johnson
1982). But sequences of sociopolitical development and population growth
can also proceed in a nonlinear fashion (e.g., Blanton et al. 1993; Flannery
1999; Warrick 2008). This assertion is supported by archaeological studies
that have demonstrated how different scales and forms of human settlement
have developed as the result of patterned variation, including fission, fusion,
and cycling (e.g., Bandy 2004; Birch 2012; Parkinson 2002; Peterson and
Drennan 2012).
A substantial body of literature has developed around the idea of
density-dependent conflict in human populations (e.g., Carniero 1987; Fein-
man 2011; Fletcher 1995; Johnson 1978, 1982). At the regional level, the
increasing size of human groups has been used to explain the development
of hierarchical leadership and organizational complexity as environmen-
tally or socially circumscribed populations competed for control over
critical resources and territory (e.g., Carniero 1970; Ember 1963; LeBlanc
2008). Population increases have likewise been linked to increasing levels
of conflict or scalar stress within individual communities. Rappaport pro-
posed that sources of irritation increased geometrically as population size
increased, and if population increased in a linear fashion, an “irritation
coefficient” could be expressed mathematically (1968: 116). This linear,
logarithmic model was adopted by Johnson (1978), who approached the
problem from the perspective of organizational theory and argued that as
population grows, decision making becomes increasingly difficult, resulting
in community fission or the development of horizontal and vertical inte-
gration. Fletcher (1995) has discussed how there is an upper limit on how
much interaction people can tolerate before encountering communication
stress and that the built environment can be used to constrain and control
stress. Nevertheless, the ability of material barriers to manage such stress
is finite, resulting in constraints on settlement growth (Fletcher 1995: 71).
Dunbar (2003, 2011) has suggested a physiological explanation for den-
sity-dependent social stress, arguing that the computational capacity of the
human brain is incapable of tolerating group sizes of more than 100 to 200
persons. In order for human communities to grow beyond this threshold
structured social networks and grouping patterns must be developed.
Many of these formulations for estimating density-dependent stress
assume that population increases mechanically over time through natural,
albeit variable, growth rates. In this model, scalar stress thereby increases
in a curvilinear or geometric fashion. As social and communication stress
increases, social, political, material, and economic mechanisms are gradually
developed and bring about organizational change. If the stress becomes more
than the community can manage through existing mechanisms of social and
political organization, the result is either fission into more, smaller social
units (Bandy 2004; Carniero 1987), the development of suprahousehold
organizations to reduce the numbers of decision-making units, or the rise
of leadership hierarchies to coordinate community functions and adjudicate
disputes (Carniero 1970; Johnson 1982).
In cases where settlements grow as a result of aggregation or nucleation,
population increases rapidly through accretion. Density-dependent con-
flict does not build up gradually over time. Instead, it is more immediate,
necessitating the rapid development of mechanisms to manage the potential
for disputes through the integration and ordering of community members,
households, and suprahousehold groups. Because the creation of aggregated
settlements is often rapid and deliberate, the creation of mechanisms to inte-
grate, order, and manage tensions is also intentional. These mechanisms
may be the same as those used to integrate settlements that grow slowly
over time. For example, the built environment, social norms, and ritual are
used to mediate social relations in most human societies. Indeed, the entities
and activities that facilitate large social aggregates are rarely, if ever, cre-
ated anew. They have their basis in existing cultural traditions, and political
institutions (Belfer-Cohen and Goring-Morris 2011). The conscious estab-
lishment of new social and political structures plays out against a shared
cultural background acquired through socialization (Blanton et al. 1996).
With aggregation, these mechanisms were transformed, reconfigured, or
given new emphasis in order to reproduce, transform, integrate, and order
these new, larger social formations (Kowalewski 2006).
Ethnographies that describe aggregated settlements provide unique
insights into the lived experience of communities and how the mechanisms
that maintained them played out in living social relationships—those behav-
iors that we, as archaeologists, seek to reconstruct. In Social Complexity in
the Making (2001), Donald Tuzin describes the village of Ilahita, an Arapesh
village of unprecedented size in the highlands of New Guinea. Ilahita was
a very large multilingual and multiethnic village that formed in the early
twentieth century and grew rapidly through the incorporation of refugees
and war allies during a period of heightened conflict in the region. The
questions at the center of Tuzin’s inquiry are essentially the same as ours:
How did the village become so unusually large? and How did it remain
10 Jennifer Birch
intact? He found that the integration of Ilahita’s population was accom-
plished through dual organization through eight opposed and intersecting
moiety systems with defined social and ritual obligations between wards and
clans and the Tambaran, the central ritual institution and secret men’s cult
focused on war, sacrifice, and rites of initiation, which welded the units of
Ilahita society into “a cooperating, mechanical whole” (Tuzin 2001: 100).
The interplay between the moiety system and the Tambaran was one of
structural coherence and functional efficiency, which simultaneously inte-
grated and ordered social life in Ilahita (Tuzin 2001: 10–14, 58). These are
precisely the types of social mechanisms that make aggregated communities
work by structuring social relations and integrating social units into a uni-
fied whole—the mechanisms that we, as archaeologists, must attempt to
identify to understand what made aggregation possible.
COALESCENT SOCIETIES
A significant point of departure for understanding how processes of settlement

aggregation unfolded in communities is Stephen Kowalewski’s concept of
“coalescent societies” (2006). The term coalescent society was first employed
in a volume edited by Ethridge and Hudson (2002; cf. Drooker 2002; Rod-
ning 2002; see also Lehmer 1954) to describe Southeastern American polities
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such as the Cherokee, Creek, and
Choctaw. These social formations were composed of the remnants of Mis-
sissippian peoples who had experienced demographic collapse as a result of
colonization, epidemic diseases, and the English slave trade. The responses
of the native populations were varied but, by and large, involved the coales-
cence of new social formations in new locations with new political institutions
(Kowalewski 2006: 95). Inspired by this phenomenon, Kowalewski examined
other societies in the Americas and elsewhere to explore whether coalescent
societies could be identified beyond the Southeast. Comparing societies
described in the ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological records from
Africa, New Guinea, Amazonia, Mesoamerica, and the North American
Plains, Southwest, and Northeast, he found that people in other places and
times did indeed come together in comparable ways and exhibited similar
processes, responses, and institutions. Those processes include: The creation
of larger towns or villages with multiethnic, multilingual populations; move-
ment to new locations that provide security and resources necessary to sustain
the population; collective defense; intensification of local production; changes
in the social means of production; intensification of trade; elaboration of
community integration by means of corporate kin groups, moieties, unilin-
eal (often matrilineal) descent groups or clan systems; architectural planning
and settlement layouts designed to promote community integration; uni-
versalizing, collective, and egalitarian ideologies and ritual practices; myths
emphasizing incorporation and ordering of groups; an emphasis on collective
or corporate leadership, including councils and confederacies whereby hierar-
chical leadership was actively discouraged; and a macroregional cultural and
political-economic context (Kowalewski 2006: 117). While similar conditions
prompted comparable responses, the variability in these patterns is such that
coalescent societies should not be viewed as a societal type but rather a process
that occurred similarly among middle-range, pre-state societies in a variety of
contexts and that brought about major social, political, and economic trans-
formations that affected virtually every aspect of a society and its culture
(Kowalewski 2007: 434).
Outside of the Southeast (cf. Blitz 2010; Pluckhahn 2010), the coales-
cent society model has been most productively employed in the American
Southwest (Hill et al. 2004). I have also effectively employed Kowalewski’s
model in Northeastern North America to understand processes of settlement
aggregation among late precontact Northern Iroquoian populations (Birch
2012). Much as Alfred Kidder described the Pueblo III period as one of cul-
tural “greatness” (Adler 1996), Bruce Trigger described the fifteenth century
as a period of “cultural fluorescence” for ancestral Huron societies (1985:
100). In these cases, and elsewhere, it is now apparent that the pronounced
size of communities and the cultural transformations they brought about
were not an apex of cultural development but rather the result of a process
of macroregional coalescence.
Not every instance of settlement aggregation can be explained through
the coalescent society model. But many of the traits of coalescent societies
are shared with the aggregated settlements discussed in this volume. Where
Kowalewski’s model is of the greatest utility is in its pointing to the mecha-
nisms through which aggregation is accomplished. Some of these are more
tangible than others. For example, we stand a better chance of reconstructing
settlement layouts and identifying fortifications than we do understanding
prehistoric ideologies or origin myths. While large-scale patterns in settle-
ment trends and trajectories of sociopolitical realignment may be visible at
the regional scale, it is difficult to discern the actual mechanisms for socio-
political change using such a top-down approach. Instead, through detailed
examinations of microscale patterns at the local and community level, we
may be able to identify changes in social practices that speak directly to the
lived experience of coalescence. In this way, what we are doing here is tak-
ing Kowalewski’s model of societal coalescence down an order of magnitude
to identify the material correlates of these sociocultural transformations in
local contexts.
HISTORY, PROCESS, AND PRACTICE
Archaeologists tend to talk about generalized histories and processes of cul-

tural change as opposed to the lived experiences of everyday life (Barrett
1994). This is in part a product of the data we are dealing with and the
12 Jennifer Birch
methods we use to collect it. Different scales of analysis reveal different
cycles of historical time, ranging from the short-term events and moments
that make up individual lives to the medium-term cycles of economic and
political change to long-term changes in ecology and evolution (Bintliff
1991; Braudel 1972). How archaeologists move between these temporal
sequences has everything to do with the questions we ask, the phenom-
ena we seek to explain, and the methods we employ. Here, our aim is to
understand how the process of coming together produced localized, com-
munity-based changes in social relations and how these changes resulted in
long-term, large-scale cultural transformations. To do so we need to iden-
tify the materiality of those changes at the local and community level and
situate them in a macroregional context. Cultures and communities do not
exist independently of the social relations that produce and reproduce them
(Cohen 1985; Giddens 1984). As archaeologists, we need to seek out mate-
rial evidence for social relationships and the practices through which social
relations were maintained. Like Barrett (1994: 3), we are arguing “against
the dichotomy which has been erected between life as lived in the immediate
and the short-term, and the history of long-term social institutions” by situ-
ating explanatory power in the relationship between short-term practices
and long-term processes of sociocultural change.
Anthropological archaeology has recently experienced a theoretical
convergence, bridging a number of theories of the recent past and pres-
ent (Hegmon 2003; Pauketat 2003; Trigger 2007: 497). Archaeologists are
increasingly situating explanatory power in an understanding of historical
processes centered on theories of practice and structuration albeit in tangible
form (Bourdieu 1977; Giddens 1984). This paradigm asserts that traditions
or practices are the active forces in cultural construction and transmission
(Pauketat 2001, 2003; Thomas 2004). Identifying the materiality and spati-
ality of those practices in the archaeological record enables us to tack back
and forth between various scales of analysis to document variability through
time and across space and to compare genealogies of practice embodied in
the material record of the populations being studied (Brumfiel 2000: 252;
Lightfoot et al. 1998; Pauketat and Alt 2005: 230; Wylie 1989). By applying
an approach grounded in history and practice to the archaeology of aggre-
gated settlements, the focus of explanation shifts from questions of why
people aggregate to how aggregation was accomplished (Pauketat 2001). To
explore how this process played out over space and time we need to identify
and interpret how material culture was utilized to mediate these new social
and physical environments.
Contemporary anthropologists recognize that cultures are inherently
dynamic, and this is particularly so for communities undergoing processes
of coalescence. As Kowalewski (this volume) notes, the archaeological cases
discussed here all represent circumstances in which social structures were in
the process of changing. If we acknowledge that the process of aggregation
drove major transformations in sociopolitical structures and the cultural
frameworks in which they are embedded, then we must also recognize that
these changes were shaped by the unique, and historically contingent, situa-
tion and composition of each community. Although, as Kowalewski pointed
out in his original statement on coalescent societies (2006), processes of
aggregation may involve commonly occurring responses, not all cases
exhibit every feature. As such, our aim in this volume is not to produce a
generalized model of settlement aggregation and community transformation
but to explore the range of variation in how people altered their way of life
as they came together into different social formations.
THE MATERIALITY OF COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION:

A COMPARATIVE APPROACH
If our aim is to identify evidence for the changes in practice that accompanied
coalescence—the tangible, material record of community transformation—
we require large data sets, both at the regional and community levels, with
sufficient chronological control of their components to construct settlement
histories and recognize those changes over time.
To identify that a particular settlement was a product of aggregation
we need to have some understanding of what came before. In most cases,
settlement aggregates were the result of the nucleation of non-coresidential
communities that had extant relationships and affiliations. While aggrega-
tion brought about significant changes in social, political, and economic life,
people did not necessarily develop entirely new cultural traits. Existing orga-
nizational structures and practices were transformed or reworked, giving
materials, ideologies, traditions, and sociopolitical institutions new empha-
sis to meet the organizational needs of larger population aggregates. Those
preexisting relations facilitated aggregation through the strengthening or
exploitation of existing ties. Understanding the nature of those relation-
ships provides a historical context for understanding how settlements and
the social, political, and economic organization of their inhabitants were
transformed in the context of coalescence.
Each of the authors in this volume explores how built forms were used to
integrate aggregated populations through the structuring and restructuring
of domestic spaces, maintain separation between household and community
groups, or both. Built forms are both a class of material culture and a sym-
bolic expression of a larger cultural framework (Bourdieu 1970). From a
functional perspective, architecture provides a place to shelter from the ele-
ments and store food and other necessities of life. One of the central tenets
of most archaeological approaches to the built environment is that it is
intrinsically linked to the society and culture of the occupants and, as such,
both reflects and influences the social actions and interactions that take
place in and around it (Hillier and Hanson 1984; Lawrence and Low 1990;
Rapoport 1990). The ways in which these built forms are positioned relative
14 Jennifer Birch
to one another reflects the relationship between constituent domestic groups
and the social whole. When aggregated settlements formed rapidly in new
locations, the inhabitants would have had a degree of flexibility in reorga-
nizing the built environment to suit their immediate needs. Changes in these
material settings before, during, and after aggregation signal changes in
those relationships and can aid archaeologists in understanding how social
relations were transformed, reproduced, or maintained. The separation of
different architectural units, such as households and groups of households,
may be interpreted as denoting the boundaries of smaller social units within
the larger group. Likewise, a lack of separation can suggest a greater degree
of integration.
Each chapter in this volume also considers how the construction of public
buildings and demarcation of public spaces helped to both integrate and
order communities. These structures and spaces served as contexts for ritual
activities, secular functions, or both. Worldwide, a repetitive correlation
exists between aggregation and public architecture (cf. Adler and Wilshusen
1990; Lipe and Hegmon 1989). This category includes structures such as
council houses, clan houses, plazas, ritual enclosures, and men’s houses. In
a cross-cultural survey of large-scale integrative facilities in tribal societies,
Adler and Wilshusen (1990) found that the importance of facilities that
facilitated community integration beyond the household level developed
concomitantly with the stresses associated with controlling information and
decision making in increasingly larger communities (cf. Johnson 1982).
Beck discusses how platform mound complexes and associated ritual
behaviors first structured asymmetrical relationships between social groups
and subsequently allowed one group to appropriate that architecture and
extend the concept of a single community identity across the Taraco Pen-
insula. The construction of public and domestic architecture such as the
rooftop courtyards discussed by Düring, the spine walls that linked mul-
tiple domestic structures discussed by Haggis and Rautman, public buildings
such as the Cherokee townhouses discussed by Rodning, and the plazas
discussed by Duffy and colleagues, Rautman, and Birch and Williamson
served to integrate communities through the investment of labor in com-
munity infrastructure and the interactions that took place in the context of
those spaces. In the example provided by Wallace and Lindeman, while there
is little integration between room-block and platform mound complexes, a
ritual enclosure set apart from dwellings may have been a setting for com-
munitywide ritual practices.
The development of corporate political organization may not be imme-
diately apparent in the archaeological record. It can often be recognized
through the absence of evidence for internal differentiation that might
suggest hierarchical divisions in wealth or authority. The presence of col-
lective decision making may be made tangible through the presence of civic
architecture and evidence for universalizing institutions such as those dis-
cussed by Beck, Haggis, and Rodning. Even mundane activities such as the
implementation of a community-wide waste management system at the Man-
tle site, discussed by Birch and Williamson, implies coordinated community
planning on a scale that included the entire population.
Aggregation also would have brought about changes in practices related
to the production and consumption of foodstuffs and material goods. The
larger populations of communities necessitated the intensification of local
agricultural production (Kowalewski 2003, this volume). Furthermore, the
conditions that prompted aggregation (e.g., warfare, encroachment) may
have reduced people’s ability to venture afield in pursuit of a broader subsis-
tence base. Wallace and Lindeman suggest that the incompletely aggregated
community at Martinez ruin collaborated to maintain infrastructure neces-
sary to support farming in a marginal environment; Haggis discusses the
appearance of material culture which suggests that communal food prepa-
ration and consumption, and perhaps production, was an important part
of community life; and Birch and Williamson discuss cooperative hunting
strategies required to clothe larger coresidential populations and how pre-
sumed shortfalls in hides obtained by hunters in the community may have
necessitated trade and exchange with populations to the north. Kowalewski,
in the concluding chapter, draws out the relationship between settlement
aggregation and labor, both in terms of the physical work related to, for
example, agricultural intensification and the “social work” of cultural
change through collective action.
SUMMARY
This volume follows in the vein of a number of recent works that have
called for a comparative archaeological approach to understanding vari-
ability in human societies at a variety of scales (cf. Bandy and Fox 2010;
Drennan et al. 2012; Trigger 2003; Yoffee 2005). Anthropology is first and
foremost a holistic and comparative science. As such, our aims are char-
acterized by our goals and approach as opposed to being bound by any
regional or temporal scope. Without undertaking meaningful, comparative
research, we risk becoming overly involved in regionalized explanations for
why and how cultures changed. By undertaking comparisons that incor-
porate long-term social variability and trajectories of cultural change, we
can move beyond comparative studies of sociocultural types and toward a
more nuanced understanding of how historical processes of change unfold
in individual communities.
The case studies presented in this volume are organized chronologically
for no reason other than the range of time periods discussed seemed ame-
nable to this order of presentation, although the resulting chapters do flow
from the old world to the new. Taken as a whole, they provide a comparative,
anthropological, and archaeological perspective on the social and cultural
transformations that transpire when people come to live together in new
16 Jennifer Birch
social formations. Because this form of social evolution does not correspond
to the usual framework for understanding transitions between sociocultural
types, it requires an explanatory framework that examines how existing
traditions were reproduced, transformed, and created anew. People do not
conceptualize their societies and communities as rungs on an evolutionary
ladder, and neither should we. Instead we must focus on how changes in
human relationships and material practices at the community level can pro-
vide insights into how peoples and cultures changed on a grand scale. By
doing so, we can broaden our understanding of human societies to under-
stand the true complexity of human societies of the ancient and recent past.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to all of the participants in the session “Come Together: Regional
Perspectives on Settlement Aggregation” held at the 2011 Society for Ameri-
can Archaeology meetings in Sacramento, California. While not all of those
papers are included in this volume, they were all very helpful in refining the
important themes covered here. This work was supported by a Social Sci-
ences and Humanities Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship, which
took place in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Georgia
under the advisement of Stephen Kowalewski. Thanks to Stephen Kow-
alewski and Ron Williamson, who provided comments on earlier drafts of
this chapter. Thanks also to members of the archaeology faculty and gradu-
ate students at the University of Georgia for meeting to discuss this topic as
a group. All errors or omissions are my responsibility alone.
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2 The Anatomy of a Prehistoric
Community
Reconsidering Çatalhöyük
Bleda S. Düring
In the Near Eastern Neolithic, there are a number of instances where we

seem to be dealing with large social agglomerations. These cases have raised
the issue of how such settlements and communities can best be understood.
Overall there has been a tendency to conflate size and function (Hole 2000).
This chapter addresses how the large, aggregated community of Çatalhöyük
was constituted. It will be argued that too little attention has been given to
the social practices, mentalities, and collectivities that made up the prehis-
toric community at Çatalhöyük. This situation also applies more broadly
to Near Eastern archaeology. I will briefly summarize the arguments put
forward for Çatalhöyük, on the one hand, and a number of large sites dating
to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B in Jordan, on the other, to illustrate how these
sites have been interpreted in recent decades.
Çatalhöyük is a Neolithic site located in central Turkey, the main sequence
of which dates to the seventh millennium BC (Figure 2.1). Although the
development of the Çatalhöyük settlement in the context of regional settle-
ment trajectories is not yet completely understood (but see Baird 2005), we
are fairly confident that at its peak this settlement housed between 5,000 and
8,000 people (Cessford 2005; Düring 2007; Hodder 2005; Matthews 1996).
This is a sizeable population for the Near Eastern Neolithic. Settlements with
no more than 300 people are reconstructed as the norm in Neolithic Cyprus,
Greece, and the Balkans (Peltenburg et al. 2001: 53; Perlès, 2001: 178–180)
and in Turkey, in the Lake District and Western Anatolia (Roodenberg 1999:
197). Most Neolithic sites in the Fertile Crescent would probably also have
fallen into this size range (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003: 58–60).
How, then, have archaeologists interpreted the relatively large social
agglomeration at Çatalhöyük? First, the site has often been classified as
urban (Jacobs 1969; Mellaart 1965, 1967; Rosenberg 2003; Ülkekul 1999).
However, apart from its size, there are no good arguments that support
this classification. The concept of urbanism is not primarily concerned with
population size, but denotes a type of settlement at the apex of a differen-
tiated settlement system, in which the urban settlement has asymmetrical
relations with a hinterland of smaller settlements and is characterized by
the presence of craft, religious, military, or managerial specialists depending
24 Bleda S. Düring
Figure 2.1 Early Neolithic sites in Asia Minor mentioned in this chapter.
on the produce of others for their subsistence (Emberling 2003; Hole 2000:
255; Nissen 2004; Trigger 2003: 120). There is no evidence for such spe-
cialization at Çatalhöyük, and its hinterland seems devoid of contemporary
smaller settlements (Baird 2005; Düring 2007; Hodder 2005).
Beyond attempts at pigeonholing Çatalhöyük as an urban settlement,
which I regard as a normative category that has detracted from the study of
the manner in which the community was constituted at the site, relatively
little has been written on the question of how to understand this large social
agglomeration. Hodder does ask “how the settlement was organized, and
how this organization can inform the interpretation of the site as a village,
town, or city” (2005: 126; see also 2006: 91–108). He then goes on to
infer the presence of two moieties at the site on the basis of the site’s mor-
phology—it has two summits—and notes the possibility that the settlement
might have been subdivided into neighborhoods, but he moves on quickly
to a detailed discussion of houses, the use of space within them, and the
construction of social memories through the medium of the house. In the
end, he concludes that the Çatalhöyük agglomeration was a by-product of
the status differentiation of houses and the desire to remain close to the
ancestral house (Hodder 2005: 137; 2006).
Although there can be little doubt that houses were of central importance
in the constitution of Çatalhöyük society (Düring 2007; Hodder and Pels
2010), one is left with the question of whether houses provide the complete
picture of social interaction at Çatalhöyük. Approximately one in six build-
ings seems to have been a high-status house with a large number of subfloor
burials (Düring 2007), and this gives us a hint of the social scale at which
The Anatomy of a Prehistoric Community 25
these elaborate houses would have operated in a settlement estimated to
have included some 1,000 to 1,600 houses. Clearly, the Çatalhöyük com-
munity cannot be adequately understood only as a house-based society.
With its size of 13 hectares, Çatalhöyük is by no means unique in the
Near Eastern Neolithic: other examples include Abu Hureyra, Domuztepe,
Sha’ar Hagolan, and a number of Jordanian sites of the Aceramic Neo-
lithic (Bienert 2004: 21; Ben-Shlomo and Garfinkel 2009; Carter et al. 2003;
Moore et al. 2000: 270). I would like to focus here on these Jordanian
sites, which have been labeled as “megasites.” These date to the Late Pre-
Pottery Neolithic B (7500–7000 BC) and measure about 10 to15 hectares in
area. This group includes the sites of ‘Ain Ghazal, Wadi Shu’aib, es-Sifiya,
and al-Baseet, which have been the topic of considerable debate. First, the
rise of these relatively large communities in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic
B has been explained as resulting from the eastward migration of people
from Palestine who had supposedly depleted their environments. Second,
the demise of these large communities after the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic
B has similarly been interpreted as resulting from environmental depletion
(Gebel 2004; Rollefson 2004; Simmons 2000).
Much ink has been spilled over the issue of whether these places are best
understood as large villages or urban settlements (Bienert 2004; Gebel 2004;
Rollefson 2004) without reaching a satisfactory consensus. As at Çatalhöyük,
these settlements seem to have been located in more or less empty landscapes,
and there do not appear to have been differentiated settlement systems in
which the megasites functioned as central places. Settlement size does also
not seem to be correlated with sociopolitical complexity (Hole 2000).
Another issue explored in various studies on the Jordanian megasites
is how these large communities, estimated to have encompassed between
1,000 and 3,000 people, avoided the social stresses resulting from agglom-
erating. Kuijt (1999) has suggested that an increasing compartmentalization
of the built environment served to create buffers that reduced the amount of
social interaction and has suggested that burials and other rituals served an
important role in mitigating social stress and maintaining community cohe-
sion (see also Goring-Morris 2000; Kuijt 2000; Rollefson 2000; Simmons
2000). Nevertheless, social stresses are often held accountable for the even-
tual collapse of the Jordanian megasites (Rollefson 2000; Simmons 2000).
Comparing the two examples of Çatalhöyük and the Jordanian Late
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B megasites, it is clear that, in both cases, two main
interpretations have been put forward. One interpretation is that these
were urban settlements, a view that is problematic in light of the absence of
differentiated settlement systems and the lack of evidence for full-time spe-
cialists at these sites, which are dominated by domestic buildings. Another
interpretation of these sites focuses on the social stress that results from
living in large-scale agglomerations and what mechanisms people devel-
oped to reduce this stress, in particular by creating architectural barriers to
reduce social interaction and through rituals and feasts that mitigated social
26 Bleda S. Düring
tensions and bonded people. What is largely missing in studies of both Çat-
alhöyük and the Jordanian megasites, however, is a consideration of how
these early communities worked and how people interacted within them.
This is surprising given that we are dealing with some of the earliest and
best-documented large-scale social agglomerations in the world and that
their study could shed considerable light on the origins of complex societies.
SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND SOCIETAL ARCHAEOLOGY
At this point I would like to raise the question of why reconstructions of

how the societies of Çatalhöyük and the Jordanian megasites were consti-
tuted have been poorly developed in the discourse dealing with early large
agglomerations. Here, we should consider archaeological interpretative
frameworks more broadly.
Archaeology in recent decades has overprivileged what I would call
the “micro-scale” of social interaction (Bintliff 1993: 97–98; Düring and
Marciniak 2005; Gerritsen 2004: 144; Kovacik 2002). Famously, Shanks
and Tilley (1987: 57–58) claimed that: “society, in the sense of the social
totality doesn’t exist” and “social order is the achievement of practice.”
The resulting focus on issues such as gender, identity, personhood, agency,
and households has, however, also led to a neglect of other levels of social
association and the ways in which these are constituted (Davis 1992: 345;
Garfinkel 1998: 225; Jones 2005; Soja 1996). While there can be little doubt
that society is constituted through practice, it does not follow that more
inclusive levels of social association do not have a real existence. The line of
argumentation put forward by Shanks and Tilley is mirrored in recent years
in what has been branded “social archaeology” in publications such as A
Companion to Social Archaeology (Meskell and Preucel 2004), and, from
2001, the Journal of Social Archaeology. According to Meskell and col-
leagues (2001: 6) and Hodder (2002), social archaeology is about “identity,
meaning and practice” and about being reflexive on the role of archaeology
in the modern world.
To differentiate between this form of social archaeology and archaeo-
logical studies focusing on the reconstruction of ancient societies, Patterson
and Orser (2004: 11) found it necessary to introduce the term “societal
archaeology,” which concerns itself with “the archaeology of society or
social organizations.” Gosden prefers “the organization of society,” which
refers to “the form, structure and pattern of relationships of people within
society” (1999: 470).
One important approach to the discussion of social organization in
archaeology has been “neoevolutionary” studies, which classified societ-
ies in terms of the institutionalization of social inequality and range from
egalitarian to stratified. A series of developmental stages were distinguished,
such as Service’s (1962) fourfold classification of societies into bands, tribes,
chiefdoms, and states; Fried’s (1967) distinction of egalitarian, ranked,
stratified, and state societies; or Johnson and Earle’s (1987) family-level
group, local group, and regional polity. What these classifications have in
common is that the total spectrum of societal forms is condensed into a
few types, the organizing principle of which is a relation between popu-
lation size and social complexity and, more specifically, social inequality.
However, the classification of societies into a few types makes it difficult to
study transitional stages and changes in social structure, and the ideal types
do little to elucidate the specifics of archaeological cases (Hodder 1982).
The most systematic neoevolutionist study of Near Eastern archaeology is
undoubtedly that of Redman (1978). Reflecting on Çatalhöyük, he notes
that: “To organize a system that had increased tenfold, the mechanisms for
regulating organization and flow of information had to increase more than
tenfold. Hence, it is not surprising that extraordinary attention was given
to ritualism and that rooms whose function were ritualistic were abundant”
(Redman 1978: 186). He goes on to argue that there were scalar limits to
“ritual integration” beyond which point the Çatalhöyük model failed and
collapsed. This interpretation by Redman illustrates the tendency of neo-
evolutionary approaches to focus on scalar stress and system integration
(Johnson 1982) rather than what empirical data might tell us about the
nature and structure of human interactions and how these might have con-
stituted prehistoric communities.
Other archaeological studies have drawn distinctions between group
and network strategies of social interaction along lines similar to Douglas’s
(1982) group- and grid-oriented societies. Renfrew (1974, 2001) distin-
guished between group-oriented and individualizing societies, in which
group-oriented societies assign little importance to prominent individuals
and yet are capable of significant collective social action, whereas in indi-
vidualizing societies, the elite distinguishes itself from the rest of society by
means of conspicuous display and consumption. Other archaeologists such
as Blanton and colleagues (1996) and Feinman (2000) have drawn a parallel
distinction between exclusionary and corporate power; exclusionary power
is exercised in networks of personal relations, whereas corporate power is
shared across different groups and sectors of society. While these distinc-
tions make the point that socially complex societies need not be based on
social inequalities, they focus on one particular aspect of social life: the sorts
of relations people have to one another.
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS
Archaeological reconstructions of past societies largely have been focused

on: first, ideal types of societies and how to recognize these; and, second,
the issue of scalar stress and system integration and whether this required
social stratification. Instead I argue that we should start our studies with an
28 Bleda S. Düring
assessment of what our archaeological data can tell us about the types of
social interactions through which societies were constituted. A useful starting
point is the idea that social structure consists of “systems of human relations
among social positions” (Porpora 1989: 195; see also Archer 1995). This
perspective foregrounds two important issues: one, that society is structured
through social interactions and, two, that these interactions are, for the most
part, not random but take place between people occupying social positions
that take on their content in relation to systems of human relations. These
systems of human relations can refer to a class system, in which everyone
will occupy a position, but may also refer to a family, in which each mem-
ber also occupies a specific social position and may “motivate people to act
on interests structurally built into their social positions” (Porpora 1989:
200; also Lopéz and Scott 2000: 29–31). Further, societies are best under-
stood as sets of nested social structures (Carter and New 2004: 8). Thus,
we can study past societies as multiscalar phenomena, consisting of a series
of nested social structures that are constituted by regular and circumscribed
social interactions by actors with particular social positions. Obviously, the
form and articulation of the nested social structures is culturally specific.
The aspect that is of interest to archaeologists in a perspective on social
organization grounded in daily activities and interactions is that these often
have a material component. Building and settlement organization structure
social interaction to a significant degree, and by studying the spatial order
in the built environment and contextual data that inform us about activities
that took place in them, we can start to reconstruct past social organiza-
tion on the basis of our data rather than starting from typologies. Such an
approach has precedents in archaeology. Undoubtedly the best known is The
Early Mesoamerican Village, edited by Kent Flannery (1976), where Forma-
tive Mesoamerica was studied at the scales of the household, the household
cluster, the residential ward, the village, and the settlement system. For each
of these analytical levels, Flannery and colleagues considered the relevant
archaeological data and reconstructed the associated social structures. In
this way a reconstruction of society as consisting of nested social structures
could be put forward. Remarkably, despite the fame of The Early Meso-
american Village, its approach of studying societies as series of nested social
structures has had surprisingly little impact outside of American archaeol-
ogy. Elizabeth Stone, however, has worked in a similar way in the Near East
and has reconstructed Mesopotamian cities dating to the third and second
millennia BC as a series of nested social structures (Stone 1987, 2007).
THE ANATOMY OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AT ÇATALHÖYÜK
In the remainder of this chapter I explore the ways in which social interac-
tions might have been structured within a nested series of social structures at
Çatalhöyük. These social structures were grounded in shared activities and
experiences, personal relations, and face-to-face interactions. The follow-
ing discussion focuses on the articulation of households at Çatalhöyük, the
ritual differentiation of houses, the Çatalhöyük neighborhoods, and, finally,
the local community and how it may have interrelated with other communi-
ties. The discussions will be brief, as more extensive discussions have already
been published elsewhere (Düring 2006, 2007).
Households at Çatalhöyük
Households are units of economic and social cooperation commonly defined
on the basis of a combination of shared residence and the pooling of eco-
nomic resources (Wilk and Rathje 1982: 619–621), although these functions
do not necessarily overlap (Allison 1999: 4–5; Düring and Marciniak 2005).
For this reason, household studies must include an analysis of the uses to
which spaces in buildings are put and how these spaces may have related
to household groups. Households can range from autonomous domestic
groups residing in discrete buildings where goods were stored and domes-
tic and craft activities were performed within the residence (manifested in
the presence of special-purpose activity areas and features in buildings) to
households dispersed over disconnected spaces executing their domestic
activities in locales not exclusively associated with any particular household.
At Çatalhöyük, buildings can be distinguished readily on the basis of
the articulation of their exterior walls. Despite the fact that buildings were
constructed directly adjacent to one another and were often surrounded by
other buildings on all sides, they generally had their own sets of outer walls.
In general, the buildings differentiated in this manner are remarkably stan-
dardized and fall into a restricted size range of about 10 to 40 square meters,
with an average of about 27 square meters (Figure 2.2). Buildings normally
had a main room, which contained fire installations (hearths and ovens), had
one or more platforms, and averaged 21 square meters in size; many also
had one or more small, subsidiary rooms which often contained silos and
averaged 5 square meters in size. The interior furnishings of the buildings
at Çatalhöyük form a consistent set of features, including hearths, ovens,
platforms, and storage features, with a very standardized spatial configura-
tion and orientation of elements (Hodder 1990; Mellaart 1967: 56–63). In
the south of the living rooms, one typically finds hearths, ovens, the ladder
entrance, storage features, and a relatively dirty compartment with remnants
of cooking, heating, and craft practices (Düring 2006: 180–192; Matthews
2005). The modular sizes of the buildings, the fact that they all had a main
room with cooking facilities, an area devoted to rest, platforms, and a stan-
dardized set of domestic features suggests that at Çatalhöyük households
were spatially discrete and economically autonomous entities.
The number of persons in these households can only be tentatively esti-
mated. Based on house sizes, Matthews (1996: 86) estimated the average
household size to be four persons. The average household size at Çatalhöyük
30 Bleda S. Düring
25
20
>- 15
u
c
(J)
::J
rr
~
u.. 10
o 12-13 13-17 17-21 21-25 25-29 29-33 33-37 37-41 41-45 45-49 49-53 53-57 57-61 61-65
Size in m2
Figure 2.2 Spread of house sizes at Çatalhöyük (N = 105).
also may be modeled on the basis of the number of compartments found

within the houses. Mellaart postulated that some of these compartments
functioned as beds and estimated that the sleeping compartments would
have accommodated a maximum of eight residents, while noting that the
normal size of the group would have been more in the range of three to four
(Mellaart 1967: 60). A closer analysis of these platforms has demonstrated
that those in the northeast and east were the most standardized in dimen-
sions and would have been most suitable as beds (Düring 2006: 181–182).
Accordingly, it may be suggested that, in the average living room, there
would have been space for between four and six people in the clean com-
partments in the north and east of the building. As a hypothesis, an average
of about five inhabitants to a building seems plausible as an estimate for
modal household size.
Ritual Differentiation in Çatalhöyük Houses

Apart from features such as hearths, ovens, and storage bins—found in
most buildings and related to domestic activities—there are elements such
as wall paintings, molded features, and subfloor burials in some houses.
These are less common and possibly relate to ritual activities. Confronted
with the spectacular molded and painted imagery found in the buildings
at Çatalhöyük, Mellaart (1967: 77–78) argued that many of the buildings
he excavated should be interpreted as shrines rather than houses and that
these spaces were devoted to cultic practices. The distinction Mellaart made
between shrines and houses was found wanting by a number of scholars.
Heinrich and Seidl (1969: 116) argued that Mellaart did not rigorously apply
his own criteria for distinguishing between the two. Similar critiques were
put forward by members of the new Çatalhöyük project (Hamilton 1996:
226; Ritchey 1996). Although initially Hodder argued that all buildings
were homologous household residences imbued with symbolism, in which
the same symbolic structures were celebrated and played out, as exemplified
in his “domus” concept (Hodder 1990), in recent years he has shifted to the
position that there is ritual differentiation between buildings. In particular,
he has argued that Çatalhöyük houses have features similar to those known
from house societies, in which some houses with a long pedigree became
symbols of social identities of groups encompassing many households and
acquired greater ritual significance in the course of their existence. This is
a position first advocated by this author (Düring 2006, 2007), and subse-
quently taken up in the Çatalhöyük project, where the term history houses
is now used to denote building with greater ritual elaboration (Bloch 2010;
Hodder and Pels 2010).
The best evidence for ritual differentiation of buildings takes the form of
subfloor burials. Unlike the paintings and molded features, the burial data
are relatively abundant (Düring 2006; Hodder and Pels 2010), and, more
importantly, they are relatively reliable. In the case of the molded features,
there is good evidence for their removal during the occupation of buildings,
with subsequent replasterings, so that their presence or absence as found
may not be very informative about building status (Hodder and Cessford
2004). Likewise, the discovery of wall paintings in buildings that may have
up to 450 plaster layers (Matthews 2005: 367) is conditioned to a large
degree by chance factors determining where plastered wall surfaces crack.
Furthermore, wall paintings seem to be fairly ubiquitous at Çatalhöyük, and
thus they are probably not a good indicator of status differentiation among
the buildings (Düring 2006: 195). By contrast, the distribution of subfloor
burials is markedly uneven in the houses at Çatalhöyük.
About 80 percent of the buildings contain no burials at all (Düring 2006:
201–211), while only a few hold the majority of subfloor burials. For exam-
ple, in the new excavations, Building 1 contained no fewer than 64 burials
(Cessford 2007). If we focus on Mellaart’s level VIB at the site (Figure 2.3),
which is the largest window of buildings that were fully excavated, it can
be seen that burials are mainly found within four rooms that seem to have
been particularly suitable for placing the deceased. In addition, some build-
ings have only a limited number of burials below their floors. Finally, many
rooms contained no subfloor burial at all. Two arguments make it plausible
to think that people from other houses were interred in buildings with high
burial densities. First, many buildings were devoid of burials altogether.
Second, we can make an assessment of how many people would have died
in the Çatalhöyük households during the occupation of a building, and it
can be demonstrated that the number of buried people in some buildings
far exceeds this probable death toll. The use-life of the buildings at Çatal-
höyük is generally estimated at about 60 years on the basis of radiocarbon
32 Bleda S. Düring
door
34
door
door
door
7
door
?
Level VIB Burials
door
40
1 10
20
door
door
door
4
6.11
7 Building n
0 10 m
Figure 2.3 Distribution of subfloor burials in level VIB at Çatalhöyük.
data and plaster evidence (Cessford 2005; Matthews 2005: 368; Mellaart
1964: 64, 1967: 50–51). Given an estimated household size of about five
people, it seems highly unlikely that the twenty-four-plus subfloor burials in
some buildings derive solely from deaths within the household concerned.
For example, this would have meant that one household member died once
every 15 months in building 34 of level VIB. It seems, then, that burial prac-
tices were preferentially performed in specific houses considered particularly
appropriate for mortuary ceremonies by larger social groups including sev-
eral households. These ideas have recently been corroborated by a study of
the genetically transmitted features of the buried skeletons—mostly dental
evidence—which suggest “that inclusion for interment within a home was
only minimally related to biological affinity. Instead, the site may have been
organized by an alternate definition of kin that was not defined in terms
of genetic relationships. These ‘kin’ groups could have formed for vari-
ous social functions creating a more fluid definition of family” (Piloud and
Larsen 2011: 527–528).
Given that some buildings seem to have functioned as burial sites for
multiple houses, I would argue that houses at Çatalhöyük might have been
organized in “house groups,” wherein approximately six normal houses
would have been associated with a history house (Düring 2006: 231). This
figure fits well with ethnographic studies that suggest it is to a farmer’s
advantage to form household groups of approximately this size for economic
cooperation (Halstead 1999; Plog 1990: 190). It is likely that such house
groups at Çatalhöyük were of dynamic and perhaps overlapping composi-
tion. In the history houses, many group rituals might have been performed,
of which the burials are simply the most visible to us. In this way, households
were probably embedded in larger house groups.
Neighborhoods at Çatalhöyük
A neighborhood “is a residential zone that has considerable face-to-face
interaction and is distinctive on the basis of physical and/or social char-
acteristics” (Smith 2010: 139). Until recently, the neighborhood has been
relatively neglected in archaeological studies (but see Chesson 2003; Keith
2003; Smith 2010; Stone 1987), probably in large part because archae-
ologists rarely have the broad excavated exposures required for their
systematic study. This is a problem even in the case of Çatalhöyük, which,
by archaeological standards, has had very large areas excavated.
One of the most striking aspects of the Çatalhöyük settlement in the
early levels, XII to VI, is the way in which the buildings were constructed in
streetless neighborhood clusters that could be accessed only from the roof
level. Streets and larger open spaces did exist at the site (Hodder and Pels
2010: 164; Matthews 1996), but they mainly served to differentiate neigh-
borhoods from one another. A ladder from one of these open spaces would
have given access to these neighborhoods, and further traffic would have
taken place on the roof level.
In this form of spatial organization, Çatalhöyük is not unique but is part
of a settlement tradition particular to the central Anatolian Neolithic, with
parallels at Asıklı Höyük, Canhasan III and I, and Erbaba (Düring 2006).
This form of spatial organization was probably rooted in a particular type
of social structure: that of the neighborhood community. This argument is
based on, first, the uses to which the roofs were put and how that affected
social interaction and, second, the fact that people would have regularly tra-
versed the neighborhood roofscape on their way to and from their houses.
The reconstruction of the neighborhood roofscapes at Çatalhöyük is
fraught with difficulties, such as the fact that we know little about how
much the vertical distance between roofs and floors varied. Nonetheless,
we can gain a fair idea of the sort of environment these roofscapes consti-
tuted. There is now some evidence for some lightweight shelters or sheds on
the roofs of the Çatalhöyük buildings (Hodder 2009), but the proposition
that the Çatalhöyük buildings had substantial upper stories (Cutting 2003)
34 Bleda S. Düring
can be dismissed, because the buildings could not have supported them
(Düring 2006: 241). A range of activities seems to have been performed
on the roofs at Çatalhöyük (Matthews 2005: 373). A fire installation was
found on top of one collapsed roof, and clean and dirty roof areas were
recognized, suggesting that food processing and craft activities similar to
those in the houses took place on the roofs. This would probably have
occurred mostly in summer, when the climate and the heat-conductive
properties of mud-brick buildings are such that many activities take place
in the open, a pattern that is well attested in Near Eastern ethnographies
(Friedl and Loeffler 1994: 33; Peters 1982: 223). The Çatalhöyük roofs,
then, would have been like a courtyard: they not only gave entrance to
the building below but contained various goods and features and enabled
people to carry out a range of activities during the hotter part of the year.
Furthermore, people would have moved across these roofs on their way to
and from their houses. Taking these latter two factors together—the use
of the roofs at Çatalhöyük and the movement of people across the roof-
scape—it would seem clear that interaction within these neighborhoods
must have been intense at times.
It can be posited that people using these roofscapes formed a social
structure grounded in face-to-face interaction and with people occupying
various social positions. With such a perspective in mind we can return to
the question of why buildings at Çatalhöyük were constructed in streetless
neighborhood blocks. It is possible to argue that the spatial organization of
these neighborhoods deterred nonresident people from entering them, mak-
ing the area a communal rather than public arena. A parallel that presents
itself in traditional Near Eastern settlements consists of a distinction between
wide and straight public streets, open to the public at large and dominated
by men, and narrow and winding streets within neighborhoods that were
inaccessible to nonresidents, and in which women could roam more freely
(Abu-Lughod 1987: 167–168; Antoun 1972; Wirth 2000). These neighbor-
hoods appear to have been relatively autonomous. The group living within
these neighborhoods often defined themselves in corporate terms (Antoun
1972; Wirth 2000), and people often were deeply involved with one other
and closely monitored the behavior of other residents, while outsiders were
barred from entry unless invited (Abu-Lughod 1987). For this system to
work it is essential that neighborhoods do not become too large, because
social control could then no longer function (Antoun 1972: 111; Wirth
2000: 377–381). This is not to argue, of course, for a continuum between
Çatalhöyük and the subrecent Near East, merely an attempt to bring out a
number of possible resemblances in the use of space in what are otherwise
very different cultures.
The scale of these neighborhoods at Çatalhöyük is difficult to estab-
lish. The most complete excavated exposure is level VIB in the South Area.
Although extremely large by the standards of Near Eastern archaeology,
this exposure does not include a complete bounded neighborhood. On the
basis of the exposed area of level VIB, we can estimate a minimum size
for this neighborhood, which includes a total of some thirty buildings with
hearths, ovens, and platforms in the main room. If we take these as indi-
ces for household groups, then this particular neighborhood at Çatalhöyük
would have encompassed at least thirty households. If we estimate house-
holds of about five people, this would put this particular neighborhood
population at minimally 150 people. We do not need to conceive of the Çat-
alhöyük neighborhoods as necessarily comprising a standardized entity, with
a circumscribed group of people living in a specified number of buildings.
However, if neighborhoods depended heavily on personal contacts between
residents, various studies might give us clues about their possible maximum
size. The idea that humans can only engage directly with a finite number of
other people has been posited on the basis of observations in disciplines as
disparate as evolutionary psychology, geography, anthropology, and sociol-
ogy. The thresholds arrived at in these studies are remarkably consistent,
averaging about 150 to 250 people for close personal relations, and 400 to
600 people for more casual relations (Bintliff 1999; Birdsell 1973; Dunbar
1992; Forge 1972; Kosse 1990). These figures should be considered with
due caution, because they represent a selective amalgamation of disparate
phenomena. But, collectively, they suggest that face-to-face communities
normally would have been no larger than about 250 people. Tentatively,
then, I would suggest that the normal neighborhood population at Çatal-
höyük was no larger than 150 to 250 people, although it is theoretically
possible that they included as many as 600 people. The latter size would
have been more stressful on residents, however, because it would have been
more difficult to keep track of individual persons (faces and names) and
their relationships to oneself and others.
The Local Community at Çatalhöyük

