ANTH 2820 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, Communalism, Leet
9 Feb 2017
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2.9.2017
ANTH 2820 – Lecture 7
ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO CHIEFLY SOCIETIES
SUMMARY OF PPN (A AND B)
PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC
Strange Things Going On
- Burying them under households, separating skulls from bodies and putting them on
display
- Stems from rapid change, fundamental new way of life, set of values, sense of time, and
different ways of living
Characteristics
- Increased population
- Need for new forms of social integration
- More labor-intensive way of living
- More vulnerable to food shortages
PPNA
Signal that things are different
- Changes in agriculture obviously
- Jericho tower
o Highly visible display of a communal effort – extenuated community solidarity
As the rituals that were conducted on the tower did too
o Only at Jericho, but it is one of the bigger sites
More need for forms of integration
PPNB
Appearance of shrines with special purposes
- More emphasis on constructing formal ritual spaces where people came come together.
o Feel they can appeal to deities and ancestors
o Helps to build cohesiveness
Widespread set of ritualistic sites (shrines, plastered skulls, burials where heads have been
removed, almost life-sized chalky figurines, masks)
- “Dancing with the dead” - masks
o Dancing or singing rituals, evokes the spirit of the person the mask represents.
Healing powers, ability to talk to the gods, etc. temporarily brought to the person
who is wearing the mask.
Theme emerging with the evidence for ritual
- Ancestry
o For the first time burying them below their houses
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2.9.2017
o Living in rectangular houses
Accommodate more people, more emphasis on family
o Curation of the skulls (plaster), bringing of ancestor spirits through the masks
o Mounds – living in the same place for great periods of time
- Greater emphasis on family lineage
o May be from territoriality
Farming, putting in all that effort
o Burying underneath the house may be territorial as well
Title deed – my ancestors have been here, I have a right to be here
Round to Rectangular Houses (Talked about a lot)
- Community orientation greater emphasis on family
o Also believe that families are growing in size
- Round house – one adult, and some children, rather than leaving as individual families
- Centered around one area
o Most activity outside the home
- Hard to add-on to a circular house with growing families
- Houses arranged in a circle around common middle, limited room to put new houses in
- Rectangular houses
o Storage inside, not communal (shift from PPNA)
o More space indoors for activities
o Linear pattern of houses, not circular – new houses can be added easily
- Plaster work also shows the shift
o PPNA – most plaster work outside, the community side and inside mud and dirt
o PPNB – plastering the dirt floors, and stopping to plaster the outside
- Changes in the unit of production
o Family farming and raising animals as a familial unit
Not just social unit, but production now
- Might have been functional but created a change in ideology. Now shift from focus on
community to the family
o Begin in familial ancestors in addition to community ones
- Association between territoriality and the ideology of descent
MODELS OF POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN SOCIETIES
Written on Board
Egalitarian Band Hierarchic Chiefly / Ranked
Tribe State
Epipaleolithic/Natufian Period Chiefdoms
Neolithic
All the societies we have talked about are egalitarian
- May be a focus on the family, but that doesn’t mean there are ruling families
o No leaders that have the right to tell the people what to do
o But some individuals, due to characteristics, take on important roles
i.e. a shaman
- Why is it not a hierarchy?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Burying them under households, separating skulls from bodies and putting them on display. Stems from rapid change, fundamental new way of life, set of values, sense of time, and different ways of living. Need for new forms of social integration. Jericho tower: highly visible display of a communal effort extenuated community solidarity. As the rituals that were conducted on the tower did too: only at jericho, but it is one of the bigger sites. More emphasis on constructing formal ritual spaces where people came come together: feel they can appeal to deities and ancestors, helps to build cohesiveness. Widespread set of ritualistic sites (shrines, plastered skulls, burials where heads have been removed, almost life-sized chalky figurines, masks) Dancing with the dead - masks: dancing or singing rituals, evokes the spirit of the person the mask represents. Healing powers, ability to talk to the gods, etc. temporarily brought to the person who is wearing the mask.
