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UDK 903'1(4-17)"633\634">330.342.11 Documenta Praehistorica XXXII (2005) Homo habitus> agency, structure and the transformation of tradition in the constitution of the TRB foraging-farming communities in the North European plain (ca 4500–2000 BC) Marek Zvelebil Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, UK [email protected] ABSTRACT – The current generally accepted view of the dispersal of farming into Europe is that farming groups in the eastern Mediterranean colonised selectively optimal farming areas. The role of contact between indigenous hunter-gatherers and incoming farmers was very important to the operation of this process. This general view of the spread of farming at a broad inter-regional scale gives us our understanding of the origins of the Neolithic but merits closer examination at the local and regional level, as increasingly it is becoming apparent that the causes and motivations may have differed. In this paper, Mesolithic to Neolithic communities with evidence of the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer will be examined at a regional scale, in the central part of the north European plain, focussing on Kujavia. Additionally, the theory of structuration will be applied in order to elucidate the transition process at this level. IZVLE∞EK – Trenutno splo∏no sprejet pogled na ∏iritev kmetovanja v Evropo je, da so poljedelske sku- pine v vzhodnem Sredozemlju selektivno poselile najbolj∏a podro≠ja za poljedelstvo. Stiki med lokal- nimi lovci in nabiralci ter priseljenimi poljedelci so igrali pomembno vlogo pri poteku tega procesa. Ta splo∏en pogled na ∏iritev kmetovanja v obse∫nem medregionalnem merilu nam omogo≠a razu- mevanje za≠etka neolitika, vendar ga je potrebno natan≠neje preu≠iti na lokalnem in regionalnem nivoju, saj postaja vedno bolj o≠itno, da so bili vzroki in motivacije tu druga≠ni. V tem ≠lanku bomo na regionalni ravni preu≠ili mezolitske in neolitske skupnosti ter dokaze o prehodu iz lovcev in na- biralcev v kmetovalce. Osredoto≠ili se bomo na centralni del Severnoevropske ravnine, poudarek bo na Kujaviji. Poleg tega bomo s teorijo strukturizacije pojasnili proces prehoda na tem nivoju. KEY WORDS – Hunter-gatherer; farmer; structuration; agency; north European plain INTRODUCTION Today, there is a broad agreement that the dispersal incoming east Mediterranean/ Anatolian farmers, of farming into Europe involved both the resident or foragers-turned-farmers within Europe. hunting and gathering communities and exogenous farming groups, originating in the eastern Mediter- This gives us a picture of the origins of the Neolithic ranean, who colonised selectively optimal farming at a broad, inter-regional scale but what was the mo- areas. For the more widespread adoption of farming, tivation for the transition to farming at a local and the role of contact between foragers and farmers was regional level? What processes enabled the transi- very important, as was perhaps the greater demo- tion and the coeval development of a new cultural graphic potential of farming communities either as tradition? Could it be that causes and motivations 87 Marek Zvelebil operating at the regional level may well have dif- of structuration theory helps comprehension of this fered from the more general and diffuse conditions complex process of discourse and strategic imple- operating at broader geographical scales? In order mentation of decisions, if the following conditions to illuminate this, Mesolithic to Neolithic communi- are considered. ties with evidence of the transition from hunting-gathering to farming will be examined at a regional Structural conditions: ecology of the area; the scale, in the central part of the north European plain, structure of relationships between humans and their focussing on Kujavia as the region in question (Fig. resources; between people and categories of people 1). The theory of structuration will be applied as a themselves; systems of symbolic order. As Barrett way of elucidating the course of this transition. notes, these structural conditions ‘do not in themselves do anything’ (Barrett 2000.65) STRUCTURE, AGENCY AND THE CULTURAL INHE- Structural principles: an activation of the over- RITANCE arching system of beliefs and norms informing human behaviour and motivation, acknowledged At a regional and community level of discourse and codes of practice, ‘expressed in the agents’ abilities decision-making, individual and collective motiva- to work on structural conditions in the reproduc- tions – reasons and justifications for doing things – tion and transformation of their own identities and must have been formulated into strategies by people conditions of existence. Structuring principles are who had a certain level of knowledge about their so- therefore created in the active maintenance of tra- cial and natural environment ‘knowledgeable social ditions of knowledgeability whereby experiences actors’. The outcomes of such strategies must have are read with reference to the opportunities and been contingent on and validated by structural prin- constraints within which agents operate… Such a pe- ciples and dialectical social relationships within which netration of conditions is partial and prejudiced, such a community operated. The broad application coming as it does from specific history which main- tains certain traditions of knowledge through discourses of social constraints, and the agents’ own biographies’ (Barrett 2000. 