The local community consists of the residential population living in a settle-
ment. Because the size of local communities may vary considerably, they can
be constituted in many ways. Whereas a small local community is a very
concrete entity to people grounded in shared activities, larger local commu-
nities are more ideational in character. Not everybody will necessarily know
each other firsthand in larger settlements, and such communities are usu-
ally too large for well-developed social positions in societies without overt
hierarchy, although people will often be aware of other people’s identities
and activities.
Kosse (1990: 284) writes that in communities of up to 2,500 inhabitants,
people will still be able to monitor each other on the basis of gossip. At
Çatalhöyük, the maximum population has been estimated at between 5,000
and 8,000 people, which suggests that Kosse’s mechanism might not apply.
Here the distinction between “natural” and “imagined” communities drawn
by Isbell (2000: 245) becomes relevant. A natural community is a real and
36 Bleda S. Düring
bounded entity, whereas the imagined community is primarily about identi-
fication with specific categories and is not based on face-to-face interaction.
For example, being from Çatalhöyük was almost certainly meaningful to
people.
One way in which the Çatalhöyük neighborhoods would have been linked
is in marriages. Birdsell (1973) and Wobst (1974) have argued that a group
of some 500 people constitutes the minimum necessary for human biologi-
cal reproduction. On the basis of a cross-cultural comparison, Adams and
Kasakoff (1976: 155–158) argue that completely endogamous groups do
not exist in the ethnographic record but that local communities in the range
of 850 to 10,000 people will typically be about 80 percent endogamous.
On the basis of such estimates, Baird (2005: 67) posits that the advantage
of Çatalhöyük growing as large as it did was that the settlement could have
become largely endogamous and that this might have been a strategy to
enhance control over local resources.
The Çatalhöyük settlement can be contrasted with the contemporary site
of Erbaba, located near Lake Beyehir. Erbaba is a small site, and its popu-
lation can be estimated to have been between 190 and 285 people (Düring
2006: 256–267), a size that is common throughout Neolithic Greece,
Western Anatolia, and the Balkans (Halstead 1999: 89; Peltenburg et al.
2001: 53, Perlès 2001: 178–180; Roodenberg 1999: 197). Such communi-
ties would not have exceeded a face-to-face community in which everybody
knew each other firsthand and are similar in scale to the neighborhoods at
Çatalhöyük. Interestingly, Erbaba is one of a larger group of relatively small
and comparable Ceramic Neolithic sites that are often only a few kilometers
removed from one another (Mellaart 1961). Such a comparison suggests
that each Çatalhöyük neighborhood was not unlike the village community
at Erbaba and that the Çatalhöyük settlement represents the contraction of a
regional settlement system into a single site. In its heyday, Çatalhöyük might
have incorporated between twenty-seven and fifty-three of these “village-
size” neighborhoods (Düring 2006: 235).
The settlement history in the Çatalhöyük area might provide part of the
answer for how the site became such a large agglomeration. In the Aceramic
Neolithic, multiple sites existed in the Çatalhöyük region; in the Ceramic
Neolithic, Çatalhöyük seems to be the only site; and the following Early
Chalcolithic period again witnesses multiple settlements. Baird (2005: 67)
has argued that the initial formation of Çatalhöyük represents the clustering
of a group of previously dispersed small local communities.
One aspect that could help us to understand this contraction of people
at Çatalhöyük is some form of place-bound ideology similar to that operat-
ing at the level of the houses. Here we might think of a corporate identity
tied to a settlement. The modern world is full of such place-bound identi-
ties, but they appear to be equally important in other cultural contexts.
McIntosh and McIntosh (2003: 111), for example, describe a system in first-
millennium AD West Africa in which both foundation myths and the ritual
interdependence of corporate groups created the long-term cohesion of large
local communities.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Explaining large social agglomeration prior to the emergence of urban

societies has not been a strength of archaeology to date, and in this sense
the current volume will hopefully provide an important contribution.
There has been some debate about how large preurban social agglomera-
tions should be understood, and for the Near East I have illustrated the
main positions using the cases of Çatalhöyük and Pre-Pottery Neolithic
B megasites from Jordan. On the one hand, some scholars have argued
that these agglomerations were, in a sense, urban, but this is to stretch
the idea of urbanism beyond its heuristic value, given that these settle-
ments are patently not urban in the sense of central settlements in which
various types of nonfarming specialists resided and which depended on
a hinterland of agricultural villages. On the other hand, many scholars
have focused on the scalar stress that living in large communities would
have created and the various means for integrating these communities, for
example, through rituals.
In short, the issue of how large preurban social agglomerations should
be understood has often been approached from the wrong angle. Rather
than focusing on size as index of social complexity (the urbanism argument)
or social stress (the scalar stress and ritual integration theme), we should
instead ask what social structures and strategies made these large early com-
munities successful and allowed them to persist for six centuries, as in the
case of Çatalhöyük levels XII to VI. This needs to be done by mapping
the nested social structures through which these agglomerations were held
together on the basis of our archaeological datasets. Basically, this means
that we need to extend the excellent work done in recent decades on the
microscale of social life—on topics like gender, identities, and households—
to more inclusive levels of social association.
Starting from the idea that social organization can best be studied as a
series of nested social structures and that these consist of systems of human
relations among social positions, I have attempted to chart the anatomy of
social life at Çatalhöyük. First, households appear to have been relatively
autonomous in their economy, occupied discrete houses, and to have been
more or less equivalent entities with little sign for variability in size or
wealth. Second, there is good evidence for ritual differentiation of houses
at Çatalhöyük, in which some history houses—that is, houses with a long
pedigree that gradually became invested with ritual significance through
the course of their history—functioned as an identity nexus for a larger
group of associated households, as is most clearly visible in the fact that
people were preferentially buried in these houses. It appears that about one
38 Bleda S. Düring
in six houses at Çatalhöyük achieved the status of a history house, which
could mean that there were house groups of approximately that size that
were connected through their common orientation on a history house and
might have cooperated in other aspects of social life. Third, I have discussed
neighborhoods at Çatalhöyük, suggesting that the typical spatial layout of
the settlement would have created relatively intense social interactions and
monitoring of coresidents and thus would have compartmentalized social
life at the site. In other words, the clustered neighborhoods at Çatalhöyük
reduced the bulk of social interaction to an arena where it was possible
to keep track of all the faces and names of others, thus providing a struc-
ture that made social life viable. It is also possible that the neighborhood
community would have provided a platform for reaching a neighborhood
consensus that would have been of great value if matters relating to the
local community as a whole needed to be resolved. Fourth, I have shown
that the Çatalhöyük neighborhoods are probably equivalent to the small
Neolithic villages that are more typical for the Neolithic in the Aegean,
Western Anatolia, the Balkans, and much of the Near East. Thus, the
Çatalhöyük settlement perhaps represents the contraction of a regional
settlement system into a single site.
If this reconstruction of social life at Çatalhöyük as consisting of a nested
series of social structures—that is, households, history houses, and house
groups—and neighborhood communities is accurate—and no doubt our
understanding of many aspects of social life at Çatalhöyük will change in
future years—then it means that earlier interpretations of this large preur-
ban social agglomeration simply missed the mark. Çatalhöyük is not an
urban settlement but an agglomeration of neighborhood communities with-
out any institutions that serve the settlement as a whole—such as a central
market or a town hall. Çatalhöyük inhabitants did not suffer from scalar
social stress, because they did not live in a single, large community. Instead
their social life was compartmentalized, and people spent most of their
lives in the context of their specific neighborhood communities, identified
themselves in relation to a history house and house group, and spent much
of their time and work in maintaining their own households. In short, the
reconstructed anatomy of social life at Çatalhöyük proposed here dem-
onstrates that this large preurban social agglomeration is not a problem
we need to solve but that people at Çatalhöyük developed a type of social
organization that allowed them to live and thrive in one of earliest success-
ful large communities in the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Jennifer Birch for inviting me to contribute to this

volume. An earlier draft of this chapter was read and commented on by Alex-
ander Verpoorte, who provided much-appreciated critiques. This chapter
developed out of my doctoral research, and I would like to express my grati-
tude to Ian Hodder for welcoming me to the team during that research.
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3 Coming Together, Falling Apart
A Multiscalar Approach to Prehistoric
Aggregation and Interaction on the Great
Hungarian Plain
Paul R. Duffy, William A. Parkinson,
Attila Gyucha, and Richard W. Yerkes
Tell formation is the most visible form of prehistoric population aggregation

in southeastern Europe. Tells emerged throughout the greater Balkan region
during the Neolithic, Copper Age or Chalcolithic, and the Bronze Age from
the seventh to second millennia BC. European tells tended to be smaller than
their Near Eastern and North African counterparts, and despite superficial
resemblances, systematic comparison indicates important variation in the
social processes that created tells in these different parts of the world (Belfer-
Cohen and Goring-Morris 2011; Goring-Morris and Belfer-Cohen 2011;
Parkinson and Gyucha 2012).
Even within southeastern Europe, there is considerable variation in the
process of tell formation. The tells of the Thessalian Plain of Greece, for
example, were established during the Early Neolithic and are among the
first examples of sustained population nucleation in Europe. Many contin-
ued to be reoccupied in later phases of the Neolithic, with some extending
into the Bronze Age. In the Thessalian case, most of these sites were tells in
the original definition of the word; they were artificial mounds created by
the successive occupation of a spatially restricted location in the landscape.
Wattle-and-daub houses leveled to the ground after the end of their use-
life served as platforms for new architecture, gradually creating a stratified
mound of living debris.
The Thessalian pattern of continued occupation from early in the Neo-
lithic differs considerably from that exhibited on the Great Hungarian
Plain, where tells were not established until several hundred years after the
occurrence of sedentary agricultural villages in the region. When they did
form—during the Middle and Late Neolithic—the tells of the Great Hun-
garian Plain usually were part of a larger, extended settlement complex. In
contrast to the Thessalian tells, most of the Neolithic tells on the Plain were
abandoned around the end of the Neolithic period and were not reestab-
lished in the region until the Bronze Age, almost 3,000 years later. Studying
these dynamic processes of cyclical aggregation and the variation in settle-
ment nucleation throughout prehistory is in many ways more interesting
than simply examining the process of tell formation—or settlement nucle-
ation—in isolation.
Coming Together, Falling Apart 45
Significant differences in contemporary tell communities also can exist
within the same region, a topic we turn to in this chapter. A rigorous com-
parison of settlement patterns between the Late Neolithic and Middle
Bronze Age on the Great Hungarian Plain reveals important similarities
between the two periods (Duffy 2010: 351–374). Site size hierarchies are
found across a similar size range in both periods (from less than a hectare
up to dozens of hectares). Groups on the Great Hungarian Plain during
the Neolithic generally are referred to as “tribal” because there is little
evidence for institutionalized social inequality in funerary patterns (Siklósi
2010). During the classical Bronze Age, however, cemeteries across Eastern
Europe exhibit an impressive range of social inequality, and up to 90 per-
cent of quantifiable grave goods were interred with only 10 percent of the
population (e.g., Kemenczei 1979; O’Shea 1996; Vicze 2011). Large forti-
fied sites are thought to have controlled the production and trade of metals.
For this reason, groups in the Bronze Age have generally been categorized
as chiefdoms or socially stratified (Earle and Kristiansen 2010). The case
may nonetheless be different in the Körös Region, where little evidence for
regional political hierarchies has been found (Duffy 2010). This raises the
question of whether Bronze Age tell communities in the Körös Region were
more similar to the Late Neolithic societies than they were to the chiefdoms
described in other parts of the Great Hungarian Plain and Europe (e.g.,
Chapman 2008; Earle and Kristiansen 2010; Renfrew 1974).
In this chapter we review the characteristics of tell aggregation within
and between the Late Neolithic and Middle Bronze Age of the Körös
Region in Eastern Hungary. By comparing tells at different chronological,
geographic, and social scales, we reveal some of the complexity under-
lying patterns of aggregation, even within a single region and period.
We describe how some forms of interaction recurred in prehistory on
the Plain, and what new features emerged in the Bronze Age that are
not observable in the Neolithic. We discuss interaction over four spa-
tial scales of variation—tell neighborhoods, the settlement complex, the
microregional settlement cluster, and the Lower Körös Region—draw-
ing on data from excavation, surface collection, geophysical prospection,
and network theory. Although the settlement trajectory of the area might
be described as “tribal cycling” (Parkinson 2002, 2006a, 2006b), mod-
eled interaction between these periods suggests that the resumption of
tell formation in the Bronze Age was not a return to the same structural
pose assumed in the Neolithic. Although tell formation is related to local
aggregation, it is only one component of a complex process of nucleation
that can be documented archaeologically. Even in the absence of conspic-
uous evidence for social inequality in the Middle Bronze Age of the Körös
Region, there appear to be more differences than similarities between the
two periods. Rather than simply discussing when patterns of nucleation
occurred on the Great Hungarian Plain, this multiscalar approach per-
mits us to ask more nuanced questions about how settlement nucleation
46 Paul R. Duffy et al.
occurred at different points in time and what the implications were for the
people who lived within those societies.
ANALYTICAL DIMENSIONS AND SCALES
We suggest modeling social organization along two separate but intertwined

analytical dimensions—units of integration, and degrees of interaction.
Integration refers to processes that incorporate individuals into specific
organizational units. Interaction, on the other hand, refers to a more dif-
fuse process that operates between these units. Smaller units of integration
presuppose increased interaction (Parkinson 2002, 2006b). In this sense,
societies can be envisioned as integrating into various social units—house-
holds, villages, polities, and so on. Determining how different social units
interacted over space and time is best conducted by incorporating multiple
geographic scales (Clarke 1972; Flannery 1976; Gamble 1999; Knappett
2011).
In this chapter, we conduct such a multiscalar analysis. Our goal is to
describe structural variation in nucleated communities and provide a more
detailed picture of how social relationships were organized and changed
over time. We compare three tells in the Körös Region of the Great Hungar-
ian Plain, dating to the Late Neolithic and Middle Bronze Age, and the range
of settlement networks of which they were part.
The four spatial scales of settlement features we address are all relevant
for slightly different kinds of interaction, or “practices of affiliation” (Yae-
ger 2000). The first spatial scale and integrative unit we examine is the
tell neighborhood behind its fortification or natural moat. We restrict our
study to the tells not because we think they necessarily were the center of
ancient regional systems but because they are, for the most part, the only
sites in these periods with detailed archaeological records. We use exca-
vation data from houses, platforms, and other structures that reveal the
nature of social interaction and integration of the communities living on the
tells. The second spatial scale encompasses the settlement complex: the tell
and the surrounding habitation areas. To discuss the relationship between
tells and the external settlement, we draw upon recent surface collection
data, geophysical survey, and shovel tests. The third scale, the microregional
settlement cluster, includes sites within 5 kilometers of the tell and sites
within 5 kilometers of those sites. Finally, we offer a regional perspective on
variation. For this, we examine the range of local settlement clusters in the
time periods under consideration and compare continuity and connections
between periods using network theory. Regional comparisons allow us to
expand beyond the three tell sites examined here to a broader understand-
ing of settlement patterns in the Körös Region and the social configurations
characterized in each period.
BACKGROUND—THE GREAT HUNGARIAN
PLAIN IN PREHISTORY
The Great Hungarian Plain is among the largest alluvial plains in Europe
and is drained by the Danube and Tisza Rivers. The relative geographical
uniformity of the region and the great stability of the environment make it
a virtual laboratory for studying cultural change in prehistory. The Körös
Region, highlighted here, is characterized by complex river systems as well
as their extended marshy areas. It has been systematically field-walked
since the 1960s in the framework of the Magyarország Régészeti Topográ-
fiája (MRT) project, and over the past decade has become one of the most
intensively studied prehistoric landscapes on the continent (e.g., Bóka and
Martyin 2008; Bökönyi 1992; Duffy 2010; Ecsedy et al. 1982; Giblin 2009;
Gyucha 2009; Hoekman-Sites 2011; Jankovich et al. 1989, 1998; Parkinson
2002, 2006a; Parsons 2012; Salisbury 2010; Sherratt 1997; Whittle 2007).
A strong degree of settlement nucleation, coincident with tell settlements,
characterizes two periods (or cycles) on the Great Hungarian Plain: the
later Neolithic (the Szakálhát Phase of the Middle Neolithic and the Tisza-
Herpály-Csszhalom Phase of the Late Neolithic period; ca. 5400–4500
BC), and the Early-Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2150–1400 BC). In this analysis
we focus on the latest phase of occupation within each aggregative cycle
represented by the Late Neolithic Tisza culture (ca. 5000–4500 BC) and the
Middle Bronze Age Gyulavarsánd complex (ca. 1750–1400 BC).
In both the Late Neolithic period and the Middle Bronze Age, the vast
majority of sites were not tells on the Great Hungarian Plain. The interven-
ing periods, the Copper Age through the Early Bronze Age (4500–2150 BC),
include several different settlement patterns, but most are characterized by
small, dispersed settlements. During the later Copper Age, several thousand
burial mounds (kurgans) were built across the Plain, as well as some large
settlements, but there were no tells (Parkinson 2002; Parsons 2011, 2012;
Sherratt 1997). Although the regional settlement data were systematically
collected, precise site size by period is rarely recorded, and therefore regional
settlement pattern analysis must remain somewhat general.
The principle sites in the Körös Region (Figure 3.1) that we discuss in this
chapter are located about 10 to 20 kilometers from one another. All of them
have several components, dating from the Middle Neolithic to the medieval
period. However, the two dominant habitation periods are the later Neolithic
and the Middle Bronze Age. Szeghalom-Kovácshalom has Neolithic layers but
no Bronze Age occupation (Bakay 1971). Békés-Várdomb has a Bronze Age
component but no Neolithic settlement (Banner and Bóna 1974; Duffy 2010).
Vészt-Mágor, on the other hand, has both Neolithic and Bronze Age occu-
pations (Hegeds and Makkay 1987; Makkay 2004; Parkinson et al. 2010).
All three sites have been excavated to varying extents. Recently, how-
ever, all have been revisited with new questions and investigated with new
archaeological techniques, including shovel testing, systematic surface
collection, and geophysical surveys. Szeghalom-Kovácshalom currently pro-
vides the most detailed data, with systematically collected artifacts across 55
hectares of the surface, about 37 hectares of magnetometer survey, and the
partial excavation of five structures outside the tell.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD SCALE: THE TELL
Most of the tells are quite small (Figure 3.1). Békés-Várdomb covers only 0.25
hectare; Szeghalom-Kovácshalom, 0.8 hectare; and Vészt-Mágor, the largest,
3.9 hectares. Neolithic and Bronze Age tell sites were frequently fortified with
artificial ditches or a natural moat, with the highest accumulation of settlement
debris behind them. Excavations at Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Hungary
and adjacent regions almost invariably exposed large horizontal areas in the
center of the tells. The investigations indicate that during the Late Neolithic,
the tell interior also included special-purpose communal areas. In addition
to domestic features at sites such as Vészt-Mágor, Berettyóújfalu-Herpály,
Para, and Polgár-Csszhalom, features interpreted as altars, ritual buildings,
and sacrificial pits commonly occur (Kalicz and Raczky 1984; Lazarovici et al.
2001; Raczky et al. 2007). These all suggest an integrative function for the tell
itself, which was built into the residential community structure. By contrast,
Figure 3.1 Tells to scale with extent of horizontal settlement around them.
there is no evidence for plazas, courtyards, or community houses behind
tell fortifications during the Bronze Age in the Körös Region. Excavations
at Gáborján-Csapszékpart, Berettyóújfalu-Herpály, Bakonszeg-Kádárdomb,
Túrkeve-Terehalom, Békés-Várdomb, Gyulavarsánd-Laposhalom, and others
indicate only dense housing with narrow alleyways (Banner and Bóna 1974;
Csányi and Tárnoki 1994; Duffy 2010: 169; Popescu 1956; Roska 1941; Sz.
Máthé 1984, 1988).
THE LOCAL SCALE: THE SETTLEMENT COMPLEX
The next scale we consider is that of the tell and its associated settlement com-
plex. The tells and distributions of archaeological surface material dating to
the same periods in their vicinity are illustrated in Figure 3.1. The density of
cultural material at these three sites is generated from different data sets with
different spatial resolutions as a result of the different methods employed to
answer different research questions. The boundary for Vészt-Mágor is the
area inside the ditches observable in the magnetometer data that also coincides
with the extent of the tell itself (Parkinson et al. 2010). Although the site is
located in a national park and the grass covering the area precludes systematic
surface collection, the magnetometer data show a virtual absence of anoma-
lies outside and beyond the ditches. On the other side of the ancient river
meander, where there are plowed fields, no Neolithic or Bronze Age material
was discovered during the MRT surveys (Ecsedy et al. 1982: 183–187).
Bronze Age material was identified through field walking and trench exca-
vation off the tell of Békés-Várdomb (Banner and Bóna 1974; Jankovich et al.
1998). A small area beside the tell was systematically surface-collected for a
sample of diagnostic ceramics and then the entirety of the settlement complex
was shovel tested to provide an upper size limit for the site (Duffy 2010:
440–449). Two sherds or more in a 20-liter plow zone shovel test unit was
considered “habitation,” and if there were one or two sherds, the test was
considered part of a “low-density scatter” consistent with manured garden
areas. This distinction is important primarily for estimating population, but
it also gives a sense of how the exclusion of this low-density debris changes
the definition of site size. Surface collection units by the Körös Regional
Archaeological Project at Szeghalom-Kovácshalom were 10-by-10- or 20-by-
20-meter units, collected for about 10 minutes regardless of density. Contour
intervals generated by inverse distance weighting of collection point values
were used to estimate site size (details on this process can be found in Duffy
2010: 440–449).
While Neolithic Szeghalom-Kovácshalom and Bronze Age Békés-Várdomb
each have extensive settlements around the tell, the Neolithic and Bronze Age
tell of Vészt-Mágor does not. When both settlement and possible manured
areas are added together, Békés-Várdomb is 25 hectares and Szeghalom-
Kovácshalom is at least 28.7 hectares. Both sites actually cover substantially
larger areas if empty zones between the scatters are included. The systematic
surface surveys and the magnetometer data for Szeghalom-Kovácshalom sug-
gest that the maximum extent of the Neolithic settlement complex, including
several more or less contemporary farmsteads, might have exceeded 70 hect-
ares. At the same time, settlement at Vészt-Mágor remained restricted to
the 3.9-hectare tell.
THE MICROREGIONAL SCALE: THE SETTLEMENT CLUSTER
The next scale we consider is the larger microregional settlement cluster. The
ties forming social networks include overlapping and nonoverlapping alli-
ances, and geographic closeness of sites within a microregion can serve as a
proxy for them. Closeness would have been important for fulfilling kinship
obligations, participation in important group rituals, forming labor parties
to harvest crops, or joining together to form war parties. There is no direct
correspondence between spatial distance and social distance (Barth 1969;
Keesing 1975), however, and these settlement cluster models remain only
hypotheses that must be evaluated with other lines of archaeological evi-
dence. By analyzing the geographic relationship between sites at this scale,
it is nonetheless possible to model variation in social interactions.
We employ a network approach rather than a strictly spatial statistic for
identifying settlement clusters (for reviews of network approaches in archae-
ology, see Brughmans 2010; Isakson 2008; Johansen et al. 2004; Knappett
2011; Mizoguchi 2009). Networks are defined by nodes and ties and can
be more revealing than traditional spatial analysis, because the node’s posi-
tion in a network helps to determine the constraints and opportunities it
encounters (Burt 2005). For this analysis, a distance matrix was generated
using SpatialEcology’s Geospatial Modelling Environment, and networks
were produced using Analytic Technologies network software UCINET 6
(Borgatti et al. 2002). Euclidean distance and a connectivity threshold of 5
kilometers were used to establish networks. This distance is far enough to
be away from that mother’s brother you can’t stand but close enough that
you can be over in an hour to help deliver his heifer’s calf if the need arises.
Euclidean distances between sites do not consider the travel costs of slope,
but the Körös Region is extremely flat, rising only an average of 5 to 6 cen-
timeters per kilometer in the study area (Gyucha et al. 2011: 396).
At this microregional scale, the settlement complexes found at Szeghalom-
Kovácshalom and Békés-Várdomb have been collapsed into a single
settlement node. In Figures 3.2 and 3.3, the settlements within 5 kilome-
ters of one another are linked. At the microregional scale during the Late
Neolithic, the Szeghalom-Kovácshalom and Vészt-Mágor tells were not so
different. Each of them had a single satellite site less than 2 kilometers away,
and nothing else. Each tell, and the surrounding settlement at Szeghalom,
was almost a social island unto itself, suggesting that face-to-face interaction
Legend
Telsrte
N
Lar!ir3'fIat &ne
Small flat site

Lass. than .s km beTWeen srte:s Szeghalom
...... '''''''
Map tnbulary
Exler.- Of MRT survey
Veszt6
o 10 20
Km
Figure 3.2 Microregional patterns in the Late Neolithic.
at these sites occurred primarily between the small number of people who
lived nearby.
In the Middle Bronze Age, the network pattern of the Vészt microre-
gion remained essentially unchanged (Figure 3.3). The only difference is
that instead of one satellite, it had two. Békés-Várdomb, by contrast, was
part of an extensive settlement network located in the Békés microregion,
and the tell itself was less than 5 kilometers away from six sites. This is a
big difference in the number and potential variety of people with whom the
inhabitants of the tell could be in contact very quickly.
The emergence of large flat sites during these tell periods is another highly
visible form of population aggregation, and in Figures 3.2 and 3.3 these
sites are labeled differently than small flat sites, which are generally under
5 hectares. In the Late Neolithic, the large flat sites and the tells both may
have served as regional “gathering places” (Parkinson 2002, 2006a, 2006b).
The large flat sites have not been studied extensively on the Great Hungar-
ian Plain, but in many Late Neolithic cases they are up to (or even over) 10
hectares in size (Duffy 2010: 352–356; Kalicz and Raczky 1987: 16). In the
Middle Bronze Age of the Körös Region, large flat sites seem to have even
exceeded Neolithic site sizes (Duffy 2010: 356–362).
At this point we are unable to discuss the relationship between large
flat sites and their extended networks, but we can continue to explore the
Legend
TelJ$J1&
N
Small"3tsll.
Small"3tsll.
Less 'han 5 Km be~oeen $il6$
MajOfMlef
MatOf!rlbU1ary
E.Jcteflt of MRT survey
Veszt6
Bekes
o 10 20
IKm
Figure 3.3 Microregional patterns in the Middle Bronze Age.
tells in microregional contexts for each studied period. A slightly different

comparison is required to assess whether similar patterns of local networks
were found in the Late Neolithic or if this was only a pattern that developed
during the Bronze Age.
THE REGIONAL SCALE: THE LOWER KÖRÖS BASIN
Variation in the microregional connectivity of settlement clusters can be mod-

eled using network cohesion measures, with a single value representing how
connected members are through direct or indirect ties. The more cohesive a
network, the more likely that information can travel through social ties to
all members and that activities can be coordinated among network members
(Borgatti et al. 2002; Entwisle et al. 2007; Graham 2006; Krackhardt 1994).
In network parlance, when nodes connect to one another but do not
connect to others, different groups called “components” are created. Nodes
that do not connect to anything are called “isolates.” In the Late Neolithic
settlement data set, there are twelve components with more than one node,
and several isolates (Figure 3.2). The Szeghalom and Vészt microregional
pattern, with very few sites in the microregion, is not the only pattern for the
Late Neolithic. Instead, there is a range of microregional component sizes,
and both Szeghalom and Vészt are lower than the average component size
of four and a half nodes. In the Bronze Age data set, there is less diversity in
component size and more connectivity, with a much higher variance com-
pared to the Late Neolithic (Figure 3.3). Part of this pattern is explained by
the location of sites closer to one another, but there also is an overall increase
in the number of sites in the Bronze Age. The combined result is two very
large components, five very small components, and a number of isolates.
Spatially, communities have shifted upriver to the east.
We also compare isolates and the connectedness of larger village com-
munities. In the Neolithic, 7 percent of all sites are isolates. The percentage
of populous sites that are isolates is no different, at 8 percent (one large flat
site out of thirteen). In the Bronze Age, the story is similar. Ten percent of
the sites are isolates, but 18 percent of the larger villages—one tell and one
populous flat settlement—are isolates (two out of seventeen), which is in the
same ballpark in terms of similarity.
When all the components are treated as individual groups, we can com-
pare how reachable components were in different periods. The network
measure we use for this is Krackhardt’s “connectedness” value, which is
defined as the proportion of pairs that can reach each other (Borgatti 2006;
Krackhardt 1994). It is solved using the formula
⎡ V ⎤
Connectedness = 1 − ⎢ ⎥
⎢⎣ N(N − 1) / 2 ⎥⎦
for a matrix where N is the number of nodes, and V is the number of pairs
of points that are not mutually reachable (Krackhardt 1994: 96). Where all
nodes are reachable from all others, the network connectedness is 1. Where
all nodes are isolates, network connectedness is 0. Using this measure, the
Late Neolithic has a value of 0.0992 versus a value of 0.3123 for the Middle
Bronze Age (Table 3.1).
Table 3.1 Characteristics of site networks for the Late Neolithic and Middle Bronze
Age.
%
Average Percentage
Number Number of component Standard Percentage of tell/large Network
of sites components size deviation of isolates flat isolates connectedness
Late 58 12 4.5 3.6 7 8 0.0992

Neolithic
Middle 107 8 12.4 18.7 10 18 0.3123
Bronze
Age
According to this network measure, Middle Bronze Age settlements were
much more connected. Despite the overall pattern, Vészt in the Bronze
Age remains as unconnected as it was in the Late Neolithic. Békés, on the
other hand, is part of the main component, a size not seen in the Late Neo-
lithic. This subnetwork contains 54 of the 107 sites. For travelers moving
between different nodes in such a microregional subnetwork, information
could travel more quickly, and warriors could be more easily assembled for
defense or attack. In both periods, tell sites themselves may have been part
of large components or in close spatial proximity to only one or two other
settlements.
DISCUSSION
This chapter has taken tell formation, a familiar indication of settlement

aggregation on the Great Hungarian Plain, and considered several related
settlement and population changes that occurred alongside it. Although tell
formation is the most conspicuous sign of population aggregation on the
Plain, these other facets of aggregation and settlement location are less well
understood and are rarely treated systematically. A comparison of aggrega-
tion in the two periods of prehistory in question illustrates both similarities
and differences (Table 3.2).
Our analysis indicates that there are a number of settlement cluster sizes
at the microregional scale in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The two specific
Neolithic settlement clusters investigated here are very small, but there are
other, larger components within the Lower Körös Basin at the same time.
Within both periods, one can find small settlement clusters, denser aggrega-
tions of flat sites surrounding tell occupations, large flat settlements, and
Table 3.2 Summary of settlement measures.
Scale
Regional Microregional Local Neighborhood

Network Integrative unit
cohesion in
the Lower Settlement Settlement
Site Period Körös Basin cluster complex Tell
Békés Bronze Age More Large Extended Dense housing
Vészt connected Small Restricted Dense housing
Vészt Neolithic Less Small Restricted Integrative
connected features
Szeghalom Small Extended Housing
a percentage of isolated, densely populated settlements similar to isolated
small sites. The presence of these large settlement complexes results in com-
parable site size hierarchies for both periods (Duffy 2010: 251–370). The
general picture for both periods is diversity of microregional component
size. This structural diversity likely corresponded to social diversity within
the region during both periods.
Yet it is here where the similarities in aggregation in these two periods
end. Although the interior of the tells were superficially similar, Bronze Age
tell complexes held densely packed houses and did not include the integra-
tive features found in the Neolithic. In the Neolithic, there is mounting
evidence that length of occupation does not explain the extended settlement
at the local scale, as Vészt-Mágor and Szeghalom-Kovácshalom were occu-
pied for similar lengths of time (about 500 years; although this estimate is
based on a limited number of absolute dates, see Luthern 2012; Yerkes et al.
2009). In the Bronze Age, some tells were fortified early (in the Ottomány
phase, 2150–1650 BC) and grew to include an extended settlement only
later (in the Gyulavarsánd phase, ca. 1750–1400 BC). Yet it is unclear
whether tells without extended settlement in the Bronze Age were occupied
for shorter lengths of time. The ontogeny of tell settlement complexes in
both periods is still poorly understood.
An additional difference is that microregional settlement forms two large
daisy chains in the Bronze Age, increasing the size range of clusters. The
size of the Békés-Várdomb cluster might expand even further if sites outside
of the survey region were included, as a similar and contiguous settlement
array is known from the Berettyó Valley to the northeast (Dani and Fis-
chl 2009). At the regional scale, the network pattern differs substantially
between periods, with sites more fragmented from one another in the Neo-
lithic than they were in the Bronze Age. All else being equal, it would have
been more difficult to pass a message or move a trade item through the
Neolithic network than it would have been in the Bronze Age.
Although tells are physical evidence of people coming together for pro-
longed periods of time, the variation demonstrated even in the small sample
investigated here indicates that tells may not have always been central nodes
in the regional systems. Many are part of small components located away
from the majority of the region’s inhabitants. Population sizes at some flat
sites were probably in some cases larger than those at tell sites, and they
may have been equally or more important in connecting settlements of the
region. As we continue to learn about settlement and network variation in
prehistory, tells may turn out to be less significant as markers of aggregation
than the extended settlements around them, the large flat sites throughout
the region, or the dense networks of smaller settlements found in both peri-
ods of prehistory.
In a general way, the organization of tell communities varied within
each period, but these aggregated communities—and this includes large flat
sites—seem to have different orientations between the Neolithic and the
Bronze Age. Whereas large populations can be found locally aggregated
in both periods, the Late Neolithic settlement networks focused inward to
local settlement clusters, whereas Bronze Age tells more often connected out-
ward to an expanded chain of settlements. The Late Neolithic microregional
network clusters were small, and where information exists, ritual activities
were concentrated at sites of dense aggregation. In the Bronze Age, when tell
occupation reemerged, there is little evidence for group rituals in the Körös
area, perhaps due to the establishment of more long-distance connections
and increased trade, population interaction with other areas, and mobility.
From a network perspective, the increase in component size and variance
also may suggest that social and economic opportunities for villagers in the
Körös Region were much more unequal in the Bronze Age than they were
in the Neolithic. At the same time, the “multiplier effects” of increasing
social complexity in the Bronze Age (Renfrew 1973) were not experienced
universally in a single region, as a leap in component size occurred only in
some areas. The outcome of such disproportionate participation in trade
networks, population aggregation, and regional interaction seems to have
been an increasingly diversified mosaic of opportunity and socioeconomic
complexity.
Parkinson (2002, 2006a,b) has used the idea of tribal cycling to describe
the major structural reorganization of settlement and interaction during the
end of the first tell occupation period and the onset of the Early Copper
Age. The settlement pattern of the Middle Bronze Age is in some ways the
completion of a cycle of dispersal and a return to settlement nucleation.
Nucleation in the Bronze Age may have been the product of similar social
pressures to those found at the beginning of the Late Neolithic, but its mani-
festation differed in several quantifiable ways. Our understanding of this
vacillation between different social forms cannot ignore, or underestimate,
the ratcheting potential of culture. At the same time, if hereditary inequality
at populous Bronze Age settlements was one of the reactions to scalar stress
and population aggregation in the Körös Region during the Middle Bronze
Age (Parkinson 2006a: 54), we also should point out that it was no more
successful than the social response in the Neolithic. The evidence for social
inequality during the Middle Bronze Age in the Körös Region remains elu-
sive, and the large settlements that emerged at this time did not last longer
than their Late Neolithic forbearers.
CONCLUSIONS: COMING TOGETHER AND FALLING APART
In this discussion we hope to have made several points about the organiza-
tion of prehistoric societies on the Great Hungarian Plain, specifically with
regard to how people integrated and interacted with each other when they
chose to live in more nucleated social environments. We have not addressed
here the various causes that likely brought people together in the Körös
Region during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, but the overall homoge-
neity of the landscape suggests that there was more likely a pull to these
specific sites for social reasons rather than economic or environmental
advantages, or a push due to climate or environmental changes. There are,
for example, no obvious variations in the spatial distribution of raw mate-
rials such as obsidian within the Körös Region that would have attracted
more nucleated settlements to specific spots on the landscape. There are no
significant differences in the spatial distribution of soils or other natural
features, such as hills, that would have provided benefits that were unavail-
able elsewhere in the Körös Region. Instead, it seems that the decision to
come together at certain places had more to do with being part of critical
nodes within microregional and regional networks of social interaction. In
both periods discussed here, there appears to have been some social gravity
that attracted people to sites like Szeghalom-Kovácshalom, Vészt-Mágor,
and Békés-Várdomb.
Our goal was to use the prehistory of the Körös Region to examine dif-
ferences in how nucleated communities in this region were organized during
the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. To that end, we have found it useful to
differentiate between the intertwined analytical dimensions of integration
and interaction at different social and geographic scales. By providing a
detailed and explicit analysis of these ancient nucleated communities from
two different periods on the Great Hungarian Plain, we have tried to dem-
onstrate a method that can be used to compare these results with nucleated
communities from other regions in different time periods across the globe.
We join the chorus of archaeologists who argue that systematic comparison
of archaeological data remains one of the hopes for understanding the emer-
gence of more complex societies (e.g., Drennan et al. 2010; Lillios 2011;
Smith 2012). In our own study, we were able to draw out interesting lines
of similarity and difference in social organization between the Neolithic and
the Bronze Age. In this modest first attempt to compare Late Neolithic and
Middle Bronze Age aggregation with multiple lines of evidence, interaction
between people in the Neolithic seems to have focused on a smaller scale
of integrative units before collapsing into the dispersed settlement system
of the Early Copper Age (Gyucha 2009; Gyucha et al. 2009; Parkinson
2006a). When populations aggregated again in substantial numbers during
the Bronze Age, the integrated units may have been larger, the individual set-
tlements oriented more outwardly through connectedness with other sites,
and less centered on public ritual at densely settled tell sites. Despite this
cyclical process of aggregation, however, even after the end of the Middle
Bronze Age, social inequalities remain modest and regional hierarchy seems
absent, unlike many other regions of the world where population centraliza-
tion occurred (Drennan and Peterson 2006; Peterson and Drennan 2012).
Quite predictably, the next steps in this comparative research require
a refinement of questions about the observed variability and attention to
archaeological data that rarely have been the subject of systematic research.
In addition to understanding the differences in ontogeny of tell settlement
complexes between periods, we need to focus on how aggregation at large
flat sites differed from them. It is possible that large flat sites were equivalent
to densely settled tell sites in both periods, but evidence for public ritual
areas and defensive features remains elusive. Such data would help us further
evaluate whether people were aggregating at these sites for defensive reasons,
ritual concerns, or, as seems to be the case with Late Neolithic tells, both.
We also must attempt to evaluate the network constructs presented here
with archaeological data. Although Bronze Age networks seem to expand
outwardly with a connectedness beyond that seen in the Late Neolithic (as
many Bronze Age experts might expect), increases in the amount of material
traded and the intensity of mobility and interaction during the Bronze Age
need to be quantified. Comparing percentages of foreign ceramics identified
through ICP-MS paste analyses is a promising avenue for understanding
differences in extraregional trade between periods (Hoekman-Sites et al.
2006). Stable strontium isotope characterization of mobility in mortuary
populations provides an additional way to assess the degree to which people
were regionally connected (Giblin 2009). While these are ambitious goals,
the several thousand years of local cultural histories combined with the
complexity of population nucleation as a general process assures us that
understanding the coming together and falling apart of aggregated villages
even in a single region is a lifelong pursuit.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Early drafts of this chapter were presented at the 17th annual meeting of the
European Association of Archaeologists and the 77th annual meeting of the
Society of American Archaeologists while Duffy was supported by the Cen-
ter for Comparative Archaeology at the University of Pittsburgh and later as
a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Fellow in the
Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Thanks to Justin
Jennings for useful comments on a previous draft and to Jennifer Birch for
the invitation to contribute to this volume.
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4 Social Organization and Aggregated
Settlement Structure in an Archaic
Greek City on Crete (ca. 600 BC)
Donald C. Haggis
Settlement aggregation is a normative, culturally conditioned, and adaptive

process in the Aegean from the Neolithic period on, seeing several phase
transitions that resulted in village-size communities; middle-range settle-
ments, such as towns and cities; and political or ritual centers of state-level
configurations, such as palace- and city-centered territorial states. Aggre-
gation and nucleation are perhaps interchangeable terms, though in many
cases the actual material components and spatial organization of nucleated
sites—especially those derived through surface survey—are not sufficiently
understood to present the details or form of aggregation. The recurrence
and ubiquity of nucleated sites in the Greek landscape are probably related
to kinship structures and concepts of the household; social and cultic
connections to places; exchange patterns; and land use and subsistence
practices. The motives and processes involved in periodic aggregation, as
Jennifer Birch points out in the introduction to this volume, have perhaps
received more attention in the context of regional surveys than in detailed
site-level analysis of intracommunity organization. Even though work in
the Aegean commonly addresses details of settlement organization, archi-
tecture, and spatial syntax, especially when they are relevant to culture- or
period-specific questions (e.g., Glowacki and Vogeikoff-Brogan 2011; West-
gate et al. 2007), because aggregation is both scale-sensitive and variable,
and perhaps simply accepted as a normative settlement structure, it has not
received as much critical attention or analytical focus as has the study of
broad historical trends of settlement patterns. Even recent studies of Greek
urbanization tend to apply broadly construed regional data and perspectives
of landscape archaeology, marginalizing the form of aggregation and actual
structure of urban settlements in their earliest forms (eighth to sixth cen-
turies BC) (e.g., Branigan 2001; Cullen 2001; Morgan and Coulton 1997;
Osborne and Cunliffe 2005; Owen and Preston 2009). While urbanization
per se is not, properly speaking, the focus of this collection, I think that the
small scale of Aegean cities in the Archaic period (seventh to sixth centuries
BC), their variable sizes, organizations, and hinterlands, and the problems
in defining their earliest forms, especially on Crete, suggest that looking
at aggregation from the ground up could be a useful analytical tool for
64 Donald C. Haggis
visualizing the emergence of the new kinds of settlements in the Archaic
period. The purpose of this chapter is to present an example of settlement
aggregation on Crete in the context of Archaic-period urbanization.
Over the past two decades, the publication of a number of archaeological
surveys in the Aegean has contributed compelling regional histories and con-
siderable discussion of the sociopolitical and economic meanings of settlement
patterns, while significantly shaping the direction of Greek archaeology and
prehistory into the twenty-first century (e.g., Alcock and Cherry 2004; Ben-
net and Galaty 1997; Branigan 2001; Cullen 2001; Kardulias 1994). That
said, our focus on the region as the highest-order or effective analytical scale,
and the increasing cost and logistical complexity of excavation—as well as
commonplace methodological skepticism and philosophical ambivalence
(e.g., Cherry 2011)—have gradually steered us away from detailed site-level
analyses, and indeed the close evaluation of data sets that we should be using
to assign functions to units of artifacts on the ground. We may need to take a
step back from the mosaic of sherd densities and site hierarchies (the collages
of dots and smudges on the map) and think critically about what aggregation
means at the site level and on various spatial and organizational scales, per-
haps reconsidering entirely our uncritical and broadly conceptual and spatial
definitions of houses, hamlets, villages, towns, and cities.
Generally speaking, in most Aegean surveys, site hierarchies tend to pre-
dict degrees of regional complexity (e.g., Driessen’s 2001 overview), with
settlement dispersal correlating to strong integration—that is, the expan-
sion of numerous small sites into a hinterland whose structure and carrying
capacity are evidence for territoriality, sociopolitical cohesion, and economic
complexity (as in Bintliff 1982). Understanding aggregation as both process
and structure should be critical in determining the meaning of such sites as
well as in developing models of social and political organization based on
settlement data. The so-called hamlets and villages of dispersed regional
patterns are often presented as merely the lower-level in-filling of the coun-
tryside (Cavanagh 1991: 108; Morris 1998: 16; Watrous, Hadzi-Vallianou,
and Blitzer 2004); that is, the result of political and economic changes
accompanying the centralization of resources and institutionalization of
power in larger aggregates that comprise the upper end of sociopolitical or
economic hierarchies. In short, settlement dispersal is visualized as a socio-
economic configuration directly dependent on the development of bigger
aggregated sites and more complex systems, the end result of centrifugal
integration rather than a form of primary settlement development. In other
words, rarely do Aegean surveys encounter primary dispersal (lots of little
villages or hamlets), giving way, through time, to aggregation in precisely the
way described in Birch’s introduction: “people abandoning a regional pat-
tern of small, dispersed settlements in favor of aggregation into larger, more
nucleated settlements.” Even when these kinds of dominant village patterns
appear in Greek prehistory, such as in certain phases of Neolithic Thessaly,
Early Bronze Age Crete, or Middle Bronze Age or Early Iron Age Greece,
Social Organization and Aggregated Settlement Structure 65
they can reflect long-lived and stable communities and remarkably complex
and integrated systems of interregional economic and social organization.
Thus, a dispersed pattern of villages correlates no more to subsistence, sim-
plicity, or intraregional isolation than nucleation or large-scale aggregation
does to complexity, integration, and regional interdependence.
Strictly speaking, the Aegean data present situations that may not be pre-
cisely comparable to those of some other case studies in this volume. What
constitutes periodic shifts in settlement behavior in the Aegean—nucleation
and dispersal in the parlance of survey—might be better construed as changes
through time in the configuration, scale, replication, and distribution of aggre-
gated sites or perhaps the culturally specific kind of aggregation: changes in
the size, scale, form, location, and function of nucleated sites rather than,
strictly speaking, a clear shift from small, dispersed hamlets or villages to
larger more complex aggregations. Although the issue of aggregation in any
cultural context should be, of course, dependent on scale and regional context
as well as a myriad of environmental and historically specific cultural vari-
ables, an Aegean example may offer the present discussion some resolution
on the process of aggregation itself, addressing a central theme of how such
processes “played out at the community level” (Birch, this volume).
I present here a brief case study of the site of Azoria, located near the
modern village of Kavousi in eastern Crete (Figure 4.1), which generally
fits Birch’s conceptual outline of aggregation as set forth in the introduc-
tion (Haggis et al. 2004, 2007a, 2007b, 2011a, 2011b). The settlement
history encompasses the transition from the Early Iron Age (ca. 1200–700
BC) to the Archaic periods (ca. 700–500 BC). The picture derived from
both survey and excavation shows a protracted period of fairly static settle-
ments, a cluster of dispersed villages in the Early Iron Age (about ten to
twenty houses each), remaining stable for a period of some 400 to 500 years
(Haggis 1993, 2001, 2005). A change at the end of the seventh century BC
evidently involved both abandonment of the long-lived village pattern as
well as the movement and nucleation of population to the site of Azoria,
which expanded to at least 15 hectares in size (Figure 4.2). What we see
about 600 BC is a very different idea and configuration of settlement struc-
ture, economy, and arenas for intrasite interaction compared to what the
settlement had been before. Azoria became a large aggregate by the sixth
century BC (Figures 4.2 and 4.3)—broadly speaking, fitting the chronology,
form, and process of urbanization as we understand it in the Aegean. The
regional pattern of nucleation at the end of the seventh century, combined
with a radical reorganization and increase in the scale of public and domes-
tic space, have suggested to us that Azoria had become an urban center of
a protopolis (a nascent city-state), consisting of a community that grew out
of preexisting Early Iron Age village clusters (Figure 4.2). We propose that
the population of the region had literally come together, relocating popula-
tion as well as social, political, and economic consciousness and activities
from initially dispersed villages and hamlets in the wider region to the South
66 Donald C. Haggis
Figure 4.1 Map of the Kavousi area of northeastern Crete.
Acropolis of Azoria (Haggis and Mook 2011a) (Figure 4.2). This chapter
explores the sociopolitical implications of this aggregation.
BACKGROUND OF ARCHAIC AGGREGATION: THE EARLY

IRON AGE VILLAGE PATTERN ON CRETE
In the Early Iron Age on Crete, a village pattern was the norm for several
centuries, from as early as Late Minoan (LM) IIIC (ca. 1200–1100 BC) to
as late as the Orientalizing period (ca. 700–600 BC). During this protracted
period, the settlement structure, not dissimilar from other areas of the
late Minoan IlIe-
late Geometric
0' 0' '0

