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Thinking the Bronze Age: Life and Death in Early Helladic Greece

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Thinking the Bronze Age: Life and Death in Early Helladic Greece ACTA UNIVERITATIS UPSALIENSIS BOREAS. Uppsala Studies in Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Civilizations 29 Erika Weiberg Thinking the Bronze Age Life and Death in Early Helladic Greece Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Geijerssalen, Engel- ska parken. Humanistiskt centrum, Hus 6, Thunbergsvägen 3H, Uppsala, Saturday, February 17, 2007 at 10:00 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Abstract Weiberg, E. 2007. Thinking the Bronze Age. Life and Death in Early Helladic Greece. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Boreas. Uppsala Studies in Ancient Mediterranean and Near East- ern Civilizations 29. 404 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-554-6782-1. This is a study about life and death in prehistory, based on the material remains from the Early Bronze Age on the Greek mainland (c. 3100-2000 BC). It deals with the settings of daily life in the Early Helladic period, and the lives and experiences of people within it. The analyses are based on practices of Early Helladic individuals or groups of people and are context specific, focussing on the interaction between people and their surroundings. I present a picture of the Early Helladic people living their lives, moving through and experi- encing their settlements and their surroundings, actively engaged in the appearance and work- ings of these surroundings. Thus, this is also a book about relationships: how the Early Hella- dic people related to their surroundings, how results of human activity were related to the natural topography, how parts of settlements and spheres of life were related to each other, how material culture was related to its users, to certain activities and events, and how every- thing is related to the archaeological remains on which we base our interpretations. Life and death in Early Helladic Greece is the overall subject, and this double focus is manifested in a loose division of the book into two halves. The first deals primarily with settlement contexts, while the second is devoted to mortuary contexts. After an introduction, the study is divided into three parts, dealing with the house, the past in the past and the mortu- ary sphere, comprising three stops along the continuum of life and death within Early Helladic communities. Subsequently, mortuary practices provide the basis for a concluding part of the book, in which the analysis is taken further to illustrate the interconnectedness of different parts of Early Helladic life (and death). Keywords: prehistoric Greece, Early Helladic, social space, embodiment, mortuary prac- tices, the past in the past, Lerna, Aghios Kosmas, Tsepi, Manika Erika Weiberg, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Classical archaeology and ancient history, Box 626, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden © Erika Weiberg 2007 ISSN 0346-6442 ISBN 978-91-554-6782-1 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-7448 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-7448) Publication undertaken with the assistance of the Institute for Aegean Prehistory Printed in Sweden by Elanders Gotab, Stockholm 2007 Distributor: Uppsala University Library, Box 510, SE-751 20 Uppsala www.uu.se, [email protected] v Contents List of figures.............................................................................................. viii List of tables...................................................................................................xi Acknowledgements..................................................................................... xiii Part One. Defining a prehistoric society .........................................................1 1. Introduction.................................................................................................2 Presenting an idea.......................................................................................3 Lived-in landscapes....................................................................................6 Thinking about the Early Helladic.........................................................9 Connecting things, places and people ......................................................15 Boundaries, visibility and movement.......................................................17 Limitations in time and space...................................................................20 Layout of the book ...................................................................................25 Part Two. The house: perceptions of the bounded space..............................27 Our definitions: the archaeological house................................................28 EH definitions?: the house as experienced...............................................32 2. The values of space...................................................................................36 The corridor houses: a presentation..........................................................37 Topography in context .............................................................................39 Houses and movement: the case of the House of the Tiles at Lerna........44 The interior ..........................................................................................44 The exterior..........................................................................................48 Uses of the House of the Tiles: an alternative hypothesis ...................52 What about other houses? ........................................................................57 3. Life-histories of houses and people ..........................................................62 Day-to-day biographies............................................................................67 Special purpose buildings....................................................................68 Household life and production.............................................................70 Picturing the day-to-day ......................................................................79 Structural biographies ..............................................................................83 Construction.........................................................................................83 Occupation...........................................................................................86 Boreas 29 vi The final days of use............................................................................92 Part Three. Living with a past.....................................................................103 Outline and limitations of Chapters 4 and 5...........................................106 4. Architectural frameworks .......................................................................113 Keeping and caring.................................................................................114 Levelling, demolishing and paving over ................................................117 Incorporating practices: the case of Tiryns ............................................121 Substitutive practices: the case of Lerna ................................................127 Living where others have lived before...................................................138 New beside old ..................................................................................140 New on top of old ..............................................................................144 Considerations of meaning ................................................................147 5. Mounds as markers .................................................................................153 The ‘ritual tumuli’ ..................................................................................155 Specific and similar? ..............................................................................159 Something similar? ............................................................................163 Mounds as markers............................................................................165 Considerations of time and space...........................................................166 Lerna..................................................................................................168 Thebes................................................................................................171 Olympia .............................................................................................172 The importance of context.................................................................175 Focusing attention: creation of memory?...............................................176 The search for culprits .......................................................................178 The power of monuments? ................................................................181 ‘Ritual tumuli’ reconsidered...................................................................183 Part Four. Locating the dead.......................................................................187 6. Mortuary variability through time...........................................................190 Coastal interaction..................................................................................195 East vs. south..........................................................................................198 The historical development: a hypothesis ..............................................200 Problems of inequalities, and cemeteries as social arenas .....................202 7. Positioning the intramural.......................................................................206 Burials of children..................................................................................208
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