65). Routine practice or habitus: unthought performance of tasks, ‘embodied’ within human habit- ual environment and physical self, so that as people go about their daily tasks, they may learn rules and constrains through mo- vements of the body, or the re- actions of others. The rules become ‘embodied’ in the sense that ‘social rules and dispositions become embedded within mun- dane bodily practices, often non- discursively (Hodder and Ces- sford 2004.18). ‘Habitus is nei- ther conscious, nor unconscious, but is expressed (and reprodu- ced) through embodied and rou- tinised social practices’ (Jordan 2004.114). Rules so created Fig. 1. Forager-farmer coexistence in Poland during the post-LBK Neo- through routine practice – habi- lithic 4800–2800 BC. Kujavia marked by a circle. After Nowak 2001 tus – can help in the negotiation and other sources. of disputes over movement, ac- 88 Homo habitus> agency, structure and the transformation of tradition in the constitution of the TRB foraging-farming communities... cess and rights in the community, and provide guid- practice or agency, within which individuals and ance in social reproduction of knowledge and tradi- communities operate and which form the temporal tions (Bourdieu 1977; Giddens 1984; Parker 2000; aspect of ‘inhabitation’ of agency. Jordan 2004). Tradition and social memory: these are struc- An important dimension of social practices is the re- tural conditions which may be effectively activated lationship with the past and the extent to which as structural principles through agency: the delib- (routine) practices repeat earlier practices as a form erate and conscious employment and manipulation of memory of them (Hodder and Cessford 2004. of cultural practices constituted in the past to per- 18). This is especially so in non-literate societies. form task, to validate relationships, to claim or to negotiate for power and resources, to select and val- Agency: ‘is the means by which things are achieved’ idate the reproduction of all aspects of cultural inher- (Barrett 2001.141). This is defined as a deliberate itance (social reproduction). and motivated human action, undertaken individu- ally and collectively, and sometimes undertaken to Cultural inheritance and intergenerational modify structure. Agency is ‘inhabited’ in the sense transmission of knowledge: social action is ‘un- that it requires both the physical matrix of a human derstandable in the context of knowledge and know- body and human cognition to occur ‘Agency is always ledge is something which is built, sustained and situated in structural conditions which facilitate its revaluated through interpretation’ (Barrett 2000. actions because agency requires a medium through 66). Material conditions are apprehended, recogni- which to work’ (Barrett 2001.149). Actions then are sed and put to practical use through available stocks the work of knowledgeable human agents whose of knowledge (idem: 66–7). Knowledge and mate- comprehension of their place in the world and their rial culture are forms of cultural inheritance that ability to implement them influences the course of passed on through learning intergenerationally or action taken and its outcome both upon the world between individuals and communities, and modi- and upon the agent. It follows then that agency is fied by innovation. This process is socially embed- historically and spatially contingent and that the ded structurally, modified by routine practice, concept of agency must therefore be conceptualised agency and historical constraint, and generates main terms which are historically situated and embod- terial culture signatures and patterns as the outcome. ied. Spatio-temporal contingency and contextualisa- It follows then that archaeological material culture tion within the available ‘stocks of knowledge’ rep- could be ‘read’ and understood in part at least as a resents then a key element of ‘inhabited’ agency consequence of processes of learning and implemen- (Barrett 2001; 2000). tation of knowledge. At the same time, agency can be implemented by collectives

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