" 20""
91
90
89
71 82 83
85
70 84
8<1
}7 78 -79 -81
Orientalizing
Archaic
0' 0.' .0 '- , 0' 0'
71
89
89
68 70 84
80
Figure 4.2 Settlement patterns in the Early Iron Age and Archaic periods in the
Kavousi area: Panagia Skali (70); Azoria (71); Vronda (77); Kastro (80); cemeteries
(68; 78–79; 81); Avgo Valley Early Iron Age settlement cluster (83–85; 89–91).
68 Donald C. Haggis
Aegean, generally consisted of small-scale dispersed nucleated communi-
ties of various sizes (Wallace 2010b: 104). Results of surveys on both Crete
and mainland Greece show that settlement sizes vary considerably, though
the details of settlement structure—the physical layout, spatial syntax, and
functional attributions of architectural aggregates and open space, through
time and across the full extent of the site––are rarely forthcoming. Some sites
seem to be spatially isolated groups (sometimes called an “island” settle-
ment pattern in the Argolid of mainland Greece), which were probably large
villages or small towns, while others form clusters of smaller village sites of
similar size (Cavanagh 1991; Dickinson 2006: 84–93; Hall 2007; Morris
1998: 16; Whitley 2001: 88–89). Although our understanding of Early Iron
Age Crete is still mostly dependent on survey data and mortuary remains,
the best evidence from excavated habitation contexts comes from early in
the period, especially Late Minoan IIIC (twelfth to eleventh centuries BC),
or relatively late, in the eighth and seventh centuries BC. That is, only in
rare instances, such as the Kastro in eastern Crete (Figures 4.1 and 4.2),
can a reasonably complete stratigraphic sequence and full settlement his-
tory be considered detailed (Coulson et al. 1997; Mook 2004). Early Iron
Age settlements range from as small as about 0.6 hectares to as large as 20
hectares or more, though the great majority are probably no larger than 1 to
2 hectares (Figure 4.2). Their sizes and configurations depend on a number
of variables, including environmental context, periods and longevity of use,
preexisting population levels, available resources, topography and terrain,
as well as regional cultural practices and kinship structures (Wallace 2010a).
The smaller villages, under 2 hectares in size, most often appear as parts of
socially and economically related groups or clusters of similar sites located
near each other (up to about 0.5 kilometer). Interdependency is suggested by
aspect, topography, proximity, shared water supplies, arable resources, cult
places or cemeteries, and biological viability; isolation is unlikely, because
the sites show a good deal of interregional and intraregional economic inter-
action and even multiethnic populations.
The cluster pattern is probably more common in east Crete than in the
central or western parts of the island because of topography and traditional
land use patterns (Wallace 2010a: 67). Individual sites are no larger than
about 0.6 to 1.5 hectares, containing about twelve to twenty houses, with
populations not exceeding about 150 to 200 people per site. The settle-
ment structure at Kavousi, the immediate hinterland of Azoria, follows this
village-cluster arrangement (Haggis 1993, 2001) (Figure 4.1). In LM IIIC it
consisted of a primary pattern of no less than four sites—Vronda, Azoria,
Kastro, and Panagia Skali—with similar neighboring clusters in the areas of
the modern villages of Avgo and Monastiraki. Cemeteries are equally dis-
persed, and multiple burials in collective built tombs probably correlate to
extended households or larger kinship divisions. By the end of the seventh
century BC, all the villages and cemeteries in the cluster were abandoned
with the exception of Azoria, which grew, becoming a large aggregated
settlement by 600 BC (Figure 4.2), a process we have linked to urbanization
(Haggis et al. 2004, 2007b, 2011a).
Evidence for this kind of village pattern and subsequent Archaic aggre-
gation is apparent elsewhere in Crete. At Gortyn (south-central Crete), for
instance, a cluster of three Early Iron Age sites in the northern hills border-
ing the plain was eventually abandoned as population moved down into the
area later occupied by the Archaic and Classical city (Perlman 2000: 74–76;
Wallace 2003: 263–266; Watrous and Hadzi-Vallianou 2004b: 342). We do
not really know the disposition of the site of Phaistos (near Gortyn in the
western Mesara plain) in the Early Iron Age, but it could well have grown
by the sixth century, developing a centrifugal series of dependent farmhouses
or hamlets in the hinterland, indeed the very kind of structure we imagine
for Crete and Greece in general in the Archaic and Classical periods (Bintliff
1982; Watrous and Hadzi-Vallianou 2004a: 314–317, 2004b: 342–344).
While Early Iron Age and Archaic remains have been uncovered from a
number of different locales at Phaistos, the structure of the settlements is
unknown, though the team that surveyed the hinterland is convinced that
there was a significant nucleation, increase in size, and restructuring by
sometime in the seventh century BC (Erickson 2010: 320; Watrous and
Hadzi-Vallianou 2004a: 313–316).
More like Kavousi and Gortyn is the Vrokastro/Kalo Chorio region in
eastern Crete, where, in the seventh and sixth centuries, settlement gradually
shifted from a cluster of Early Iron Age villages in the upper Ayios Phanou-
rios region of Vrokastro inland into the adjacent valleys of Skinavria and
Meseleroi to two possible aggregated Archaic settlements (Erickson 2010:
192, 246; Hayden 1997, 2004: 179–180). Finally, the shift in settlement
from a cluster of sites at Karphi to the site of Papoura seems to reflect an
Early Iron Age aggregation (ca. 1000–900 BC), but we still do not know the
actual structure of the Papoura settlement or changes down into the seventh
and sixth centuries (Wallace 2010a: 23–24).
Thus, not all Early Iron Age sites are villages. Large settlements do exist
before the Archaic-period threshold (Nowicki 2000: 241–247; Wallace
2010a), and many sites, such as Papoura (18.2 hectares) in east-central
Crete, mentioned above, and Kalamafki (9 hectares) in far eastern Crete
(Wallace 2010a: 23; Whitley 1998: 33), could be examples of large-scale
and early (LM IIIC-Protogeometric; ca. 1200–900 BC) nucleation of settle-
ment. Saro Wallace has outlined the forms and regional functions of such
large sites, arguing for a significant period of early aggregation in the tenth
century (2010a: 66–68). Although Wallace insists that the substantial size
of these settlements—some as large as 40 hectares—and their potentially
mixed population could not have sustained significant kinship connections
as a meaningful basis for their organization, she does admit that their devel-
opment occurred within bounded localities that would have required links
to earlier social configurations. That said, it must be emphasized that, from
survey data alone, we cannot yet determine whether these larger settlements
70 Donald C. Haggis
represent contiguous aggregates or dispersed groups of related but physically
separate settlement locations over large areas—neighborhoods of closely
spaced groups of hamlets, presumably kinship groups, operating not that
much differently from the clusters in eastern Crete. Furthermore, because
many of the larger sites were evidently inhabited through the duration of
the Early Iron Age, the periodicity of occupation could very well affect their
appearance in surface samples. So even though there are documented large
aggregates well before the Archaic horizon, the distribution, date, and func-
tion of the remains needs to be recovered and critically evaluated, as does
evidence of contiguous building and continuity and extent of occupation
into the seventh and sixth centuries. In my view, the structure of the larger
aggregated sites may not have differed substantially from a cluster—that
is, a group of related villages probably linked by kinship connections and
traditional land use and subsistence patterns, forming separate groups,
neighborhoods, or hamlets, with in-field land or open areas in between.
The actual site-level structure demonstrated through excavation brings
into focus the significance of this dispersed configuration. It is clear that
proximate residential groups formed distinct building complexes. Contigu-
ous houses probably related by kinship (clans or segmented lineages), were
patterned sequentially, forming, over time, agglutinative compounds or
spatially separate neighborhoods. The excavated Early Iron Age sites near
Azoria (Figure 4.2), such as Vronda (1200–1100 BC) and Kastro (1200–600
BC), provide the clearest pictures of these kinds of proximate or coresidential
groupings (Coulson et al. 1997; Glowacki 2004, 2007; Glowacki and Klein
2011; Mook 1998, 2011). In such groups, growth was internal, additive,
centripetal, and integrative (Figure 4.4). The structure of settlement manifests
itself as agglomerative clusters of individual houses, sharing party walls, most
likely representing expanding family groups; compounds that show gradual
growth variously over a period of 100 to 500 years. The static, entrenched,
and integrated structuring of space indicates the existence of intergenerational
and locus-bound groups, expressing social continuity and their connection
between the physical place and surrounding landscape (Wallace 2010b: 111).
The coherence of these Early Iron Age groups was ultimately related to the
need to maintain cohesive landholdings and agropastoral resources as well as
a sufficiently large and stable household labor pool to effectively exploit these
resources (Foxhall 2003). The village pattern at Kastro, Vronda (Figure 4.4),
and probably Karphi, demonstrates this physical growth and extension of
domestic space, a periodically shifting cultural landscape that necessitated
the negotiation of space with neighboring households and common spaces as
well as across the cluster of villages in the region (Glowacki 2007; Glowacki
and Klein 2011; Mook 1998, 2011; Wallace 2010b: 105–113). What is more,
the act of building was an active reconstruction and rearticulation of identity
and continuity with every generational change and addition to the house
unit. In such settlements, communal or intergroup interrelationships were
circumscribed and mediated through ritual venues of communal feasting,
such as bench shrines and so-called chieftain’s houses early in the period
(LM IIIC), and hearth temples sometime later (Protogeometric-Orientalizing
periods) (Prent 2005, 2007).
AGGREGATION IN THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

(LATE SEVENTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES BC)
At the end of the seventh century BC, this Early Iron Age village pattern
dissolved completely, giving way to new large-scale nucleated communities.
The threshold of the Archaic period constitutes a stratigraphically defin-
able phase transition (Yoffee 1997, 2005: 229–231), including significant
changes in mortuary, cult, and settlement behavior (Kotsonas 2002). There
is evidence for new social institutions and new modes of communal interac-
tion, as well as scalar shifts in interregional communication, and production
and exchange. Changes in agricultural surplus storage and mobilization
and internecine warfare are likely indications of territorialism, inter-polity
rivalries, and dynamic peer-polity interaction (Erickson 2010: 307–308; Kot-
sonas 2002; Wallace 2010a, 2010b; Watrous and Hadzi-Vallianou 2004b:
348). In general, the situation on Crete in the late seventh century resonates
not only with the idea of the phase transition but with tenets of coales-
cence, a concept that does not predict a particular kind of society per se
but conditions, processes, and strategies for creating integrative institutions
and corporate structures responsive to scalar stress (Kowalewski 2006): in
particular, demographic movement and settlement aggregation, increased
interregional interaction and conflict, and political and economic intensifi-
cation. Material evidence for coalescence in Archaic Crete would include a
shift from stable dispersed communities to large nucleated settlements; the
formation of multilingual or multiethnic populations; and the appearance of
institutions that encouraged social integration and new architectural designs
and innovations in material culture.
While the archaeology of sixth-century Crete remains largely unexplored,
especially in settlement contexts, the evidence currently available suggests a
reorganization of the cultural and political geography of the island at the
end of the seventh century, fitting well with the broad outlines of a relatively
rapid phase transition and coalescence (Erickson 2010: 1–22; Haggis et al.
2004: 344, 393; Kotsonas 2002; Morris 1998: 65–66; Perlman 2010: 108;
Prent 1996–1997). Saro Wallace (2010a), for example, has recently sup-
ported the idea of the expansion of state territories and interpolity conflict
in the Archaic period, strengthening or reaffirming what she sees as preexist-
ing state-level identities. Although the process must have involved complex
interregional and intraregional variables, such as territorial expansion and
the formation of new political and economic alliances, at the core of the
changes is the elite control of surplus production and redistribution (Wallace
2010a: 78; 2010b: 346–347, 374–375; Erickson 2009).
72 Donald C. Haggis
At Azoria, the one of the most interesting pieces of evidence is the com-
plete rebuilding of the site—the reintegration, redefinition, and restructuring
of domestic and communal spaces (Haggis and Mook 2011a) (Figure 4.3).
That is, the process of rebuilding in the late seventh century constituted the
obliteration of earlier architecture, and then the construction of an entirely
new physical form. The redesign constitutes a drastic increase in both the
scale of building and the labor allocation and organization required to
implement it; and the introduction of new kinds of buildings for entirely
new venues of suprahousehold interaction (Haggis et al. 2011a). The latter
take the form of public or civic buildings—the Monumental Civic Building
and Communal Dining Building (Figure 4.4)—that is, structures designed
for the restricted use of an elite citizen class, according well with historical
sources that suggest an agroliterate structure of Cretan society at this time
(Morris 1997; Small 2010; Watrous and Hadzi-Vallianou 2004b: 342–348).
ARCHAIC HOUSES AND HOUSEHOLDS
Differentiation of corporate groups provides an important indicator of

intracommunity organization and interaction. By the sixth century at Azo-
ria, the houses are new constructions, complex in design and larger than
their Early Iron Age predecessors, and are fully integrated into the plan
of the Archaic settlement (Haggis and Mook 2011b; Haggis et al. 2011b).
They seem to form single households (Figures 4.3 and 4.5), with clearly
differentiated functional spaces: storerooms, halls (or living rooms), and
kitchens with adjoining courtyards. Not only were the dimensions of the
basic sixth-century house unit larger than those of the eighth and seventh
centuries, but the external elaboration and internal configurations of space
have changed as well (Figures 4.4 and 4.5). Houses no longer have hearth
rooms—that is, the combined living, working, and food producing areas of
typical Early Iron Age houses—but are spatially complex. The hall medi-
ates between storage rooms and kitchens (Figure 4.5), suggesting both the
economic and social-symbolic importance of pithos storage (large decorated
storage jars) and the use of halls for food consumption rather than produc-
tion or primary processing.
Furthermore, the relationship of the house to the settlement changed as
well. Houses were physically integrated into the armature of spine walls,
which were constructed systematically in the early sixth century, evidently
destroying or burying Early Iron Age houses, and extending through zones
of public and domestic building (Haggis et al. 2004, 2007a, 2011a, 2011b).
This break from the old system of blocks of houses or neighborhoods of pre-
vious periods emphasizes the dynamic social changes in the phase transition.
The Archaic houses were single residences, incorporated into the citywide
plan, and show direct formal and spatial relationships to the communal or
civic buildings (Figure 4.3). The layout of the settlement in the sixth century
Figure 4.3 Azoria South Acropolis (R. D. Fitzsimons and G. Damaskinakis).
74 Donald C. Haggis
a b c d
e f
Late Minoan lIIe
Protogeometric
Orientalizing
Late Geometri c
Figure 4.4 Development of Building I-O-N at Vronda in LM IIIC (top) (after

Glowacki 2007: 133, Fig. 14.4); development of the Northwest Building on the
Kastro (bottom) (drawing by M. S. Mook).
emphasizes the close relationship between individual houses and the public
buildings. The Early Iron Age pattern, by way of contrast, strongly indi-
cates mediation of communal activities at the level of the household cluster
or proximate kinship group. While the essential corporate identity of the
Azoria 2006
Northeast Building
o 2 4m
R. D.FlIZ5lmons 2011
N
AlOOO
slreel vestibule (A300): 13.9 m'
hall (A400): 28.8 m'
A700 storeroom (A 1700): 30.7 m'
eroded spine wall
slope kitchen (A2100): 30.6 m'
A500 .
CQurtyard 1o'estibule
A300
door
pivot ... "
A400
spine wall posl
supports
storeroom
trench line
AllOO
post
support
doot'W~ydoot'W~y
pilhos cooidor
stands
unexcavalect bino ,step

spine wall
00_ stair
1at\dO(\Q
stair
A230
doot'W~y ~
drain
",mp
stair
wail SLatr
bedding
oourtyard
A1800 spine
A200
A2400 eroded
slope
bench
posl
suppons
A2100
Boyd's stone
dump kilctJen
A2200
Figure 4.5 Northeast Building at Azoria (Archaic house) (R. D. Fitzsimons).

76 Donald C. Haggis
household may not have fundamentally changed in the sixth century—the
new urban residences must have been centers of larger dispersed or multilo-
cal households—the physical relationship of these houses to the public or
communal sphere had changed and, as a result, so too did the way in which
the household interacted socially and economically with broader political
and agropastoral environments.
The range of foods and evidence for food processing in domestic contexts
adds to the picture, showing that a large part of primary production at Azo-
ria was conducted away from these houses, probably in related or extended
households yet unexcavated down slope from the center or on rural estates.
The animal and plant remains, tool kits, and kitchen assemblages, in marked
contrast to their Early Iron Age predecessors, are characteristic of final-stage
meal preparation. That is, the predominance of small querns, hand stones,
and mortars for reducing whole clean grains and pulses; metal graters; terra-
cotta strainers; and a wide range of small-scale storage, transport, cooking,
and serving vessels are evidence of meal preparation. Moreover, storage
vessels (amphorae, pithoi, and perishable containers) evidently held clean
grains, wine, must, oil, and olives and other fruit, ostensibly prepared and
gathered in the houses for use rather than for long-term or primary surplus
storage. The lack of evidence for primary-stage processing of grain, wine,
and olive oil in the houses, and the character of butchering debris, suggest
that houses of the center were primarily consumers. The controlled access to
storerooms from the halls, as well as distinctly separate kitchen areas (some-
times separated from the halls by courtyards or corridors), also point to the
semipublic or formal use of halls for routine dining as well as receptions.
Indeed, the full range of drinking and dining equipment is found preserved
in the halls at the time of abandonment, a good indication that by the early
fifth century BC, halls were principally used for dining and perhaps more
formal symposia and other commensal activities.
Finally, the storage capacity, and material elaboration of decorated pithoi
in the houses exceeds what we would expect for immediate or normal subsis-
tence needs of individual families. This indicates the organization, control,
mobilization, and management of surplus by those houses in the center most
closely associated with the civic buildings. The kinds of foods that survive in
archaeological contexts, such as wine or must, oil (by inference of burning,
cooking, lamps, and residues), olives, and perishables such as fruit, clean
grains, and pulses, suggest that houses were cycling and managing such
produce through their stores for personal consumption as well as for redis-
tribution, perhaps in the form of payments or taxes owed to public or civic
dining halls, such as the Communal Dining Building and the Monumental
Civic Building. Epigraphical documents on Crete refer to public officials,
called karpodaistai, who were responsible for locating karpon (produce)
that had failed to be distributed. Such produce included fresh figs and must,
two commodities found in both houses and public buildings at Azoria (Perl-
man forthcoming). Thus, the form of the houses, their assemblages, physical
location within the settlement, and their relationship to public space suggest
that these buildings were not only elite urban residences but centers of larger
multilocal oikoi (households), probably consisting of kin, dependents, serfs,
and slaves.
From the archaeology we could argue that the evidence in the sixth century
BC demonstrates new forms of interaction within the community that might
have weakened the interpersonal bonds and affiliations that were fostered by
the more direct kinship connections within the Early Iron Age neighborhoods
and clusters. What is more, epigraphical and historical sources refer to supra-
household sodalities, such as the startos (military/civic subdivision), hetairia
(fellowship or association), and phyle (tribe) (Erickson 2010: 310; Perlman
forthcoming), that may have cross-cut or superseded direct kinship ties and
seem to have been responsible for the structuring membership in civic insti-
tutions. Indeed, we expect, but cannot prove, that it was such groups that
used the Communal Dining Building and Monumental Civic Building. But
the evidence of a direct connection between the large houses and the com-
munal venues also means that new institutions may have served to crystallize
if not enhance the identities of certain households. Indeed, the payment of
agricultural produce as a form of harvest tax must have been an obligation
of citizen families (Perlman forthcoming). It remains to understand the social
and economic structure and complexity of such household groups (clans or
extended oikoi), whose economic functions are clear enough but whose polit-
ical roles may not have been the direct purview of the state and thus escape
the inscribed historical record of the Archaic and Classical periods.
From the perspective of the Archaic household, settlement aggregation
at Azoria could be seen as an active institutionalization of the residential
kinship-corporate group, solidifying and codifying their social profile and
political power, economic roles, and probably their position with respect to
formal sodalities and civic associations such as startoi, hetairias, and tribes.
Whatever social ties were weakened by the shift from proximate to dis-
persed residences, they were compensated by new communal institutions
that did not erode the essential function of the corporate group, but rather
reintegrated it in venues of public rituals of assembly, dining, and sacrifice.
THE ARCHAIC PUBLIC BUILDINGS
The juxtaposition of public buildings at Azoria, the Communal Dining

Building and Monumental Civic Building, suggest different scales and levels
of integration within the city center (Haggis et al. 2004, 2007a, 2011a)
(Figure 4.3). The layout of the buildings suggests communal activities, but
within regulated and perhaps exclusionary systems of participation (Small
2010). The buildings mirror each other’s basic functions: both have substan-
tial storage and kitchen spaces; cult installations; and rooms for communal
drinking and dining.
78 Donald C. Haggis
The arrangement of space in the Communal Dining Building (Figure 4.3) is
complex and compartmentalized, indicating the division of activities and the
segregation of groups. Although we are tempted to see clan, fellowship, or
tribal divisions reflected in the compartmentalization of space, the archaeol-
ogy only gives us the broad outlines of segregated, but group-oriented, dining.
Food processing and storage facilities are centralized on the lower terrace of
the complex. That is, the kitchens (A600, A1600) and storerooms (A1200,
A1400–A1500) are interconnected but physically separate from the dining
rooms (A800, A2000) (Figure 4.3). It is clear that the communication pat-
terns within the building are radial, internalizing, and essentially dendritic,
with exclusive access to the dining rooms controlled by a porch and vestibule
(A1900S). The cult room, with its ground altar (A1900N), is centered between
two dining rooms. In general, the ceremonial areas of the Communal Dining
Building are internally differentiated: separate rooms probably accommo-
dated different groups or different modes or occasions of drinking and dining.
The food remains suggest prepared meals: dressed cuts of meat and individual
servings. Stands for large wine mixing bowls exhibit distinctly different styles,
which we think relate to the differentiation of the identities of household or
suprahousehold groups permitted to take part in the feast. Individual drinking
cups are of a standard size and shape, and the plain black surface treatment
suggests a formal austerity that would have promoted an egalitarian ethos in
the context of public feasting. The organization of space in the building thus
presents a picture of horizontal divisions of participating groups.
The adjacent Monumental Civic Building (Figure 4.3; D500, D900–D1000),
in contrast, has a single undivided hall designed to accommodate assemblies
that were more openly communal, or perhaps less restricted or segregated
than those of the Communal Dining Building, though in all likelihood the
buildings would have accommodated about the same number of people.
A shrine (D900–D1000) is directly connected to the main hall but has
restricted and perhaps hierarchical use and access. The rooms of the shrine
are small, and practical use would have been limited to just a few people,
though offerings could have been paraded into and out of the public’s view
within the main hall. The main hall, with its stepped bench running around
the walls on the interior, had ample space for open participation and public
spectacle, irrespective of group or subgroup identity. Stews were ladled out
in large vessels, and meat remains represent whole leg portions spit-roasted
on hearths within the kitchens of the adjacent Service Building. This is not
to say that social distinctions did not exist in the context of communal con-
sumption or that they could not have been expressed through differentiated
portioning of meat, such as the leg segments, or other foods, or even by
means of arranged seating within the building. But the open plan and fixed
seating indicate a structured communal experience.
The Service Building (Figure 4.3), directly adjoining the Monumental Civic
Building on the south, consists of a series of kitchens (B1500, B2200–2300)
with large rectangular hearths, storerooms (B700, B1200), and an olive-oil
press (D300). The structure is somewhat larger than the service facilities
of the Communal Dining Building and certainly represents an important
component of the political economy of the early city. Storage in pithoi and
amphorae is in evidence throughout the complex, but rooms B700, B1200,
and D300 (east room) were built specifically as storage magazines. Food
preparation is indicated by the permanent hearths and cooking equipment in
B2200/2300, B1500, and D300 as well as a substantial hearth and butcher-
ing dump in the courtyard B3100. The processing of olive oil had its own
separate building (D300), taking up almost 100 square meters of space.
The Service Building also housed considerable pantries containing food
processing equipment, as well as a plethora of drinking, dining, and serv-
ing vessels. The foods represented in the main kitchens and stores—grapes,
olives, wheat, barley, chickpea, lentil, fig, almond, and pistachio—represent
a diverse assemblage of consumable products, readily available for final-
stage processing or eating. The Service Building complex thus seems to have
been used for the final stages of preparation for dining on a large scale,
most likely meals, banquets, and other occasions of feasting in the adjacent
Monumental Civic Building. This unusual concentration of food storage
and processing, and the evidence for the organization and mobilization of
both produce and labor, suggest a state-level enterprise that, by the sixth
century BC, must have been driven by a new civic institutional structure.
COMMENTS ON SETTLEMENT STRUCTURE
The Archaic urban houses at Azoria functioned as estate managers and

centers of economically complex and dispersed households. The social
mechanisms of surplus production would have been geared not to the sur-
vival or self-sufficiency of the immediate or nuclear family but to support
households and dependents and venues of public commensality that rein-
forced the equality, identity, and the economic roles of the citizenry. In the
transition from Early Iron Age to Archaic periods, production intensified
and shifted dramatically from individual households to public buildings—
that is, to scaled-up civic facilities—as well as to dependents of the urban
houses located away from the center, if not on rural estates.
On the intrasite level, houses were located with direct reference to the
public buildings, codifying their locations and status relationships to the din-
ing halls. This unusual investment in public feasting demonstrates the rapid
development of the communal institutions. Moreover, the altars or shrines in
the civic buildings show clearly the use of ritual to shape communal practices
and performances that expressed the collective identity of the participants.
Finally, the rapid and synchronic integration of houses and public buildings
in the center suggests a deliberate act of constructing a new and probably
exclusive social community and nucleus and of articulating and cementing
social roles and relationships that served to maintain and reinforce the urban
80 Donald C. Haggis
political economy (Small 2010). The allocation of household surpluses to
formal civic contexts of consumption was an integral part of a highly ritual-
ized practice of public taxation and community formation.
The changing role of the house is of particular importance in understanding
this Archaic coalescence. The traditional history of the Greek house presents
a uniform picture of architectural and syntactic simplicity and lack of mate-
rial elaboration in the sixth century BC (Morris 1998: 27–29; Nevett 1999:
158–160). Lisa Nevett has recently attributed this condition to broader social
trends in which tendencies toward material restraint in the domestic sphere
could reflect a distinct pattern of sociopolitical integration: the expression
of shared social values of equality and community membership in emergent
Greek city-states (Nevett 2007: 370–375). In the traditional view of the
Archaic Greek polis, early civic institutions promoted democratic inclusivity,
often in opposition to aristocratic, oligarchic, and tyrannical power and mate-
rial accoutrements. Such trends may have manifested in the more subdued and
less elaborate or distinctive forms of mortuary display and domestic building.
Monumentality in the sixth century was reserved for early temples.
The evidence from sixth-century Azoria thus presents a fascinating con-
trast to the normal developmental model of the Greek house and urban
settlement. In the Archaic renovation of site, the houses of the peak of the
South Acropolis take on a monumental form along with adjacent civic build-
ings. They are complex in plan, structurally elaborate, and contain social
spaces that interacted with a broader community. If domestic architecture at
Azoria expresses the concept of the social house, it predates such forms on
the mainland by at least a century (Nevett 2007: 371). Linked to the urban
transformation of the site, the houses develop monumental and physically
permanent forms, not unlike the adjacent civic buildings themselves. They
are part and parcel of the process of urbanization, not merely incidental to
the construction of the civic buildings. The houses at Azoria are thus very
different from their mainland contemporaries in their functional complexity,
size, and degree of elaboration (Nevett 2007: 370–371), but at the same time,
among the houses in the center, there is no differentiation between them.
That is, there is a uniformity that suggests the equal status among residences
of the city center. Their size, elaboration, location and physical orientation,
and proximity to the civic dining halls strongly indicate not only a group of
equals but a group of tightly knit elites, controlling and restricting access to
the public stores and banquet halls of the peak of the South Acropolis.
CONCLUSION
The specific form of aggregation in the Archaic period at Azoria presents sev-
eral interesting archaeological correlates of coalescence (Kowalewski 2006:
117). The large-scale nucleation of population, substantially increasing
the size of the settlement by the end the seventh century, must have drawn
population not only from the immediate Early Iron Age village cluster but
from the neighboring valley of Avgo and further afield (Figure 4.1). Although
the character of this population is still hard to define, we assume that it is
made up principally of ancient households from Azoria itself as well as the
neighboring site of the Kastro, which was abandoned at the same time that
Azoria was rebuilt and expanded. There is, however, also evidence of a more
diverse ethnic/linguistic population in the private inscriptions, and thus a
possible mixing of groups. Sherds inscribed in both Greek and Eteocretan
(indigenous Cretan) indicate a mixture of local and Greek cultural groups
(Haggis et al. 2011a). Although we have no way of knowing the ethnicity of
the original population of Early Iron Age Azoria or any of the other sites in
the cluster, in general, by the fifth century BC, Cretan cities were ethnically
diverse, with tribal names preserving local Cretan, Mycenaean, Dorian, and
other extraisland Greek groups (Perlman forthcoming; Watrous and Hadzi-
Vallianou 2004a: 309–310, 2004b: 342). The extent to which these names
preserve coherent linguistic, cultic, or ethnic identities and their roles or
significance in the Archaic period are not known.
Collective defense is certainly suggested by the remains of a fortification
wall along the eastern ridge of the South Acropolis at Azoria, but more
important is perhaps the scale and degree of the architectural elaboration
of the entire settlement. The radical reorganization of space and the con-
struction of megalithic spine walls suggest an unprecedented investment
and scalar shift in the organization of labor and resources. Furthermore,
the placement of the civic buildings, while not centrally prominent or spa-
tially engaging from within the city itself, has a dominant western aspect
and viewshed, visible from the lowland plain, the north Isthmus of Ierape-
tra, and the Bay of Mirabello, and no doubt the neighboring territories of
Archaic sites of Oleros, Istron, Olous, Lato, Anavlochos, and perhaps Mila-
tos. That is, the buildings of the civic center communicated on a local level
within a closed community of urban households, and on a regional level,
they projected a physical presence and identity outward toward other early
cities rather than into the settlement’s own hinterland.
Evidence of extraregional trade is extensive. While imported pottery,
manufactured along the western coast of the Mirabello Bay, is common at
Azoria, goods from the wider Aegean sphere are also found, including Attic,
Corinthian, Lakonian, Aiginetan, east Aegean, and Thasian imports. Even
so, the critical changes in the economy of the site are perhaps better visual-
ized in contexts of agricultural production, storage, and consumption. The
elaboration of public ritual and communal feasting within the civic build-
ings, as well as the carefully constructed venues for those activities, point
to the institutionalization of collective leadership structures, while evidence
for centralization of storage and production emphasizes a transformation of
both the scale and social context of agriculture.
Our interpretation of houses, detailed above, adds to the picture. The
houses at Azoria were not only part of the rebuilding of the site at the end
82 Donald C. Haggis
of the seventh century, and architecturally integrated in to the overall settle-
ment plan along with the civic buildings, but they also played a critical role
in establishing and maintaining a new social and political order that cross-
cut local kinship-based interests and identity structures. If we are right in
seeing the urban houses as elite residences, the centers of corporate kinship
groups or clans, then it is these social units that were fundamentally respon-
sible for mobilizing produce for public consumption and for maintaining or
contributing the labor force. While we do not know the precise political or
economic role of the household in the Archaic Cretan economy, one view
would see a circumscribed lineage-based elite (essentially sets of clans) that
had preexisted in the Early Iron Age, surviving into the Archaic period, and
ultimately forming the ruling or citizen class of the Archaic city (Wallace
2010b: 347–348). The conservative clan-based system was tied to its con-
trol of agricultural and pastoral resources and the intensification of use of
ancestral land holdings (Bintliff 1982: 108; Jameson 1992). Such a system
would perhaps have internally inhibited both complex social stratification
and expansion or mobility of systems of management and identity, while
ultimately encouraging the proliferation or replication of numerous rela-
tively small-scale states (Wallace 2010b: 341).
The conditions that engendered this form of aggregated settlement invite
both historical particularism as well as speculation on global processes that
affected almost every area of Crete by the end of the seventh century. The
period of transition is characterized by scalar stress, involving territorial
expansion, changes in trading patterns, extreme political intensification, and a
pronounced increase in internecine conflict and interpolity warfare—a picture
resonating with the idea of coalescence. Political intensification, changes in
labor allocation and mobilization, and the social mechanisms for production
are strongly in evidence at Azoria, indicating a marked break from Early Iron
Age patterns in the broader region. The analytical lens of coalescence enhances
the picture of sixth-century aggregation at Azoria, in particular, emphasizing
the viability of clan-based systems, their rematerialization, and their poten-
tial to direct or facilitate long-distance exchange and to maintain corporate
holdings of property and control agricultural production over generations.
The process of Archaic coalescence, while predicated and preconditioned by a
preexisting social structure, created a new political community, fundamentally
changed earlier modes of behavior, and ultimately entrenched and codified
new kinds of interaction. The Archaic community was a new way of thinking
and living—a purposive redirection of resources and reshaping of power rela-
tionships in many ways in direct opposition to the Early Iron Age settlement
structure and regional identity. The new aggregated settlements on Crete were
essentially a collection of institutionalized households. Clans were woven into
the urban fabric of the settlement, making up a network of similar houses
whose identity and stability were derived from communal institutions com-
bining cult and feasting practices that reaffirmed and facilitated the social,
political, and economic order of the Archaic community.
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5 Appropriating Community
Platforms and Power on the Formative
Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia
Robin A. Beck, Jr.
Around 400 BC, villagers at the archaeological site of Chiripa, located along
the southern shore of Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca, began to expand an earthen
platform that visually dominated their settlement. Atop this platform, they
erected a compound of fourteen interconnected, stone and adobe chambers
arranged around a sunken court. The construction of such large-scale monu-
ments is usually considered a hallmark of complex societies. Monumental
architecture entails both an investment of labor drawn from many house-
holds and the materialization of social institutions and their ideologies of
power. The labor demands of such works, together with the cultural nego-
tiations required to build them upon communal land, reflects the success
of individual leaders or groups at forging bonds that cross factional lines.
Their scale is also a material symbol of power and thus can shape as well as
reflect the social fabric. Monuments and other public works may justify or
reinforce the status of particular individuals associated with their construc-
tion or use. Even desecrated, defaced monuments can continue to shape
interaction, legitimizing the rejection of one social order and the acceptance
or imposition of another.
Chiripa is located on the Taraco Peninsula, a 20-kilometer-long spit of
land that reaches into Lake Winaymarka, the small, southern part of Lake
Titicaca (Figure 5.1). This area is part of the altiplano, a high, flat, nearly
treeless plateau surrounding Lake Titicaca at elevations that exceed 3,800
meters above sea level. The peninsula itself was first occupied about 1500
BC, and by 800 BC it was packed with as many as nine villages; at 7.5
hectares, Chiripa was one of the largest of these (Bandy 2001: 118). Most
of these farming villages, small and large, were marked by a novel style of
public ritual architecture in which multiple stone and adobe chambers were
placed atop an earthen platform, situated so that it commanded the visual
geography of each settlement. At both Chiripa and the neighboring site of
Alto Pukara, such ritual facilities, which I refer to as platform-chamber com-
plexes (Beck 2004, 2007a), were in use by 750 BC (Beck 2004: 336; Hastorf
et al. 1997: 61) and served—among other things—as places to keep the
bones of the dead (Hastorf 2003). The construction of such complexes just
as the peninsula came to be densely packed with settlements was probably
88 Robin A. Beck, Jr.
N L. htiGaGa
Yunguy~ Tiquina
South
America
f.hi ripa La Paz

Taraco·
Tiwanaku
Desaguadero
Viacha
Peru
Bolivia modern town
20km roads
im'; boundary
Figure 5.1 The Southern Lake Titicaca Basin.
associated with scale-related stress, particularly conflict over the lakeshore’s

finite resources (Bandy 2004). By raising a platform and planting the dead
within it, a Formative village asserted cosmological rights to its place upon
the Taraco Peninsula.
Between 450 and 400 BC, Alto Pukara’s platform-chamber complex and
the earliest platform complex at Chiripa—known as the Lower Houses—
were ritually sealed. Shortly thereafter, Chiripa’s Upper House complex was
built atop the Lower House ruins, although no similar complex was built
at Alto Pukara. In fact, Alto Pukara’s platform witnessed no large construc-
tion projects after this formal closing. The Upper Houses at Chiripa were
a major elaboration of the platform-chamber complex, but what is more
important, perhaps, they suggest that political leaders at Chiripa success-
fully appropriated from some of their neighbors—like the people of Alto
Pukara—sanction to maintain and magnify an active or living platform
complex and to manifest the ultimate cosmological authority it conveyed.
By monopolizing the platform-chamber complex, at least along this sec-
tion of the Taraco Peninsula, Chiripa claimed much more than exclusive
rights to a form of architecture, for the platform and its associated cham-
bers sustained a rich symbolic load. It transmitted its people’s claims about
their primordial past and their place on the land. It materialized the social
charters that enabled their common identity—their community—and the
inequalities that structured and situated their social lives. To close one’s own
platform and to bend to another’s appropriation of its ideology would thus
Appropriating Community 89
have been to transform—to subsume or break, perhaps irrevocably—the
charters inscribed therein.
Chiripa’s appropriation of platform ideology, and others’ apparent acqui-
escence to this dramatic turn of events, was a fundamental episode in the
social history of the Taraco Peninsula, and indeed, of the southern Titicaca
Basin. With this episode, community was stretched beyond the context of
the autonomous village, legitimizing for the first time the integration of a
regional institution. Like the genesis of the platform-chamber complex at the
beginning of the Middle Formative period, this appropriation was linked to
a moment of crisis: sediment cores indicate that Lake Wiñaymarka—which
gave lakeshore access to these communities—became almost completely dry
by 450 BC (Abbott et al. 1997: 179). In this chapter, I suggest that a crisis
triggered by environmental perturbation promoted a new political order,
one that materialized a reinterpretation of community at a multicommunity
scale through the architecture of the Upper House complex and through the
ritual paraphernalia of a basinwide movement known as the Yaya-Mama
Religious Tradition.
EARLY PLATFORM COMPLEXES ON THE TARACO PENINSULA
By about 750 BC, Middle Formative villagers on the Taraco Peninsula began to
embed sacred propositions in a particular form of shrine, the platform-chamber
complex. These sacred propositions legitimized social relationships—rights and
obligations—within and between emergent, property-holding constituencies
that I have elsewhere argued held many general practices in common with
ethnohistorically and ethnographically described house societies (Beck 2007a;
for a range of perspectives on the house, see, e.g., Beck 2007b; Carsten and
Hugh-Jones 1995; Joyce and Gillespie 2000). In his conception of the term,
Claude Lévi-Strauss described the house as a general kinship category, a “type
of social structure” (1987: 151) comparable to other kinship categories like
the family, the lineage, and the clan. He defined the social house as a
moral person, keeper of a domain composed altogether of material and

immaterial property, which perpetuates itself by the transmission of its
name, of its fortune and of its titles in a real or fictive line held as legiti-
mate on the sole condition that this continuity can express itself in the
language of kinship or of alliance, and, most often, of both together.
(Lévi-Strauss 1979: 47; Gillespie translation, 2007: 33)
In the southern Titicaca Basin, the platform-chamber complex rooted house

members to the bones of their ancestors and the narratives that celebrated
their primordial origins. At the same time, the specific arrangement of dif-
ferent buildings atop the platform’s summit formalized relations between
houses—equalities and inequalities alike—and it was in these relations that
houses forged their communities. In building a platform-chamber complex,
houses anchored their temporally bound political and economic fortunes to
those ultimate powers accessed through this specific type of shrine.
Prior to the 1990s, all archaeological research at Chiripa had concen-
trated on the central mound, although intensive excavations by the Taraco
Archaeological Project (TAP), under the direction of Christine Hastorf of
the University of California, Berkeley (e.g., Hastorf 1999, 2003), have now
exposed numerous off-mound areas of the site. While there is still little
known of the nature and size of Chiripa’s residential settlement, we do have
evidence of off-mound public architecture and three large-scale architec-
tural complexes within the mound’s stratigraphy: the Lower Houses (Bandy
1999c; Chávez 1988; Kidder 1956), the Upper Houses (Bennett 1936;
Chávez 1988; Portugal Ortiz 1992), and a Late Formative sunken court
(Browman 1978b). The Lower Houses, so named because researchers once
thought the complex to constitute a village of small houses arranged about
a central plaza (Bennett 1936; Kidder 1956), are the earliest buildings yet
identified in Chiripa’s platform and the earliest known form of raised public
architecture in the Titicaca Basin.
A similar platform complex has been identified at the site of Alto Pukara,
about 4 kilometers east of Chiripa, and radiocarbon and AMS dating
indicate that both the Lower House complex at Chiripa and the Lower
House–style complex at Alto Pukara are contemporary. A detailed compari-
son of these complexes, along with a detailed description of Alto Pukara’s
platform architecture, has been presented elsewhere (Beck 2004, 2007a); as
such, I will only summarize the pertinent data here. Alfred Kidder, with his
field supervisor William Coe, partially excavated two Lower House cham-
bers, labeled House Sub-1 and House Sub-2, along the west side of the
Chiripa platform. Houses Sub-1 and Sub-2 were single-walled and separated
from each another, unlike the double-walled, interconnected Upper Houses
(Chávez 1988: 23). Both structures were built of cobbles, although it is pos-
sible that adobes were used in their demolished upper courses. Their walls
were thick and cobble-faced on the interior and exterior sides, with the space
between faces filled with mud, cobbles, and gravel. Coe found a narrow
niche in the northwest corner of House Sub-2; the base of the niche coin-
cided with the Sub-2 floor, and both the niche and the floor were plastered
with yellow clay (Chávez 1988: 23). Additional niches may have existed,
but Coe exposed just a quarter of this structure. We know even less about
House Sub-1, since this building was all but demolished by the neighboring
hacienda, save for a single wall. Finally, a red clay floor extended at least 4
meters east of House Sub-1 (Chávez 1988: 23). As there is little to suggest
that this was part of a sunken temple or plaza, it was probably an outdoor
activity area associated with these Lower House structures.
Excavations at Alto Pukara (Figure 5.2) revealed a modest ritual facility
consisting of two well-preserved chambers on opposite sides of the plat-
form along the same north–south axis. The platform itself was originally
N963 N98S N987 N989 N993 N99S N997 N999
A-S
E999
Burial 1
N984. N996. N 1000,
E '000 E '000 E '000
E '00 '
E '003 unexcavaled
A·3
STR. 1 (A-73)
N STR. 2 (A-160)
Figure 5.2 Plan View, Structure 1 and Structure 2, Alto Pukara.
characterized by a split-level construction, with the southern building, Struc-

ture 1, constructed on an upper terrace approximately 60 cm higher than the
northern terrace on which Structure 2 was built. An outdoor activity area,
located on the upper terrace and just north of Structure 1, was marked by
several superimposed red clay floors and at least one stone slab–covered, sec-
ondary burial. Structure 1 measured 5.2 meters north–south by 4.2 meters
east–west. Its door was in the east wall, just off-center to the south. There
were two narrow niches, one in each corner of the west wall, opposite this
doorway; at least one, and probably both, extended down to the floor of the
building. Structure 2 was 5.4 meters north–south by 4.8 meters east–west. It
was oriented to the cardinal directions, and its door (also slightly off-center
to the south) was in the west wall instead of the east. The buildings thus
formed an inverted pair, with Structure 1 opening to the east and Structure 2
opening to the west. Structure 2 also had at least two adjoining niches on the
same side of the structure as the door. Clearly, these paired chambers were
built to the same architectural style, but with variability in niche location
and doorway placement.
Alto Pukara’s Structures 1 and 2 are of the same architectural tradition
as the Lower Houses that Kidder and Coe excavated at Chiripa. Like these,
Alto Pukara Structures 1 and 2 were single-walled, lacked storage bins, and
were separated from each another, unlike the double-walled, interconnected
Upper House structures. At both sites, this architectural style was marked
by thick walls cobble-faced on both interior and exterior sides, with the
spaces between filled with mud, cobbles, and gravel. The niche in Coe’s
House Sub-2 exhibits the same characteristics as the niches revealed in Alto
Pukara Structures 1 and 2, while the red clay surface Coe exposed east of
House Sub-1 at Chiripa is very similar to the red patios or plazas north of
Structure 1 at Alto Pukara. I suggest that this is the earliest known regional
tradition of platform architecture discovered in the southern Lake Titi-
caca Basin, although its distribution may have been limited to the Taraco
Peninsula. Both structures at Alto Pukara were carefully and formally closed
with a sequence of intentional deposits that I describe as ritual entombment
(Beck 2004: 334, 2007a: 280). At about the same time, the Lower Houses
at Chiripa were dismantled and buried under the Upper House complex. I
turn now to offer a description of this complex before exploring the social
context of appropriation.
THE UPPER HOUSE COMPLEX AT CHIRIPA
Chiripa’s Upper House complex was discovered by Wendell Bennett in 1934

and has since been examined by every professional archaeological project at
the site (Bandy 1999a, 1999b; Bennett 1936; Browman 1978a, 1978b, 1991;
Chávez 1988; Hastorf 2003; Kidder 1956; Portugal Ortiz 1992; Portugal
Zamora 1940). Given this research, we have a fairly detailed understanding
of the complex’s spatial configuration. The Upper House complex consisted
of fourteen rectangular, highly standardized rooms, with walls of cobbles
and adobes set in mud mortar, arranged in a trapezoid about a central
sunken court. Bennett found an opening or entrance on the north side of
the complex, between House 1 and House B, and recent geophysical surveys
and profile excavations by the Taraco Archaeological Project (Hastorf et al.
1998) located a second entrance on the south side of the complex, between
the as-yet unexcavated Houses 7 and H (Bandy 2001: 131). The complex
thus was evenly halved into two groups of seven interconnected chambers or
rooms, one group on the east side of the mound facing west, the other group
on the west side facing east. Numbers 1 through 7 were used to designate
Upper Houses on the west side of the complex, while the letters B through
H were used to designate Upper Houses on the east side.
The walls of these Upper House structures were probably painted on their
exterior faces (e.g., Chávez 1988: 19). Near House 2, Bennett (1936: 445)
discovered small clay bricks painted green, white, and red, and he also noted
that the exterior wall of this structure, near the doorway, was finished with
a reddish clay wash (1936: 425); near House 3, Kidder’s team recovered
painted clay bricks and a yellow clay slab with traces of red paint (Chávez
1988: 19). Each of the Upper Houses excavated to date appears to have
shared the same basic ground plan, but known side chambers are smaller
than the corner structures. The entire complex—not including its stone-
faced, earthen platform—measured approximately 48 meters east–west by
45 meters north–south (Chávez 1988: 22).
The Upper House complex appears to have been the earliest to integrate
a sunken court or enclosure into a platform-chamber complex. As yet, little
is known of the court’s specific architectural features (Browman 1978a),
but it appears to have been considerably larger than the earlier off-platform
enclosures, if its construction style was similar (i.e., it was probably 20 to 25
meters on a side and faced with cobbles). Kidder and Bennett discovered red
and yellow clay floors that began at the front exteriors of Houses 1, 2, and
3 and may have connected the structures to the central court; also, the series
of superimposed yellow clay floors under Bennett’s Late Formative temple
may have been the floors of the Upper House court (Chávez 1988: 18–19).
Prior to the Upper House complex, outdoor spaces on platforms appear to
have been open patios such as those outside Alto Pukara’s Structure 1 and
Chiripa’s Lower House Sub-2. All sunken courts or enclosures known to
predate the Upper House complex were off-platform constructions. While
most of the features of the Upper House complex are derived from—or were
prefigured by—the architectural features of earlier platform complexes, the
incorporation of the sunken court into the platform was an architectural
innovation, one that prefigured subsequent manifestations of the complex
at the Late Formative and Middle Horizon centers of Pukara and Tiwanaku.
Bennett’s excavation of Houses 1 and 2 along the west side of the com-
plex provide the best available data on the internal organization of the
Upper House structures. House 1, one of the side chambers, had outer walls
measuring 6.65 meters east–west by 4.6 meters north–south and were pre-
served to a height of approximately 1.1 meters (Bennett 1936: 420–424).
The stone foundations of House 1 extended 25 to 30 cm below the interior
floor surface, suggesting that House 1, like Structure 1 at Alto Pukara, was
refloored on at least one occasion. Like all the Upper Houses, this build-
ing had an elaborate double-wall construction that consisted of an interior
wall and an exterior wall (Figure 5.3). Both interior and exterior walls were
about 25 cm thick, and the space between walls ranged from 45 to 62 cm
in width. The inner wall’s perimeter thus formed a central room or chamber
covering 4.5 meters east–west by 2.4 meters north–south. Charcoal remains
from the fill inside this structure led Bennett to conclude that the chamber
had been covered by thatch, but these were the only evidence of roofing
materials obtained from the excavations. Given the apparent lack of burned
wooden posts or timbers in this fill—or in the fill of House 2—it is likely that
any wooden elements of the roofs were dismantled prior to the complex’s
ultimate destruction.
The hollow spaces between the interior and exterior walls were partitioned
into nine “storage bins” (Bennett 1936: 421). There were two bins each on
the west wall and the east wall, three on the north wall, and two on the south
wall—one on either side of the doorway. Each of the nine bins had a well-
finished, decorative window niche that permitted access to the storage space
from inside the room. The base of each window rose about 30 cm above the
level of the floor, and the opening itself was 60 cm wide by 50 cm high. A nar-
row inset panel, 1.8 cm wide, ran along either side of each niche and ended
with a double step fret at the top of the opening, capped with an adobe lintel.
As Chávez (1988: 19) observes, the insert panel or double jamb and its double
fret step became a hallmark of ritual or high-status sculpture, architecture,
and masonry in the south-central Andes, its use continuing at Pukara and
Tiwanaku as well as at Inca religious and political centers.
3
B
3
o
4
E
5
7 3
H
10 meters
Figure 5.3 Hypothetical reconstruction of the Upper House complex, Chiripa.
The base of each storage bin extended to the base of the stone founda-
tions, or 25 to 30 cm below the floor of the central room. This, too, suggests
that the central room was resurfaced and that the base of the foundations
and the bins represents the original floor level. In the excavations of Houses
3 and C (Chávez 1988: 20), Kidder’s excavation team found that the stor-
age bins were covered by stone caps approximately 95 cm to 1 meter above
the level of the floor, suggesting that adults would not have been able to
stand erect inside these bins. Bennett recorded no capstones for those bins
in Houses 1 and 2, but their ruins might have lacked sufficient height for
such features to have remained intact. Chávez (1988: 23) suggests, correctly
I believe, that Upper House storage bins were elaborated from the preceding
Lower House–style corner niches (e.g., the corner niche that Kidder’s team
identified in House Sub-2). The walls of House 1’s central room, including
its double fret panels, were finished with a yellow clay wash that in several
parts of the chamber had been fired to a hard plaster.
The doorway of House 1, on the south side of the building, was slightly off-
center to the west and, as with all of the excavated Upper Houses, was divided
into two sections: an outer opening and an interior passage. The outer open-
ing was 1.4 meters wide and about 75 cm deep. At this point in the door, the
walls on either side of the opening turned in at right angles, creating an inner
passageway 80 cm across into the central room of the chamber. A narrow slot
about 10 cm wide and 80 cm deep (i.e., it was as deep as the passage was wide)
was built as part of the east wall of the inner passage, and it extended down
to the level of the floor. The slot was divided into two sections—one upper,
the other lower—by a row of small flat stones placed across it at the center of
the height of the passage. A second row of stones capped the top of the slot.
Bennett (1936: 424) observed that the slot probably held a double-paneled,
sliding wooden door. The doorway to House 1, that is, had two panels—an
upper panel and a lower panel—divided by the lower row of stones. The
lower panel rested on the floor, and the upper panel rested on the lower row
of stones and was capped by the upper row of stones, 1.1 meters above the
level of the floor. To open the door, which would thus have measured about
1 meter high and 80 cm wide, one pushed the panels into the slot, and, as
Chávez (1988: 20) notes, the top panel could have been open while the bot-
tom was shut. To close the door, one pulled the panels into a vertical groove,
10 cm wide and 10 cm deep, cut into the west wall of the passage. A flat stone
set in this groove held the upper panel (Bennett 1936: 424).
The floor of House 1’s central room was a 30-cm-thick, yellow clay sur-
face, “well smoothed and packed” (Bennett 1936: 424). It was covered with
ash and charcoal, burned clay, fragments of plain and painted ceramics,
and bone and stone tools. This assemblage of artifacts certainly contributed
to Bennett’s and subsequent archaeologists’ interpretations of the Upper
Houses as domiciles, but much of this debris may have been associated with
ritual activities and food offerings deposited inside the structure. Likewise,
the fired clay and charcoal may have been associated with the use of the
floor surface for ritual burning events, in much the same manner as the ash
deposits on the interior surface of Structure 1 at Alto Pukara. In the entry-
way, south of the slot, the surface of House 1 was paved with cobbles; north
of the slot, and for a short distance into the central room, it was paved with
five large, flat stones. In the center of the doorway’s passage, between the
slot in the east wall and the groove in the west wall, a stone doorsill, 32 cm
wide, rose to a height of 30 cm above the floor. Given that the door was
only 1.1 meters high, this doorsill restricted the height of the inner passage
to about 80 cm, forcing one to enter the central room in a very crouched
position, perhaps even on hands and knees.
House 2, which occupied the northwest corner of the complex, measured
9 meters by 5.75 meters, and while it was therefore larger than House 1,
its overall spatial plan was similar. Like House 1, House 2 had nine stor-
age bins around a central room, but also had four small decorative niches
set into the interior wall—two on the north wall and one each on the east
and west walls—between the storage bin windows (Bennett 1936: 425).
House 2’s door was single- rather than double-paneled, but was otherwise
quite similar to that of House 1, with a long slot in the wall for accepting a
door panel. The entire entryway area of House 2—its outer opening and its
inner passage—was paved with large flat stones, with a narrow cobble pave-
ment set immediately outside the chamber. House 2, unlike House 1, had
no doorsill in its inner passage. Bennett noted that the inner walls of House
2 were better finished than those of House 1, having been prepared with
“a thick clay resembling a plaster, apparently fired and slightly polished”
(1936: 426). The floor of the central room was made of yellow clay and, like
House 1, was covered with ash, charcoal, and artifacts.
Excavations in the storage bins and central rooms have provided valu-
able data on the uses of these Upper House structures. Bennett (1936: 424)
recovered quinoa from the central floor of House 1 and from one of the bins
(Bennett and Bird 1964: 106). Kidder’s team also found plant remains such
as quinoa, potato, and ch’unu (freeze-dried potato) in direct association
with the Upper House structures (Chávez 1988: 19). Browman’s floated soil
samples (Browman 1986) yielded quinoa, tubers, and grasses. Excavations
in House 5 conducted by the Taraco Archaeological Project also yielded
modest quantities of quinoa and tubers. This low taxa diversity suggests
that the Upper House structures were used for special, nondomestic activi-
ties (Whitehead 1999: 98). Other food remains likely stored or presented as
offerings within the Upper House complex include fish and camelids; serv-
ing and storage containers recovered inside the structures include cordage
and basketry as well as substantial quantities of decorated and undecorated
pottery.
Bennett (1936: 428, 432–433) excavated thirteen burials under the cen-
tral floor of the large corner structure, House 2, but no burials were located
under the floor of the side structure, House 1 (1936: 426). Most of the
House 2 burials (n = 8) were shallow, oval pits marked by stone lining, stone
covering, or both. Significantly, seven of the stone-marked graves held the
remains of young children or infants; five adult graves in House 2 lacked
any type of stone lining or covering. While gold, copper, lapis, and shell
ornaments were recovered from several of these burial contexts, only one
adult burial—the central grave in the building (Burial CH-H2N) and the
only adult with a stone-marked pit—had any exotic offerings. These House
2 data suggest that children and infants usually received different mortuary
treatments within the structures than adults. Disarticulated adult human
skeletal remains are quite common in the Upper House Level fills (Ben-
nett 1936), suggesting that at least some adult remains were preserved in
above-ground contexts, probably as bundles maintained within the Upper
House structures (Hastorf 2003: 324). Having offered a brief description of
the Upper Houses, I turn now to evaluate the social context in which Chiripa
appropriated platform architecture from neighboring villages.
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF APPROPRIATION
While the Upper House complex appears to constitute less of an absolute

novelty than the first platform complexes, its architects (and their patrons
or supporters) achieved much more than an elaboration of traditional archi-
tecture—the sealing of earlier complexes indicates that villagers at Chiripa
actually appropriated the platform and its ideology from smaller, neighbor-
ing villages such as Alto Pukara. The care and deliberation exhibited in the
final closing events of Structures 1 and 2 at Alto Pukara suggest that Chi-
ripa achieved this appropriative act through persuasion rather than coercion
and that the houses of Alto Pukara—and presumably other small villages—
assented to this turn of events. If such was indeed the case, then there must
already have existed at this moment a prevailing cultural logic—a moral
canon—according to which events associated with this act of appropriation
(i.e., the closing of some platforms and the augmentation of others) might be
justified and explained. This fundamental episode in the cultural history of
the Titicaca Basin, radical as it was, unfolded within a cultural context that
acknowledged dispossession as a legitimate solution to social crisis, and I
suggest that the foundations of this logic lay in the ideology of the platform
itself. Platform ideology, that is, planted appropriation’s seed.
If, as I have already proposed, platform chambers represent the archi-
tecture of the house, places where house members beseeched house dead
(Hastorf 2003), then the form, placement, and spatial organization of these
chambers strongly suggest that certain house members appropriated access
to house dead through the medium of the platform-chamber complex. That
is, certain individuals within the house may have positioned themselves as
exclusive conduits or intermediaries between the living house and its ances-
tors, at least in the context of platform ritual. Between houses, there was a
simultaneous appropriation of house origins. For example, the house affili-
ated with Structure 1 at Alto Pukara assumed cosmological priority over
the house of Structure 2, a claim to which the latter apparently acquiesced,
given the organization of the platform (Beck 2007a). In sum, the ideology
of the platform legitimized appropriation both of architecture and ances-
tors within the house and of cosmological origins between houses. Chiripa’s
appropriation of the platform and its ideology, materialized in the Upper
House complex, may thus be seen as an especially dramatic but not unprec-
edented episode. What was unprecedented was the regional scale of this
appropriation, and if the construction of the earliest platforms around 800
BC appears to have been associated with a moment of social crisis, then
perhaps we should inquire as to whether a similar crisis took place near
450 to 400 BC, when the Upper House complex was built. As I noted at the
beginning of this chapter, sediments from the bottom of Lake Wiñaymarka
indicate that such an episode did, in fact, take place at this time.
Lake Level Change

For societies residing in the Titicaca Basin, any changes to the lake’s water
levels may have had major impacts on political and subsistence economies,
precipitating social crises. Using sediment cores from Lake Wiñaymarka,
Abbot and his colleagues (Abbot et al. 1997) have identified several dra-
matic episodes of low lake water level during the late Holocene period. This
limnological analysis indicates that the level of Lake Wiñaymarka dropped
to 10 to 12 meters below its overflow level, or 16 to 18 meters below the
modern lake level, during a 200-year period beginning around 450 BC.
While the causes of this event are unclear, it would certainly have had a
sweeping impact on the lives of Middle Formative villagers on the Taraco
Peninsula. Lake Wiñaymarka is relatively shallow, with most parts of the
lake measuring less than 20 meters deep. As a result of this episode, however,
it became almost completely dry from 450 to 250 BC. Bandy notes that: “In
its place was an immense grassy plain, crossed by small, meandering rivers
and dotted with marshes” (2001: 137).
Yet the sudden loss of lake resources would probably have stimulated the
rapid intensification of agricultural production, perhaps within the span of a
generation, as new, previously inundated lands were brought under cultiva-
tion (Bandy 2001: 140). One of the ways that Bandy identifies the shift to
intensified cultivation is through an unprecedented importation of olivine
basalt hoes into the southern basin. Bandy describes olivine basalt as a “fine-
textured, homogeneous gray stone with few crystalline inclusions” (2001:
142), and along the Taraco Peninsula this material is found exclusively in
the form of complete and fragmentary stone hoes. The only known source
of this raw material is located in the area of Chucuito, south of Puno on the
western side of Lake Titicaca, and it is likely that the nearby site of Incatu-
nahuiri was a production site for finished hoes (Bandy 2001: 147; Frye and
Steadman 2001). TAP archaeologists at Chiripa have, as yet, only identified
the material in Middle Formative (Late Chiripa) excavation contexts; there
is no evidence for its importation during the Early Formative, and Bandy
argues that its exchange may have diminished or ceased altogether during
Late Formative times (2001: 142–144). If so, then the quantity of stone
hoes imported to the Taraco Peninsula during the Late Chiripa phase is
truly exceptional: on the basis of surface collections made during his total
survey of the peninsula, Bandy (2001: 146) makes an admittedly rough esti-
mate that anywhere from 8.2 to 38 metric tons of olivine basalt—or from
82,000 to 380,000 stone hoes—were imported by Taraco villagers during
the Middle Formative period.
Bandy views the importation of olivine basalt as part of a wider intensi-
fication of regional exchange networks during the Middle Formative period
and suggests (following Browman 1980 and Murra 1968, among others)
that these networks may have integrated the Titicaca Basin with the mid-
elevation valleys known as the yungas and the rain forest, or selva, both of
which physiographic provinces were located east of the basin beyond the
Cordillera Blanca (Bandy 2001: 148). The materials exchanged along these
hypothesized trade routes would have included many perishable items, such
as wood, feline pelts, coca, cotton, chili peppers, hallucinogenic drugs, and
the feathers of tropical birds. Clearly, the increase in basalt hoes during
Middle Formative times indicates a shift in social strategies along the Taraco
Peninsula, and Bandy’s model attempts to explain these changes through
an analysis of interregional trade. I summarize Bandy’s model here, but
afterward present an alternative model that explains how the loss of Wiñay-
marka’s lacustrine resources may have triggered changes in the relationship
between land tenure and the house.
According to Bandy’s model, Lake Wiñaymarka’s drying changed the
dynamics of overland trade in the altiplano. Prior to this episode, the short-
est exchange route from the yungas to the western lake basin went through
the Tiwanaku Valley; following the drying episode, the Taraco Peninsula
offered a shorter route. Bandy proposes that llama caravan trade routes
between the yungas and the western basin shifted to the peninsula during
this period of low lake level to take advantage of the shorter route, and that
leaders of the Taraco villages likewise took advantage of this sudden access
to exotic goods to forge local followings through strategies of “competi-
tive generosity” (Bandy 2001: 148–149). In his scenario, the distribution of
exotic materials—including basalt hoes—was controlled by emergent elites
at particular villages. Those local leaders with better access to exotic goods
acquired more followers than their rivals in neighboring villages, and thereby
emerged as a “settlement determinant” themselves (2001: 160), resulting in
the late Middle Formative site size hierarchy. The increased pool of surplus
labor available to such successful leaders “was fed back into the system via
the construction of increasingly elaborate ceremonial facilities” (2001: 160)
such as the Upper House complex at Chiripa.
I agree with Bandy that the importation of olivine basalt played a sig-
nificant role in how political and subsistence economies changed during the
Middle Formative period. I disagree, however, with his broader conclusion
that exchange practices, focused on elite control of exotic materials, offered
the foundations upon which ambitious individuals and their followings con-
stituted social power. There is little evidence that the importation of exotic
goods to the Taraco Peninsula—other than olivine basalt—actually increased
during late Middle Formative times. Most exotic materials—sodalite and
shell beads, metals like copper and gold, and obsidian—were always very
uncommon and have been recovered in small quantities from Early and
Middle Formative burials and features (Bandy 2001: 140–141; Browman
1998; Hastorf 2003). Not surprisingly, few of the perishable animal and
plant products have been recovered from Early or Middle Formative exca-
vation contexts, such that these classes of goods, as yet, shed little light on
presumed trade networks. We are left, then, with basalt hoes as the only
exotic goods with demonstrably increased rates of importation to the penin-
sula from the Early to Middle Formative periods, and I suggest that the sheer
volume of the stone imported during this time offers a forceful argument in
itself against elite control of its distribution.
Recent data suggest that villagers began to turn gardens into crop fields
during the Middle Formative period (Bruno and Whitehead 2003), and this
change would only have become more pronounced after the sudden dry-
ing of Lake Wiñaymarka. The importation of olivine basalt thus may have
had more to do with increased demands for this stone than with a better
supply due to relocated exchange networks. I suggest that the importa-
tion of basalt would have been more economic (less costly) by means of
boats and rafts when Lake Wiñaymarka was full had there been a demand
for stone hoes in the southern basin prior to late Middle Formative times.
That is, a shift in trade (i.e., supply) routes probably did not bring basalt
hoes to villagers along the Taraco Peninsula. Rather, demand from these
villagers at this specific time drove the importation of basalt, and I suggest
that this novel demand arose from an opportunity seized upon by social
houses to increase their holdings and their social leverage through inten-
sified farming. Wiñaymarka’s drying opened more areas for cultivation,
some of which would have been of better quality than others, having better
soils and better access to water. Social houses positioned at villages with
access to more and better land would have had greater success attracting
new members than houses at villages with poorer land or those at villages
with less good land available.
There are important historical parallels to the situation that I have out-
lined above, in which a drying episode might have increased the agricultural
holdings of well-positioned houses. Erickson (1999: 637) points out that,
because of the flat topography of the lake plain, or pampa, a drop of only 1
meter in lake level can expose approximately 200,000 hectares of previously
inundated, arable land. He observes:
During the long droughts of the 1860s and the 1940s, enormous areas
of lake bed became dry land. These areas have deep, organic-rich soil
that is highly prized by local farming communities. . . . My informants
in Huatta [in the northern Titicaca Basin, near modern Puno] eloquently
spoke both of the horrors of long-term drought and the joy of farming
these new lands. They described piles of threshed quinoa and potatoes
as large as houses. Huattefios also told of how the communities who
control lakeshore territories managed to become “rich” during the
droughts by selling the abundant surplus produced on newly exposed
lake bed and renting those lands to those less fortunate.
I suggest that such a situation would likely have confronted Middle For-
mative houses on the Taraco Peninsula in the aftermath of Wiñaymarka’s
drying. In such circumstances, I propose that access to quality arable land
made a more powerful “settlement determinant” than the abilities of any
particular leader to acquire and distribute exotic goods, although those lead-
ers positioned in better locales for cultivation and, more importantly, for
surplus production, would probably have had better access to such exotics.
For whatever the precise nature of the feasting and exchange occasions spon-
sored by house leaders, the occasions themselves must have been financed
through production of agricultural surplus, and surplus, in turn, required
access to both arable land and the people to farm it. More and better arable
land in this context meant more people, more feasts, and more exotics. The
great demand for olivine basalt hoes at this time may thus be seen as less a
product of elite appetites for exotic items in general and more a product of
house needs for a specific kind of exotic to fully leverage this new opportu-
nity for agricultural surplus production.
In the aftermath of Wiñaymarka’s drying, the transfer of land from one
generation of house members to the next guaranteed, again, that the houses
with the most productive lands quickly compounded their advantages over
less affluent houses. In a social context where commensal politics and com-
petitive generosity were primary avenues of discourse, these richer houses
used such discourse to augment their capacity for allocating structural power
(e.g., Wolf 1999). As with the construction of the earliest platform complexes
and the concomitant dispossession of many house members from platform
ideology, I suggest that this new change in structural power involved an
episode of appropriation—in this case, the construction of the Upper House
complex at Chiripa. If the earlier appropriation was, in a sense, justified
through the novel ideology of the platform itself, then this subsequent act
of appropriation may have acquired legitimacy through appeals to a new
ideology that was sweeping across the basin at this time, the Yaya-Mama
Religious Tradition.
The Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition

In 1975, Sergio Chávez and Karen Mohr Chávez (1975) defined a style of
Middle Formative carved stone slabs and stelae that they referred to as the
Yaya-Mama style. In a subsequent article, Karen Chávez (1988) proposed
a more broadly defined Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition (hereafter referred
to as YMRT) that incorporated the stone sculpture, ritual architecture such
as the Upper House complex, and paraphernalia such as decorated ceramic
tubes or trumpets and slipped and painted serving vessels. The term Yaya-
Mama combines the Quechua words for male (“father” or yaya) and female
(“mother” or mama) and refers to the male and female anthropomorphic
figures carved onto the type of sculpture recovered in the northern basin
town of Taraco, Peru (Chávez and Chávez 1975: 46). The Yaya-Mama style
has also been named the Pa-Ajanu style (Portugal Ortiz 1981, 1998) and
the Pajano style (Browman 1980), although Yaya-Mama has gained a more
common usage (e.g., Bandy 2001; Hastorf 2003; Stanish 2003).
All of the known examples of Yaya-Mama stone sculpture, as defined
by Chávez and Chávez (1975: 57), are stelae or slabs, with no statues cre-
ated in the round. The most common motif is an anthropomorphic face or
head with round eyes, a T-shaped nose and eyebrows (although sometimes
the eyebrows curve over the eyes, forming a V at the bridge of a trapezoid-
shaped nose), and an open mouth in the form of an oval relief band. Often
the figure has a mouth mask and a high head ornament with a zigzag or
serpentine design (Chávez and Chávez 1975: 58). When the body is shown,
its arms are usually folded over its chest, one hand above the other with
palms flat. Other motifs include long, undulating serpentlike figures with
ears and triangular heads; quadrupeds, depicted in profile, often with tails
curled back over their hindquarters; frogs or toads, shown from above or
below; relief rings; and a rootlike motif that, as yet, has only been reported
on the type-monolith known as the Taraco stela. The field of composition is
characterized by the integration of many motifs on a single sculpture, but an
anthropomorphic figure is usually the dominant motif. Standing sculptures
are typically carved on all four sides, and Chávez and Chávez note that there
was a tendency to fill the composition’s space with many motifs, “so as not
to leave large empty areas” (1975: 59). The crafters of Yaya-Mama sculp-
ture emphasized symmetry and complementarity in composition and design,
often carving paired sets of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures. All
of the carving on Yaya-Mama sculpture was produced in a low-relief tech-
nique. Known monoliths range in height from 1.1 meters to more than 2.5
meters, and the smaller carved slabs measure 35 to 50 cm high by 30 to 37
cm wide (Chávez and Chávez 1975: 57).
As noted, Karen Chávez (1988) considered Yaya-Mama stone sculpture
to be but one element of a more broadly conceived Yaya-Mama Religious
Tradition; other features of the YMRT, thus defined, include molded
ceramic trumpets, painted serving bowls and ring-based burners, and any
combination of earthen platform, stone chamber, and sunken court architec-
ture. While a broad definition of the YMRT certainly helps to contextualize
the religious practice of carving and displaying Yaya-Mama sculpture, it is
now clear that the different constituent features of the YMRT have different
social histories (e.g., Bandy 2001; Hastorf 2003; Stanish 2003). For exam-
ple, the platform-chamber complex may be traced to the very beginning
of the Middle Formative period. Ceramic trumpet fragments and quanti-
ties of decorated serving vessels were recovered at Chiripa in the Llusco
sunken enclosure, which dates from around 800 to 400 BC, and the form
of the sunken court itself is at least as early as the Choquehuanca enclosure,
around 1000 to 800 BC. The only feature of the YMRT that was truly novel
at 400 BC is the practice of carving and planting or otherwise displaying
large stone sculptures, and I suggest that the YMRT, as such, holds together
as a distinct religious movement only for the time that artisans were carv-
ing Yaya-Mama stelae and slabs. This is an important point, for, as Charles
Stanish (2003: 132) suggests:
I believe that the existence of stelae on a site represents the emergence of

an elite that was identifying with a larger, pan-regional ideology. Stela
construction was rare, restricted to a few dozen or so sites around the
Titicaca Basin. It is likely that the existence of a stone stela indicated
that a particular site was a regionally important center with a resident
elite actively engaged in the political competition of the time.
It thus should come as no surprise that the Upper House complex at Chiripa,
as yet, is the only known place on the Taraco Peninsula where Yaya-Mama
stone sculptures have been discovered (e.g., Bandy 2001; Browman 1980;
Portugal Ortiz 1998).
It is, of course, difficult if not impossible to interpret the specific meanings
of any of the Yaya-Mama motifs (e.g., Stanish 2003: 132), and, indeed, dif-
ferent motifs may have held a multitude of meanings and may have meant
different things to different people, or on different occasions. However, I do
suggest that the narratives manifested in this stone sculpture probably derived
from, and elaborated upon, the cosmological ideals expressed in the architec-
ture of the platform-chamber complex—namely, an emphasis on primordial
house ancestors and house origins. In this regard, anthropomorphic faces
and bodies and cross motifs may be especially significant. The anthropo-
morphic images that figure most prominently in Yaya-Mama stone sculpture
may reference the primordial house ancestors at their moment of creation or
emergence, and if Chávez and Chávez (1975) are correct in suggesting that
male–female duality is expressed in the instances of paired human images (as
the term Yaya-Mama itself implies), then such anthropomorphic figures may
actually portray an emergent brother–sister pair (Figure 5.4).
The cross motif in Yaya-Mama stone carving, which may be represented
as either a checkered cross or cross formée, may have been a precursor
of the Andean cross, an image that is conspicuous in later Tiwanaku art
and architecture (e.g., Kolata 1993: 104; Stanish 2003: 172–173). I suggest
that the Andean cross is a representation of the platform-chamber complex,
and thus of the primordial mountain of origins, and I believe that the early
cross motif in Yaya-Mama sculpture likewise depicts the mountain from
which house ancestors stepped forth (and thus the platforms on which their
descendents built the stone chambers for their veneration). If so, then the
cross formée frame or border surrounding each of the known Yaya-Mama
slabs (Figure 5.5) suggests that the narrative events depicted upon these
carvings took place at the mountain of origins; that is, the slabs themselves
may reference the body of the primordial mountain. Animal images may
refer to events along the ancestral pair’s journey from the mountain, and
the presence of water-related imagery such as frogs and undulating serpents
Figure 5.4 Yaya-Mama monolith, Taraco, Peru, H. 221 cm, W. 22 cm (after Chávez
1988: Fig. 5).
may reference the water-bringing or water-controlling powers of the original

ancestors (Hastorf 2003: 325). By explicitly joining themselves to ancestors
who possessed such powers, houses participating in the YMRT may have
sought to emphasize their own abilities in this regard, at a time when the
drying of Lake Wiñaymarka seems to have precipitated social crisis.
Figure 5.5 Yaya-Mama slab, Chiripa, W. 37.5 cm, L. 53 cm (after Chávez 1988:
Fig. 4a). The border of this slab was formed by notches cut into its corners (Chávez
and Chávez 1975: 55), actually making a cross formée of the slab itself.
CONCLUSIONS
Bandy (2001: 132–133) has argued that the architectural redundancy of the
Upper House complex—the symmetrical organization of multiple similar
buildings—indicates a segmentary social structure, in which each building
in the complex was probably linked to a different social segment or constitu-
ent group within the village, although, as I argue in this final section of the
chapter, it is possible that those constituent groups with access to the Upper
House complex were not limited to Chiripa but may also have included
those groups from villages such as Alto Pukara. I agree with Bandy’s key
point, however, and further suggest that each of the Upper House structures
was the architecture of a distinct social house. Like Alto Pukara’s earlier
platform-chamber complex, the Upper Houses at Chiripa display a clear
bilateral symmetry, with seven structures along the east side of the plat-
form facing west and seven along the west side of the platform facing east.
Although it is unclear whether status differentiations were associated with
this east–west symmetry, as at Alto Pukara, mortuary data from the Upper
House complex—which manifests a clear emphasis on house dead (Hastorf
2003: 324)—do suggest that some houses were older and more affluent
than others: certain buildings, such as Houses 2 and C, had multiple burials
interred with exotic materials such as copper, gold, and sodalite; other struc-
tures, such as House 1, had neither burials nor exotics. As Bandy (2001:
133) suggests, this variation indicates that “leaders and their constituen-
cies had begun to differentiate, with some commanding more wealth, labor,
prestige and authority than others.” While I believe that wealth and status
differentiations were clearly expressed in the earliest platform complexes,
such distinctions likely became even more pronounced after 450 BC.
Lake Wiñaymarka’s drying, although probably catastrophic for the Taraco
villages in its initial aftermath, may have offered socially and ecologically
well-positioned houses vast opportunities both to acquire new members—
particularly from less well-placed houses—and to augment the production of
agricultural surplus, allowing them to amplify existing inequalities through
their strategic deployment of structural power. Chiripa’s appropriation of
the platform-chamber complex represents precisely such a deployment and
testifies to the success of its social houses at negotiating these newfound
opportunities. The social sanction for their appropriation of the platform and
its ideology certainly derived from traditional appeals to and claims about the
sacred, materialized through participation in the basinwide movement known
as the Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition, and especially through the carving and
planting of Yaya-Mama stone sculpture. Because Chiripa is the only site along
the Taraco Peninsula where such carvings are known to have been displayed,
elite houses at Chiripa may have positioned themselves as exclusive conduits
to the primordial ancestors depicted on Yaya-Mama sculpture. Helms (1988,
1998) has devoted considerable research to the relationships between geo-
graphical and cosmological distance, and following her perspective, it seems
likely that elite houses at Chiripa harnessed sacred authority derived from
these dimensions of the remote. Their participation in the YMRT joined them
to geographically and cosmologically distant elite houses in other parts of
the basin, and simultaneously limited their indirectly participating neighbors
from accessing this source of authority in a similar manner.
The possibility of indirect participation in the Yaya-Mama movement by
Chiripa’s neighbors is significant, for it is likely that while Chiripa appropri-
ated the social sanction to build and maintain an active platform, the social
houses of this village probably did not monopolize house architecture. That
is, given the relatively large number of chambers in the Upper House com-
plex, it is unlikely that sanction to access this facility was restricted to those
social houses having residence at Chiripa (Hastorf 2003: 327). Instead,
houses at villages such as Alto Pukara may have “owned” one or another
of the Upper Houses. The construction of the Upper House complex was
probably, as such, a truly regional episode along this section of the Taraco
Peninsula and undoubtedly manifested a reinterpretation of house and com-
munity. By transforming the agenda on house and community in such a
manner as to restrict neighboring villages from direct access to platform and
Yaya-Mama ideology, and to promote their indirect access through platform
ritual at Chiripa, the elite houses at Chiripa probably made acquiescence to
their appropriation of platform ideology more acceptable and secured their
own positions in this new political order. Chiripa itself may have acquired
the character of a local, small-scale pilgrimage center, the place where
houses at nearby villages such as Alto Pukara came to placate and beseech
house dead. If this was the case, then activities surrounding the construction
and use of the Upper House complex would clearly have transformed how
Middle Formative villagers conceptualized community. No longer was this
principle—as materialized in platform ideology—bound to the village, but
now and for the first time it legitimized a regional institution.
This brings us back to the construction of the Upper House complex.
The Upper Houses constitute, in part, a spatial rearticulation of structures
transformed in a cascading series of occurrences. But rearticulation here
is also constituted in the ceremonial closing of an earlier complex at Alto
Pukara, such that the moment of rearticulation entailed both an act of
appropriation—as materialized in Chiripa’s Upper House complex—and an
act of acquiescence—as materialized in Alto Pukara’s loss. The closing of
Alto Pukara’s facility seems not to have been an act of violence but rather
a careful and deliberate performance that was likely enacted by the very
people who used it (Beck 2004: 341). They submitted, that is, to the loss
of their own complex just as the Upper House expansion at Chiripa was
underway. Moreover, given the considerable scalar disparities between ear-
lier complexes and the monumental Upper Houses, Chiripa’s expansion may
actually have demanded the labor and tribute of nearby villages such as Alto
Pukara.
This is not to suggest, however, that the site of Alto Pukara was no longer
a locus of community after Chiripa’s appropriation of its platform architec-
ture; nor is it to suggest that the people of Alto Pukara thereafter belonged
to two different communities—one local, one regional. Rather, I suggest
that this episode changed how villagers on the Taraco Peninsula situated
themselves in community, and that after construction of the Upper Houses,
Chiripa and Alto Pukara might have coexisted as separate, if unequal, loci
of the same community. From approximately 800 to 400 BC, the platform
and its ideology materialized community at multiple loci on the Taraco Pen-
insula. But after 400 BC, community was materialized in this medium and
along this section of the peninsula only in the Upper House complex at Chi-
ripa. The social charters that I suggest were inscribed in the earlier platform
complexes were reconstituted or reconfigured in a single place, even as the
older platforms remained a part of the social landscape, visible testaments
both to the past and to their constituencies’ ongoing participation in—and
concomitant legitimation of—the novel synthesis of house and community
chartered at Chiripa.
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6 Social Integration and the Built
Environment of Aggregated
Communities in the North
American Puebloan Southwest
Alison E. Rautman
The archaeological record of Puebloan groups in the American Southwest

shows two widespread and broadly shared periods of population aggrega-
tion: an initial development of small farming villages and a later period of
nucleation into the high-density settlements that the Spanish referred to as
pueblos, or towns (e.g., Cordell et al. 1994). In general, the Spanish explor-
ers, conquerors, and missionaries seem to have viewed each pueblo as a
relatively well-organized and integrated community, with internal gover-
nance and varied relationships with neighboring groups. The Spanish also
recognized that shared religious beliefs and communal rituals were impor-
tant in creating a sense of community within each pueblo. Some of these
rituals and activities were private, involving only selected individuals in the
secluded space of an interior ceremonial room or kiva (Adams 1991). Other
activities on the plaza involved larger groups and were visible to all pueblo
residents and even visitors. The Spanish recognized pueblo plazas as open
areas similar to their own marketplaces or town squares—that is, areas that
functioned in part as a symbol and expression of the community as a whole
(Adler 1996; Adler and Wilshusen 1990; Barrett 2002).
The Spanish made inferences of pueblo social and political organiza-
tion based on comparisons with their own experiences of the associations
between social life and the features of the built environment in Spain and in
Mexico. In many cases, their immediate impressions of Pueblo Indian life
were perceptive and accurate (Foster 1960). As one might expect, however,
they were likely less aware of other differences in organization within and
between pueblo villages. They were also less aware of cultural differences in
the significance or meaning of their observations.
When archaeologists consider more ancient time periods in Puebloan his-
tory, they similarly interpret evidence in light of their own knowledge of
specific case studies and a general cross-cultural understanding of small-
scale village organization. Some of these cross-cultural studies include
specifically the study of architecture, the built environment of domestic and
communal structures, and people’s use of space within the village itself (e.g.,
Moore 1996; Reed 1956).
In this chapter, I use some of these ideas of the built environment to identify
some basic principles of village layout and space use that seem to have been
112 Alison E. Rautman
important for the first aggregated villages in my study area, the Salinas prov-
ince of central New Mexico. In this region, there are two overall phases or
periods of population aggregation and village formation. The earlier period,
from about AD 1100 to 1350, is the time in which people first built the con-
tiguous apartment-style dwellings that the Spanish recognized as pueblos.
During the second period of aggregation, after about AD 1400, most of these
small pueblos were abandoned, and the remaining villages grew markedly in
size. Three of the large late pueblos in the area are preserved today as Salinas
Pueblo Missions National Monument, and are known as Abo, Quarai, and
Gran Quivira. In this study, I consider particularly the first period of aggrega-
tion and village formation in the area around Gran Quivira (Figure 6.1).
My research stems from one general question: Given an archaeological
site that we recognize as an aggregated settlement, how can we tell if it was
in fact organized as a single unified social community? Among the modern
Southwestern pueblos, social integration is often assumed to result from
public performance of communal rituals, which commonly take place in
subterranean kivas and/or plazas. Archaeologists thus commonly moni-
tor group integration by looking for evidence of kivas and plazas on more
ancient sites (Adams 1991; Crown and Kohler 1994; Lipe and Hegmon
1989; Ruscavage-Barz and Bagwell 2006). One debate, for example, con-
cerns the origins of kivas, and the significance of the earliest “proto-kivas”
for community integration (Adler 1989, 1996; Adler and Wilshusen 1990;
Lipe and Hegmon 1989).
The basic idea here is that people who have shared experiences in watch-
ing and/or participating in group activities will develop a sense of unity
and group identity and will share certain ideas about their mutual assump-
tions and goals. This same idea lies behind much of the current literature
on community building for organizations such as churches, schools, civic
organizations, and in business (e.g., Mattessich and Monsey 1997). Archae-
ologically speaking, the logic of the argument is that practices involved in
integration and community building involve group activities and should be
most detectable if they occur in specified or segregated group areas, especially
if the groups involved become large enough so that they cannot be hosted in
any one individual’s household space. In some cases, the social benefits of a
large group experience may even justify the added labor, expense, and plan-
ning involved in building specialized facilities or reserving them for such use.
Here, I show how archaeological research during the last 10 years or
so has contributed to a better understanding of how village-community
integration operated across some 200 years of population aggregation in
the Salinas province. I use information from Matthew Chamberlin’s (2008)
recent survey of small jacal sites and my own excavation data from early
pueblo sites that date slightly later in time. These sites include adobe pueblos
(which seem to overlap in time with jacal structures) and masonry pueblos.
These masonry pueblos are often called Glaze A pueblos because glazeware
sherds produced from AD 1315 to 1425 dominate the ceramic assemblages.
Social Integration and the Built Environment 113
Figure 6.1 Pre-Hispanic and Hispanic Period Pueblos of the Salinas Basin, showing
the Spanish Mission sites of Quarai, Abo, and Gran Quivira. The archaeological sites
and surveys mentioned in this chapter are located near the large late pueblo of Gran
Quivira, on the eastern flanks of Chupadera Mesa.
Chamberlin’s (2008) survey of early sites in the Salinas area shows that
open activity areas (analogous to the later formal plazas) were important fea-
tures of site planning early in the archaeological record, even before people
built specialized ceremonial chambers or kivas. I argue that early villagers
in Salinas also created and reinforced a sense of community in everyday life
by means of their domestic architecture. Here, two principles—standardiza-
tion and repetition in the built environment—form the basic vocabulary of
village organization and community integration within a regionwide context
of population aggregation.
QUESTIONING COMMUNITY INTEGRATION
The Zuni metaphor of their home pueblo as the “anthill of the world” con-
veys an image of the Southwestern Indian pueblo as a densely populated
and unified community, bustling with activity. In the last hundred years or
so, visitors and tourists also found this metaphor an apt descriptor of their
perception of the highly integrated, communal life of the Puebloan village, a
place where the people found “a natural unquestioned regulation of activity,
steadiness of communal purpose, with minimal deviance and disruption”
(Hinsley 1990: 472–473). Scholars and interested students of the Southwest
today have a more nuanced view of Puebloan society, of course, but for
many casual visitors, this unrealistic but romantic image of highly integrated
Puebloan society within the aggregated village still has considerable appeal
(Lavender 2006).
However, archaeologists recently have questioned the extent to which
historic and modern understandings of Indian pueblo organization provide
accurate and helpful models for understanding past social dynamics among
the more ancient aggregated village sites (e.g., Lekson 2009). These ques-
tions include not just the assumption of political and economic equality
between individuals in nonhierarchical village societies but also concern the
basic assumption of the pueblo village as a single unified and integrated
social community. Recent archaeological research among Western Pueblo
and also some Rio Grande groups record a more complex history of vil-
lage development, with certain pueblos experiencing repeated in-migrations
of outsider groups, with variable degrees of social, economic, and politi-
cal accommodation by the original community (see Bernardini 1998, 2005;
Duff 1998, 2002; Fowles 2009; Fowles et al. 2007; Kohler et al. 2004; see
also earlier work by Marshall and Walt 1984).
For example, we now know that at Grasshopper Pueblo in Arizona,
repeated in-migration resulted in archaeologically visible distinctions in
social roles and statuses of early-arriving groups compared to latecomers
(Lowell 2007; Riggs 2001, 2007).
This research suggests that at least some ancient pueblos recorded in archae-
ological sites may not have resembled what we think of as towns or integrated
social communities as much as an assortment of fairly autonomous kin groups.
As a result, some recent models of pueblo village politics emphasize the con-
tingent and temporary nature of community membership and village identity
and highlight the significant role of competition between basically autonomous
factions in social, economic, and political activities within nucleated village-
communities (e.g., Fowles 2009; Wallace and Lindeman, this volume).
My study area in central New Mexico provides a contrasting view of
regional population aggregation and the formation of highly nucleated
pueblo villages in ancient times (Figure 6.2). In contrast to many other areas
of the Puebloan Southwest, the Salinas region shows little evidence of in-
migration of culturally diverse groups from different areas. In this area, the
process of population aggregation and village nucleation is probably best
interpreted as a reassortment of an existing population within the region
(Chamberlin 2008; Rautman 2000; Spielmann 1996). Of course, this con-
cept of limited regional movement does not imply that people in the Salinas
region were confined to their pueblos or their immediate surroundings; they
moved around the landscape to obtain resources and to trade, they main-
tained diverse and distant social and economic ties with other groups, and
they exchanged ideas as well as pottery, salt, foodstuffs, and trade goods
anco
Abo Pueblo anco
anco
and Mission anco
jlllWIIICS
"le~ill
£Im:blo
!lfetll/llo. Plaills Blanco
C/llIpadera Mesa
Pueblo Color-Ida
Pueblo de la Mesa
Kite Pilhouse
Village
Kite Pueblo
Frank's Ruin
Gran Quivira l:tucblo
Pueblo Pardo
anco
anco
anco
anco
ancoanco Color-Ida lrun~t l lOIHl 1 ilJId
anco
ancoanco
rllld)' \hsnnry
anco
Color-Ida Pln)~ La1c
anco anco
anco
Figure 6.2 Archaeological sites near Gran Quivira (from Caperton 1981; redrawn
and updated by Marieka Brouwer).
with many different groups across the Southwest and with Plains groups as
well (Foster 1960; Noble 1993; Reed 1956).
There is some evidence of in-migration, however, beginning around AD
1545. At this time, new construction at Gran Quivira coincides with a new
mortuary practice of cremation, which then persisted alongside the older cus-
tom of inhumation (Hayes 1981; Hayes et al. 1981). Cremation burials are
unusual among the Rio Grande pueblos but are common among the Zuni,
located some 130 miles (ca. 209 kilometers) to the west; this evidence argues
for a specific influx of ideas—and, likely, people—from the Western Pueblo
(Cibola) area (Hayes 1981: 176). In general, however, the Salinas pueblos
experienced less of the repeated, frequent, and relatively large-scale popula-
tion movements than occurred in other regions of the Puebloan Southwest. In
this area, therefore, we can begin to examine the social processes of commu-
nity formation within a context of regional aggregation and site nucleation
as phenomena apart from the complications and social disruptions connected
with continued large-scale in-migration from distant areas.
AGGREGATION AND VILLAGE-COMMUNITIES

IN THE SALINAS PROVINCE
Southwestern archaeologists distinguish two different processes of aggrega-

tion at different spatial and conceptual scales. They commonly use the term
aggregation to describe a spatial clustering of sites within a region and a
spatial clustering of structures within a given locale. The term nucleation
is usually reserved for distinguishing particularly within-site clustering of
contiguous structures into room blocks. For example, in pithouse village
sites, aggregation may be expressed in spatial clustering, referring to the
space between structures, while in above-ground pueblo sites, aggregation
involves room-block formation (that is, nucleation) as well as clustering of
different room-block units in the village. Some of the very large pueblos in
the Southwest, of course, are highly nucleated, containing many hundreds
of contiguous rooms with multiple stories.
Spanish explorers and administrators describe the large historic Salinas
pueblos as separate village-communities or towns, in which many hundreds
of people lived closely together in contiguous room blocks that were clus-
tered around multiple open plazas. The historic records describe some of the
political and economic relationships within and also between these towns or
pueblos and attest to their inhabitants’ self-awareness and self-identification
as members of one or another Indian pueblo. While intravillage disagree-
ments, quarrels, and factions are well-known features of village life, it seems
clear that the individual historic pueblos of the Salinas region operated as
fairly unified social communities (Hayes 1981; Hayes et al. 1981). This
generalization does not mean that there were no factions, interest groups,
or identifiable social segments within each pueblo-community; rather, I use
this historic evidence here to establish simply that each pueblo’s inhabitants
showed some degree of social integration at the scale of the pueblo, includ-
ing a sense of village-level identity and self-differentiation from nearby
similar pueblos.
A problem arises, however, when we consider much earlier time peri-
ods—for example, before and during the development of the earliest pueblo
villages. Here, I consider explicitly whether we can make the same sort of
inference about whether the inhabitants of pueblos much earlier in time
also identified with their own “town” or community and differentiated
themselves from similar towns nearby. I’ll consider specifically the social
strategies for aggregation during two locally defined time periods: the Jacal
Period (about AD 900 to 1150) and the Early Pueblo Period (from about
AD 1150 to the late 1300s).
In this area, the Jacal Period represents the first known aggregated settle-
ments with above-ground architecture (Hayes et al. 1981). During this time
period, wattle-and-daub structures (locally called jacals) were built with
stone footings. Rooms and linear room blocks are loosely clustered together
in each site; one can trace the outline of rooms and multiroom structures by
following these lines of upright stone slabs. These sites are known primar-
ily through survey (Chamberlin 2008) and are notoriously difficult to date,
since the rooms are usually filled only by windblown sand, and midden
debris is fairly widely scattered.
In the succeeding Early Pueblo Period, beginning around AD 1100 or
1150, there is a shift to highly nucleated, tightly packed settlements. These
earliest pueblos are made of adobe and consist of four linear room blocks,
two rooms wide and about six to ten rooms long, organized around a rect-
angular central plaza. Only two of these early adobe pueblos have been
identified (Rautman 2000; Rautman and Chamberlin 2010). Adobe archi-
tecture does not preserve well, however, even in the semiarid American
Southwest, and the archaeological record is complicated by the fact that
both of the known adobe pueblos were later extensively remodeled with
masonry.
The masonry pueblos in Salinas are generally similar in size to the two
known adobe plaza-oriented pueblos. That is, although there may be some
variations in layout, the masonry pueblos did not necessarily house any
more people than did the earlier adobe pueblos or the jacal sites. There is no
evidence of population in-migration at this time; rather, the shift to adobe
construction and later to masonry construction seems to be a change in settle-
ment organization rather than population size per se. Each of the known
masonry pueblos does show signs of population expansion over time, includ-
ing the addition of new rooms and extra room blocks, and in some cases, the
new room blocks may form a second enclosed (or partially enclosed) plaza
(Chamberlin 2008; Rautman 1993, 1994; Solometo et al. 2011).
By about AD 1350, however, most of these single plaza-oriented pueblos
are abandoned. After this time, the few remaining sites such as Gran Quivira,
Abo, and Quarai grew substantially in size (Hayes et al. 1981; Vivian 1979).
This growth occurred rapidly, with the addition of multiple room blocks
clustered around multiple plazas. It is tempting to assume that the displaced
people from the small plaza-oriented pueblos moved as discrete groups into
the few remaining pueblos, but this inference is not at all certain. The sheer
size of the large pueblos makes it difficult to understand their occupational
history in detail, but excavations have shown evidence of (apparent) site
abandonment and reoccupation at both Gran Quivira and Quarai during
the AD 1300 period (e.g., Hayes et al. 1981; Hurt 1990). These findings
indicate that the specific histories of each site may be quite variable and
complex, and subsequent research, especially by Spielmann (1994, 1996,
2002, 2004a, 2004b; see also Graves 2002; Graves and Spielmann 2000),
has added more detail to our understanding as well as challenged other
assumptions about these late pueblos and their spatial and social organiza-
tion. In terms of overall social strategies and the built environment, however,
the multiple-plaza site layout appears to have been a successful one, with
the same general architectural schema retained through Spanish Conquest.
All of the early sites, from the Jacal Period onward, show architectural
features that we think of as characteristic of a pueblo town or village:
above-ground residential architecture, individual rooms built adjacent to
one another in contiguous groupings called room blocks, and the clustering
of different room blocks in a locale that we recognize as a single archae-
ological site. These sites may look like politically and socially integrated
village-communities described by the Spanish, and it is tempting to assume
that they were. However, recent research regarding the contingent and tem-
porary nature of some pueblo communities highlights the need to question
this assumption.
PROCESSES OF AGGREGATION AND

NUCLEATION IN SALINAS
Based on the evidence that was previously available, archaeologists had

thought that the first masonry pueblos represented the first time that people
aggregated together into a village or community (Hayes et al. 1981). My
own excavations at one early adobe pueblo in the 1990s (Kite Pueblo) led
me to disagree—I reasoned that people who were going to build such a well-
organized, preplanned structure surely must have been in contact with one
another before (Rautman 2000). Perhaps not surprisingly, once someone
took the time to look for evidence that people must have been living in these
same areas before the time of adobe pueblos, the earlier sites were not that
hard to find (Chamberlin 2001, 2008). In the next sections, I describe what
we know of the architecture itself and the built environment of sites from
the Jacal Period and from the Early Pueblo Period, and I articulate how
specific principles of the standardization of domestic space, and the iterative
repetition of that space, worked together to create a unifying principle of
village-level integration.
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION IN

SALINAS JACAL SITES
In the Salinas region, use of jacal architecture occurs throughout the

sequence, and some jacal structures are likely footings for porches or shades
(ramadas) associated with much later sites. The Jacal Period (about AD
1150 to 1300), however, represents the time when jacal structures, rather
than adobe or masonry architecture, represent the dominant expression of
village life. Throughout the Salinas region, the organization of Jacal Period
sites shows that people’s ideas about general size, shape, and organization of
rooms, room blocks, and room-block groupings contribute to the sense of a
shared history and experience of all groups within this region (Chamberlin
2006, 2008, 2012).
Regionally shared values are exemplified, for example, in construction
methods (using upright stone slabs at the base of walls), the overall linear
arrangement of contiguous rooms into room blocks, and the north–south
orientation of the linear structures. Additional rooms, if present, were
almost invariably added on to the east, creating room-block shapes usually
described as block letters L, F, or E (Caperton 1981).
Chamberlin’s (2008) survey found little evidence of social markers that
might emphasize the separation and differentiation of individual village
sites; for example, he did not find such obvious territorial boundary markers
in rock art, shrines, or cairns that are common in other parts of the South-
west (e.g., Duff 2002). The relatively open boundaries expressed between
different village territories or use-areas were also accompanied by an appar-
ently unrestricted flow of ideas and communication between people in each
village site. For example, people at each jacal village site tended to obtain
ceramic raw materials from diverse sources, with some preference for the
sources closest to their village. The degree of standardization in vessel form
and manufacture and the fairly limited array of design-style attributes of
Chupadero black-on-white pottery also attest to a relatively unrestricted
exchange of ideas across the region (Chamberlin 2008; Clark 2006).
This overall regional uniformity included some local-level variation,
however. For example, Caperton (1981) noted a general distinction between
northern and southern jacal villages. Jacal villages by Abo Pueblo are gener-
ally smaller, and the southern villages by Gran Quivira tend to be larger (see
Figure 6.2). Within the southern group, Chamberlin (2008) also found local
variation in site layout. The sites exhibit a range of variation in architectural
details such as in the size of the largest room blocks within a site (that is,
the number of rooms within a room block), the degree of nucleation (clus-
tering) of contiguous room-block structures, and also in the organization
of these structures in relationship to communal open spaces (Chamberlin
2008). This local differentiation at the level of the individual site seems to
point to a regional social network of continuing interaction among people
who lived in the different village sites, but one in which the different jacal
villages represented coherent social groups.
Local-level (village) decision making is also seen in the record of ceramic
exchange (Chamberlin 2008). For example, each jacal site yielded decorated
pottery derived from several different sources, for both local and nonlocal
pottery types. In general, however, the most abundant sources for local pot-
tery were those that were closest to each village. This evidence suggests that
distance and transport costs were important factors affecting people’s choice
of pottery source. In social terms, we might infer that people in each village
had their own preferred sources for obtaining resources, raw materials, and
trade goods, but that those preferences or relationships did not preclude
access to different sources. In this respect, then, people in each jacal vil-
lage operated more or less autonomously, within the boundaries of certain
expectations and assumptions that were shared widely across the region
(Chamberlin 2008).
This site-level variation, however, operated with certain broadly shared
organizational parameters in the built environment. For example, the sizes
of individual rooms are generally quite similar both within and between
sites. Rooms tend to be comparable in size, roughly 2 meters by 2 meters
square, with some small variation. This similarity of size, regardless of room
function, creates a standardized framework for domestic life across each
site and across the region. In addition, there is also no obvious evidence
of differential room access—at least, as far as we can tell from the visible
architecture. The single line of rooms in the typical linear room block does
not create any obvious back or front to the room block as a whole, and there
are no internal rooms that show limited accessibility.
Furthermore, although contiguous rooms form room blocks of varying
shapes both within and between sites, there is no apparent patterning in
the distribution of room blocks of different shapes across a site. None of
the jacal sites reveal any indication that room blocks of a certain shape
cluster together or that room-block groupings with more total rooms were
preferentially located near any open (plaza) spaces or near the edges of the
settled area. The evidence also indicates that differences in the total number
of rooms per room block are not correlated with spatial location or certain
locales within the local landscape.
A greater degree of site-level variation is seen in the lengths of linear room
blocks within a site and in the total number of room blocks present per site.
Again, however, these differences do not correlate with any other obvious
differences in the built environment (such as positioning on the site itself) or
even to the local aspects of terrain.
We don’t know how the archaeological concept of the room block might
correlate with specific social groupings such as households, extended families,
or kin groups, but it is clear that difference in overall size of the group using
the room block did not necessarily translate into more or less favorable resi-
dential locations within a site as a whole. These observations of Salinas jacal
sites point to a small number of structuring principles that guided building
construction and use, with the effect of minimizing differences between the
various rooms at any given jacal village site.
Chamberlin (2008) does record two temporal trends in the spatial orga-
nization of residential structures and open spaces between them. On the
one hand, there seems to be a trend toward tighter nucleation (spatial clus-
tering) of different room blocks within a given jacal village site. At the same
time, he also finds a degree of site-level variation in the location and size of
an open activity area, which he interprets as local experimentation in the
concept of a shared communal space (such as a plaza). These two trends
suggest that while people are clustering more tightly together, with less
individualized space associated with each household or architectural unit,
they are together creating and defining a sense of shared space within the
community as a whole.
Shared or communal spaces are commonly seen as expressions of social
integration—even those shared spaces that are not particularly visible or
“open to the public” within the pueblo as a whole. In this respect, the
large, open, and visible space of the pueblo plaza and the relatively small,
not-visible, and restricted space of the pueblo kiva are both important
expressions of village integration. In some pueblo sites, shared communal
spaces may consist simply of spaces between linear room blocks. The Hopi
village of Oraibi and the pueblo of Acoma are two examples of this linear
spatial layout of residential structures separated by pathways or streets run-
ning more or less parallel to one another (Reed 1956).
At some point, however, very long room blocks and streets also cre-
ate barriers to social interaction and can alter lines of sight and access to
different areas and affect overall traffic flow. In the Puebloan Southwest,
thus, a centrally located, shared, public, visible, and communal space such
as the plaza is considered to be a particularly significant factor in creating
and expressing social integration among a larger group such as the village.
In the modern pueblos, especially those along the Rio Grande, a single
large central plaza is particularly important for dances and other all-pueblo
activities.
In the Salinas region during the Jacal Period, the conception of the plaza
seems to begin with a simple differentiation of shared space from residential
space. The shared space need not be centrally located, however—indeed,
many European medieval towns and modern Euroamerican towns situate
fairgrounds or sports fields on the outskirts of town. In Salinas, a cleared
level space on the edge of the cluster of room blocks, segregated from resi-
dential structures, represents the earliest communal spaces that seem large
enough to accommodate gatherings that would include most or all of the
site’s residents (Figure 6.3; see Chamberlin 2008: 234).
Level
activity
area
o 20m
Figure 6.3 Linear jacal site with activity area (redrawn from Chamberlin 2008:
Fig. 5.1).
PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION IN

EARLY PUEBLO SITES
In the Early Pueblo Period, the processes of aggregation and nucleation are
expressed at three different spatial and conceptual scales: the region, the
archaeological site (pueblo), and the room block. Information from survey
(Chamberlin 2008) and from excavation (Rautman 2000, 2012) indicates
that it is likely the people who were living in the jacal sites, or in more
scattered homesteads nearby, planned and built the more tightly organized
plaza-oriented pueblos. There is no evidence that the pueblo builders were
newcomers to the Salinas region; instead, this change in architecture is an
in situ development among the existing local communities. It represents a
change of ideas rather than a change of personnel.
We don’t really know why people decided to adopt the plaza-oriented site
layout or why they changed construction techniques to rely on adobe and
(later) masonry. Adobe construction is common among Puebloan groups
who lived along the Rio Grande, roughly 50 kilometers to the west of Sali-
nas. Near the river, of course, water for adobe is readily available, and it is
possible that interactions between these two areas did result in some local
experimentation with adobe construction. We see this experimentation in
the adobe construction of the two earliest Salinas pueblos (Rautman 2000,
2008); in both cases, however, people switched to use of local stone for later
remodeling and expansion.
The plaza-oriented site layout is common among many ancient as well as
modern pueblos in the Rio Grande area (Reed 1956). Archaeologists often
cite the apparent advantages of this site layout for purposes of defense (e.g.,
Bernardini 1998), but this form of organization has other advantages for
social rituals in the sense of theater and performance as well (Chamberlin
2006; Inomata 2006; Moore 1996; Schachner 2001). The central plaza also
plays a rather more pervasive role in structuring everyday behavior, mak-
ing even the most ordinary activities part of the visible and public sphere.
Not surprisingly, this same central design is also effective for social control
in other settings of crowd control such as prisons (Bentham 1787 [1995];
Foucault 1977).
The adobe Kite Pueblo (Rautman 2000) is one these earliest plaza-oriented
pueblos in Salinas (Figure 6.4). Excavations suggest that the plaza-oriented
layout was an integral part of the original site construction and that the
inhabitants expended considerable effort to maintain the same layout over
time, even as later masonry remodeling and additions created more roofed
space on the outside of the pueblo. The importance of the plaza-oriented
layout is not unique to Kite Pueblo, however. All the known masonry
pueblos in Salinas (dating slightly later) are of similar layout. The fact that
early masonry pueblos appear fairly rapidly and seemingly synchronously
throughout the Salinas region suggests that something about this form was
important in accommodating and expressing the social relationships that
constituted such nucleated settlements. Recent excavations at another early
pueblo site reinforce the importance of the central plaza during this time.
Frank’s Pueblo (ca. AD 1150–1300), only a few miles south of Kite
Pueblo, is located in a more upland setting (Brouwer et al. 2009; Rautman
2008) (Figure 6.5). This pueblo was also originally of adobe construction.
It was established about the same time as Kite Pueblo, but it was occupied
for a longer period of time, with a much more extensive masonry occupa-
tion. My excavations at Frank’s Pueblo (with the collaboration of Matthew
Chamberlin and Julie Solometo) reveal a great deal of the constructional
Datum E
607E 446
ROOM BLOCK I
5
Room 2
Room 3
Room I PLAZA
Room 7
'ROOMBLOCK IV
Clay Pit
Room 8
Room 5 Room 9
Datum F
63 1E 442N
ROOM BLOCK II
ROO MB LOCK III

Room 6
disturbed area
meters
Room 4
o 5
LA-199 KITE PU EBLO

Walls (adobe or masonry)
Figure 6.4 Kite Pueblo (LA 199), an early adobe pueblo.
history of the pueblo. This history attests to the importance of the central
plaza to the life of the pueblo and adds some details regarding the mecha-
nisms by which the later pueblos grew so dramatically in size.
Frank’s Pueblo shows considerable continuity of occupation. Chamber-
lin’s (2008) survey shows a number of jacal structures and room blocks in
the vicinity of the rubble mounds of the pueblo. Our excavations showed
that this surface masonry at Frank’s Pueblo overlay and obscured an under-
lying small plaza-oriented pueblo made of adobe, similar to Kite Pueblo in
construction, size, and layout.
Continued construction and remodeling at Frank’s Pueblo resulted in
masonry additions to the original adobe pueblo, building up from existing
Figure 6.5 The Adobe Pueblo at Frank’s Pueblo (LA 9032).
walls, and also building outward, including the addition of masonry walls
along the eastern portion of the pueblo. This remodeling strategy is similar to
that seen at Kite Pueblo just before its abandonment. We don’t know why the
people of Kite Pueblo left, or where they went, but the evidence from Frank’s
Pueblo gives us some clues regarding the regional social environment. Here,
new construction on the east side of the pueblo shows a rapid increase in
the resident population. Some of this construction proceeded incrementally
(room by room), but ladder construction of whole room-block groupings
shows preplanned group effort as well. At nearly the same time, additional
masonry rooms crowded into the central plaza. Much of the plaza space
was converted to roofed living area, with the exception of the area around a
central cistern or water storage feature. By the end of this flurry of construc-
tion, the whole larger pueblo, both adobe and masonry, was sheathed in
heavy masonry. A thick masonry wall was built parallel and adjacent to the
adobe walls to the west, while the later masonry room additions to the east
were similarly enclosed and apparently reinforced (Chamberlin and Raut-
man 2009; Rautman and Chamberlin 2010; Solometo et al. 2011).
Evidence of extensive burning of all occupied areas in the masonry pueblo
preserved intact rooftop assemblages, maize storage rooms, and living
rooms. The residents made at least one attempt to clean up and rebuild after
the fire. This effort involved reoccupation of some older rooms and also (at
some point) construction of two new preplanned standard room blocks (two
rooms across and at least six rooms long), set at right angles to one another
(see Figure 6.5: areas I and D). The circumstances of this last occupation are
not clear, but there is again some evidence of a rapid and apparently final
departure from at least some of the rooms, with people leaving tools and
other possessions behind (Brouwer et al. 2009; Rautman 2008).
UNDERSTANDING AGGREGATION IN SALINAS
These recent surveys and excavations have provided much more informa-
tion regarding the organization and operation of early pueblos as aggregated
village-communities in this region. First, it is clear that adobe plaza-oriented
pueblos were more common than we had thought. It is possible that other
masonry pueblos also overlie an earlier, adobe-pueblo occupation. Second,
we can better appreciate the long history and continuity of occupation
within each locale from at least the Jacal Period onward. The known early
pueblos in Salinas represent a process of nucleation of existing populations.
People who lived in each site locality seemed to become increasingly con-
nected over time; on the other hand, it is also clear that people throughout
the Salinas region kept in contact with one another and shared many ideas
regarding village-community organization.
The plaza-oriented pueblo thus does not represent any dramatic influx
of population but rather a redesign for living among the people who were
already there. The roofed area of a given jacal site, while variable across
the region, is not that dramatically different from that of the local plaza-
oriented pueblo. We don’t see much evidence of larger-scale population
movements between localities or any substantial in-migration from remote
outlying areas. On the other hand, the plaza-oriented pueblo represents a
much higher degree of internal standardization. While jacal villages show
significant variation in room-block size and distance between room blocks
within a village, the plaza-oriented pueblo does not admit such internal
variation. In this way, the plaza-oriented pueblo is not just a tight spatial
cluster of existing social units but a reconfiguration of those units. We don’t
know what social groupings, if any, are represented by the concept of the
contiguous room block. We do know, however, that within the pueblo, the
standard-length room blocks minimize any such within-pueblo differences
between them, while simultaneously emphasizing each one’s contribution to
the village-community as a whole.
It also seems clear that at least some of the small plaza-oriented pueblos
such as Frank’s Pueblo were abandoned relatively suddenly. This model of
abandonment does not involve intrapueblo conflict and fissioning of estab-
lished groups or a gradual decrease in village population over time. Rather,
the evidence points to the existence of some serious and continuing threat
originating from outside the pueblo. Where did the inhabitants of Frank’s
Pueblo go? It seems tempting to imagine a scenario of displaced villagers
migrating en masse to other nearby sites and reconstructing their original
village on the outskirts of the established town. Unfortunately, in fact, we
simply don’t know enough about the occupational history of these large sites
to test this idea. Research at Frank’s Pueblo does highlight the autonomy
and political importance of the local, plaza-oriented pueblo as a community.
This model suggests that in the context of whole-village abandonment, we
can expect that people would have made significant efforts to retain the
basic social unit of the pueblo village in their new homes as long as they
could. In this overall context, it is possible that the large multiplaza pueb-
los such as Gran Quivira represent the architectural expression of such a
process of whole-group immigration during the second, late period of popu-
lation aggregation in Salinas.
ARCHITECTURAL ITERATION AND INTEGRATION
When Southwestern archaeologists, including myself, refer casually to “pit-

house village” sites, we also recognize that this field term involves many
often-unwarranted assumptions. In our more careful moments, we readily
admit that a group of structures in some locale is not necessarily a village in
the sense of a socially integrated community (e.g., Wills 2001).
Pueblo sites pose a somewhat different problem. Because they are com-
posed of highly nucleated groups of contiguous structures, it is easier to
assume that observed spatial clustering represents village-community orga-
nization. As Lekson (1999, 2009) points out, however, these assumptions
about archaeological pueblo sites also involve a rather idealized and romanti-
cized view of Pueblo village life that may not be an accurate model for reality.
In the Southwest, many archaeologists see the contiguous room block as
the physical expression of the kin group (lineage). In this model, the repeti-
tion of rooms within the room block provides an everyday framework of
kin group interdependence and unity, composed of individual nuclear fami-
lies that together comprise the lineage (Ferguson 1989; Schachner 2001). In
this respect, the basic early unit pueblo represents a visual depiction, and
daily experience, of mechanical solidarity (sensu Durkheim 1933)—a struc-
tural repetition and reiteration of functionally equivalent social elements
(rooms). In this respect, structural repetition itself is the mechanism for
social integration. One might then argue that room-block architecture itself,
by virtue of its repetitive pattern, is an integrative structure for increasingly
differentiated and economically independent households, reminding every-
one every minute in architectural form that, although they may operate
relatively independently, their lives and livelihoods are deeply intercon-
nected and interdependent (see a related discussion in Wills 2001).
In the Jacal Period in Salinas, early villages consist of two scales of inte-
grative repetition: repetition of room size and repetition of rooms into room
blocks. Room-block segments (usually one room wide) are added to one
another in a variety of ways to create contiguous structures that are I, F, and
E shaped. Repetition of these contiguous structures across the locality cre-
ates a single settlement. Within this broadly shared organizational template,
however, there is also variation between sites within the Salinas region.
The plaza-oriented pueblo standardizes some of these variations on a
theme at a larger conceptual scale. The plaza-oriented pueblo reconfigures
the variable-length room blocks into a standard size and organization. These
room blocks are invariably two rooms wide, varying only in length. A further
aspect of standardization groups room blocks around a shared plaza space.
This larger-scale unit of the plaza-oriented pueblo may well also become the
unit of iteration in the larger sprawling Pueblo IV pueblos.
The plaza-oriented layout may have served some defensive functions; it
also may have provided space for periodic rituals and special public events.
On an everyday basis, it also placed shared group activity space squarely in
the center of everyone’s attention. This central focus, like Foucault’s (1977)
design of the panopticon, also provides a convenient means for individuals
and groups to monitor people’s behavior and adherence to group norms.
Such an obvious and immediate area for group integration differs from, say,
a fairground on the outskirts of town by embedding special events within
everyday life. Rather like the purloined letter, which is hidden so obviously
in plain sight, the central plaza reminds everyone in every action, every day
of their interdependence and their shared identity as a village-community.
SUMMARY
This research contributes to a very general archaeological problem: Given

what seems to be an archaeological village site, how can we tell if the people
there formed a community? Community formation includes a number of
social strategies, but archaeologists have found two concepts to be particu-
larly useful: evidence of corporate decision making above the level of the
household and evidence of group integration. Social integration and com-
munity building generally involve people’s participation in group activities
such as special events, feasts, and rituals—practices that we see in ancient
as well as modern societies. Southwestern archaeologists generally consider
that these events would take place within specific social spaces such as the
secluded semi-subterranean kiva or the public plaza (e.g., Lipe and Hegmon
1989; Adler and Wilsheusen 1990).
My excavations in central New Mexico point to two different but related
mechanisms for village-community formation within a context of village
population growth: standardization and repetition in domestic architec-
ture. Although we don’t necessarily know what social units are represented
by individual rooms or contiguous room blocks, these structures seem to
form the basic vocabulary of social integration that takes place through
people’s obvious and unremarkable daily activities within a structured social
and physical environment. The archaeological research reported here has
established some basic information about the way people used the built
environment to create, express, and sustain social relationships across
a period of population nucleation into more densely packed pueblos, or
towns. These strategies proved to be particularly useful and effective over
a long period of time and contributed to the development of a distinctively
Puebloan way of life.
In later time periods, ideas about kachinas and kiva-based activities
became particularly important for many Pueblo villages (Adams 1991), and
the late Salinas pueblos exhibit multiple kivas. Earlier, however, people had
other strategies for fostering social community and group integration. The
first small adobe pueblos, so similar in size and form and organization, tell
us that their builders shared many assumptions and expectations for com-
munal life—they had already decided how to build what they considered
to be a proper town site and how to deal with each other. Architectural
standardization and structural repetition at different social and conceptual
scales was an important mechanism for creating and defining community
among these Southwestern villages in the context of overall population
aggregation and settlement nucleation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Excavations at Kite Pueblo in 1994 were made possible with grants from
Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the National
Geographic Society. Research at Frank’s Pueblo in 2007–2008 was sup-
ported in part by the National Science Foundation with a grant to Alison
Rautman (Grant Number 0521928). Excavations were made possible by a
joint archaeological field school with undergraduate and graduate students
from Michigan State University and from James Madison University (Har-
risonburg, VA), in collaboration with my colleagues Matthew Chamberlin
and Julie Solometo.
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7 Competition and Cooperation
Late Classic Period Aggregation in the
Southern Tucson Basin
Henry D. Wallace and Michael W. Lindeman
The prehistoric cultural sequence of southern and central Arizona in the

southwestern United States is characterized by a particularly long span of
nomadic small-group hunter-gathering/foraging (11000 BC to 2000 BC);
followed by a long period of small-group semimobile agriculture (2000 BC
to AD 475); the formation and long developmental sequence of stable sed-
entary agricultural villages of small to moderate size (AD 475 to AD 1275);
rapid aggregation into relatively short-lived towns (AD 1275 to 1300); and,
ultimately, abandonments and dissolution into smaller mixed-subsistence
semimobile and sedentary settlements (ca. AD 1450). In the scheme of this
sequence of 11,000 years or more, there were three dramatic, rapid, game-
changing periods of culture change, two of which involved aggregation and
one, disintegration. This chapter focuses on the second of the two intervals
of aggregation, with brief reference given to the first.
The process of aggregation in the Hohokam Classic period of the Tucson
Basin (AD 1150 to ca. 1450), involved a consolidation of populations that had
been living in sedentary villages for 800 years with established social structures,
integrative facilities, ritual facilities, and long-standing ties to water and agri-
cultural land. Aggregation is sometimes thought of as a process in which social
cohesion is generated through the development of new social constructions,
new integrative rituals and facilities, and new forms of political organization
(e.g., Crown and Kohler 1994; Fish and Fish 1994; Lipe and Hegmon 1989).
As will be seen in this case study, aggregation sometimes occurs with no intent
to remain aggregated, and, although integrative facilities may exist, they may
be nothing like what had previously been present in the region.
At the end of the Hohokam sequence, one of the largest population centers
in southern Arizona was situated by Martinez Hill in the southern Tucson
Basin. In this chapter we describe the preliminary results of an intensive
All sites discussed in the text are recorded in the Arizona State Museum site files. Site designa-
tions are as follows: Dakota Wash is AZ AA:16:49; Drexel is AZ AA:16:405; Casa Azul is
AZ BB:13:8; Julian Wash is AZ BB:13:17; Martinez Ballcourt site is AZ BB:13:7; Martinez
Hill summit is AZ BB:13:2; and the Martinez Hill Ruin (also known as Martinez South) is AZ
BB:13:3; Valencia is AZ BB:13:15, but sites AZ BB:13:74 and several smaller sites are consid-
ered part of the Valencia settlement complex in the Middle Rincon phase (see Lindeman 2009);
West Branch is AZ AA:16:3.
Competition and Cooperation 135
Figure 7.1 Middle Rincon phase (AD 1000–1100) villages and Tucson phase (AD
1300–1450) villages along the Martinez Reach of the Santa Cruz River.
mapping program at the Martinez Hill settlement complex (Figure 7.1) and
consider some of the implications of what we discovered when placed in the
context of more than 20 years of survey and excavation in the settlement sys-
tem related to it. To understand the Tucson phase occupation of the area, we
first examine the late Pre-Classic and early Classic period occupation of the
Martinez Hill to A-Mountain reach of the Santa Cruz River (hereafter referred
to as the Martinez Reach). In the final sections we discuss the late Classic
period Tucson phase (AD 1300 to ca. 1450) settlement around Martinez Hill
and its likely relationships to prior settlement along the Martinez Reach.
THE MARTINEZ REACH OF THE SANTA CRUZ RIVER
In central and southern Arizona, the reaches of rivers are often defined by hills
and bedrock outcrops. These geological structures mark points of near-surface
bedrock that create elevated water tables and springs resulting in increased
136 Henry D. Wallace and Michael W. Lindeman
flow within the river channel. In the Arizona desert, reach boundaries, and
slightly upstream and downstream from the actual boundary, are where peren-
nial surface flows most reliably occur. The perennial surface flows make the
reach boundaries the ideal place for canal headgates. Martinez Hill was one of
these structures, defining the southern end of the Martinez Reach of the Santa
Cruz River that extended downstream north to A-Mountain. Historically,
canals with their headgates at Martinez Hill ran northward in the Santa Cruz
River floodplain, irrigating fields maintained by the Tohono O’odham village
of San Xavier (Huckleberry 2009; Lindeman et al. 2010). Analysis of large pre-
historic canals in the middle of the reach led Huckleberry (2009) to suggest that
the headgates for these features were located at Martinez Hill. Based on the
work of Huckleberry (2009), Lindeman and Wöcherl (2009) suggested that
settlement along this reach was linked into what they termed, following work
in the Phoenix basin, the Martinez Hill to A-Mountain irrigation community.
Wallace (2011), in his detailed analysis of communities for the area, provided
additional support for this hypothesis.
The geomorphic history of the Santa Cruz River is one of periodic rapid
incision followed by aggradation (Haynes and Huckell 1986; Mabry 1999).
For most of prehistory, this process proceeded on a small scale on a reach-
by-reach basis. For example, a downcutting event initiated in the Punta de
Agua Reach may have resulted in the deposition of the downcut sediments
immediately downstream from the Martinez narrows where the river would
have widened out and slowed, dropping its sediment load. At times, the
river became incised along the full length of the Tucson Basin, likely due to
droughts followed by extreme rainfall events and consequent flooding, per-
haps stimulated on some occasions by anthropogenic modifications of the
floodplain; although, unlike the sad present-day situation, the water table
would still have been relatively high and springs and flowing streams would
have been present at the bedrock reefs such as those near Martinez Hill.
One of these large-scale events is documented at some point late in the
Sedentary period (Huckleberry 2011; Waters and Haynes 2001) and may
coincide with a similar event documented along the Middle Gila (Raves-
loot and Waters 2004). Deep incision would have precluded irrigation of
at least portions of the floodplain and it seems highly likely that this event
coincided with the dramatic settlement pattern shifts seen in the mid-Late
Rincon phase circa AD 1125 in the Tucson Basin (e.g., Doelle 1987; Doelle
and Wallace 1986; Wallace 1995, 2011).
MIDDLE RINCON SETTLEMENT ALONG

THE MARTINEZ REACH
We begin our discussion of settlement along the Martinez Reach with the
Middle Rincon phase (AD 1000–1100), the latest point in the sequence for
which we have extensive excavated samples (Figure 7.1). Excavation data
come primarily from three large villages: Julian Wash, Valencia, and West
Branch (Doelle 1985; Harry and Whittlesey 2004; Huntington 1986; Lin-
deman 2003; Lindeman and Wöcherl 2009; Swartz 2005; Wallace 2010,
2011). Three other large villages are present along the reach during Middle
Rincon for which we have varying degrees of surface data: Drexel Road, San
Xavier, and Martinez Ballcourt.
Hohokam villages in the early eleventh century of southern Arizona
exhibited multiple levels of settlement, community, and regional integra-
tion. Within villages, plazas were a communal stage upon which settlement
and community ritual could be performed, and central village plazas were
also the site of communal cemeteries where some or portions of some peo-
ple were interred after cremation, becoming village ancestors, and a seat of
power for village leaders (Helms 1998; Wallace and Swartz 2012). Plazas
were not enclosed, however, and village plans were open and free of dividing
walls, suggesting few barriers between village leaders and the population.
Ballcourts were present at most villages, located adjacent to the plazas and
near to communal roasting facilities. Generally viewed as integrative tools,
games and ceremonies associated with ballcourts were likely calendrically
timed, the events bringing together people from multiple villages, and pos-
sibly the larger region (Wilcox and Sternberg 1983).
During the Middle Rincon phase, the ballcourt system fell out of favor
and settlement plans were in the process of evolving and changing. Along
the Martinez Reach, Valencia, the settlement known in the greatest detail,
splintered. Between eleven and fifteen households, approximately half of the
village, moved away from the plaza-centric core of the site, forming a new
settlement 900 meters to the north (Lindeman 2009; Lindeman and Heidke
2011). A similar process was recently identified at Honey Bee Village in the
northern Tucson Basin, where the process of splintering ultimately led to the
formation of a separate plaza and the village splitting in two (Wallace 2012).
Clearly, some of the social ties that bound the population together within
villages prior to the Middle Rincon phase were dissolving or evolving in an
as yet poorly understood manner.
As noted previously, the sites along the Martinez Reach are thought to
have been linked through water sharing, all having fields near their respec-
tive villages watered by canals emanating from headgates at Martinez Hill
(Huckleberry 2009; Lindeman 2009; Lindeman et al. 2010; Wallace 2011).
Measures other than shared water resources also suggest the inhabitants of
the Martinez Reach were part of a larger community. Village-level special-
ization in the production of decorated pottery is known to have been present
at Julian Wash, Valencia, and West Branch (Heidke 2000, 2010; Heidke
et al. 2008) and was also likely occurring at Drexel (Wallace 2011). Unique
community markers in the iconography present on some of the pottery pro-
duced in these villages (Heidke 2010) demonstrates a shared community
identity. In an investigation of postmarital residence and descent patterns,
Wallace (2011) also suggests that land rights and marital ties bound the
inhabitants of this reach together. We also know that natural resources in the
vicinity were shared by multiple villages within the community.
Estimates of Hohokam site size are difficult because abandoned pithouses
leave few surface manifestations. Lindeman and Swartz (2007), synthesiz-
ing previous work at West Branch, identified twenty-one loci of occupation,
each of which is considered to be a household. Because of unexcavated areas,
twenty-one is a minimum number of households at the site. At Valencia, the
figure is between twenty-two and thirty households (Lindeman 2009). Using
estimates of between 5 and 8 persons per household, we extrapolate popu-
lation at West Branch to have been 105 to 170 people, at a minimum, and
between 110 and 240 people at Valencia. Work at Julian Wash produced
similar, although slightly higher, estimates.
LATE RINCON AND TANQUE VERDE PHASE SETTLEMENT

ALONG THE MARTINEZ REACH
The Late Rincon phase (AD 1100–1150) witnessed large-scale population

resettlement in the region. In the Martinez Reach, most mid-reach villages
were depopulated, with minor occupation remaining at and near Dakota
Wash and north of Valencia. Most of the settlement consolidated in the San
Xavier/Martinez Hill area. Julian Wash, at the terminus of the Martinez
Reach canal system, was abandoned, although settlement continued imme-
diately to the north at the beginning of the next reach (and beginning of the
next set of canal headgates). The precise process of settlement reorganiza-
tion and abandonment is poorly understood, although we know it varied
from household to household and from village to village in the Tucson Basin
(see Lindeman 2009; Wallace 1995, 2011, 2012). We can safely say there
were universal shifts but variable impact throughout the region, and the
process included everything from short-distance moves to abandonment and
consolidation elsewhere.
The succeeding Tanque Verde phase, spanning AD 1150 to 1300, is poorly
understood in the Southern Tucson Basin, even though we know where most
of the sites are located and have some inkling of magnitude in many cases.
This is partly a function of the lengthy span of time involved, but mostly due
to a lack of excavated data that would inform on settlement organization
and development. In addition, temporal markers for the terminal Hohokam
phase in the region, the Tucson phase (AD 1300 to ca. 1450), are uncom-
mon in this area, limiting identification and separation from the Tanque
Verde phase. We believe we have the general patterns, but specifics will elude
us until additional excavation occurs. Along the Martinez Reach, settlement
remained focused on the area around Martinez Hill and San Xavier across
the river, at the reach boundary.
Elsewhere in the Tucson Basin, the Tanque Verde phase is marked by
significant settlement pattern upheavals and the establishment of settlement
in new areas lacking prior occupation. Also present are clear indications of
the establishment of migrant villages in upper bajada/canyon mouth settings
with populations likely originating from the San Pedro Valley (and, before
that, northern or central Arizona) (Clark et al. 2013; Slaughter 1996).
Despite settlement contraction to the Martinez narrows in the Late
Rincon and Tanque Verde phases, people still retained claims on their
ancestral villages and associated agricultural land. Isolated Tanque Verde
phase pit structures, probably farmsteads, are known from two portions of
the Valencia site complex, Valencia Vieja and AZ BB:13:74 (Arizona State
Museum site file designation [henceforth ASM]) (Bradley 1980; Lindeman
2003, 2009). Tanque Verde phase cremation burials have been recovered
from AZ BB:13:74 ASM (Lindeman 2003) and Dakota Wash (Craig 1988),
and Tanque Verde phase ceramics are commonplace in the floodplain along
this reach. A main canal thought to date to the Tanque Verde phase has been
identified on the east side of the floodplain (Huckleberry 2009). All of these
indicators suggest continued use of the agricultural land despite the shift in
settlement.
In essence, we view the Late Rincon and Tanque Verde phases as two
spans of turmoil and change. These transformations were not isolated to
this specific area—similar drastic changes were occurring throughout the
Hohokam region and throughout much of the southwestern United States.
The evidence of unrest marked by fortifications and placement of villages in
defendable settings at sites like the mountainside settlements of Linda Vista
Trincheras at Los Morteros and Cerro Prieto (Wallace and Doelle 2001) in
the Tucson area suggest the unrest visible elsewhere in the Southwest (Le-
Blanc 1999; Rice and LeBlanc 2001) had not spared southern Arizona. The
motivations for these changes are clearly multifactorial. Elsewhere, these
patterns have been explained as being a result of environmental, demo-
graphic, and conflict-related pressures.
In the southern Tucson Basin, geomorphological data do not support any
catastrophic environmental stimuli (Ellis and Waters 1991; Waters 1988),
leaving us with demographic change and conflict as potential culprits. We
currently have no reason to believe that population levels were reaching criti-
cal thresholds throughout the Hohokam region in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The fact that the trends are much larger in scope in the southwest-
ern United States leads us back to social unrest, perhaps aggravated by the
influx of migrants into the region. A consolidation of settlement in critical
locations—at canal headgates and well-watered portions of the basin that
could sustain large populations—makes sense. Likewise, joining forces and
settling near areas that are defensible also makes sense under these circum-
stances. Martinez Hill satisfied all of these parameters—abundant water,
large tracts of arable floodplain, the best location for canal headgates, and
Martinez Hill itself, which provided a defensible summit and high-quality
lookout point. At Martinez Hill, the stage was set for increased aggregation
in the thirteenth century.
TUCSON PHASE AGGREGATED SETTLEMENT
By the beginning of the Tucson phase, settlement in the Tucson Basin had
consolidated into six large aggregated settlement complexes (University
Ruin; Zanardelli; AZ BB:13:120 ASM; Martinez/Casa Azul; Fewkes/south-
ern Downtown; AZ AA:12:32 ASM/Furrey’s Ranch). Four of the six are
located at reach boundaries, maintaining control of water and ancestral
claims to farmland. Four retain relative integrity, and only three have been
accessible to archaeologists in recent years: the two near Martinez Hill (dis-
cussed below) and University Ruin, which is currently under investigation
by Paul and Suzanne Fish at the Arizona State Museum.
As settlement consolidated in the Tucson Basin, a large tract north of
the Tucson Basin became a no-man’s-land separating the Tucson Basin
from the next large settlements in the Picacho Mountains and Picacho Peak
areas more than 60 kilometers to the north and northwest. Similarly, to
the south, no notable late Classic period settlements are known until one
reaches Paloparado, more than 60 kilometers distant at the next optimal
riverine zone near the mouth of Sonoita Creek. To the north-northeast in
the Cañada del Oro Valley, a series of settlements, some of which extend
into the Tucson phase, are found along the margins of the eastern face of the
Tortolita Mountains. In this study, we are primarily concerned with the large
aggregated settlements by Martinez Hill (Figure 7.1), but we also reference
settlement in other areas.
At least five and probably all of the Tucson Phase aggregated villages
in the Tucson Basin had platform mounds. In the three cases for which we
have detailed information, there were multiple platform mounds at each
site, sometimes in single compound enclosures and possibly separated at
others. The villages in question are, by any measure, the most densely settled
communities in the prehistory of the region, which is consistent with the
perspective that they represent the consolidation of settlement that had in
earlier times been dispersed in separate local communities along canal sys-
tems throughout the Tucson area. Here, we examine two of these villages
for which we have detailed map coverage to discern the social mechanisms
involved in aggregation.
THE MARTINEZ HILL SETTLEMENT FOCUS
In 2010, with permission of the Tohono O’odham Nation, Desert Archaeol-

ogy, Inc. conducted intensive systematic surface documentation and mapping
of the large complexes of prehistoric settlement north and south of Martinez
Hill in the southern Tucson Basin and on the top of Martinez Hill, where we
documented walls, clearings, structures, petroglyphs, and other features. The
data presented here represent a preliminary review of this information, as we
still intend to conduct additional field studies. A large Pre-Classic ballcourt
30
30 3030
Casa Azul Platform Mound Wall Alignment 30 30
30 Fcc'
An:hitC("tural Mound Possible Wall Alignmen t 30
~rtAtcl\aeolOS)" ~i 30 120
Figure 7.2 Casa Azul, an aggregated settlement north of Martinez Hill.
settlement is located adjacent to the hill on the northeast side, but our
focus here is on the Casa Azul complex north of the hill and the two major
components of the Martinez Hill Ruin, south of Martinez Hill. Of critical
importance is the location of these settlements adjacent to the headgates of
canals that would have provided water for the entire reach of the river.
Starting with Casa Azul (Figure 7.2), evidence of growth and remodeling
and the sheer magnitude of rooms incorporated within or adjacent to the
compound is immediately apparent. The compound enclosure underwent at
least one episode of remodeling or social division from the outset based on
the northeastern annex, which was added to the prior compound enclosure.
Although the full sequence of events in this compound cannot be addressed
without excavation data, a likely scenario places the easternmost or two
easternmost platform mounds as part of the original compound enclosure
and the northeastern addition and the westernmost platform mound as part
of later additions. In other words, the compound grew by accretion and
addition of architectural units that reflect not just population growth but
the actual addition of social units.
A considerable number of rooms exist in the Casa Azul compound and
possibly immediately adjacent to it. We estimate a minimum of 70 rooms, and
there could be well over 100 rooms if pit structures are present in addition
to surface architecture. From surface inspection alone, we could not identify
all walls or room blocks, but it is safe to say that there were many more than
could be mapped with confidence. This would indicate a population in the
300 to 500 range at a minimum, and probably closer to the upper end of
that range. While it is possible that some of the Pre-Classic settlements along
the Martinez Reach of the Santa Cruz had population levels near the lower
margins of this range, Azul more likely reflects a consolidation of social
groups from multiple settlements, a contention supported by the presence
of multiple platform mounds, structures most archaeologists associate with
leadership roles, which suggest the presence of multiple politically discrete
groups.
We now move to the site complex south of Martinez Hill (Figure 7.3),
which was undoubtedly one of the most densely settled locations in the Tuc-
son Basin. The northern compound in this complex was excavated by Gabel
and Cummings (Gabel 1931), and our best current reconstruction of the
placement of their excavated rooms and mounds in what they referred to as
Pueblo III and Pueblo IV is shown in Figure 7.4. Note that we are uncertain
of the location of what Gabel called Pueblo II, because none of the walls
or excavated areas visible today match his map. As such, Gabel’s Pueblo II
is not included here. Also, to avoid confusion, none of what Gabel (1931)
called pueblos would be considered pueblos today. Instead, they are a mixed
assortment of room blocks and platform mounds with attached rooms.
The Gabel compound is similar in size to Casa Azul. If our reconstructions
of Gabel’s excavations are correct (Figure 7.4), there were four platform
mounds in this compound; two were excavated by Gabel, and two remain
untouched. The compound has a very long history of growth and modifica-
tion. Based on Gabel’s work, Mounds 2 and 4 were constructed by filling
previous special function rooms (in one case with considerable effort using
quartz basalt boulders from the nearby Martinez Hill) and adding mound
cells to make the finished product larger than a single room. In both cases,
there were structures atop the mounds (these were not well enough pre-
served for a clear picture of their configurations), and there were rooms
attached to the mounds at ground level. The filling of rooms in Mound 2
postdates AD 1275 based on the presence of a sherd of Pinedale Polychrome
from the floor of the core room in this mound (Wallace and Holmlund 1984:
181–183). At least three separate social units and probably four are linked
together in this compound, the most obvious of which are the annexes on
the east and west sides.
Moving a short distance south from the Gabel compound, there is another
clearly demarcated trapezoidal compound enclosure (Figure 7.3), this time
lacking platform mounds and most likely dating exclusively to the Tanque
Verde phase based on associated surface ceramics. This compound and the
evidence of pre–platform mound occupation in Gabel’s compound leads us
to think that a group of compounds were present here in the late Tanque
Verde phase.
Gabel's Compound
Martinez Hill Ruin
Platform Mound
Architectural Mound Meters
Plaza/CollTtya rd
o 100
Feet
Wall Alignment o 400
Possible Wan Alignment DL-sert An::haeology. Inc.. '

2(H2
Figure 7.3 Martinez Hill Ruin settlement complex south of Martinez Hill.
Adjacent to the Tanque Verde phase compound on its eastern, southeast-

ern, and southern sides is a dense, complex array of walls, room blocks,
and platform mounds interspersed with trash mounds and small plazas or
courtyards (Figure 7.3). Six probable platform mounds are present in this
concentration of occupation, and we were able to identify at least six court-
yard/small plaza spaces. No compound walls were discernible, but given
"F»lJeblo III'"
Mound
Mound 4
Mound 1
Mound
doot'W~y
·"".blo IV'"
Ma rtinez Hi ll Rui n Meters

Gabel's Compound Platform Mound Wall Alignment o o
Fcct
Architectural Mound J.>ossible W.all Alignment
Architectura Mound o 100
Me o
Figure 7.4 Northern Gabel compound at the Martinez Hill Ruin.
the focus on adobe architecture and sparse use of rock reinforcement, they
may be invisible on the surface. Replicated platform mound/courtyard units
plus variations in the orientation of rooms and room blocks lead us to ten-
tatively identify six social units in this complex (Figure 7.5). We suspect the
two easternmost ones, lacking platform mounds, date to the Tanque Verde
phase, while the others extended into the Tucson phase.
The Tucson phase social units at the Martinez Hill Ruin collectively
incorporate a very large number of households. The Gabel compound is
comparable to Casa Azul, likely bearing 60 to 100 structures at a minimum
given the evidence for rooms on the exterior of the compound wall (Gabel
1931: 34). Collectively, the other Tucson phase components probably house
at least 200 to 250 structures with a combined total at Martinez Hill Ruin of
260 to 350 structures. Thus, the population of the Martinez Hill Ruin could
be in the neighborhood of 1,350 to 1,750 persons, an impressive figure for
a Tucson Basin settlement. Add in Casa Azul, and there may well have been
more than 2,000 people living in the vicinity of Martinez Hill.
SOCIAL STRUCTURAL IMPLICATIONS
The process of aggregation at the Martinez Hill site complex was not sud-
den, but it may well have transpired within a generation or two, and it
underwent several stages. It was initiated sometime in the thirteenth century
and was fully developed early in the fourteenth century.
Tucson Phase Social Units
Probable
Tanque Verde Phase
Social Unit
Martinez Hill Ruin

Estimated Social Units
Platform Mound
Meters
Arch itectura l Mound
100 100
Plaza/Courtyard Feet
Wall Align men t 100 100
Possible Wall Alignment Possible Wall Alignment

Meters
Figure 7.5 Estimated social units consolidated in the Martinez Hill Ruin south of
Martinez Hill.
The first step in the consolidation of population in the Martinez Reach

was the resettling of households and larger social units during the Late
Rincon and Tanque Verde phases both north and south of Martinez Hill
in the locations that would later become the focal points of fourteenth-
century occupation. Some of these households built walled enclosures or
compounds, while others remained in discrete unwalled residential areas,
similar to the manner in which they had been living in the tenth and eleventh
centuries. This process did not happen overnight, and it may have proceeded
in several steps, with resettlement in other areas along the Reach prior to the
ultimate relocation to Martinez Hill.
The second step of consolidation occurred sometime in the late thirteenth
century. At that point, population merged into a limited number of walled
(and perhaps some unwalled) tightly packed residential loci. Although there
had been special communal-use or politically important dwellings prior to
that time in the thirteenth century, sometime after AD 1275, small platform
mounds were constructed in most residential units, sometimes atop the prior
communal-use rooms.
We suggest that the complex of settlement at Martinez Hill represents
the coalescence of six villages living along the Martinez Reach in the elev-
enth century Middle Rincon phase. As noted above, the settlements along
the Martinez Reach, which includes the ballcourt village at Martinez Hill,
were ceremonially, economically, socially, and affinally tied in the eleventh
century, sharing a common identity. Water rights and land tenure was main-
tained, even during the period of disruption and coalescence between the
Middle Rincon and Tucson phases based on the distribution of field houses
and evidence of use of the floodplain in the Tanque Verde phase cited earlier.
Of interest is that at least three of the other Tucson phase villages, Univer-
sity Indian Ruin, Downtown Tucson, and AZ AA:12:32/Furrey’s Ranch, are
found at or near reach boundaries and probable headgate locations, suggest-
ing that similar phenomena were operating in other locations.
The integration of diverse social units, each representing anything from
a lineage to a moiety to a village, faced significant obstacles that were not
well resolved prior to the ultimate abandonment of the sites. Rather than
true integration into a larger social structural unit, only partial integration
is evident. People were willing to live in close proximity, but each petty
leader still wanted his display of elevated status and power atop his tiny
platform. Each social unit also had its own small courtyard/plaza. While
several of the platform mounds are significantly larger than others, there
is no clear evidence that the social units with them were in any way more
special than others. Notably lacking at the site is any sign of a communal
integrative facility. The social units are not arrayed around a central plaza,
and there is no compound bearing a great house or other such facility within
the settlement that might be interpreted as an integrative device that served
the community as a whole.
The configuration at Martinez Hill, with its consolidated corporate
groups, many of which bore traces of leadership and/or ritual centers
(i.e., the platform mounds), differs from that seen in many portions of the
Hohokam world in the thirteenth century. For example, the concentrations
of settlement at large centers such as Pueblo Grande (Mitchell 1994) and Los
Muertos (Haury 1945) had clear political/ritual focal points, with certain
compound enclosures bearing very large platform mounds and/or great
houses. Indeed, in some locations, such as at some Tonto Basin and lower
San Pedro Valley sites (Doelle et al. 1995; Rice et al. 1998), the platform
mound compounds were the village, and single mounds were obvious inte-
grative devices within them.
The implication is that aggregation was viewed by the residents of the
Martinez site complex as a necessary but temporary solution to some soci-
etal problem or problems. This is somewhat similar to the time much earlier
in the Hohokam sequence when population coalesced into villages in the
early Pioneer period (Wallace and Lindeman 2003, 2012). At that time,
there were no compound walls, but there may as well have been. Leaders
of the various social units maintained overt displays of their social standing
in the form of very large houses bordering plazas. It took several hundred
years for these houses to disappear and integration of the social units to
develop into something more cohesive. The key difference at the Martinez
Hill complex is that within the village there is no central plaza, no great
house, and no communal cemetery to reinforce a community ethos. At least
from what we can now observe, at Martinez, there was no intent to remain
together and become an integrated sociopolitical entity, whereas, at the stage
of early village formation in the Pioneer period, people consciously chose a
path toward integration that was clearly visible in the archaeological record.
One might wonder, then, what exactly was holding the aggregated set-
tlements together. Perhaps most important is that the villages coalescing
at these sites from the Martinez Reach had been part of a community in
the Middle Rincon phase prior to the processes of population movement
and aggregation that developed during the Late Rincon and Tanque Verde
phases. This social community was formed five to six centuries before their
physical aggregation through the shared desire to construct and maintain a
canal system or systems that traversed the length of the Martinez Reach and
supplied water for crops and sustenance along the way. Intermarriage, inter-
linked land and water rights, and a shared desire to maintain agricultural
production provide plenty of tools and social desires to maintain strong and
close ties between the social units that united at Martinez Hill. Neverthe-
less, one can argue that there would have been a need, at a minimum, for
communal rituals or other mechanisms to facilitate critical decision making.
Communal ritual atop Martinez Hill, itself located in the center of the
Tucson phase settlement complex, appears to have been the solution chosen
in this instance. Atop the hill is a complex of walls, structures, clearings,
petroglyphs, and a large enclosure that would not have served a typical or
mundane purpose. Its size is suggestive of a communal plaza. None of the
masonry features there have been dated; however, it is safe to assume that
they were either constructed in the Tanque Verde or Tucson phases, or they
were present then and available for use. A Tucson phase design on one of the
petroglyph panels indicates ritual use of the hilltop at the time in question.
Martinez Hill also may have served another more profane role, offering
both a vantage point to observe potential attackers and a refuge if attack
was imminent. As such, the population in the vicinity of Martinez Hill did
indeed possess a communal, integrative facility on the hilltop which they
utilized for ritual purposes but was distinct from the settlement at Martinez
Hill Ruin, where separate, and perhaps competing, social units characterize
the built environment.
CONCLUSIONS
The Tucson phase aggregated settlement in the vicinity of Martinez Hill

represents one of the densest concentrations of population in the prehistory
of southern Arizona, but, inexplicably it is also one of the least integrated
settlement complexes we have seen. We suggest that the social groups
coalescing at Martinez Hill were bound by long-standing social and eco-
nomic relationships but came from different villages along the Martinez
Reach. Existing ties brought the people together, but differences between
social groups are still evident in the multiple platform mounds, lack of
uniform planning in the construction of compound enclosures, and lack of
cohesive facilities. We do not know the history that led to this circumstance,
but we can say that it is not typical for the Hohokam region at large even
though it may be typical for the Tucson Basin. It is almost as though those
in power in the southern Tucson Basin in the thirteenth century were able to
delay the wave of change sweeping through the Southwest to a point later
than most of the rest of the Hohokam region and thereby, when forced to
aggregate, did so reluctantly, retaining as much of their prior social struc-
ture as possible.
It is by no means clear what happened when the Martinez Hill sites were
depopulated or even when this occurred. Post–AD 1300 ceramic types are
present at both Casa Azul and the Martinez Hill Ruin, though they are not
common on the surface of the sites. What exactly this means is uncertain,
because we have no basis for determining in what quantity we should
expect these types to occur in this portion of the Tucson Basin. We know
that there were field houses and burials in the adjacent floodplain dating
to the Tucson phase and Protohistoric period (approximately AD 1450 to
1697) (Ravesloot 1987) and that there was likely continuous Protohistoric
and Historic occupation across the river at San Xavier. It would not be
surprising if a second wave of aggregation occurred at the beginning of the
Protohistoric period which resulted in the very large population observed
by Eusabio Kino when he visited the area in the late seventeenth century
(Doelle 1984). By all appearances, the settlements at Martinez Hill were
built to be temporary. However, the density of refuse and indications of
considerable complexity in the constructions at the sites are signs that
the residents may have found it necessary to stay longer than they had
expected.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to express appreciation to the Tohono O’odham

Nation and in particular to Tony Burrell and Austin Nuñez for their coop-
eration and interest in the project. We also thank Bill Doelle and Desert
Archaeology, Inc. for providing funding and support, and Catherine Gilman
and Tyler Theriot for their assistance with field-mapping and map prepara-
tion for this chapter.
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8 Organizational Complexity in
Ancestral Wendat Communities
Jennifer Birch and Ronald F. Williamson
Understanding how changes in practice at the community level relate to cul-

tural change writ large requires reconciling long-term processes of historical
development with the lived experience of everyday life. Doing so necessitates
the integration of multiple archaeological data sets, including regional settle-
ment patterns, large-scale excavations, and the patterning of material culture
therein.
During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Northern Iro-
quoian societies of northeastern North America experienced a process of
widespread settlement aggregation. In southern Ontario, Canada, dozens
of small villages came together into fewer large, nucleated settlements with
populations of up to 1,500 to 2,000 individuals. The formation of these
coalescent communities resulted in the development of new forms of social,
political, and economic organization. Traditional models of seventeenth-
century Wendat society describe it as essentially egalitarian with consensual
decision making and well-integrated mechanisms to ensure equality (e.g.,
Trigger 1976: 54–59). The period during which those mechanisms were
developed has only recently been subject to rigorous archaeological inves-
tigation. Evidence for enhanced community integration and coordinated
decision making suggest that the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries
was a time when new organizational structures and mechanisms developed
to coordinate social, political, and economic functions. The complexity of
those practices has been somewhat masked by reliance on static historic
period accounts of Wendat sociopolitical organization.
IROQUOIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOHISTORY
The temporal resolution of the archaeological record of Iroquoian peoples is

ideally suited to exploring how communities were transformed during pro-
cesses of settlement aggregation. Iroquoian village sites were occupied for
approximately 15 to 30 years before being abandoned, usually due to deplet-
ing agricultural yields and exhaustion of resources such as firewood and wild
plants in the immediate vicinity (Heidenreich 1971; Trigger 1990: 31). New
154 Jennifer Birch and Ronald F. Williamson
villages were usually constructed within 5 kilometers of the previous site, and
in the same drainage (cf. Birch and Williamson 2013; Pearce 1996; Snow
1995; Tuck 1971), although longer migrations also took place. Numerous
site relocation sequences have been constructed which represent hundreds of
years of occupation by contiguous community groups.
In south-central Ontario, more than three decades of cultural resource
management–driven archaeology has resulted in the excavation of dozens
of complete ancestral Wendat village sites. Each site represents a snapshot
of the activities of a single generation. By tracking changes in the material-
ity and spatiality of these communities over time, we can observe changes
within populations before, during, and after coalescence and relate them to
historical processes in the lower Great Lakes more broadly.
To some extent, neoevolutionary, materialist paradigms retain a foothold
in Northern Iroquoian archaeology, with precontact sites being seen as stages
in the development of the historic Wendat way of life. In the same way, rich
ethnographic descriptions of Wendat culture by early European explorers
and missionaries (Biggar 1922–1936; Thwaites 1896–1901; Wrong 1939)
and syntheses of these accounts by ethnohistorians (Tooker 1964; Trig-
ger 1976, 1990) have at times led archaeologists to seek out analogous or
intermediate forms of those cultural traits in the archaeological record, ham-
pering the application of new theoretical approaches and interpretations
of precontact Iroquoian life (Birch 2008; Ramsden 1996). This problem is
compounded when village sites are conceptualized as static units as opposed
to dynamic and historically constituted communities. Recent perspectives
on the ethnogenesis of ancestral Iroquoian populations have shown that
the development of Iroquoian societies was not a one-branch evolutionary
path (Engelbrecht 2003: 112–113; Hart and Engelbrecht 2012). In the same
vein, our recent appraisal of numerous community relocation sequences in
south-central Ontario demonstrated that ancestral Wendat communities did
not all develop or operate in the same way (Birch and Williamson 2013).
Instead, there were multiple occasions where social, cultural, political, tech-
nological, and linguistic developments converged and/or separated during
the Late Woodland period.
ORGANIZATIONAL COMPLEXITY
When archaeologists talk about “complex societies” they usually mean

societies possessing a list of traits including powerful leaders, social classes,
differences in wealth, craft specialization, and other qualities traditionally
associated with chiefdoms and states (cf. Earle 1991; Fried 1967; Service
1962). More recently, new definitions of complexity have emerged that
eschew categorical models tied to evolution and directionality (cf. Chap-
man 2003; Crumley 1995; Nelson 1995; Yoffee 2005). In a recent volume
on complexity in ancient North America, Susan Alt promotes an alternative
Organizational Complexity in Ancestral Wendat Communities 155
means of measuring complexity accomplished through multiscalar analyses
of “fine-grained sequences, object biographies, and genealogies of practice
enmeshed in relational webs” which privilege history and “the complexities
of enactment and social experience” (2010: 4). In other words, complexity as
practiced, not as achieved. In that community-level construction programs
as well as strategies for feeding and clothing larger populations would have
necessitated communitywide organization, we can conclude that there were
mechanisms that cut across kinship groups to ensure that the necessities
of life were met. We further suspect that these systems belie an organiza-
tional complexity hitherto hidden from view and that represent a glimpse
into an evolving process between the organization necessary in a small four-
longhouse village and that of the historic Wendat communities and political
confederacy described by the early European observers—a process in which
aggregated settlements played a pivotal role.
Bruce Trigger has been the central influence in our understanding of the
organizational complexity of the Wendat (Trigger 1976: 54–59) and Ontario
Iroquoian studies more generally (Pearce et al. 2006; Warrick 2012). His
description of the historic period Wendat as an egalitarian, tribal society
has influenced and perhaps unintentionally muted questions about changes
in the social and political organization of precontact populations. In the
preface to the second edition of The Huron: Farmers of the North (1990),
he acknowledges that the first edition (1969) was written at a time when
neoevolutionism was at the peak of its influence in anthropology, leading
him to interpret any suggestion of nonegalitarian behavior as “evidence of
an incipient development towards a ranked, or even a stratified, level of
social organization” (1990: vii) and that additional research conducted over
the next 20 years had convinced him that this approach misrepresented the
nature of Huron (Wendat) society. More than 30 years of archaeological
excavation and analyses combined with a rereading of the ethnographic
record have convinced us that ancestral Wendat societies underwent com-
plex changes in their social organization. As Susan Jamieson has suggested,
“it is time that we opened our minds to a range of socio-political organi-
zational possibilities beyond those assumed and consolidated in Trigger’s
impressive construct of early seventeenth century Wendat society” (2011: 7,
emphasis in original).
Here, we are discussing organizational complexity—how, with the for-
mation of larger coresidential groups, the social, political, and economic
organization of communities became considerably more complicated.
Recent detailed analyses of the aggregated community that occupied the
Draper and Mantle sites, discussed at length below, have allowed us to look
beyond overly generalized explanations of the development of complexity to
understand how these processes played out, particularly with respect to eco-
nomic concerns. Importantly, modeling of the agricultural field systems and
hunting territories required to sustain larger communities have permitted a
better understanding of the organization of production and consumption.
This, together with insights about the changing internal social and politi-
cal dynamics of communities undergoing processes of coalescence, help us
to understand how processes of cultural change at the local level relate to
large-scale, long-term geopolitical change, such as the formation of “tribal”
nations and confederacies.
In this chapter we provide a brief review of the history of settlement aggre-
gation in precontact Iroquoia, focusing on the coalescent communities of
the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. We then explore how this
process of coalescence unfolded for the community that occupied the Draper
and Mantle sites, including changes in community integration, decision mak-
ing, production and consumption, and interactions between local and distant
populations. Our conclusions suggest that settlement aggregation created
social settings that led to a dramatic increase in organizational complexity.
SETTLEMENT AGGREGATION IN THE IROQUOIAN WORLD
Aggregation was a deeply rooted cultural phenomenon in northeastern

North America. Large occupation sites with dense artifact distributions situ-
ated by lakes or major rivers appear in the later Early and Middle Woodland
periods. Most scholars believe that they were used by seasonal aggregations
of bands (Spence, Pihl, and Molto 1984) and facilitated heightened social
relations, including the exchange of marriage partners, information, and
materials, and allowed for communal ceremonialism. These interactions
may have led people to value a greater degree of sedentism, later made pos-
sible by the growing of food surpluses.
The earliest Iroquoian communities, occupied around AD 1000 to 1300,
were base camps for groups practicing a limited amount of horticulture and
following a semisedentary settlement-subsistence pattern (Williamson 1990).
Early Iroquoian settlements were small, covering approximately half a hectare,
and were occupied intermittently for as long as 50 to 100 years, resulting in
settlement patterns composed of multiple, overlapping structures commonly
surrounded by a single-row palisade (cf. Kenyon 1968; Timmins 1997). Pop-
ulation estimates for these communities are in the range of 75 to 200 people,
leading Trigger to suggest that they may have developed from similarly sized
Middle and Transitional Woodland territorial band aggregations (1976:
134). Sites are found in regional clusters that appear to have been occupied
by two or more contemporary communities that shared a common resource
base. Ceramic design sequences and decorative motifs differed between
clusters and were more similar within them (Williamson 1990). Over time,
populations seem to have increased their investment in village sites and their
surrounding areas and drainages, which may have led to a greater concern
for the maintenance of social and territorial boundaries.
The transition to agriculture was gradual for Early Iroquoian popula-
tions, who continued to practice a semisedentary way of life until about
AD 1300, when we see the appearance of sedentary village life, full-time
dependence on maize cultivation, integrative social practices, and distinctive
material culture that is, for the first time, consistently “Iroquoian” in char-
acter. Villages and houses increase in size, and settlement plans exhibit less
rebuilding and structural change (Dodd et al. 1990). The settlement patterns
of a number of well-excavated fourteenth-century villages, including the
Uren (Wright 1986), Myers Road (Williamson 1998), and Alexandra sites
(ASI 2008; Birch and Williamson 2013: 30) indicate the amalgamation of
two or more previously distinct communities. The reasons proposed for this
initial aggregation have included localized warfare based on a substantial
palisade at the Uren site (Wright 1986: 62), although evidence for wide-
spread hostilities during this period is limited (Dodd et al. 1990: 357–358;
Williamson 2007), and population increase and regionalization in the early
fourteenth century resulting in rapid culture change (Pearce 1996; Warrick
2008: 181–185). That change involved, at least in some regions, agricul-
tural intensification. Detailed isotopic analysis of human remains from the
late-thirteenth-century ancestral Wendat Moatfield ossuary, for example,
indicates that, for at least one generation, maize comprised 70 percent of the
diet. The intensification of agricultural production and consumption may
have been a necessary, albeit temporary, response to population concentra-
tion within a newly amalgamated settlement (van der Merwe et al. 2003).
There was a great deal of variability in the size and structure of villages
occupied between AD 1300 and 1450. Some villages were comprised of
single clusters of three or four aligned longhouses, other sites contain two
or more clusters of houses, while others contained less structured house
groups (Birch and Williamson 2013). For the most part, villages were not
palisaded, although some contained internal fence lines or the strategic
placement of longhouses, which effectively set apart or separated segments
of the community.
Some fourteenth-century sites may have been inhabited by as many as
400 to 500 individuals, suggesting that there may have been the need to
develop more formal mechanisms of social and political organization. The
relatively large size of some fourteenth-century longhouses, together with
their alignment into house clusters, has been interpreted as indicating the
beginnings of formal matrilineages and clan organization (Engelbrecht
1985: 174; Trigger 1985: 92–94; Warrick 2000: 439–440). Village councils
may have been necessary to coordinate decision-making functions in some
settlements; however, the variable nature of site size and spatial organization
suggests that while communities may have been linked within networks of
interregional interaction, the development of community life was a multilin-
ear, differentiated process.
Unlike the regional clustering of material culture traits in the Early Iroquoian
period, there is a relatively homogeneous distribution of material culture on
fourteenth-century sites in southern Ontario (Dodd et al. 1990; Warrick 2000:
441; Williamson and Robertson 1994). This may have been the result of the
emergence of segmented matrilineal clans practicing village exogamy and a
heightened degree of interregional interaction. The development of new mech-
anisms for integrating and ordering social segments within communities and
facilitating ties between regional populations include semi-subterranean sweat
lodges (MacDonald and Williamson 2001), an elaborate smoking pipe com-
plex (Smith 1992), and ossuary burial (Williamson and Steiss 2003).
During the late fourteenth to early fifteenth centuries, population growth
and increasing social circumscription continued to transform the lower
Great Lakes region. Gary Warrick’s demographic history of the Wendat
and their neighbors, the Tionontaté (Petun), demonstrates that between
1330 and 1420, the population of south-central Ontario increased from
approximately 10,000 to 24,000 persons (Warrick 2008: 141–142, 182).
This demographic surge resulted in larger villages, group fissioning, and
the establishment of new villages, together with migration of groups from
south-central Ontario north into Simcoe County—historic Huronia—and
east into the Trent Valley. This “population explosion” (Warrick 2008: 181)
appears to have ultimately played a role in the coalescence of ancestral Wen-
dat populations on the north shore of Lake Ontario. In the early fifteenth
century, village sites on the north shore of Lake Ontario more than doubled
in number and began to cluster along the major drainages flowing south-
east into Lake Ontario, foreshadowing the large community aggregates that
formed during the next half-century.
FIFTEENTH-CENTURY COALESCENCE AND CONFLICT
From the mid-fifteenth through the early sixteenth centuries, Northern Iro-
quoian societies experienced a period of rapid and widespread settlement
aggregation that corresponds to increasing evidence for violent conflict and
regionalization representing the initial development of “tribal” groupings or
nations. In many ways, these processes reflect Stephen Kowalewski’s formu-
lation of coalescent societies (2006), but at a scale which has led us to refer
to them as coalescent communities.
While these phenomena appear to have occurred throughout the Iro-
quoian world, there is evidence that settlement aggregation began somewhat
earlier in south-central Ontario than in New York State or the St. Law-
rence Valley (Birch and Williamson 2013: 21, 159). On the north shore of
Lake Ontario, where we have a relatively complete picture of the precontact
settlement landscape, dozens of small early-fifteenth-century villages came
together to form a smaller number of large, heavily palisaded settlements.
They include the Parsons (Williamson and Robertson 1998) and Damiani
sites (ASI 2012a; Birch and Williamson 2013: 39) on the middle and upper
Humber River, the Keffer site on the Don River (Birch and Williamson
2013: 36; Finalyson et al. 1987), and the Draper site on West Duffins Creek
(Finlayson 1985) (Figure 8.1). All of these sites have been fully or partially
Figure 8.1 Map of the north-central shore of Lake Ontario indicating key sites
mentioned in the text.
excavated and show evidence of village expansion whereby palisades were

dismantled and extended to incorporate additional clusters of longhouses,
thought to represent previously distinct villages. We consider them for-
mative village aggregates because they represent initial sites of large-scale
community coalescence.
Warfare between neighboring or distant populations appears to have
played a central role in these developments. The north shore of Lake Ontario
contains some of the earliest evidence for violent conflict in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Parsons produced hundreds of pieces of burned human
bone interpreted as evidence for prisoner sacrifice (cf. Williamson 2007),
including two isolated crania that were morphologically similar to those
buried in the Uxbridge ossuary located roughly 80 kilometers to the north-
east (Dupras and Pratte 1998; Pfeiffer 1983). Parsons may have engaged
in hostilities with that population, with other adjacent communities on the
north shore of Lake Ontario, including Draper or Keffer, where significant
quantities of human bone—including high percentages of skull fragments
indicative of trophy-taking—were also recovered. It is also possible that
communities on the north shore were engaged in conflicts with both dis-
tant and adjacent populations (Williamson 2007). As such, it may be that
the increasing militarization of a few communities led to a cycle of raiding
and retaliation that spread throughout the lower Great Lakes (Birch and
Williamson 2013: 159–160). By the late fifteenth century, evidence for vio-
lent conflict is apparent throughout Iroquoia (cf. Engelbrecht 2003), and
artifacts made of human bone, including human skull rattles, peak in the
archaeological record at this time (Jenkins 2011; Williamson 2007).
As we have discussed elsewhere (Birch and Williamson 2013: 160–161),
once processes of settlement aggregation began in some areas, adjacent popu-
lations may have been compelled to follow suit or be displaced or absorbed
by larger, more aggressive groups. By the early sixteenth century, for example,
we see the displacement of at least two populations in southern Ontario. On
the north shore of Lake Ontario, the occupants of the Don River Valley seem
to have been displaced or absorbed by the larger communities forming to the
west and east, in the Humber and Duffins Creek drainages. The lower St.
Lawrence Valley was likewise abandoned, with distributions of St. Lawrence
Iroquoian-style artifacts suggesting these populations were incorporated into
the Trent Valley, the Toronto area, and the eastern Iroquois nations. It should
be noted, however, that settlement aggregation was a strategy adopted by
only some Iroquoian populations, particularly those ancestral Wendat groups
on the north shore of Lake Ontario and the ancestral Onondaga and Oneida
of eastern New York State (Tuck 1971). In some parts of western New York
State and northern Simcoe County, Ontario, it would appear that the pref-
erence was to form clusters of villages located a few kilometers from one
another, perhaps in an effort to avoid stressing local resources too quickly
(Engelbrecht 2003: 113). Although without more extensive excavations of
sites in both of these regions, these patterns are difficult to confirm.
By the early sixteenth century, quantities of modified human bone on sites
in south-central Ontario drop off sharply, suggesting the cessation or decline
of violent conflict, possibly as a result of alliance building between con-
solidated community aggregates. On the Humber River and West Duffins
Creek, at least two of these formative village aggregates remained intact into
the sixteenth century through subsequent village relocations. Seed-Barker
(Burgar 1993) on the Upper Humber River and Mantle (Birch and Wil-
liamson 2013) on West Duffins Creek exhibit highly organized settlement
plans and do not show evidence of expansion, leading us to consider them
consolidated aggregates that had undergone significant social and political
integration (Birch 2012).
While these trends characterize Iroquoian settlement trajectories during
the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is clear that processes of settlement
aggregation played out differently for each village based on their own unique
historical contingencies, both in terms of the internal composition and the
local and distant trade and social relationships of the communities that con-
tributed to their formation.
COALESCENT COMMUNITIES: THE DRAPER
AND MANTLE SITES
The formation of community aggregates created larger coresidential popula-

tions that necessitated new means of regulating sociopolitical organization and
economic production. An in-depth analysis of the well-excavated and analyzed
Draper and Mantle sites provides unique insights into the challenges and trans-
formations that accompanied coalescence for one specific community group.
In the mid-fifteenth century AD, as many as eight small communities
inhabiting the West Duffins Creek drainage came together at the Draper site
(Finalyson 1985; Warrick 2008: 136–137). Ties engendered by the proxim-
ity of villages, their associated field systems, shared resource extraction areas
and trail systems, kinship, intermarriage, and possibly trade and communal
defense would have existed between early-fifteenth-century communities and
likely influenced and helped to facilitate their amalgamation (see also Hag-
gis; Rautman; Wallace and Lindeman, this volume). Intermarriage may have
been a particularly important mechanism if these small villages were inhab-
ited by single clan segments that practiced clan exogamy, as was the case for
Wendat and Wyandot clans in the historic period (Tooker 1964: 126).
The Draper site was fully excavated in the late 1970s, revealing the total
village plan (Figure 8.2). Finlayson (1985) produced a detailed report of
these settlement patterns. Unfortunately, the material culture analyses were
undertaken separately and never fully integrated with the settlement pat-
terns. Future reappraisals and syntheses of these data will be essential for
untangling the complex relationships that existed between village segments
and constituent household groups at the site.
As described elsewhere (Birch 2012; Birch and Williamson 2013: 58–62;
Finalyson 1985), following the construction of the original palisaded village
core, the Draper site underwent a total of five expansions whereby new
longhouses were constructed and the palisade extended around them. These
multiple palisade expansions indicate that coalescence was not a one-time
event. Instead, smaller communities joined the growing Draper village in a
process of aggregation that unfolded over many years.
As each new house cluster was added, they were deliberately constructed
in such a way as to keep each group spatially distinct, even when it would
have been more practical, in terms of the additional palisade that needed to
be constructed, to arrange them parallel within the palisaded enclosure. Each
house cluster also contains one or more “long” longhouses. Exceedingly
long houses appear in the fourteenth century AD and reach their great-
est length during the mid-fifteenth century (Dodd 1984; Warrick 1996).
The development of very large longhouses may reflect rivalry whereby large
households were those of prominent lineages who played important roles
in guiding community affairs, although there is no archaeological evidence
that some households were wealthier than others (Trigger 1990: 126). While
there is no evidence for economic inequality in the precontact period, that
Draper site, late fifteenth century
Mantle site, early sixteenth century
o 100 rn
Figure 8.2 Draper and Mantle site plans. Draper site plan reproduced from Finlay-
son (1985); Mantle plan shows the early phase of occupation.
does not preclude the fact that there may have been asymmetrical power
relations between some individuals, lineages, or clans. It is known from the
historic record, for example, that some lineages and their heads “owned”
various trade routes and that permission and the provision of gifts was
required to use them (Thwaites 1896–1901, 10: 223–225).
As the Draper village grew, the number of face-to-face interactions
between village inhabitants would have increased, stressing the existing
mechanisms regulating communication and interaction within coresiden-
tial populations (Dunbar 2011; Fletcher 1995). They also would have had
to develop mechanisms for group decision making within the growing
community. Relationships between community members, households, and
larger social units such as clans and their representatives would thus have
developed over time with repeated negotiations, which may have become
more complex as new social groups were added. This was likely facilitated
by the village council, with all of its attendant rules, rankings, and pro-
tocols. The small precoalescent villages may have consisted of single clan
segments that had perhaps first formed at the turn of the thirteenth century
with the first phase of coalescence. New councils would likely have had to
accommodate headmen from each of these clan segments (see also Trigger
1976: 54).
Warfare may have provided one means of ordering new village councils.
It is known that warfare provided an avenue for young men to accrue pres-
tige (Trigger 1976: 68–69; see also Birch 2010a; Snow 2007) and increase
their influence in clan and village affairs. In historic Wendat society, a village
council consisting of the civil headmen of clan segments appears to have met
daily to discuss matters of public administration while other clan headmen
were predominantly concerned with military affairs and relations between
communities (Trigger 1976: 56–57). In that the raising of headmen was
lineage- or clan-based, it is likely that women were influential in these deci-
sions, although they did not attend the meetings (Trigger 1976: 55).
There are no clear central places or obvious public structures or spaces at
the Draper site; many of the open spaces or plazas identified by Finlayson
were actually filled with extensive refuse deposits. The emphasis on retaining
the spatial separation of longhouse groups, and that each contained one or
more long longhouses, which Finlayson suggested were chief’s houses (e.g.,
1985: 175–176; see also Thwaites 1896–1901, 10: 181), suggests that the
inhabitants of each longhouse group retained distinct identities and socio-
political functions within the formative aggregate. As such, the Draper site
can be interpreted not as a single village community but rather as a settle-
ment composed of multiple small communities sharing a palisaded enclosure
and learning to live together. In this way, the physical aggregation of this
community preceded its social integration. It was not until the next known
iteration of the village plan that a new, integrated community identity mate-
rialized (Birch 2012; Birch and Williamson 2013: 61, 82).
Based on their similar sizes, ceramic assemblages, calibrated radiocarbon
dates, and agricultural field modeling, we believe that the Draper commu-
nity relocated to the largely unexcavated Spang site around 1480 and then
again to the Mantle site around the turn of the sixteenth century.
The Mantle site was excavated in its entirety by Archaeological Services
Inc. between 2003 and 2005. Its settlement plan and the materials recovered
have been the subject of detailed analyses (ASI 2012b; Birch 2010b, 2012;
Birch and Williamson 2013), making it one of the most-studied and well-
known Iroquoian village sites excavated to date.
When the community that had previously inhabited the Draper site relo-
cated to the Mantle site, there was a dramatic change in the structure of
the built environment. The early phase of the village plan exhibits a pre-
planned layout with no obvious divisions or house groups. Instead, houses
were arranged in a radial alignment, with parallel and paired rows arrayed
around a single open area (Figure 8.2). This plaza area is a unique example
of a clear central and public space on an Iroquoian village site. Cross-cultural
comparisons of large public facilities in middle-range societies indicate that
plazas commonly served as a context for both sacred and secular activities
and fulfilled integrative functions (Adler and Wilshusen 1990; Lipe and Heg-
mon 1989; Rautman, this volume), encouraging communication between
households and facilitating activities and events that would have been
important in constructing a collective identity. In the historic period, the
Wendat are known to have held regularly scheduled councils and regional
assemblies, either in the cabin of the village chief or in the “midst of the vil-
lage” (Thwaites 1896–1901, 10: 251).
Houses 15 and 20 have been identified as the cabins of chiefly lineages.
They are the longest on the site, and their high wall post densities indicate
numerous rebuilding episodes, suggesting that they endured throughout the
village’s occupation and may have been available for meetings and assem-
blies of the village council (Birch and Williamson 2013: 70, 83).
While the egalitarian nature of decision making that is reflected in the
seventeenth-century ethnographic record might be assumed for this earlier
period, the actual council structure and the issues they addressed can be
inferred on the basis of both the ethnographic and archaeological records.
This has not previously been possible since the postcoalescent period has
only now been illuminated, at least for this community, through extensive
excavation and analysis. We imagine those issues to include the construction
and maintenance of public areas and shared features in the village, economic
production, and foreign affairs—issues that no doubt became a great deal
more complex in the context of coalescence.
MANAGING MANTLE: PLANNING AND PUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION
Public Building Programs—Construction and Maintenance

In addition to the creation of a large public space or plaza during the first
phase of the site’s construction, Mantle, like Draper and all other post–AD
1450 communities on the north shore of Lake Ontario, is surrounded by a
formidable multirow palisade. The Mantle palisade was contracted twice.
The contraction was evident since houses associated with the early village
were subsequently obscured or overlain by later phases of palisade construc-
tion and by a borrow trench that surrounded the third and final phase of
palisade construction (Figure 8.3). In some sections there appear to be as
many as seven rows of palisade posts, although this is the result of mainte-
nance and successive phases of palisade construction as any more than three
rows would have been unnecessary (Engelbrecht 2009: 180). Analysis of
the settlement pattern indicates that the palisade complex consisted of more
than 30,000 posts throughout the site’s occupation, a considerable effort
with stone tool technology.
In the historic period, houses were constructed by groups of men, with each
lineage or clan segment responsible for its own (Wrong 1939: 78), although
those village inhabitants who found themselves without houses were the
beneficiary of communitywide work parties authorized and organized by
council (Wrong 1939: 81). Men were also responsible for the construction
of the village defensive system, including palisades and earthworks. The
minute amount of human bone recovered from nonburial contexts at the
Mantle site, however, suggests that the effort expended on palisade con-
struction was not in proportion to the actual levels of violent conflict.
The earliest phase of the village was surrounded by a palisade that was
comprised of between one and four rows of posts and seemingly constructed
prior to most of the houses. A section of the southeastern palisade was
contracted soon after its initial construction to strengthen a particular weak
area underlain by poor, gravelly soils. After the village had been occupied
Figure 8.3 Section of Mantle site settlement plan indicating three phases of palisade
construction and borrow trench.
for a decade or so, the palisade was entirely rebuilt. A trench was exca-
vated around the palisade’s perimeter, the fill presumably used to create a
strengthening embankment at its base. While any evidence for earthworks
at Mantle was obscured by nineteenth- and twentieth-century plowing, the
earthworks of one of the villages that succeeded Mantle survived into the
twentieth century, resulting in its historic description as a ringed fort (Emer-
son 1954: 165).
The construction of the site’s new palisade and earthworks would have
required a significant investment of time and effort, with implications for
the organization of space, access to the village interior, and the allocation
of communal labor. The rebuilding of the defensive system, for example,
required the dismantling of a number of structures and appears to have
put a new premium on space within the village precincts. Over time, the
plaza area was filled with new structures, resulting in the abandonment
of the original village plan. While the chiefly Houses 15 and 20 and some
associated structures retained their position on the highest ground, other
longhouses were dismantled and relocated or repositioned. Many of the
houses along the western side of the site were rebuilt entirely, whereas oth-
ers were completely dismantled and new houses with different orientations
built in their place. It would appear that this work program, at least in part,
was necessitated by the departure of a community segment occupying the
houses in the northernmost portion of the village. It is not clear what led to
the departure of a substantial segment of the community’s population—on
the order of the size of a precoalescent community—but it was coincident,
whether as a cause or consequence, of the structural reorganization of the
village. Whatever the reason, it points to the fragility of the community’s
integration and also to the fact that while regional hostilities had led to
coalescence, the absence of violent conflict presumably allowed for a negoti-
ated new home for that particular community segment. All of these changes
would no doubt have required substantial discussion among all the clan seg-
ments in the community. In the absence of coercion, however, clan leaders
and their constituents must have been free to leave or stay; it is also possible
that they were asked to leave. However it occurred, the impact of the pali-
sade contraction affected houses throughout the community, and the new
design must have originated with a council decision.
The Necessities of Life—Food and Clothing

Once communities reached the size of Draper and Mantle, planning for vil-
lage maintenance and relocation would have included ongoing assessments
of present defensive fortifications, residences, agricultural field systems,
and hunting and fishing strategies. While thousands of felled saplings and
sheets of elm and cedar bark were constantly required for constructing and
covering houses, their supply was likely coordinated with expanding agri-
cultural fields due to ever-decreasing soil fertility. Hundreds of acres of new
agricultural fields would have been cleared, planted, tended, and harvested
annually to provide the more than 1,500 pounds of maize required daily to
feed the population.
While substantial quantities of nonagricultural food were obtained
through hunting, fishing, and gathering activities, maize was the most
important component in the Wendat diet. There would have been con-
siderable concern over crop failure, leading to the regular production of
surpluses, which were also used to trade with northern Algonquians or other
Iroquoian groups. Bean, cucurbit (squash), sunflower, and tobacco were
also cultivated by the Mantle community.
While the cultural geographer Conrad Heidenreich (1971) suggested
maize contributed about 65 percent of the diet for the historic Wendat,
initial isotope research suggested that the diet of most southern Ontario
Iroquoians consisted of about 50 percent maize (Schwarcz et al. 1985). The
degree to which maize contributed to diet would, of course, differ among
various communities at different times depending on the pressures for inten-
sification of production brought about by amalgamating populations (see
Kowalewski, this volume). The isotope data recovered from testing a sample
of loose teeth recovered from within the Mantle village and its associated
cemetery were evaluated in the context of the established estimated food
web fractionation of 13C and 15N (Pfeiffer et al. 2013; see also Birch and
Williamson 2013: 95). It was estimated that maize comprised approxi-
mately 60 to 65 percent of the diet of the Mantle inhabitants, a value that,
while consistent with other regional early-sixteenth-century Iroquoian sites,
is higher than Middle Iroquoian or historic Wendat values.
Heidenreich (1971: 162–164) suggested the Wendat were consuming
about 1.3 pounds of maize per day per person at 65 percent of the diet. This
figure was used to model the field systems for the precoalescent, Draper,
Spang, and Mantle villages in the Duffins Creek drainage (Birch and William-
son 2013: 95–103). Using population estimates for those sites, Heidenreich’s
basic model (1971: 189–195), and adjusting for soil regimes and steadily
decreasing soil fertility in the immediate vicinity of the sites, climatic data,
and modeling for surplus retention, we found that at its twentieth year of
occupation, Mantle required 2,000 acres of maize, which entailed a walk
of almost 2 kilometers to the edge of the field system. The precoalescent
villages with populations of about 300 people required about 400 acres of
fields with a distance to field edge of about 700 meters.
The extended family seems to have been the primary unit of production
and consumption, although in times of scarcity the harvest was shared with
others in the clan segment and even the village (Heidenreich 1971: 168–171;
Trigger 1976: 36). The fields appear to have been available to any family
if they were not being used, since land was apparently common property
(Wrong 1939: 103). Wendat women planted, tended, and harvested the corn
and other crops. Men removed trees and brush from the fields with stone
tools and by girdling and burning large trees. But with thousands of acres of
forest to clear, it is clear that coordinated field clearance by work parties was
necessary, a fact noted by Champlain (Biggar 1922–1936: 156).
If unused land was cleared by work parties, it seems reasonable that deci-
sions regarding agricultural field systems were subject to council authority.
This would be especially true since scarcity and trade required the growing
of surpluses on behalf of the entire population. This was thought by Sagard
to be as much as 2 to 3 years’ supply (Wrong 1939: 103); the Jesuit Jean de
Brébeuf claimed Huronia was the granary of their Algonquian neighbors
(Thwaites 1896–1901, 8: 115). Clearly, in newly formed coalescent villages,
where the distribution of foodstuffs was previously left to the individual
family or small clan segments, these were substantial issues subject to con-
siderable discussion and coordinated implementation. Moreover, with daily
walks of 1 to 2 kilometers to fields, one wonders who had rights to the still-
fertile fields closest to the village.
While the agricultural field systems would have required the expenditure
of significant effort at clearing forested areas by men and planting, tend-
ing, and harvesting crops by women and children, in addition to gathering
wild plant stuffs, the subsistence system of the site inhabitants also included
the exploitation of animal resources for meat protein, hides for the manu-
facture of clothing, and bone for making tools. Our analyses indicate that
coalescence also required changes in decision-making processes related to
the coordination of these activities.
The faunal sample from the Mantle site was dominated by mammals
(87 percent) with fish comprising 6 percent, birds 2 percent, and all other
classes comprising 1 percent or less each (Needs-Howarth 2012; also Birch
and Williamson 2013: 114–115). With regard to fishing practices, far higher
percentages of fish bone have been documented in precoalescent villages on
the north shore of Lake Ontario, ranging from 30 to 50 percent of exca-
vated early-fifteenth-century assemblages (Birch and Williamson 2013:
106). Fish represented 8 percent of the animal bone from Draper and 6 per-
cent at Mantle, indicating that fishing was not as important an activity for
the aggregated community as it had been previously. Salmonidae (Atlantic
salmon, lake trout, whitefish), identified mainly from their vertebrae, com-
prise about 50 percent of the identified fish remains and suggests that the fall
lake fishery remained the focus of the community’s limited fishing activities.
In the historic period, the fall lake fishery went on for about 2 months and
involved a cooperative effort at the village level (Thwaites 1896–1901: 13:
115; 15: 57–59; 8: 87–89). As the Mantle fishery was carried out a distance
of 30 kilometers from the site, it no doubt would have been coordinated by
the village’s domestic council.
Yet, despite the emphasis on the fall fishery reflected in the fish portion
of the faunal assemblage, the mean nitrogen isotopic value of 10.5 taken
on a sample of fourteen teeth from Mantle indicates that the contribution
of lake fish to the diet of the Mantle inhabitants was minimal by com-
parison with earlier precoalescent north shore sites or later contact period
Wendat populations, which have significantly higher values, reflecting their
historically recorded reliance on lake fish for protein (Pfeiffer et al 2013;
Birch and Williamson 2013: 110). For some reason, these recently coalesced
populations decided to expend their coordinated efforts in ways other than
fishing. We suspect the draw away from their previous reliance on fish was
the requirement for animal hides to provide clothing for 1,500 individuals.
Where traditionally village hunters were accustomed to providing hides for
200 to 400 individuals, in large, aggregated villages, the numbers of hides
and the hunting territories required expanded dramatically.
While the mammal portion of the Mantle faunal assemblage contains
twenty-three unique taxa, it is overwhelmingly dominated by deer (61 per-
cent). Small mammals were present in insignificant numbers, and larger
fur-bearing species were also targeted (Needs-Howarth 2012; Birch and
Williamson 2013: 111–112), although none was well-represented in the
assemblage. This pattern was also true for the preceding Draper site. The
precoalescent sites, on the other hand, all have well less than 35 percent deer
in the identified mammal component. The percentages of mammals, fish,
and birds at Draper and Mantle are very similar but considerably different
from earlier sites, where fish and small mammals dominate. From these
data, it is evident that the focus in hunting strategies shifted considerably
with the formation of aggregated villages.
The hunting of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and wapiti
(Cervus canadensis) by the site inhabitants for hides, meat, and bone for
making tools, therefore, must have been one of the most important eco-
nomic considerations and planned seasonal activities.
In terms of the caloric contribution of deer meat to the diet, Heidenreich
(1971: 163) estimated that deer represented about 6 percent of the caloric
requirements of the historic Wendat, although the ethnographic record indi-
cates that meat of any nature was rare in times other than during the fall
seasonal hunt (e.g., Biggar 1922–1936: 126; Thwaites 1896–1901, 17: 142;
Wrong 1939: 82, 106–107). This also may have been true for ancestral
Wendat populations on the north shore given the probable scarcity of deer
in the vicinity of villages and the competition for deer among neighboring
communities.
While deer are solitary for most of the year, they are found in larger herds
groups in mast-producing forest in the autumn and winter, when they may
congregate or “yard” in stands of white cedar. Their hides and antler would
have been in better condition at these times of the year, and their weight
would have been optimal for meat (see also Stewart 1991: 25). The historic
Wendat certainly participated in fall and early winter deer drives or group
hunts at some distance from their villages, with 400 to 500 individuals in one
case (Biggar 1922–1936: 60–61) and 25 in another, the latter involving a deer
surround that resulted in the capture of 120 deer over a 38-day period (Big-
gar 1922–1936: 83–86). Archaeological evidence of such a drive and camp
was found at the Early Iroquoian Little site in southwestern Ontario, where
a 17-meter-wide surround and blind was documented along with a feature
containing 10,000 bones of at least eight deer (Williamson 1990: 314–316).
In our attempt to identify the requirements for deer hides and the hunt-
ing territory of Mantle, we considered the estimated annual requirement for
hides per family, the regional habitat for deer at the time of the site’s occu-
pation, and estimates of their densities as well as the availability of other
animal hides through hunting and/or trade to meet the requirements (see
Birch and Williamson 2013: 113–120).
To estimate the number of deerskins necessary to clothe a Wendat person,
we examined descriptions of Wendat clothing and hide working by Cham-
plain and gleaned insights into the hide requirements for manufacturing
breeches, shirts, capes, and moccasins as well the use-life of those items from
Morgan Baillargeon, a curator of Plains ethnology at the Canadian Museum
of Civilization, and David Christiensen, a historical reenactor. Hides were
also required for the manufacture of tobacco pouches and game bags and for
wrapping bodies or offerings at death (Thwaites 1896–1901, 10: 265–279;
Wrong 1939: 59, 102), the latter of which they considered of paramount
importance even to the detriment of their own warmth in cold conditions.
For a family of four, it would seem that twenty hides per year were required.
Michael Gramly (1977) had previously calculated that an average historic
Wendat person would require three and a half hides annually for moccasins
and clothing. Taking other uses for hides into account leads to an annual
requirement of four and a half to five hides per person, which, for a popu-
lation of 1,500 people, would require approximately 6,750 to 7,500 deer.
Using an estimate of an annual requirement of 7,000 deer for the Mantle
community and a relatively high density figure of 15 deer per square kilome-
ter, after considering the environmental characteristics of the region in relation
to past and present recorded and estimated deer densities and assuming a 35
percent predation rate to sustain populations (Bolstad and Gragson 2008),
we concluded the Mantle occupants would have required 1,428 square kilo-
meters of hunting territory. Visualized as an umland around the community,
it would have a radius of 21 kilometers and would certainly have overlapped
with the required deer territories of concurrently occupied villages on the
north shore of Lake Ontario.
Modeling the hunting territories of these villages using the watersheds
within which the communities were located resulted in the realization that
the hunting territories of these or their predecessor communities would have
overlapped to the extent that coterminous occupation of Parsons, Keffer,
and Draper would have been impossible without negotiated boundaries, as
was likely true for the successor villages of Seed Barker and Mantle, despite
the absence of an intermediate community in the Don Valley by the time of
their occupation (see Birch and Williamson 2013: 118–120).
Regardless of how the villages mediated these intercommunity tensions,
the Mantle villagers would certainly have mounted several mass capture
hunting expeditions each fall and early winter at some distance from their
village, likely involving hundreds of hunters. The absence of evidence of
deer drives and their associated camps yielding large quantities of processed
deer bone in the archaeological record of the north shore suggests they trav-
eled some distance, perhaps northward to undertake these hunts to avoid
encountering hunting parties from other villages. The Mantle occupants no
doubt also traded shelled maize for hides with northern Algonquians, as the
ethnography of the historic Wendat indicates.
DISCUSSION
With the constant infrastructure program, agricultural system, and large-

scale hunting and fishing expeditions undertaken at some distance away
from the Mantle community, the need for ongoing detailed administration
and planning would have been considerable. Maize provided well over half
of the calories to the community’s diet, constituting the major ongoing eco-
nomic activity at the site. While modest overlapping of the field systems
between sequential communities would have resulted in the most produc-
tive fields being closest to the new village, thereby reducing the initial land
clearance at the time of village relocation, the planning involved in village
relocations would have been enormous and an ongoing concern in that com-
munity members would have been well aware of the need to relocate the
village once every generation. In that the trees felled in clearing fields would
have been used in the construction and maintenance of houses and pali-
sade walls and their limbs and branches dried and used for firewood, the
planning for activities obviously overlapped considerably. While planting,
tending, and harvesting crops for ongoing consumption may have been lin-
eage-based responsibilities as recorded in the ethnography, planning for the
production of surpluses for trade and times of scarcity would have necessi-
tated coordination among different lineages and clan segments, particularly
with aggregation into larger coresidential settlements. Sharing was clearly
an equalizer for families experiencing economic difficulties and contributed
to the importance of an egalitarian ethos underlying social and political
organization, but the creation of surpluses was likely organized by a plan-
ning authority or council that exercised considerable influence. Once chosen
from among the leaders in each clan, the councilors made and implemented
the necessary decisions to manage a sophisticated economy. It should also be
noted that, whereas the Draper site was characterized by numerous midden
deposits located throughout the village, refuse at the Mantle site was chan-
neled into a single hillside midden, indicating the ability of this population
to implement, or at least adhere to, communitywide management strategies
(Birch and Williamson 2013: 85).
While competition for fields is unlikely to have been a contributor to
intercommunity tension, overlapping hunting territories may have been.
Once work parties cleared the necessary annual acreage to support the
agricultural system, they no doubt turned their attention to fishing and,
more importantly, acquiring sufficient hides through hunting and trading.
Given the numbers of hunters required for mass capture methods, how-
ever, its coordination would have been undertaken by the planning and
scheduling authority as other activities had to be undertaken concomitantly.
Indeed, there would have been careful consideration given to leaving suf-
ficient men behind to guarantee the safety of the village and surrounding
fields and to carry on with other domestic activities such as infrastructure
maintenance. This represents a substantial shift that involved transitioning
from individual family or even lineage-based organization at the precoales-
cent community level to those organized at the coalescent community level
through the formation of focused work groups of individuals from multiple
lineages and clan segments. Daily village councils would have been required
with members capable of reaching decisions in the absence of large-scale
public consultation.
Regardless of the success of the mass capture events, many hides would
almost certainly have been acquired through trade either with other Iro-
quoian communities or with northern Algonquian bands in return for
surplus maize. While this is a recorded feature of historic Wendat life, our
modeling indicates that such trade must have been in place at least a century
earlier. Those trading relationships and interaction networks would have
contributed to a more diverse-looking material culture, possibly through the
introduction of marriage partners or adoptees. Trigger (1990: 46–47) notes
that visits from trading partners were occasions for several days of feasting,
speech making, and the formal exchange of gifts.
These exchange systems also would have been crucial in defining the
routes by which European trade items first made their appearance in the
lower Great Lakes Region. The recovery of an iron tool featuring Basque
forge marks as well as two beads of European copper at Mantle (Birch
and Williamson 2013: 149–152; Carnevale et al. 2012) probably arrived
through the same routes with northern Algonquians via other Iroquoian-
speaking groups inhabiting the St. Lawrence valley.
CONCLUSIONS
Settlement aggregation in the late precontact Iroquoian world was prompted

by a period of social upheaval caused by conflict and uncertainty. With the
merging of several communities, it also would have been unsettling in the
sense that coresidential communities would have necessitated the develop-
ment of new social relationships and the creation, willingly or reluctantly,
of a new community identity. One’s homeland also may have been attenu-
ated by having to leave behind ancestral landscapes and moving northward
into unclaimed land. All of these tensions may have been mitigated by the
increasing importance of clans, which eclipsed household-based lineages in
structuring village governance and may have included efforts to attract new
members from neighboring and distant communities.
The structure of clan leadership allowed a means of moving forward
where multiple communities with their own former leaders could participate
in the selection of new clan leaders, who, in turn, would form and contribute
to the village council. In this way, as organizational complexity increased at
the village level, so too did the authoritative structure.
The egalitarian, group-centered ethos described by Trigger’s model cer-
tainly characterized traditional values, which helped to maintain coalescent
communities, but day-to-day planning authority also evolved with increas-
ing economic complexity. Previous models of decision making, while based
on the ethnographic accounts, have perhaps failed to recognize the impor-
tance of concepts such as work parties for clearing land or hunting parties
of hundreds of individuals, all of which required detailed organization. In
ignoring this complexity, we have been left with a sense of consensual man-
agement that perhaps masks the fact that leaders from all clan segments in
the community met daily to manage these sites and that parallel structures
were in place to address external tensions and trade. This, in our opinion, is
a complex management structure and unlikely to have always been one of
consensual decision making.
While differences in wealth are not visible in the ancestral Wendat
archaeological record, the ability to manage, direct, and implement suc-
cessful construction programs and resource procurement and management
strategies would no doubt have elevated certain individuals to positions of
higher status. As such, we believe that the needs of aggregated settlements
gave rise to both consensual and hierarchical social relations (cf. McGuire
and Saitta 1996; Plog 1995).
In this chapter we have focused on understanding how large, aggregated
communities would have had to develop more complex organizational
structures to obtain the necessities of life. Yet these same structures—clan
segments and village councils—also would have needed to attend to the man-
agement of internal tensions, external relations, and even the relationships
between humans and the supernatural realm to ensure the spiritual well-
being of community members. Changes in the Mantle site settlement plan
indicate that village life was dynamic. Organizational structures—social,
political, and economic—were adopted, adapted, and, perhaps, abandoned
not in a linear fashion but according to the changing needs and composition
of the community.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank the team at Archaeological Services, Inc., especially

Andrew Clish, Andrea Carnevale, Marty Cooper, Jonas Fernandez, John
Sleath, Debbie Steiss, Aleksandra Pradzynski, Dave Robertson, and Rob
Wojtowicz. Thanks also to Suzanne Needs-Howarth for her faunal analyses
and discussions regarding hide procurement and to John Steckley for his
insights on Iroquoian clans.
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9 Community Aggregation through
Public Architecture
Cherokee Townhouses
Christopher B. Rodning
An aggregation is a collection of diverse components, such as a group of

households, lineages, clans, or members of different ethnic groups. From
an ecological perspective, an aggregation is a spatial arrangement of indi-
viduals within a species that is more concentrated and more clustered than
a random dispersion. This chapter considers the role of Cherokee public
structures (known as townhouses) as an “architecture of aggregation” for
Cherokee towns in the southeastern United States. The period considered
spans the centuries just before and after European contact, from the fifteenth
through early eighteenth centuries AD (Figure 9.1; Boulware 2011; Dick-
ens 1976, 1979, 1986; Goodwin 1977; Hatley 1993; Keel 1976; Marcoux
2010; Schroedl 2000, 2001, 2009). Townhouses were landmarks for towns
(Schroedl 1978, 1986a; Smith 1979), they connected Cherokee towns to
particular points within the southern Appalachian landscape (Riggs 2008;
Rodning 2002b, 2010a), they created public spaces shared by local mem-
bers of different clans and households, and they manifested community
spaces in which the living and the dead—or, alternatively, descendants and
ancestors within specific towns—were connected with one other (Rodning
2001b, 2011b). The shapes and sizes of Cherokee towns varied according
to local topography and the numbers of households (from 10 to 60) and
people (between 100 and 600) in them (Schroedl 2000), but within each
Cherokee town was a townhouse that linked local households together as a
community (Riggs 2008: 3). Cherokee towns were composed of matrilocal
households, whose core members were members of one of seven matrilineal
Cherokee clans (Gilbert 1937, 1943; Mooney 1900: 212–213; Perdue 1998:
41–59). Cherokee townhouses and adjacent plazas created spaces for public
life within a community composed of people from many different clans and
many different households (Gearing 1958, 1962; Persico 1979; Schroedl
1978). Townhouses as an architectural form were both permanent and por-
table, in that they rooted towns to specific points on the landscape, but when
towns moved, they could anchor themselves to new places by building new
townhouses.
Archaeologists in the Southeast have focused less on the topic of aggrega-
tion than have archaeologists in other areas of the United States, especially
180 Christopher B. Rodning
Figure 9.1 Selected archaeological sites and Cherokee town areas in the southern
Appalachians (after Rodning 2009a: 628, 2011b: 132). Sites that are known or
thought to have townhouses are listed in italics: (1) King, (2) Ustanali/New Echota,
(3) Ledford Island, (4) Great Tellico/Chatuga, (5) Mialoquo, (6) Tuskegee, (7) Tomot-
ley, (8) Toqua, (9) Chota-Tanassee, (10) Citico, (11) Tallassee, (12) Chilhowee, (13)
Kituhwa, (14) Birdtown, (15) Nununyi, (16) Ravensford Tract, (17) Tuckasegee,
(18) Alarka Farmstead, (19) Cowee, (20) Joree, (21) Whatoga, (22) Nequassee, (23)
Echoee, (24) Coweeta Creek, (25) Dillard/Old Estatoe, (26) Peachtree/Great Hiwas-
see, (27) Spike Buck/Quanasee, (28) Brasstown Valley, (29) Nachoochee/Echota,
(30) Chattooga, (31) Keowee, (32) Seneca, (33) Chauga, (34) Tugalo, (35) Estatoe,
(36) Garden Creek, (37) Biltmore Mound, (38) Warren Wilson.
the Southwest. Environmental changes, social conflict and instability, and

widespread cases of site abandonment and community movement in the
Puebloan landscape of the northern Southwest led to the development of
large, socially diverse pueblos, for example. These developments shaped the
development of plazas and kivas as integrative architectural spaces, and they
shaped the formation of the pueblos that were present in the Southwest dur-
ing the period of early Spanish contact, many of which have endured and
are still present.
Following episodes of environmental change, regional abandonments,
and resettlements, ancestral Pueblo groups in the northern Southwest
formed large, aggregated communities from the 1100s through the 1400s
(Adler et al. 1996; Graves et al. 1982; Kohler and Sebastian 1996; Rautman
2000, this volume; see also Wallace and Lindeman, this volume). Archi-
tectural adaptations to aggregation in the Puebloan Southwest during this
Community Aggregation through Public Architecture 181
period include compact multistory room blocks, large outdoor plazas, and
semi-subterranean ceremonial structures known as kivas. Plazas and kivas
created venues for the forms of community interaction and ceremonialism
that sustained community identity within conditions of geopolitical instabil-
ity and environmental uncertainty.
Within the Hohokam area of the southern Southwest, ballcourts and plat-
form mounds were settings for integrative events in communities connected
to networks of canals (Adler et al. 1996: 406; Craig 2007; Crown 1991;
Gregory 1991; Hunt et al. 2005; Lindauer and Blitz 1997; Wilcox 1991). As
settings for community events, ballcourts and mounds were enduring sym-
bols of Hohokam community identity. These integrative architectural spaces
materialized community relationships for Hohokam households residing
near ballcourts and mounds, and at sites in surrounding areas.
Townhouses and plazas at Cherokee settlements in the southern Appa-
lachians were broadly comparable to Hohokam ballcourts in Arizona and
the plazas and kivas at late prehistoric pueblos in the northern Southwest
in the following respects. Hohokam ballcourts and plazas at pueblos in the
northern Southwest were broadly accessible to many people, as were plazas
in Cherokee towns, where large public events took place during the eigh-
teenth century. Kivas are broadly comparable to Cherokee townhouses in
that they were nonresidential structures and were settings for ceremonial
events involving people from local communities. Clear architectural thresh-
olds separated the spatial and social realms inside kivas and townhouses and
the spatial and social realms of domestic life. Kivas were enclosed spaces
and settings for events involving only some segments of Puebloan commu-
nities. Townhouses were broadly accessible to all people within Cherokee
towns and visitors from other towns, but periodic events were accessible to
smaller groups within those towns, and the single entryways to townhouses
formed significant thresholds between the spaces inside townhouses and the
outdoor spaces in adjacent plazas. Like kivas, townhouses and the fires kept
inside townhouse hearths were visible manifestations of the vitality of the
Cherokee towns surrounding them.
The symbolism of Cherokee townhouses derived in part from hearths and
burials in them and sequences of townhouses present at some sites. During
consultations with Cherokee elders in western North Carolina during the
late nineteenth century, James Mooney (1889, 1891, 1900) recorded many
Cherokee oral traditions, some of which shed light on the cosmological
significance and animate nature of townhouses (see Harrison-Buck 2012).
One historical myth recorded by Mooney (1900: 395–397), entitled “The
Mounds and the Constant Fire: The Old Sacred Things,” outlines ances-
tral practices of building earthen mounds and townhouses. First, a circle
of stones was placed on the ground, and a fire was lit at its center. Burials
of recently deceased community leaders were then placed in the ground.
These burials and the artifacts placed in the ground with them were thought
to protect the town and its townhouse against the threat of attack in the
future. Then, a mound was built above the burials and the stones, creating
a platform on which a townhouse was then built. The placement of the fire
determined the placement of the townhouse hearth, and a male elder known
as a firekeeper kept that fire burning constantly, throughout the life of the
town. The fire in this hearth was the source of war fires transported by war-
riors on the war path and the source of new fire for hearths in household
dwellings in Cherokee towns, and the “everlasting fires” kept in townhouses
on large mounds such as Kituhwa and Nequassee may have been sources of
fire for other Cherokee towns.
This description of Cherokee townhouses emphasizes references to the
past in public architecture, and there are archaeological parallels to these
aspects of townhouses at several sites, including the Coweeta Creek site in
southwestern North Carolina (Figure 9.2). The historical myth recorded by
Mooney refers to hearths, burials, and earthen surfaces that were symbolic
elements in Cherokee townhouses. The archaeology of late prehistoric and
postcontact townhouses in the southern Appalachians demonstrates continu-
ity in the placement of hearths and roof support posts; associations between
burials and townhouses; and cycles of building, burying, and rebuilding
townhouses in place. Townhouses represent an architecture of aggregation
in that they were public structures that created common space for members
of several clans and households. Another sense in which townhouses were
an architecture of aggregation is that they brought together successive gen-
erations of towns and townhouses at particular points within the landscape.
LATE PREHISTORIC AND PROTOHISTORIC

SOCIETIES OF THE SOUTHEAST
Several historic Native American societies of the Southeast—including the

Choctaws (Galloway 1994, 1995, 2002), Chickasaws (Atkinson 2004; Eth-
ridge 2010), Catawbas (Merrell 1989; Moore 2002), and the myriad towns
that comprised the multiethnic Creek confederacy (Braund 2008; Knight
1994; Smith 1987, 2000)—formed through the coalescence of different
groups during the aftermath of European contact and colonialism in the New
World (Ethridge 2006, 2009; Kowalewski 2006). Within the Creek confed-
eracy, people spoke several Muskogean languages, and some Creek towns
included people of diverse linguistic and geographic backgrounds. During
the 1700s, if not before, the Upper Creek and Lower Creek town divisions
formed, and factionalism developed within and between these groups with
respect to trade, diplomacy, and warfare with Spanish, French, and English
colonists. Eighteenth-century Chickasaw settlements in northern Mississippi
can be traced back to the sixteenth-century chiefdom and province of Chi-
caza, which hosted and harassed the Hernando de Soto expedition in 1541
and 1542 (Johnson et al. 2008). Eighteenth-century Choctaw towns in Mis-
sissippi can be traced back to sixteenth-century towns in neighboring areas,
but the Choctaw homeland, as such, may have been largely unoccupied dur-
ing late prehistory and the 1500s (Carson 1999: 8–25; Voss and Blitz 1988:
133). Closer to Cherokee towns, some areas of the Savannah and Etowah
valleys were abandoned during the 1400s (Anderson 1994; King 2003).
Much of the Oconee Valley, in northern Georgia, was abandoned during the
late 1500s, following Spanish entradas in the Southeast (Williams and Shap-
iro 1996). By contrast, archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence exists for
continuity of settlement from late prehistory through the eighteenth century
along the headwaters of the Savannah River, in northwestern South Caro-
lina, southwestern North Carolina, and northeastern Georgia (Anderson et
al. 1986, 1995; Hally 1986, 1994; Hudson 1986, 1997: 190–199, 2005:
94–109; Wynn 1990).
Given the greater continuity of settlement in the southern Appalachians
from late prehistory through the 1700s than elsewhere in the Southeast,
there may have been less social diversity within Cherokee towns than in
Catawba, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek towns. Still, several groups were
represented within Cherokee towns, specifically households and clans. Most
Cherokee towns, or at least large towns like Seneca, Keowee, Quanasee,
Tanasee, and Chota, probably included people from all seven traditional
Cherokee clans. These clans thereby created social ties connecting people
from different towns (Perdue 1998), although there was no overarching
mechanism of governance encompassing Cherokee towns (Persico 1979).
The core members of Cherokee households were women belonging to the
same clan, and clans structured domestic life and spatial layouts of Chero-
kee towns (Perdue 1998). Documentary evidence indicates that Cherokee
townhouses during the eighteenth century were octagonal structures, with
benches along seven walls for each of the seven clans, and the eighth wall
reserved for the doorway that connected the townhouse to the plaza and
domestic structures around the plaza (Anderson et al. 2010a: 34, 221, 264;
Anderson et al. 2010b: 46, 145; Mooney 1900: 212–213). With these points
in mind, and given connections between the fires kept in the hearths of
townhouses and household dwellings, townhouses can be seen as an archi-
tectural form through which clans and households were aggregated within
Cherokee towns (Chambers 2010).
During the 1700s there were five major groups of Cherokee towns,
including the Lower, Out, Middle, Valley, and Overhill settlements (Dickens
1979; Duncan and Riggs 2003; Goodwin 1977; Hill 1997; King 1979).
Townhouses were present in each of these town areas, including some
thought to have been built on earthen mound summits, such as those at
Stecoe, Whatoga, Nequassee, and Cowee (King and Evans 1977; Waselkov
and Braund 1995: 74–85). Earthen mounds are present at the likely sites of
the Lower Cherokee settlements of Chauga, Tugalo, Estatoe, and Echota
(the Nacoochee mound in Georgia), but no direct archaeological evidence
exists of townhouses dating to the 1700s on these mound summits, partly
because of modern disturbances of late mound stages. Other townhouses
were built off mounds, including those at Overhill Cherokee settlements
in eastern Tennessee, even the two sequential townhouses at Toqua, nei-
ther of which was built on the two late prehistoric earthen mounds at that
site (Polhemus 1987; Schroedl 1978). Some of the largest known Cherokee
townhouses date to the late 1700s, reflecting, probably, increasing numbers
of people within Cherokee towns, as the total number of towns was declin-
ing (Schroedl 1986a; Smith 1979).
ARCHITECTURE AND EMPLACEMENT IN

THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS
Townhouses derive from a long tradition of public and monumental archi-

tecture in the southern Appalachians that includes platform mounds, large
posts, and earthlodges. A Middle Woodland mound was present at the Gar-
den Creek site (Chapman and Keel 1979; Keel 1976; Walthall 1985), along
the Pigeon River, and the Biltmore mound near the French Broad River dates
to the sixth or seventh century AD, within the Middle Woodland period (Kim-
ball et al. 2010). Both mounds were built on top of earlier midden deposits,
both were built in two or more stages, and both include fired floors. A very
large, deeply set post was placed on the summit of the Biltmore mound,
probably as a landmark for the setting of periodic rituals and social gath-
erings by small-scale hunter-gatherer societies (Kimball et al. 2010). These
mounds and posts represent an early form of permanent, public architec-
ture in the southern Appalachians, at the point at which permanent villages
and monuments were forming in some areas of the Deep South (Pluckhahn
2003, 2010). Dating to the early second millennium AD, timber-frame earth-
covered structures known as earthlodges were present at several sites in the
southern Appalachians, including Garden Creek, the Beaverdam Creek and
Macon Plateau sites in Georgia, and probably the Peachtree mound in North
Carolina (Dickens 1979; Larson 1994; Rudolph 1984; Setzler and Jennings
1941). Earthlodges were settings for community events and rituals, and at
Garden Creek, the collapsed remnants of paired earthlodges were covered
with thick mound stages that created mound summits on which elite resi-
dences or temples were built (Ward and Davis 1999: 175–178). Sequences of
platform mound stages covering collapsed earthen structures are present at
the Tugalo and Chauga sites in northeastern Georgia and northwestern South
Carolina, where, as at Garden Creek, structures were placed atop mound
summits (Anderson 1994; Kelly and Neitzel 1961). Direct evidence of his-
toric Cherokee townhouses is not present at the Tugalo and Chauga sites,
nor at the nearby Estatoe and Nacoochee mounds, but it is possible that
these mounds supported Cherokee townhouses during the 1600s and early
1700s (Anderson 1994; Duncan and Riggs 2003; Heye et al. 1918; Kelly and
de Baillou 1960). Geophysical survey of the Kituhwa mound in the area of
the historic Cherokee Out towns has revealed the remnants of one or more
townhouses (Riggs 2008; Riggs and Shumate 2003). Although there have
been no published reports of specific investigations of townhouses at Cowee,
Nequassee, Nununyi, Birdtown, and Spike Buck, townhouses may well have
been built on those mound summits, and perhaps even at Garden Creek
(Dickens 1978; Duncan and Riggs 2003; Greene 1999; Waselkov and Braund
1995). Across the southern Appalachians, there is evidence for a sequence of
public architecture spanning almost a millennium, from mounds and large
posts from the first millennium AD, to earthlodges and platform mounds of
the early second millennium AD, to the townhouses seen at archaeological
sites from the period just before and after European contact in the Southeast.
These architectural forms all marked community centers within the land-
scape, and they created settings for civic and ceremonial events.
Late prehistoric townhouses are known from the Toqua and Ledford
Island sites in eastern Tennessee (Koerner et al. 2011; Lewis et al. 1995;
Lewis and Kneberg 1946; Polhemus 1987, 1990; Sullivan 1987, 1995)
and from the King site in northwestern Georgia (Hally 2008). One of the
mounds at Toqua includes a sequence of structures that spans the entire
period of Mississippian settlement at the site. Some of these structures may
represent elite residences rather than public buildings, but the forms of late
prehistoric architecture at Toqua are clear precursors to townhouses, includ-
ing the pairing of structures that is typical for many townhouses dating from
the protohistoric period and the 1700s. Eighteenth-century townhouses
at Toqua were octagonal, perhaps including seating for each of the seven
Cherokee clans along each of seven walls, as described above (Riggs 2008:
44). Neither of the eighteenth-century Cherokee townhouses at Toqua were
built on mounds, perhaps because those mound summits were not large
enough to accommodate the large townhouses typical of eighteenth-century
Cherokee towns (Schroedl 1986a), or perhaps because there was not a direct
ancestral relationship between the late prehistoric town at Toqua and the
Cherokee community situated at the site during the 1700s (Schroedl 1986b).
Another late prehistoric townhouse has been found at Ledford Island,
in the Hiwassee River Valley in eastern Tennessee (Sullivan 1987). A large
structure—similar to domestic structures at the site but much larger than
household dwellings—was situated beside a plaza. As many as five stages
of this structure were built and rebuilt in place, probably during the late
1400s or early 1500s. There were clusters of burials beside the plaza but not
directly beside the townhouse itself. A large post was placed in the middle of
the plaza, perhaps representing a town post comparable to written accounts
of posts beside eighteenth-century Cherokee townhouses (Schroedl 1986a).
The pattern of a public structure, plaza, and clusters of burials mirrors the
model for layouts of domestic architecture on a larger scale (Schroedl 1998:
84–85; Sullivan 1987; see also Cable and Reed 2000; Cable et al. 1997).
Broadly similar patterns are seen at the King site in northwestern Geor-
gia, dating to the sixteenth century, following early Spanish entradas in the
Southeast (Hally 2008). A large public structure and clusters of burials were
placed near the northern edge of a town plaza. The townhouse was built
in a basin, and it was probably surrounded by an earthen embankment,
composed of dirt removed from the basin when the structure was built. This
structure is comparable to townhouses at both historic Cherokee and Creek
townhouses. Nearby was a smaller structure that may have been a resi-
dence or a small public structure of some kind. The plaza was surrounded
by domestic architecture and activity areas, and the entire settlement was
enclosed by a log stockade and a ditch. A large post was placed in the plaza
as a component of the public architecture and public space marking the
symbolic center of the community.
Public structures similar to the townhouses at Ledford Island and King
are known from the Coweeta Creek and Chattooga sites—the former on the
upper Little Tennessee River in southwestern North Carolina, the latter on
the Chattooga River in northwestern South Carolina (Riggs 2008; Rodning
2002a, 2007, 2009a, 2010a, 2011a; Schroedl 2000). The Lower Cherokee
town of Chattooga dates from the mid- to late 1600s until the 1730s, when
several Lower Cherokee settlements were abandoned as many people moved
west to Overhill Cherokee settlements in Tennessee (Baden 1983; Russ and
Chapman 1983; Schroedl 1986a, 2000). The sequence of townhouses at
Coweeta Creek date from the early to mid-1600s until the early 1700s,
when this Middle Cherokee settlement was abandoned (Rodning 2008,
2009b, 2010b, 2011b; Ward and Davis 1999: 183–190). Not surprisingly,
given the temporal overlap and the close proximity of these sites, there are
many similarities in architecture and material culture at Coweeta Creek and
Chattooga. On the other hand, there are some differences between the town-
houses at these sites that are significant to the consideration of Cherokee
townhouses as an architecture of aggregation.
Each of the five stages of the Chattooga townhouse was square with
rounded corners, comparable to domestic structures from this period. The
first two of four superimposed townhouses at Chattooga ranged from 14 to
16 meters square, and each of these two stages had four major roof support
posts around the central hearth. The third and fourth stages of this town-
house were 17 meters across, and this larger size necessitated eight major
roof support posts around the hearth. The growth of the Chattooga town-
house (presumably reflecting the growth of the town) and the shift from
four to eight roof support posts replicates the pattern seen at the eighteenth-
century Chota-Tanasee site in Tennessee (Schroedl 1986a). Beside the main
Chattooga townhouse was a covered pavilion, roughly 4 to 5 meters wide
by 12 meters long. This pairing of structures replicates the pairings of “win-
ter townhouses” (square, octagonal, or round) and “summer townhouses”
(rectangular pavilions or ramadas with roofs but not walls) at eighteenth-
century Chota-Tanasee, Mialoquo, Toqua, and Tomotley (Baden 1983; Russ
and Chapman 1983; Schroedl 1978, 1986a). Beside the townhouse was a
plaza, covered at least partly with gravel, and discrete areas representing
household dwellings were located around the plaza.
townhouse
earthen embankment
pits
later
entryway
10 feet
plaza
3 meters
ramada
Figure 9.2 Early stages of the townhouse at the Coweeta Creek site in southwestern
North Carolina (after Rodning 2009a: 642, 2011b: 140).
At least six stages of a winter townhouse and an adjacent summer town-

house were built and rebuilt in place at the Coweeta Creek site (Figure 9.2).
This history of building and rebuilding the townhouse in place formed a
mound composed of the burned and buried remnants of those townhouses,
its central hearth and roof support posts, deposits of white clay and river
boulders near the entryway to late stages of the townhouse, pits that may
have contained ashes and embers removed from the townhouse hearth, and
burials placed both inside the townhouse and outside its entryway (Rodning
2001a, 2009a, 2011a, 2011b). Each stage of the Coweeta Creek town-
house was broadly comparable to its successors and predecessors—square
with rounded corners, with a central hearth kept in place throughout the
sequence, and an entryway along the southeastern wall or at the southern-
most corner or of the structure. The first stage of the townhouse was built
in a basin, and the presence of paired entrance trenches for the entryway is
evidence that the townhouse was surrounded by an earthen embankment
(following Hally 2008: 68–78). The original structure was built with its
corners facing the cardinal directions—not unlike the alignment of the four
corners of the earth island in the Cherokee cosmogonic myth, “How the
World was Made” (Mooney 1900: 239–240)—and the original entryway
was placed in the middle of the southeastern wall. The angle of the original
entryway was slightly adjusted, and in later stages of the Coweeta Creek
townhouse, the entryway was placed at the southernmost corner of the
structure, although its alignment paralleled the original doorway. Given ref-
erences to thin earthen coverings on historic Cherokee townhouses, and the
presence of earth and daub between successive floors of the Coweeta Creek
townhouse, it is likely that the roof of the Coweeta Creek townhouse was
built with some amount of earth, perhaps in addition to bark and thatch
(see Dickens 1976: 100–101; Hally 2008: 92–96; Schroedl 1986a). The first
four stages of the Coweeta Creek townhouse were roughly 14 to 15 meters
square, and the fifth and sixth stages were slightly larger, at about 16 meters
square. Although there were some changes from the first to last stage of
the Coweeta Creek townhouse, each stage referenced the placement and
alignment of its early stages, and, indeed, each stage was built directly atop
the burned and buried remnants of its predecessors. Not only were burials
placed in the ground when the first townhouse was standing—or perhaps
even before it was built, following the account of traditional townhouse con-
struction in the Cherokee historical myth, “The Mounds and the Constant
Fire” (Mooney 1900: 395–397)—but successive stages of the townhouse
itself were buried in this architectural sequence.
One characteristic that sets the Coweeta Creek townhouse sequence
apart from other archaeological examples of townhouses—including those
at King, Ledford Island, and Chattooga—is that there are burials inside and
beside its early stages (Figure 9.2). Burials at the northern edge of the King
site plaza probably were placed there in reference to the townhouse and plaza
(Hally 2008), like the concentrations of burials on opposite sides of the
plaza at Ledford Island (Sullivan 1987), but at Coweeta Creek, burials were
placed in areas between the townhouse entryway and its hearth, between
the hearth and the back wall, and outside the townhouse along the path
of movement into and out of the entryway (Figure 9.2). Some burials are
associated with the eighteenth-century Chota-Tanasee townhouse (Schroedl
1986a), but not as many as those in the Coweeta Creek townhouse (Rod-
ning 2011a), and there are no burials associated with the Overhill Cherokee
townhouses at Toqua, Mialoquo, and Tomotley. Most burials inside the
Coweeta Creek townhouse were situated between the entryway and the
hearth, creating associations between these burials and movement into and
out of the townhouse. The burials just outside the Coweeta Creek town-
house were placed on both sides of the original and later entryways, flanking
paths of movement into and out of the townhouse. Moving from the plaza
into the townhouse, and moving from the townhouse to the plaza, made
spatial references to these burials and the ancestors buried within them.
Of the burials at Coweeta Creek with grave goods—including shell
beads, shell pendants, knobbed shell pins, smoking pipes, and chipped stone
projectile points—most are situated inside or beside the townhouse (Rod-
ning 2001a, 2011b; Rodning and Moore 2010). This pattern may reflect,
at least in part, mortuary practices marking achieved or ascribed statuses of
adults (O’Shea 1984), and ascribed or associative statuses of children and
adolescents (O’Shea 1996: 20). Based on his experiences living in Cherokee
towns during the early eighteenth century, the South Carolina trader Alex-
ander Longe wrote that grave goods were buried with the deceased so that
the dead could give them to ancestors in the afterlife (Corkran 1969: 26–27).
In the Cherokee myth, “The Mounds and the Constant Fire” (Mooney
1900: 395–397), several artifacts—including glass beads with specific col-
ors—are said to have been buried with the recently deceased community
leaders whose burials were placed in the ground before a fire was lit and
a townhouse was built above them. The version of this myth recorded by
James Mooney also indicates that a priest would “conjure” these offerings
so that they would protect the townhouse and the town in the future. With
these points in mind, the burials and the grave goods in early stages of the
Coweeta Creek townhouse may represent sacred possessions of the town
and cultural deposits that connected successive stages of the townhouse and
successive generations of the community.
Such connections are also manifested in the hearth inside the Coweeta
Creek townhouse, which was kept in place from its first through last stages.
“The Mounds and the Constant Fire” refers to the fire that was lit when a
townhouse was first built, the male elder chosen to keep that fire burning
constantly in the townhouse hearth, and the presence of everlasting fires
in the mounds of large Cherokee towns such as Kituhwa and Nequassee
(Mooney 1900: 396). This continuity is evident in the consistent place-
ment of the Coweeta Creek townhouse hearth from its first to last stages.
Alexander Longe wrote that the Cherokee did not allow fire from town-
house hearths to be taken out of those townhouses, except when ashes were
removed from townhouse hearths during periodic rituals and placed in care-
fully selected places outside townhouses (Corkran 1969: 36–37) and when
fire was taken from townhouse hearths to rekindle the fires in household
dwellings (Mooney 1900: 396). Like burials associated with early stages
of the townhouse, grave goods in them, and burned and buried remnants
of several stages of the townhouse itself, the hearth in the Coweeta Creek
townhouse formed a tangible connection spanning several generations of
the town.
As evident at Coweeta Creek, Chattooga, and Ledford Island, town-
houses experienced cycles of birth, life, death, and renewal, in the form of
periodic burning, abandonment, burying, and rebuilding. This architectural
cycle created an aggregation of sorts, in that it brought together remnants of
past and present generations of a town at a single point. This cycle is clearly
evident at Coweeta Creek, where burials of people were encompassed within
the townhouse mound, along with remnants of the townhouse, its hearth,
and deposits of clay and boulders along at least one edge. At Ledford Island
and King, burials were placed in discrete areas within plazas rather than
inside and beside townhouses themselves, but, nevertheless, burials were
placed within public spaces at these towns. That is not the case at Chat-
tooga, where no burials have been identified inside or beside the townhouse.
The spatial pattern at Coweeta Creek of a townhouse, an adjacent ramada
or pavilion, concentrations of burials, and an adjacent plaza replicates the
spatial pattern of protohistoric Cherokee households represented by sites
in the Brasstown Valley, along the upper reaches of the Hiwassee River in
northern Georgia (Cable and Reed 2000; Cable et al. 1997). Within the
Brasstown Valley are several discrete loci with square structures paired with
rectangular ramadas, domestic activity areas, and concentrations of burials
nearby. No archaeologically known townhouses exist in this area, although
it is possible that dispersed households in the Brasstown Valley did maintain
a public structure and community center of some kind. The spatial model
of domestic structures in the Brasstown Valley is comparable to Ledford
Island, where public architecture and public space were differently scaled
manifestations of domestic architecture and domestic space (Schroedl 1998;
Sullivan 1987). The same architectural template was applicable at the scale
of a household and at the scale of a larger community.
The townhouse and plaza at Coweeta Creek housed the local community
as a whole, and membership within that town may have included households
residing at other sites in surrounding areas (Baker 1982). The seventeenth-
century Alarka Farmstead site, for example, includes a winter house and a
summer house for a single Cherokee household, which probably maintained
an affiliation with a town and townhouse nearby (Shumate et al. 2005).
Several discrete loci within the Ravensford Tract, in the area of the Cherokee
Out towns, probably represent dwellings of households who were members
of the Cherokee town centered at the nearby Nununyi mound (Greene 1999;
Webb 2002). The basic architectural template of Cherokee households—
winter house, summer house or ramada, domestic activity area or plaza, and
cemetery—created the venue for public life within a town and a landmark to
the presence of a town within the landscape.
CONCLUSIONS
Townhouses created attachments between Cherokee towns and particu-

lar points in the southern Appalachian landscape, in both synchronic and
diachronic dimensions. They were settings for events and symbolism that
connected local households and members of different clans within a com-
munity. Townhouses also demonstrate “temporal aggregation” in that they
brought past and present generations of towns together at single points
within the landscape. At the Coweeta Creek site, this temporal aggregation
is manifested in several forms, including burials placed inside and beside
early stages of the townhouse, continuity in the placement of the hearth and
roof support posts, and the accumulation of burned and buried remnants
of successive stages of the townhouse (Rodning 2009a). Burials were placed
near the townhouse at the sixteenth-century King site, but, although this
structure was probably burned down, it was never rebuilt (Hally 2008).
At other sites, such as Chattooga and Ledford Island, there were no con-
centrations of burials inside or beside townhouses, but evidence does exist
for architectural continuity spanning several generations of those public
structures (Schroedl 2000; Sullivan 1987). At the eighteenth-century Chota-
Tanasee site, the second townhouse was built directly atop the remnants
of the first, and several burials—including of Oconostota, one of the most
influential leaders from the Overhill Cherokee towns—were placed in the
ground outside the entrance (Schroedl 1986a).
From these perspectives, townhouses were both permanent and portable.
Townhouses anchored towns to particular points in the landscape, espe-
cially in cases in which there had been cycles of burying and rebuilding
townhouses in place and in cases in which burials were placed in the ground
inside and beside these public structures, as at Coweeta Creek. Townhouses
could have been built wherever towns chose to build them, and they prob-
ably were, as towns moved from one locale to another. Several Lower and
Middle Cherokee towns are known to have relocated to the Overhill Chero-
kee settlement areas of eastern Tennessee during the 1700s (Baden 1983:
11–17; Boulware 2011; Russ and Chapman 1983: 18). During the late
1700s, the Cherokee town of Ustanali moved to a location near the conflu-
ence of the Oostanaula, Conasauga, and Coosawattee Rivers in northern
Georgia, and from 1825 to 1838, this site was the location of New Echota,
the capital of the Cherokee Republic, whose principal landmark was a large
townhouse (de Baillou 1955; Smith 1992). The site of Toqua may provide
another example of the phenomenon of community emplacement through
constructing a townhouse at a new location (Polhemus 1987). Townhouses
were built at Toqua during the eighteenth century, but not on the summits
of late prehistoric mounds at that site (Schroedl 1978), perhaps because the
people of the eighteenth-century town of Toqua were not direct descendants
of the late prehistoric residents of the site. Another possible example of such
movement and emplacement is the case of the Lower Cherokee town of
Chattooga, which abandoned its location in northwestern South Carolina
during or before the 1730s (Schroedl 2000: 216). If the Lower Cherokee
town of Chattooga represents the same group of people as the Overhill
Cherokee town of Chatuga (Mooney 1900: 536), which appears on maps
dating to the 1750s and later (Smith 1979: 56), it was necessary for this
town to emplace itself in its new location by building and maintaining its
own townhouse. The town of Chatuga was located adjacent to the Over-
hill Cherokee town of Great Tellico, and, although people of these distinct
towns lived within the same stockaded settlement, fortified against the
threat of enemy attacks, each town kept its own townhouse (Mereness 1916:
111–112; Mooney 1900: 533; Persico 1979: 93; Smith 1979: 56–57). The
case of spatially aggregated but sociopolitically disaggregated settlements
of Great Tellico and Chatuga is not common in the history of Cherokee
towns (Boulware 2011: 77). The location of this conjoined settlement, at the
western edge of the Overhill Cherokee settlement areas in Tennessee, distant
from English settlements in Carolina but relatively close to Creek towns and
French colonial outposts, offered both risks of exposure to Creek warriors
and others allied with French interests as well as opportunities of pursuing
trade with French colonists (Boulware 2011: 78). Perhaps each town shared
common interests in these opportunities while sharing common needs for
defense. These aggregated but separate towns chose to maintain distinct
sociopolitical configurations, perhaps because of the importance of separate
community histories and identities, rooted in separate townhouses.
During the course of the eighteenth century, Cherokee townhouses tended
to increase in size, and in related trends, there were shifts from townhouses
with four major roof support posts to eight, and shifts from square to circu-
lar or octagonal structures. Increasing townhouse size was probably related
to increasing numbers of people within individual Cherokee towns, as peo-
ple moved from one town to another in the aftermath of European contact
and colonialism in the Southeast (Schroedl 1978, 1986a, 2000). Larger
townhouses enabled more people to gather for town council deliberations
and other events. Changes in shape were probably related to changes in size,
as the architectural template of townhouses was expanded to accommodate
more space and more people (Rodning 2011b). These changes in Cherokee
townhouses enabled aggregations of larger and more diverse groups than
those present in late prehistoric and protohistoric Cherokee towns.
Aggregations are composites of distinct components. Townhouses were
architectural settings that enabled aggregations of matrilocal households
and matrilineal clans as towns. During the early nineteenth century, and
perhaps earlier, sections of seating were reserved for members of different
clans inside townhouses, thereby incorporating clans as one mode of Chero-
kee social organization and spatial organization within the architecture of a
town as a whole (Chambers 2010; Gearing 1962: 21–24; Persico 1979: 93;
Riggs 2008: 44; Schroedl 2001, 2009). There were no overarching geopo-
litical frameworks above the level of towns during this period, and within
those towns, leaders had neither ultimate authority nor coercive powers
(Perdue 1998: 55–56; Persico 1979: 92–95; Smith 1979). Even in situations
in which towns advocated war, warriors could choose not to participate
(Gearing 1962). Households and clans could choose not to abide by deci-
sions made by towns and town councils, and such groups could choose to
move to other towns if they so desired. In this context of egalitarianism
and decentralization of community leadership, townhouses were important
architectural symbols and important venues for social and political aggrega-
tion at local scales.
This consideration of Cherokee townhouses focuses on different scales
of integration than other cases of aggregation and social coalescence in
Native North America (compare with Beck 2009; Birch 2008, 2010; Davis
2002; Jenkins 2009; Kowalewski 2006; Perttula 1992; Rautman, this vol-
ume; Shuck-Hall 2009; Vehik 2002). Townhouses were not developed
specifically to create architectural spaces for socially disparate groups such
as those in aggregated pueblos of the late Pre-Hispanic Southwest (Adler
et al. 1996). Nor were the southern Appalachians characterized by the same
degrees of conflict, displacement, movement, and amalgamation as were
the cases of Iroquoian villages in the Northeast and Caddoan groups in the
southern Plains (Anderson et al. 1986; Perttula 2002; Warrick 2000, 2008).
By the eighteenth century, several Native American groups in the South-
east moved to new locations and new regions, including cases of Lower
and Middle Cherokee towns moving to the Overhill settlements. At that
point, townhouses were symbols of community identity in the changing
cultural landscape of the Native American Southeast. The significance of
this architectural form was derived from its long history as an architecture
of community aggregation, connecting local households to a town and a
place, and connecting the present to the past through the placement of buri-
als inside and beside townhouses, continuity in the settings of townhouse
hearths and roof support posts, and the practice of burying and rebuilding
townhouses in place.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks for encouragement from Bram Tucker, Steve Kowalewski, David

Hally, Mark Williams, Charles Hudson, Rob Beck, David Moore, Brett
Riggs, Gerald Schroedl, Lynne Sullivan, Jon Marcoux, Tony Boudreaux,
Robbie Ethridge, Bennie Keel, and Hope Spencer; thanks to Jayur Mehta
and Bryan Haley for help with manuscript preparation; and thanks to Jen-
nifer Birch for bringing us all together for this book and the symposium that
started it. Any problems with this chapter are my responsibility.
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10 The Work of Making Community
Stephen A. Kowalewski
History is full of events, but we have the sense that some were more sig-
nificant than others. Some events reset the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times.
Each case study in this book describes a particular episode of extraordinary
cultural production, not just cultural reproduction—although that is well
documented here, too—but remarkable cultural innovation in which peo-
ple took social life in new directions. People invented or recast institutions,
keeping and revitalizing some and discarding others. In many cases these
transformative events altered the course of cultural evolution.
In late precontact Ontario, the Wendat created what might be called long-
house societies that were committed as never before to intensive agriculture
and deer harvesting (Birch and Williamson, ch. 8). Haggis tells of a massive
and “purposive redirection” about 600 BC in which people created new
sodalities and completely remade the architecture of the public and private
spaces of their town on Crete (ch. 4).
Duffy et al. (ch. 3) demonstrate three important things about episodes of
aggregation—that they affect life at every scale from the neighborhood to
the region, that coming together into more nucleated settlements might have
different causes and functions (security, exchange) depending on the wider
world, and that institutions that integrate people can be quite different (rit-
ual practices and spaces in the Late Neolithic but not in the Bronze Age).
Wallace and Lindeman reach similar conclusions from their research on a
very different cultural tradition, Hohokam of the first and second millennia
in southern Arizona, in a context where cooperation in canal irrigation was
a necessity and integration through centralized architectural facilities was
minimal (ch. 7).
In contrast, people invested a great deal in creating hierarchical religion at
the ruling towns on the shores of Lake Titicaca in the first millennium BC.
The new regime was an expression of redefined communities and intense
interaction among leading “social houses” (ch. 5). Rodning also focuses on
central or public architecture, not to show sudden transformation but to
describe how Cherokee actively sought to symbolize community integration,
in which the townhouse was an anchor of continuity even as people moved
202 Stephen A. Kowalewski
about in the politically turbulent sea of the fifteenth- to eighteenth-century
Southern Appalachian region (ch. 9).
The Neolithic (sensu lato) was a time of enormous cultural creativity gen-
erally, and particularly at those moments when people were drawn, within
a generation or two, into settlements larger and more tightly packed than
had ever existed before. In the Puebloan Southwest, as people came together
into larger settlements, they invented a new religious cult (the kachinas),
and they used structural repetition in dwellings and village to define and
express the new and proper way to live (Rautman, ch. 6). Çatalhöyük is a
justifiably famous, sudden (and long-lived) aggregation, the village a dense
honeycomb of similar, small dwelling spaces. In chapter 2, Düring suggests
how the Çatalhöyük people might have organized themselves in the seventh
millennium BC.
Although from the archaeology we do not know what people thought
and said, in many of these episodes the actors probably said rather precisely
and fully what they wanted to achieve and how they were going to do it. In
real social life there would have been many opinions not always in accord,
and consequences unintended or unimagined. From our point of view, we
cannot know what the actors were saying and thinking, a fact we should
keep in mind lest we oversimplify or misrepresent their world. But we do
have one advantage—whatever it was that they wanted to make happen, it
is we who came later who can know how things worked out in the long run.
In this chapter I suggest some main themes and add in a small way to the
substantial contributions the authors have made in the preceding chapters.
Reflecting on what the contributors and editor Jennifer Birch have said, it
seems to me that these and similar episodes of aggregation, reorganization,
innovation, and institution building must have called for unusually great
amounts of work on the part of all sorts of actors—in many cases, virtually
everyone. These transformations required social labor in the twin senses of
the productive, material work to provide economic needs and wants and
the time and energy it takes to talk over controversial issues and create that
social power or momentum to have people do one thing rather than other
things and to make community.
The rest of this essay considers the social labor of coming together. First,
I take up how aggregation changed how people made a living. I think rapid
aggregation was a strong influence on economic intensification and some-
times even plant and animal domestication. Next, as many of the chapters
show, people designed, constructed, and used new kinds of buildings for
new activities and ideological representations. I want to suggest how the
social labor of building is itself part of the process of forming enduring
institutions.
I conclude by reflecting on the work it takes to make community, in light
of recent discussions of labor process theory, which has been an on-again,
off-again thread in Marxist scholarship. Labor process theory has a useful
lesson to contribute to our archaeological task, but I also think that the
The Work of Making Community 203
archaeologists writing in this volume have something to say about history
and the long term that would broaden and thereby improve the discourse of
labor process scholars.
MAKING A LIVING
When many people aggregated rather suddenly in one settlement for more
than a season or so, they had to make adjustments in how they got their food
and other material necessities. This applies to most of the cases in this book.
It was a consequence that the actors themselves undoubtedly knew quite
well ahead of time. With more restricted spatial range, their responses were
often more work in processing, more storage, different technological means,
more labor input per unit area of land, larger and more organized forays
to distant procurement grounds, narrowing of the food spectrum to a more
limited set of high-volume resources, or some combination of strategies. In
other words, aggregation required labor, land, or resource intensification.
In most of the cases in this book, aggregation and intensification
occurred not just at one isolated village but as a regional process involving
all settlements. This larger-scale intensification affected localities in ways
not predicted from strictly local ecological conditions. In the Puebloan
Southwest and in Ontario and New York, rapid aggregation led to the aban-
donment of dispersed settlement and broader-spectrum economies, which
in turn required intensification and changes in the technological and social
means of production. Labor was socially reorganized, often in corporate or
collective directions. It would be interesting to know whether similar pro-
cesses happened on the Hungarian Plain in the Late Neolithic, and with the
founding of large Near Eastern Neolithic villages like Çatalhöyük.
Other ethnographic and archaeological examples show that intensifica-
tion with rapid aggregation is a common pattern. In Amazonia, Yanomami
groups sometimes had to leave their old villages and establish new ones
because of war. Ordinarily they grew plantains, the basis of the diet. But
when Yanomami needed a crop quickly, they turned to a fast-maturing
maize (Chagnon 1983: 76). Ferguson (1995: 50) says of this pattern, citing
Chagnon and Lizot: “New labors are called for during wartime. Gardens
may need to be established in more defensible locations; the choice of garden
sites will be restricted by the need to keep them close to the village because
vulnerability to ambush increases with distance.”
Most groups in Amazonia favored bitter manioc as a dietary staple. But
under Colonial pressure or warfare, some groups opted to flee deep into the
forest. The time and equipment needed for processing bitter manioc was
too onerous for small groups trying to flee and hide, so they tended to use
plantains, and when plantain gardening was impossible, maize (Balée 1994:
4, 211; Ferguson 1995: 70–73). The intensity and type of food production
varied with military or security conditions.
Another historical case comes from Polynesia. “In Fiji . . . chronic war-
fare instigated a need to locate high yielding gardens adjacent to isolated
and defensible settlements. The provision of staple crops for gatherings of
warriors also stimulated agricultural intensification” (Kuhlken 1999: 270).
Concentrated fields and harvests then would become a customary target for
attackers. Kuhlken explicitly reverses Carneiro’s (1970) model of population
pressure causing circumscription, war, and the state—making war the inde-
pendent variable that concentrated people and made them farm differently.
In Fiji the dates on fortified sites begin around AD 1200, and, once
underway, the cycle of violence was apparently difficult to stop. War made
people take to the hills and build ditches, ramparts, and walls. Around their
fortified villages they farmed intensively: “drained fields and raised beds
around ring-ditch forts on flat terrain, and irrigated terraces adjacent to
ridgetop forts” (Kuhlken 1999: 275). Kuhlken cites figures of 5,200 hectares
of raised gardens in the Rewa delta, which surround scores of old fortified
villages, and in an inland situation, 325 hectares of hillside terraces around
a complex of fortified villages and hamlets.
With the gradual end of hostilities in the Colonial period, people aban-
doned these fortified hill complexes and the associated, intensively cultivated,
fields in favor of dispersed settlements and less labor-demanding gardens on
the open valley floors. Again, the intensity and type of farming depended on
the conditions of warfare.
In the New Guinea highlands, warfare played a major role in determining
settlement type and the manner of agricultural production. The western part
of the highlands is home to ethnographically famous groups such as Enga,
Dani, Kapauku, and Arapesh. In the mid-twentieth century, settlements in
this western area were typically dispersed, which favors pig raising and sago
production, both female-dominated activities (Brown 1978). Males were
involved in the network or finance strategies of the tee and moka ceremonials.
These participants would often oppose violence and try to curtail it because
it interfered with their tournaments of value (Blanton and Taylor 1995; Feil
1987: 49–52; Wiessner 2002). As Blanton and Taylor (1995) pointed out, in
this case it was men’s “network strategy” for prestige accumulation (not war)
that was the road to pig domestication and yam intensification.
In contrast, in the eastern New Guinea highlands, east of Chimbu,
among such groups as the Chuave, Sina Sina, and some in the Asaro Val-
ley, “total” warfare was more common, settlements were larger and often
fortified, and there were more abandoned areas so population density was
lower. Some of the villages had 1,000 or more people. This eastern area had
open, grassy land and less forest (Brown 1978: 99–109, 193; Feil 1987:
49–52, 70). Eastern social groups tended to stress home production rather
than finance production—the corporate strategy (Blanton et al. 1996; Feil
1987: 52). Tuzin’s study of Ilahita (2001) shows how, in a strategic response
to warfare, a new, unusually large town emerged as a physical settlement
and as a powerful sociopolitical group. The town was a center of intensive
yam cultivation. Yam growing here had what would have to be called a
prodigiously male emphasis. Pataki-Schweitzer (1980) published excellent
photographs and drawings of eastern highlands settlement clusters, which
he calls bounded complexes, consisting of hilltop hamlets, ringed by a few
square kilometers of intensive gardens, and some less-intensively used area.
Typically a bounded complex had several hundred people. These bounded
complexes were highly localized foci for yam intensification.
Roscoe offers a general model of warfare, settlement, and production in
highland New Guinea that stresses both village formation and social group
formation. In his words, “the formation and reproduction of Sepik villages
were motivated primarily by defensive concerns with the threat posed by
surprise attacks at night” (Roscoe 1996: 649). But defense raised certain
problems with production, which ordinarily was maximized with dispersed
settlement. A consequence of larger village formation was greater emphasis
on agriculture, where agricultural production provided more staples than
sago processing, hunting, gathering, and fishing.
Roscoe also notes the increased importance of intervillage trade for sta-
ples where larger villages were involved. It is interesting that male prestige
could be furthered by pursuing those economic activities especially signifi-
cant for measuring group strength. He says, “the gifts of shell wealth and
pigs through which men also manifested their ‘strength’ were symbolically
represented as metaphoric spears thrown at metaphoric enemies. . . . The
threat of attack, then, not only compelled village formation but also fur-
nished an evaluative framework within which men were judged” (1996:
661). Institutions of intervillage exchange were ways of measuring the com-
petition in peer–polity rivalry.
During the first millennium AD in eastern North America and on the
Plains, dispersed populations practicing hunting and gathering and some
horticulture were the norm (see Gremillion 2002 on subsistence variation).
In the Middle and Late Woodland periods (first millennium AD), maize was
widespread but not a major component in the diet anywhere. For example,
Middle to Late Woodland Kansas City Hopewell (Adair 1988: 72–76), the
Ohio and central Mississippi Valleys (Johannessen 1993a), and Kolomoki
(Pluckhahn 2003) on the Gulf Coastal Plain all had some corn. Nasseny and
Cobb (1991) review the spatiotemporal variation of more and less intensive
maize use in the Southeast, but neither in these studies nor in other reviews
(Anderson and Mainfort 2002) is sudden aggregation for warfare or other
reasons considered as a factor in the degree of intensification or maize use.
Maize had been around for centuries, but it did not bring about the “full
Neolithic Revolution.” I suggest that instead of accumulated environmental
or demographic change leading to the formation of larger villages, political
growth, and subsistence change, the reverse happened—aggregated villages
pushed subsistence intensification and more maize use.
After roughly AD 900 in eastern North America, we see larger vil-
lages, more warfare, and more maize. When people aggregated into larger
villages, these often had defensive features. Community ritual evidence sug-
gests redefinition of local social groups. In the central Mississippi Valley,
increasing use of corn in the 800s was linked to changes in community form
and village size, where “individual communities are well-defined circular
compounds of small houses with open central plazas” (Johannessen 1993b:
190). On the Middle Missouri, settlements of the Plains Village tradition
were larger than Woodland sites, and they were often fortified. Middle Mis-
souri villages have broad lists of plant and animal species, but, as Toom
says, among the plants, it was “maize, maize, maize,” and for the animals,
it was “bison, bison, bison” (Toom 1992: 163, 171). Oneota settlement
in Wisconsin, compared to the local Late Woodland, was more clustered
in agriculturally prime areas, more concerned with defense, and sites were
larger and more permanent. Nearby are the remains of ridged fields (Sasso
1993). For the southern Plains, Vehik (2002) has shown the close connection
between conflict, aggregation, and intensified long-distance trade, especially
after AD 1200.
As Scarry (1993) has pointed out, there were differences in the timing
of maize adoption in eastern North America. In the American Bottoms of
the Mississippi Valley and in the Black Warrior Valley in Alabama, maize
production preceded the formation of hierarchical polities. But in the Toltec
area in Arkansas, maize did not become important until after such polities
were established, so aggregation in itself did not always lead to more maize
farming (e.g., Rollingson 2002). After AD 1000–1100, corn was impor-
tant everywhere, although nuts and starchy seeds continued to be important
dietary components in some regions.
Why wasn’t maize exploited sooner? Anderson and Mainfort (2002:
17–18) have a list of speculations on the negative side. They say “in its initial
form maize may not have been well suited to the temperate climate, or else
people had not learned to care for it effectively” (2002: 17; similarly, Reber
2006). But there are other proposals for why people did shift to corn. Scarry
argues that it wasn’t climate change, new varieties of maize, or population
pressure that forced the adoption of maize, but intersocietal prestige competi-
tion, with its feasting on the food of the gods (Scarry 1993). Another political
hypothesis is Benn’s (1995a, 1995b), in which in Late Woodland circum-
scribed societies, “elite” or kin group “authority figures” had to increase
production and maintain their power by getting people to work harder. These
are interesting proposals, but they are faulty because they imply an assumed
or unexplained miraculous conception and boom of aggrandizer babies, a
sudden appearance of prestige-driven individuals who had power to com-
mand, when this had not happened before in the previous thousands of years.
In contrast, rapid, large-scale aggregation, because of violence or exchange in
the general sense, which we know occurred in some places, could have been
a crucial proximate factor causing people to intensify.
Whatever the causes of the shift toward maize farming, these causes must
operate at an appropriately large spatial scale and rather sudden temporal
scale. A cycle of warfare has that capacity to affect very large areas quickly.
As in Roscoe’s (1996) model for highland New Guinea, dangerous times
would have forced aggregation for war, for which appropriate social and
technological modes of production had to be adopted. Food production
had to be locally intensified near nucleated villages. Maize farming was a
good possibility for intensification. Local group size would be influenced by
requirements for offense and defense and the labor mobilization for maize
and conventional food production. This local and regional group reforma-
tion may have been the context for the political change envisioned in Scarry’s
and Benn’s explanations cited above.
Since these processes are systemic, it is fair to ask this question: If war
was behind settlement nucleation and the adoption of maize, then what
brought on the warfare? A review by Lambert (2002) discusses environmen-
tal change, population pressure, and technological innovation, especially the
bow and arrow, as possible causes of what she sees as an almost continent-
wide increase in warfare in North America after AD 1000 or 1200. I think
these climatic, demographic, or technological factors, alone or together, are
undemonstrated as explanations for the initiation of a widespread, uncon-
trollable cycle of war. In any case, a specific trigger is not nearly so significant
compared to the problem of why existing Woodland social institutions could
not suppress costly—and, at least to many people, undesirable—violence.
This focus on social institutions is I think the central contribution of Ray-
mond C. Kelly’s book Warless Societies and the Origin of War (2000). When
we ask why people began warring at the beginning of the Mississippian
period, we ought to attend to the prior and the new social institutions. A
model explaining the late adoption and intensification of maize farming in
eastern North America as a response to warfare, or conceivably as part of a
transformation of exchange, seems a viable alternative to climatic, techno-
logical, carrying-capacity models.
To expand on Rautman’s theme in chapter 6, with some examples from
later periods (Pueblo III and IV) on the Colorado Plateau, in general people
aggregated into large villages and towns; nearby, they carried out intensified
maize and sometimes cotton agriculture. Conflict was a major reason behind
the demographic concentration (Gregory and Wilcox 2007). People at the
ancestral Hopi towns at Homo’lovi, in northern Arizona, produced cotton
and maize using the floodwaters of the Little Colorado River (Adams 2002).
The historic Hopi villages also had to develop techniques for intensive farm-
ing under dry conditions (Bradfield 1971). At San Marcos Pueblo, a large
Pueblo IV village in the Galisteo Basin of New Mexico, farmers developed
large areas of pebble-mulch gardens (Lightfoot 1993; see Briggs et al. 2006
for the Perry Mesa area; Fish et al.1992 for the Classic Hohokam Marana
community). The Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico was the most densely
settled region of the Southwest at the close of the fifteenth century, and
its nucleated, large villages probably relied on canal irrigation, as did their
descendants in historic times. Recent archaeological studies in the Pajarito
Plateau region of the Rio Grande Valley suggest a general intensification
of resource use beginning with major village aggregation in the fourteenth
century (Kohler 2004: 296–299). Canal irrigation had been known for over
2,000 years on the Colorado Plateau, but its intensive deployment awaited
the aggregated villages of the late prehistoric period.
Three things are noteworthy about the widespread coalescence of Pueblo
III and IV. First, the older type of agriculture of the Pueblo I and II periods
was dispersed and extensive. Farmers sought out moisture in thousands of
little “folds and creases,” as Lekson aptly put it (1991). Second, in terms of
overall regional demographic performance and presumably total farming
yields, the older, dispersed system was actually more productive—Colorado
Plateau population peaked around the end of Pueblo II and then declined
during the period of coalescence and intensification (Gregory and Wilcox
2007; Hill et al. 2004). Third, in the Hohokam area of southern Arizona,
there is little evidence that “intensification under duress” was a factor.
Hohokam populations developed canal irrigation early, and the irrigation
systems of Preclassic and Classic times were extensive, labor-absorbing,
and complex. Yet rural settlements were persistently dispersed, villages and
towns were not very densely nucleated, and, for the most part, there is little
evidence that warfare shaped the system (although hilltop trincheras [ter-
race] sites found in the southern Hohokam area and into Sonora may be an
exception) (Doyle 1987). The Hohokam case is important because it shows
that one can have intensification not provoked by threat of violence (and see
Beck’s ch. 5, which notes that the sudden opening of new lands might have
precipitated change in the agricultural economy).
The diverse scholarly positions on the role of intensification in Europe
have been summarized by Chapman (1990: 118–149). But only recently has
there been much systematic attention paid to rapid aggregation brought on
by warfare or other factors (Carman and Harding 1999; Gronenborn 2003;
Monks 1997). Methodical study of variation in the intensity of production
and warfare has yet to be carried out, but there are interesting possibilities,
beginning from Neolithic times in the Near East to the Neolithic and Bronze
Ages of the Mediterranean and Europe.
Settlement nucleation in fortified sites must have been a major stimulus
for agricultural intensification and trade in the Late Bronze and Early Iron
Ages. A review of farming in Britain concludes that “in the first millennium
[BC] less land was farmed much more intensively [than in prior times] while
other land previously exploited was abandoned . . . and a marked intensifi-
cation of effort and increase of population occurred in those places” (Fowler
1983: 78). For example, at Cranbourne Chase, the remains of field features
are abundant around Iron Age enclosures (Barrett et al. 1991). Collis (1982)
describes how oppida and earlier hill forts would become multifunctioned
central places. Many of the Iron Age enclosures were centers of produc-
tion as well as defensive and residential sites. Long-distance trade was often
a prominent function. The link between large, fortified settlements and
especially intensive nearby agricultural fields is also seen in central Europe.
In Late Hallstatt times in northern Poland, “the economy of the fortified
settlements was based on specialized intensive farming, a kind of garden
cultivation” (Kristiansen 1998: 298; see also Milisauskas 1978: 260–287).
The same association of densely packed fortified settlements and “a highly
refined farming technique” is made for Western Poland in Late Hallstatt
(Kristiansen 1998: 298).
One might imagine that collective political economies might draw people
together in aggregated villages and towns for other reasons not necessarily
involving warfare. Yet the costs of aggregation and intensification could
often be high, so the reasons must have been compelling. The hypothesis
would be that the people aggregated into large villages either because they
were under the duress of violence or because the advantages of social life
and material gain outweighed the costs of their intensifying animal and
plant production, working harder, speeding up the artificial selection of
domestication, and making investments in the technologies of harvesting,
preparation, and storage.
These cases from different parts of the world are not just particular his-
torical or local anomalies. Where coalescence and intensification occurred,
the events affected everyone over broad areas and across varied biomes.
Iron Age European hill towns were important to early state formation and
urbanization in Europe. In eastern North America, unusual aggregations,
intensification, and warfare brought about the “full Neolithic” transforma-
tion of ca. AD 900. Coalescence made Southwestern Puebloan societies as
they are known historically and ethnographically.
It was not the case that aggregation into towns necessarily increased the
volume or helped the efficiency of production. Dispersed settlement, by
closely matching people to resources, can be highly efficient. The communi-
ties not so organized for war in New Guinea produced more pigs. As Smith
(1978) pointed out, Mississippian settlement patterns were compromises
between energetically optimal dispersal versus aggregation for boundary
maintenance. The threat of war may force people away from prior efficien-
cies, and channel their efforts into producing items that previously had not
been given much emphasis.
Increased long-distance trade had been on my original list of coalescent
society characteristics. Still I am struck by the prominence of long-distance
trade in many of the cases reviewed here. New, fortified towns promoted
novel kinds of production for trade. Trade was important in the organiza-
tion and mobilization of labor, gender role redefinition, prestige motivations,
and alliance building. Larger aggregations of people had those advantages of
efficiency in scheduling, regularization, and specialization that typify central
place systems.
Most models for the origins of towns and for the origins of agriculture
see their evolution as gradual or mechanical processes—that is, as accumula-
tions of pressures, selective improvements in crops, a fortunate congruence of
resources in particular places, or climate changes. The aggregation of people
into larger villages and the increasing reliance on domesticates in such models
is something that happened to people, perhaps as an unintended consequence
of their foraging choices or as a consequence of environmental change. But the
examples discussed here suggest that such processes can be sudden. Coales-
cence is a rapid transformation brought about by collective action, and this is
a different path toward intensification than is contemplated in most models
for agricultural origins or the evolution of agricultural technology.
BUILDING THINGS
The studies here provide rich details about buildings, plazas, roads, and
palisades, in terms of their materials, form, function, and style. Architecture
is both expressive and archaeologically accessible. In every case study in this
book, architecture was an important line of evidence regarding social inte-
gration. Sometimes this was domestic architecture, sometimes it was public,
and usually the cases involved both domestic and other architecture.
Actually the contributors are more careful about their terminology than
I was in the last sentence. Consider, for example, these two contrastive sets
of terms that we have used at one time or another to speak about build-
ings: [public, monumental, community, ceremonial, special function, elite,
palace, temple, kiva] versus [private, residential, domestic, house, ordinary,
commoner, household]. Obviously the terms in the first set and their coun-
terparts in the second set do not precisely and exclusively categorize the
form, function, and style of buildings in the real world. For example, build-
ings are rarely entirely public or entirely private, in regard to what groups of
people built them, what people are permitted access and on what occasions,
or who the building is said to belong to. Buildings are usually the estate of
corporate groups that are some subset of society—household, town, sodal-
ity, family, and so on—not exactly public, not exactly private. Buildings
belong to, and are the estate of, social groups. How these groups were con-
stituted is a major theme in this volume.
Similarly, as these contributions show, architectural function is rarely
exclusive. Iroquoian longhouses and Northwest Coast big houses were
domestic but also ritual and political places. Men’s houses might see ritual
and political activities, but men make things, eat, drink, and sometimes sleep
in them, so are they also domestic?
In the course of doing regional surveys in Oaxaca I came to know one
present-day community structure rather well—the palacio municipal, or
town hall. Every municipality has one, and so does every subordinate vil-
lage of a certain official standing. I have waited on the bench and met with
officials and citizens in over 200 of these buildings.
The palacio municipal is built, renovated, maintained, and cleaned by
collective labor. It is the official site of town government, where officials
meet and public assemblies are held. It is the lowest stage in the federal-state-
district-town-village government hierarchy—and every level has its palacio.
The palacio municipal is the symbol and place of authority, legitimate or
corrupt. It is also a place of contention—the palacio can be “taken” by an
opposition faction. It is office, archive, storage, repository of the symbols
of local government; museum for basketball trophies, fossils, and historical
artifacts; and jail for human and beast. It is a point of articulation between
the community and outside agencies, officials, and visitors, and the porch is
occasionally a place for the overnight traveler to sleep. It is a site of assembly
for tequio (corvee labor) and political events. It is a place for secular and
religious feasts. It has a formal garden, gazebo, plaza, clock, library, and
basketball court. It is a point of community pride (or shame) since towns
seem to build and renovate their palacio for competitive display. In the nine-
teenth century, the state assessed the monetary value of all public and church
buildings (including the cemetery), and those lists still exist. The palacio
municipal is a place for men to hang out.
In the social halls on Crete (Haggis, ch. 4), in Iroquoian longhouses (Birch
and Williamson, ch. 8), and in Cherokee townhouses (Rodning, ch. 9), highly
formal speeches were made and heard, according to historical accounts from
these traditions. Feasting, deliberation, status marking among attendees,
and instruction were some of the other activities, many of which are not
especially accessible archaeologically. Yet the activities that took place in
these buildings must have been an important part of instituting coalescence.
The social and material labor of construction is another key element not
always susceptible to archaeological observation. Yet from an ethnographic
perspective, the building project is an important first stage. Here I am refer-
ring to planning, concept, and all the deliberation, cajoling, disputation,
pleading, arm-twisting, favors, eating, drinking, conviviality, motivating,
and sheer social work that it takes to carry out a project in the face of com-
peting goals and other activities and opportunities. All this before axe strikes
tree, stone is levered from quarry, and sweat is broken, and then the same
social work continues throughout the duration of construction. In other
words, even before the building is put to use, its social group comes together.
Prior to the inauguration, something important has already taken place.
This point is made well by Rautman for the collective construction of
pueblos (ch. 6). The standardization and construction as one event imply
collective work, and collective work is the praxis, as Rautman says, accord-
ing to a shared idea of what a pueblo should be as a physical structure and as
a place in which to lead a proper life. In many cases, the template for that life
was a set of conjoined room spaces each just like all the others, up-close and
egalitarian. It is not easy at all to distinguish higher-status or founding fami-
lies. In some cases, the floor and walls would not even give any indication
of differentiation into main activity such as cooking, sleeping, storage, or
visiting—all were alike as far as an archaeological excavation could tell. In
a few cases, these pueblo blocks of nearly identical room spaces might have
offered aggregating families a real estate agent’s selling point—the rooms
might have been larger than those in which people had lived beforehand.
That collective construction according to a shared concept of life together
might also have benefits of efficiency in materials and labor, and that rapid
construction in some instances might be a response to hostilities, could be
other benefits, but for our purposes the central theme is the formation of the
social group manifest in the labor process.
The New Mexico example is reinforced by other studies in this volume.
Birch and Williamson say that the whole village plan at Mantle came first,
including the placement of longhouses within a palisade (ch. 8). Rodning
describes the building of Cherokee townhouses (ch. 9). Haggis’s case is the
very dramatic, complete makeover of the center of Azoria (ch. 4). In all these
instances, the work of construction implies forming groups of people com-
mitted to a social project. What happens thereafter is another matter, for a
building may or may not serve as originally intended, and might be done
away with, as discussed by Beck in chapter 5, for example.
Hohokam buildings were relatively small, especially in the Preclas-
sic phases. Even in Classic times, compounds and platform mounds were
smaller than, for example, Andean or Mesoamerican public buildings.
Wallace and Lindeman (ch. 7) describe rather modest integrative archi-
tecture in the Martinez Hill locality on the Santa Cruz River in southern
Arizona. The architectural modesty, however, has to be juxtaposed with the
fact that the people here were already heavily committed to a larger col-
lective endeavor—a major canal irrigation system that required the almost
daily organized efforts of the inhabitants of multiple villages and hamlets.
Hohokam canal irrigation systems themselves must have been the largest
and most constantly demanding social projects that dwarfed the platform
mounds and walled compounds.
In our recent regional survey work in the Coixtlahuaca Valley in Oaxaca,
Mexico, we found another example of integrative architecture of modest
scale compared to other public works. In Coixtlahuaca, there were pub-
lic buildings constructed on mounds, as is common in Mesoamerica. But
their number and size are considerably less than in other areas, such as the
Valley of Oaxaca. As in the Hohokam case, people’s labor was dedicated
to agricultural works. Practically the whole Coixtlahuaca Valley was an
artifact—a system of contour terraces and cross-drainage checkdams built
and maintained by the constant labor of thousands of households. Recent
studies of terrace building in the Mixteca Alta show that these works are
the product of household efforts, and there is nothing about them that
would benefit from or require centralized control (Pérez Rodríguez 2003).
But these terrace systems still require a commitment to maintenance, for all
participants in a whole drainage, because not terracing a part of a drainage
or neglecting to maintain just a few terraces will quickly lead to gulley-
washing that could easily endanger the whole system. As with Hohokam
canal irrigation, Coixtlahuaca’s terraced landscape dates back to about the
beginnings of village life. The demand for social commitment was constant
and consequential.
THE LABOR PROCESS
This book defines and explores the question of how people create the cultural
means to “come together” or aggregate rapidly. The focus is on relatively
small-scale societies, since limiting the inquiry sometimes facilitates under-
standing, but the results have broader implications.
Why did people in some times and places quickly aggregate? Warfare was
a factor in many instances but probably not in all, and in those cases where
violence did encourage people to form larger groups, war might not have
been the only reason for coming together. Larger groups of people living
together can facilitate social and material exchange, within the community
and abroad. Haggis’s chapter 4 on rapid aggregation on Crete at the end of
the seventh century BC, involving urbanization and the formation of new
states and constituent institutions, demonstrates this multifacted process of
aggregation better than I can, and with the benefit of specific archaeological
data on the particular case.
Rapid aggregation implies purposive redirection of people’s time, energy,
and resources. Redirection means that they did some things quite different
from what they had done before. Who or what was doing the redirecting?
It seems to me that in none of the cases in this book was this a matter of
an authority or leader commanding that his will be done. For one thing,
these archaeological cases all represent not singular events but situations
in which the times were changing—that is, structure itself was undergoing
transformation. Second, each of these cases represents transformation on a
spatial scale far beyond the bounds of the broadest existing political author-
ity. No Cherokee, Puebloan, or Hungarian Plain leader or polity had wide,
pan-regional or enduring a power or influence. Third, most of these studies
point to the instrumental role of new institutions that relied on broad, if
not universal, commitment to collective action. Aggrandizing leaders might
be able to co-opt some of these institutions after a time, when participants’
commitments to cooperation could begin to waver, but such cooperation is
very difficult, if not impossible, for a leader to institute by decree.
Often I hear logic such as this: “The ancient people built [a big mound, a
road, anything large]. Therefore, it shows that they must have had a leader
to tell them what to do.” This is a good candidate for the most anthropo-
logically vapid and culturally biased syllogism in archaeology. Many things
in society are not directed; they are carried out by the “hidden hand” of
multiple actions. Other things are partly intentional and carried out by
cooperative efforts in which the sum of the efforts is beyond the knowledge
of any of the participants. Here, the answer to “who was doing the redi-
recting?” seems to be that there wasn’t “a leader” but that the purposive
actions of many people resulted in major cultural change, some of which
had unforeseen consequences.
As I studied these contributions I was struck by how much physical and
social work it took for people to build new communities and institutions, and
I began to think about the work itself as an important component of com-
munity building. This reminded me of a phrase familiar from older Marxist
literature—“the labor process”—which, as I remembered it, claimed that all
the steps and actions in doing work (praxis) built, reproduced, and could
change capitalist structure. Out of curiosity I checked to see if this line of
inquiry was still active and quickly found that it was, in critical studies
of education, philosophy, social psychology, and labor history. I make no
attempt to summarize all the strands in this literature, but I did find ideas
that resonated well with the project of this book. In particular, a theoretical
and case-study paper by Paul Adler is relevant. Adler carried out ethno-
graphic studies concerning the labor process in software-development firms
in California. What struck me was how his relentless method of the dialectic
led him to find in the labor process so many multifaceted, multiscalar (in our
terms), and dissonant features: the “persistent, contradictory coexistence
of [both] enabling and coercive features of modern organizational forms”
(2006: 185). This “thick” ethnographic sense is a good lesson for archae-
ologists to bear in mind, lest we become too entranced by one-note sirens.
For our case, community formation required more intensive, differenti-
ated, and specialized work than had been the case prior to aggregation.
In labor-process theory terms, as workers are drawn from local isolation
into more globalized (for us here, community or regional) webs, tasks may
become more demanding in skill and work discipline, and more technically
and socially differentiated. “ [U]nder the impact of the progressive socializa-
tion of the forces of production, tasks become on average more complex,
and there is a progressive differentiation of roles and increasing collabora-
tive interdependence at various levels” (Adler 2006: 190). Whether all these
things occurred in each of our cases could be confirmed or disconfirmed.
We have seen that with aggregation, production and its work intensified.
That is, attention focused on a narrower range of resources, became more
land intensive, or became more labor intensive. I have in mind Wendat deer
hunts and maize farming; Southwestern land-intensive farming and maize
and cotton processing; olive, wine, and wheat processing in the Mediter-
ranean; textile production, elaborate architectural construction, or other
tasks requiring or favoring larger task groups or differentiated production
processes. Such collective work raises issues that would be familiar to the
labor-process theorists. These are matters that required time, energy, and
attention on the part of the actors. How are task group members recruited
and retained? Are task groups pressed to increase output, and how? What
are the work rules? How are work and material contributions allocated and
monitored? Since everyone can see what others are doing, how are differ-
ences in output reconciled, especially as skill levels and skill differentiation
increase? How are workers fed and entertained? How are gains in produc-
tivity of gendered or age-set work groups balanced against participants’
individual and family interests? Not all motivation comes from individual
interests; sometimes the collective labor process activates its own motivation,
but that motivation needs to be created. How are pressures for hierarchy
balanced or controlled by broader egalitarian interests? How is competition
between groups (say, communities) reconciled with potential advantages of
cooperation between them? What about struggles between individualizing,
network-strategy forces (for example, fur trade and war glory in eastern
North America and the Plains in Colonial times) and collective, egalitarian
forces (tribal unity in the face of external threat)?
The Marxist labor process approach could learn two lessons from the
research presented here. One is that capitalism is not the only structure that
differentiates labor or the only structure that creates dynamic and contradic-
tory relations between the forces and the social means of production. Some
of the same research questions asked about factory or software work can
be asked fruitfully about work in the Neolithic; therefore, although capital-
ism is special in some ways, it is not special in these. So the theory has to be
broadened and enlightened to take account of all the historical-ethnological
register.
Second, several of the case studies, including the Hungarian Plain and
Hohokam, have long-term archaeological sequences in which there is more
than one episode of aggregation—cycles, perhaps. This does not do much to
shore up the nineteenth-century progress theory clung to by many Marxist
scholars. In fact, the cycles raise new questions about alternative directions
and multiple pathways in social evolution.
Back to the question that Jennifer Birch asked of us: How did people
come together, how did they rapidly and fundamentally alter their ways of
life, in some cases almost every aspect of life? The blunt answer is that they
created a lot of new culture, from materials on hand, and they created new
institutions, many of which were collectivist. The process required extraor-
dinary physical and social work. In retrospect, the results were episodes of
extraordinary cultural creativity and change.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I sincerely thank Jennifer Birch and every one of the contributors for the
privilege of collaborating with them on this project.
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Contributors
Robin A. Beck, Jr., is assistant professor of anthropology and assistant cura-

tor of North American archaeology, Museum of Anthropology, at the
University of Michigan. He is author of the forthcoming book Chiefdoms,
Collapse, and Coalescence in the Early American South and editor of The
Durable House: House Society Models in Archaeology (2007). His articles
have appeared in the journals Current Anthropology, American Antiq-
uity, Ethnohistory, Latin American Antiquity, Southeastern Archaeology,
and Native South. He has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Bolivia,
Peru, western China, and much of the eastern United States.
Jennifer Birch is assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at

the University of Georgia. She is the coauthor, with Ronald F. Williamson,
of The Mantle Site: An Archaeological History of an Ancestral Wendat
Community (2013). Her current research is concerned with investigating
the development of organizational complexity in eastern North America.
She also teaches and conducts research on the archaeology of commu-
nities, warfare, cultural resource management, and the intersection of
archaeology and contemporary society. Her articles have appeared in the
Canadian Journal of Archaeology, Archaeological Review from Cam-
bridge, and American Antiquity.
Paul R. Duffy is a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto.
He received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Michigan and
has carried out archaeological fieldwork in Hungary and Romania. His
research interests include social dynamics in middle-range societies, spatial
and network analysis, and mortuary archaeology. He is director of the
Bronze Age Körös Off-Tell Archaeology project and conducts research on
Bronze Age settlement and cemetery contexts in Eastern Hungary.
Bleda S. Düring is assistant professor in Near Eastern archaeology at Leiden

University. His research focuses on Neolithic Turkey and early imperial-
ism in Syro-Mesopotamia. He has recently published The Prehistory of
220 Contributors
Asia Minor (2011). Bleda is director of the Cide Archaeological Project,
a survey in the Turkish Black Sea region. He was recently awarded a
European Research Council Starting Grant for a project entitled Con-
solidating Empire: Reconstructing Hegemonic Practices of the Middle
Assyrian Empire.
Attila Gyucha is a research archaeologist and the managing director of the

regional office of the Hungarian National Museum in Southern Hungary.
In addition to carrying out large-scale cultural heritage management proj-
ects, he has been the co-director of the Körös Regional Archaeological
Project since 2000, the coordinator of various other prehistoric inter-
national projects in Hungary, and a member of several archaeological
research programs throughout the Balkans. His major interests include
landscape and regional archaeology, ceramic analysis, and the study of
various aspects of the Neolithic, Copper Age, and Iron Age in southeast-
ern Europe. He has published extensively in international journals.
Donald C. Haggis is professor of Classical archaeology and Nicholas A.

Cassas Professor of Greek Studies in the Department of Classics and the
Curriculum in Archaeology, and research associate in the Research Labo-
ratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. His research interests include settlement structure in the Aegean; the
archaeology of Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Crete; and the post–Bronze
Age development of early cities and small-scale states in the Aegean. He
is director of the Azoria Project, an excavation of an Early Iron Age and
Archaic site in northeastern Crete.
Stephen A. Kowalewski, professor of anthropology at the University of

Georgia, has research interests in Mesoamerica, the U.S. Southeast, and
Southwest U.S./Northwest Mexico. He has collaborated on full-coverage,
regional archaeological surveys in highland Oaxaca. Recent publications
include Origins of the Ñuu: Archaeology in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca
and “A Theory of the Ancient Mesoamerican Economy” in Research in
Economic Anthropology. Since 2008 he has been conducting research in
the Coixtlahuaca Valley (“La Presencia Azteca en Oaxaca: La Provincia
de Coixtlahuaca” in Anales de Antropología).
Michael W. Lindeman is a research archaeologist at Desert Archaeology,

Inc. and has twenty-one years of experience conducting archaeological
fieldwork and research throughout Arizona. He has also worked in Utah,
New York, South Carolina, Vermont, Germany, and Belize. His interests
include households, social standing, social roles, and craft economies,
with a particular focus on the Tucson Basin Hohokam. He directed
excavations at several major portions of the Valencia community in the
southern Tucson Basin.
Contributors 221
William A. Parkinson is associate curator of Eurasian anthropology at the
Field Museum of Natural History and adjunct associate professor of
anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern
University. His research interests focus on the social dynamics of early
agricultural villages and archaic states in southeastern Europe. He is
American Director of the Körös Regional Archaeological Project in Hun-
gary and American Co-Director of the Diros Project in Greece.
Alison E. Rautman is associate professor in the Center for Integrative Stud-

ies at Michigan State University. Her long-term archaeological fieldwork
in the Salinas region of central New Mexico focuses on issues of social
and economic organization of early Pueblo society in the American
Southwest, funded by research grants from the National Science Founda-
tion, National Geographic, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. She has
served as editor for the journal American Antiquity (2009–2012) and is
currently planning new archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork on
cultural landscapes in Salinas.
Christopher B. Rodning is associate professor in the Department of Anthropol-

ogy at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. His interests include
landscape archaeology, monuments, architecture, mortuary practices, and
Native American responses to European contact and colonialism in the
Americas, particularly in southeastern North America. In addition to his
interests in the built environment of Cherokee towns, he is also collaborat-
ing with David Moore and Robin Beck in studying encounters between
Mississippian societies and Spanish expeditions in the upper Catawba Val-
ley and neighboring areas of western North Carolina. His papers have
been published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, American
Anthropologist, American Antiquity, Southeastern Archaeology, North
American Archaeologist, and other journals and edited volumes.
Henry D. Wallace is a senior project director with Desert Archaeology, Inc.

and has thirty-two years of experience in the archaeology of the Hohokam
region of southern Arizona. He developed refined ceramic sequences for
the Tucson and Phoenix areas and has worked extensively on rock art
sites in southern and central Arizona. He is best known for directing
and reporting on large-scale excavations at the Hohokam villages of Los
Morteros, Valencia Vieja, Julian Wash, and Honey Bee Village.
Ronald F. Williamson is founder and managing partner of Archaeological

Services Inc., a cultural resource management firm based in Toronto,
Ontario. He holds a PhD in anthropology from McGill University and has
published extensively on the precontact and colonial history of the Great
Lakes Region. Recent publications include The Mantle Site: An Archaeo-
logical History of an Ancestral Wendat Community (2013), coauthored
222 Contributors
with Jennifer Birch; an edited volume, with Michael Bisson, honoring the
lifelong work of Canada’s preeminent prehistorian, Bruce G. Trigger, enti-
tled The Archaeology of Bruce Trigger: Theoretical Empiricism (2006).
He also recently completed articles for Revista de Arqueologia Americana,
the New Cambridge World Prehistory, and the Oxford Handbook on
North American Archaeology.
Richard W. Yerkes is a research associate in anthropology at the Field

Museum, Chicago, and professor of anthropology at Ohio State Univer-
sity, Columbus. He received his BA in anthropology from Beloit College,
and his MA and PhD in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison. He has 40 years of field experience in North America, Egypt,
Cyprus, Greece, and Hungary, and more than seventy-five major publica-
tions on the transition to food production, ancient land use and settlement
patterns, microwear analysis, craft specialization and social complexity,
GIS applications in archaeology, and zooarchaeology. He is co-principal
investigator and field director of the Körös Regional Archaeological Proj-
ect in southeastern Hungary.
Index
abandonment: of regions 1, 7, 44, 65, 123, 134, 137, 181–2; and

69, 138, 160, 180, 183, 204; of social integration 14, 77, 79–80,
sites 3,44, 65, 68–9, 76, 81, 112, 106–7, 120, 127–9, 134, 164,
117–18, 125–7, 134, 138, 146, 182, 186, 202, 212; and status
153, 180, 186, 189, 191, 204 77, 93, 97, 106, 211; see also
Aegean 38, 63–5, 68, 81 built environment; households;
Africa 1, 10, 36, 44 kiva; plazas
aggregation: definition of 3–5; 179; vs. Arizona 114, 134–48, 181, 201, 207–8,
nucleation 63, 65; temporal 190 212
agriculture 81, 98, 100, 134, 139, 147, authority 14, 88, 106, 168, 171–3, 192,
155–6, 167, 201, 205–9, 212, 206, 211, 213
214 Azoria site 65–8, 70, 72–82, 212
alliances 50, 71, 89, 160, 209
Alt, Susan 154 Baillargeon, Morgan 170
Altamira site 3 ballcourts 137, 140, 146, 181
Alto Pukara site 87–8; 90–1, 93, 95, Balkan region 23, 36, 38, 44
97, 106–8 Bennett, Wendell 92
Amazonia 1, 203 Birch, Jennifer 63, 202, 215
Anasazi 1 Bronze Age (Europe) 44–58, 64, 201,
Anatolia 23, 33, 36, 38 208
ancestors 89, 97, 103, 104, 106, 137, buildings see architecture
150, 177, 179, 180, 181, 188, built environment 2, 8–9, 13–14, 25,
189; ancestral lands 82, 139, 28, 111, 114, 118, 120, 129,
140, 172 148, 164; see also architecture
Andean societies 93, 212 burials 24–5, 30–33, 68, 91, 96, 99,
animal resources 76, 100, 168–70, 206 106, 116, 139, 148, 158, 181–2,
Appalachian Mountains 180–5, 190, 185, 187–91, 193; cemeteries
193 137, 167, 190, 211; cremation
Archaic period, Greek 63, 65, 69–83, 116, 137, 139; ossuaries 158; see
81 also mounds, burial
architecture 13–14, 44, 63, 70, 72, 111,
117–29, 142–4, 181, 186–8, Cahokia site 2
201, 210; domestic 79–80, Çatalhöyük site 1, 4, 23–38, 202–3
114, 129, 185–6, 190, 210; cemeteries see burials
monumental 3, 72, 76, 78, 80, ceramics 49, 58, 81, 95–6, 101–2, 112,
87, 107, 184; public 14, 72, 75, 115, 119–20, 137, 139, 142,
79–80, 87, 90–1, 121–3, 182, 148, 156, 163
184–6, 190, 201, 210; and ritual ceremony see ritual
14 48, 79, 87–9, 90–93, 101–3, Chalocolithic see Copper Age, Europe
224 Index
Chamberlin, Matthew 112 Gran Quivira Pueblo 112, 116, 117
Chávez, Karen Mohr 101, 102 Grasshopper Pueblo 114
Chávez, Sergio 101 grave goods 45, 188
Chiripa 87–99, 100–3, 106–8 Great Hungarian Plain 44–58, 203,
Christiensen, David 170 213, 215
cities 1–2, 4, 63–4; Aegean 63, 69,
79–82; Mesopotamian 28 Heidenreich, Conrad 167
clans 10, 14, 70, 77–8, 82, 89, 157–8, hierarchy 35, 78, 201, 215;
161–2, 163, 165–8, 172–3, 179, administrative 211; settlement 2,
182–3, 185, 190, 192 57, 99; see also elites
coalescent societies 10–11, 13, 71, 81, Hohokam 1, 134, 137–9, 146–8, 181,
158 201, 207–8, 212, 215
Coe, William 90 Hopi 121, 207
community, definition of 5–7, 112, 128; horticulture 156, 205
imagined 36 households 5–6, 9, 13–14, 26, 28–38,
complexity see social 63, 68, 70, 72–82, 87, 112,
conflict 8–9, 71, 82, 88, 127, 139, 120–1, 128, 137–8, 144–5, 161,
158–60, 165–6, 172, 180, 182 163–4, 172, 179, 182–3, 185–6,
193, 204–7, 213 189–90, 192–3, 210, 212
Copper Age, Europe 44, 47, 56–7 house society see social, house
cosmology 88, 97, 103, 106, 181, 188 hunter-gatherers 2–3, 134, 156, 184,
Coweeta Creek site 186–91 205
cremation see burials hunting 155, 166–7, 169–73, 205, 214
Huronia 159, 169
Danube River 47
decision-making see political identity 26, 37, 70, 75, 78, 79, 81–2;
organization community-based 6, 14, 36, 79,
defense 10, 54, 81, 123, 128, 139, 161, 88, 112, 115, 117, 128, 137,
165, 191–2, 204–9 146, 163–4, 172, 181, 193;
domestic see architecture, domestic; ethnic 81; regional 81, 82, 107
household ideology 36, 97, 101, 103, 106–8
domestication 202, 204, 209 Ilahita village (New Guinea) 9–10, 204
Draper site 155–6, 158–9, 161–4, 167–71 integration see social
Iron Age (Europe) 64–72, 75–7, 79,
elites 27, 71–2, 77, 80, 82, 99–101, 81–2, 172, 174, 208–9, 220
103, 106–7, 185, 207, 210
ethnogenesis 154 Jamieson, Susan 155
ethnohistory 153
exchange 45, 55–6, 58, 63, 71, 81–2, Kidder, Alfred 90
98–100, 115, 120, 161–2, 167– kin group 10, 32, 55, 70, 75, 77, 115,
8, 170–3, 182, 192, 201, 205–6, 121, 127, 155, 206
208–9, 213, 215 kinship 50, 63, 68–70, 77, 82, 89, 161,
207
farming see agriculture kiva 111–12, 114, 121, 128–9, 180–1,
feasting 25, 70, 78, 79, 81–2, 101, 128, 210
172, 206, 211 Körös Region (Hungary) 45–58
Fish, Paul 140 Kowalewski, Stephen 10, 158
Fish, Suzanne 140
fishing 168 labor 50, 70, 72, 79, 81–2, 87, 99,
Flannery, Kent 28 106–7, 112, 166, 202–4, 207–14
fortifications see defense Lake Ontario 158–60, 164, 168, 170
Lake Titicaca 87, 91, 98, 201
gender 26, 37, 209; and labor 215 Lake Wiñaymarka 87, 89, 98–100,
Göbekli Tepe site 3 104, 106
Index 225
leadership 2, 8–9, 11, 81, 142, 146, 173, refuse see middens
192; see also political organization Rio Grande Valley 114, 116, 121, 123,
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 89; see also social, 207–8
house ritual 3, 9–10, 25, 27, 29–31, 33, 36–7,
lineage see kin group 50, 56–8, 63, 70, 77, 79–81, 88–9,
linguistic groups 81, 182 95, 97, 107, 111–12, 123, 128,
137, 146–8, 184, 189, 201–2,
Mantle site 155–6, 160–73 206, 210; offerings 95–6; see also
marriage 36, 147, 156, 161, 172 architecture, and ritual; shrines
Martinez Hill 134–48 rock art 119
megasites see Neolithic
Mesoamerica 1, 10, 28, 212 Saint Lawrence Valley 158, 160, 172
middens 117, 148, 163, 171, 184 Salinas region (New Mexico) 112–14,
migration 7, 25, 114–17, 126–7, 154, 119, 121, 123, 126–9
158 Santa Cruz River 135–6, 142
Mississippian society 10, 185, 207, 209 scalar stress 8–9, 27, 37, 56, 71, 82
Mississippi Valley 205–6 shrines 30, 71 78–9, 89–90, 119
monument see architecture, monumental social: archaeology 26; complexity 4,
Mooney, James 181 26, 154, 167; evolution 3, 154;
mounds 44, 213; burial 47; earthen house 80, 89, 100, 106–7, 201;
181–5, 187, 189, 191; platform integration 71, 79, 112, 117,
142–4, 146–8, 181, 212 121–2, 127–9, 146, 163, 210;
labor 202
neighborhoods 24, 29, 33–6, 38, 45–6, societal archaeology 26
48, 70, 72, 77, 144, 201 Solometo, Julie 123
Neolithic 1, 2, 23–5, 33, 36–8, 44–58, Stanish, Charles 103
63–4, 201–3, 205, 208–9, 215; status 24, 31, 38, 79, 80, 87, 93, 106,
megasites 25–6, 37 114, 146, 173, 189, 211
New Guinea 1, 9–10, 204–7, 209
New York State 158, 160, 203 Taraco Peninsula 14, 87–9, 98–101,
nucleation see aggregation 103, 106–8
tells 44–58
Oaxaca (Mexico) 210, 212 Tiwanaku Valley 99
Ontario (Canada) 158, 167, 203 trade see exchange
tribal cycling 45, 56
peer-polity interaction 71, 205 Trigger, Bruce 155
petroglyphs 141, 147 Tucson basin (Arizona) 134–48
pithouses 116, 127, 138–9
plazas 14, 49, 90, 91, 111, 112, 114, urban settlements 1–2, 63, 65,
116–18, 120, 121, 123–8, 137, 80–2; classification of 23,
143, 146–7, 163–4, 166, 179, 25, 37; political economy
180–1, 183, 185–6, 188, 190, 79; protourban 2, 37–8;
206, 210, 211 urbanization 5, 63–5, 69, 80,
political organization 4, 9, 14, 64, 111, 209, 213
134, 153, 155, 157, 161, 167,
171, 192; confederacies 155; see Wallace, Saro 69
also hierarchy; leadership warfare see conflict
population: estimates 29–30, 35, 36, Woodland period (North America) 154,
138, 142, 144, 179 156–8, 205–7
pottery see ceramics
prestige 106, 163, 204–6, 209 Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition 89,
public buildings see architecture 101–7
pueblos 1, 5, 11, 111–29, 142, 146,
180–1, 193 Zuni 114, 116

Birch, Jennifer - From Prehistoric Villages To Cities, Settlement Aggregation and Community Transformation (2013)

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Birch, Jennifer - From Prehistoric Villages To Cities, Settlement Aggregation and Community Transformation (2013)

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From Prehistoric Villages to Cities

Archaeologists have focused a great deal of attention on explaining the

Jennifer Birch is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at

1 An Archaeology of Materials 6 The Prehistory of Iberia

5 U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and 10 From Prehistoric Villages

Edited by Jennifer Birch

List of Figures vii

1 Between Villages and Cities: Settlement Aggregation

2 The Anatomy of a Prehistoric Community:

3 Coming Together, Falling Apart: A Multiscalar Approach

4 Social Organization and Aggregated Settlement Structure

5 Appropriating Community: Platforms and Power on

6 Social Integration and the Built Environment of Aggregated

7 Competition and Cooperation: Late Classic Period

9 Community Aggregation through Public Architecture:

10 The Work of Making Community 201

1.1 Locations of sites and regions discussed in this volume:

3.1 Characteristics of site networks for the Late Neolithic and

Archaeologists have focused a great deal of attention on explaining the

THE PROBLEM WITH TYPES

Aggregated settlements do not ﬁt neatly into commonly utilized taxonomies

WHAT KINDS OF SITES ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

This study places the community at the center of historical processes of

STUDYING SETTLEMENT AGGREGATION

Archaeological studies of settlement aggregation can generally be grouped

A signiﬁcant point of departure for understanding how processes of settlement

HISTORY, PROCESS, AND PRACTICE

Archaeologists tend to talk about generalized histories and processes of cul-

THE MATERIALITY OF COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION:

In the Near Eastern Neolithic, there are a number of instances where we

SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND SOCIETAL ARCHAEOLOGY

At this point I would like to raise the question of why reconstructions of

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

Archaeological reconstructions of past societies largely have been focused

THE ANATOMY OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AT ÇATALHÖYÜK

Figure 2.2 Spread of house sizes at Çatalhöyük (N = 105).

also may be modeled on the basis of the number of compartments found

Ritual Differentiation in Çatalhöyük Houses

Figure 2.3 Distribution of subﬂoor burials in level VIB at Çatalhöyük.

The Local Community at Çatalhöyük

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Explaining large social agglomeration prior to the emergence of urban

I would like to thank Jennifer Birch for inviting me to contribute to this

Tell formation is the most visible form of prehistoric population aggregation

ANALYTICAL DIMENSIONS AND SCALES

We suggest modeling social organization along two separate but intertwined

THE NEIGHBORHOOD SCALE: THE TELL

THE LOCAL SCALE: THE SETTLEMENT COMPLEX

THE MICROREGIONAL SCALE: THE SETTLEMENT CLUSTER

Small flat site

Figure 3.2 Microregional patterns in the Late Neolithic.

Figure 3.3 Microregional patterns in the Middle Bronze Age.

tells in microregional contexts for each studied period. A slightly different

THE REGIONAL SCALE: THE LOWER KÖRÖS BASIN

Variation in the microregional connectivity of settlement clusters can be mod-

Late 58 12 4.5 3.6 7 8 0.0992

This chapter has taken tell formation, a familiar indication of settlement

Table 3.2 Summary of settlement measures.

Regional Microregional Local Neighborhood

CONCLUSIONS: COMING TOGETHER AND FALLING APART

Bakay, Kornél. 1971 A régészeti topográfia munkálatai Békés megyében 1969-

Settlement aggregation is a normative, culturally conditioned, and adaptive

Figure 4.1 Map of the Kavousi area of northeastern Crete.