by Chris Fowler
FIG. 16.1. Reconstruction of a Linearbandkeramik house, Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes, Paris Basin, France.
(© Coudart, CNRS).
FIG. 16.2. 1—Tripartite Linearbandkeramik house (96% of cases); 1a) House 32 at Miskovice, Bohemia, Czech Republic; 1b) House 245 at Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes, Paris Basin, France; 1c) House 57 at Elsloo, Limburg, The Netherlands; 1d) The pattern of the tripartite Linearbandkeramik house; 1e) The most common pattern (81%) of spatial organization in the central section of the Bandkeramik house. 2—Bipartite house (4.5% of cases); 2a) House 425 at Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes, Paris Basin, France; 2b) The pattern of the bipartite Linearbandkeramik house.
The markers identifying the buildings as Bandkeramik are particularly evident at the level of the transverse passages (a narrow corridor constituted by two rows of three posts) marking the division between the front and central part of the building, and between the middle and rear (Fig. 16.2.1). These occur in 94% of all buildings—and across all periods. This tripartite division into a front, middle, and rear part is also characteristic of the Bandkeramik house. In some cases (4.5%), the front corridor is absent; then the house is simply bipartite.
Interestingly, notwithstanding the normalization of the buildings’ components, some of them were allowed to vary between several options, such as the exterior spatial organization (shape and location of construction pits, drainage trenches), or the shape of the ground plan, the layout of the external walls, etc. But above all, there are options for each of the three subdivisions of the building: six, seven, and six respectively (Fig. 16.3). These options were not endless, nor random, but ‘culturally’ well-defined: they recur in all periods and across the different regions.
FIG. 16.3. 1—Options for the front section: a & b are storage platforms; f corresponds to the absence of a front section. 2—Options for the central section. 3—Options for the rear section. 4—Options for the ground plan: a) rectangle; b) rectangle (front and central sections) combined with a trapezium (rear section); c) trapezium.
From this follow three questions we may ask of the Bandkeramik dwelling: why are all the options used in some villages,5 whereas in others only two or three are found? To what extent are these options used relative to the lifetime of a village? Why do one or two of these options sometimes dominate all others?
THE FRONT SECTION OF THE HOUSE ANNOUNCES CERTAIN SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS
Ethnography teaches us that the front part of the dwelling (which may include the space outside, immediately in front of the house) is never neutral. It is the transition between the interior and exterior, and signals the household’s function, status, and identity (e.g. Chapman 1955; Duncan 1982; Oliver 1987; Preston-Blier 1987; Rapoport 1969a).
Where a relative chronology between the houses of a single village could be established, the ‘corridor’ (Fig. 16.3.1.e) and the ‘antechamber’, a spatial unit ahead of the front corridor (Fig. 16.3.1.d), are the two most frequent types of front end. However, because the posts in the front part are often doubled to support an elevated internal platform as well as the roof (Fig. 16.3.1.a), houses with such ‘storage platforms’ are archaeologically easier to spot and have therefore been identified more frequently (biasing our statistics).
In each village, the front part of the house is very variable,6 whatever the period or region, almost as if the use of several types of front end was always necessary. A quantitative diversity corresponds with this qualitative one: each front end type is related to a particular class of length. Hence, a different surface was probably needed for different functions or activities, and each of these functions or activities was shared by several households, as each type of front section existed in several buildings in each village (except the storage platform).
The storage platform seems to have existed only in one or two contemporaneous buildings in each village—whenever, that is, we are able to establish a relative building chronology. The households that lived in houses with such platforms were most likely in charge of cereal storage (and redistribution). Platforms are also associated with a larger quantity of husks and straw (Bakels 1978), whilst the proportion of grindstones and de-husked grain per inhabitant did not differ much between buildings (cf. Hamon 2006 on the use of grindstones). In other words: whereas cereal storage and management was the business of one or two specific households, consumption was more or less egalitarian. Moreover, locating the grain storage area in the front part of the building, where it was visible to all, probably reflects a degree of accountability of that household to the community as a whole.
THE CENTRAL SECTION: DOMESTIC ACTIVITY AND VISITORS
Generally separated from the exterior world by a corridor, and sometimes directly accessible from it (when there is no front part), the central part of the Bandkeramik house seems to have been the place for daily activities and for the reception of visitors.
The spatial organization of this section was the most variable, with particularities such as the alignment of a row of three posts as an inverse ‘J’, rather than a rectilinear pattern, or an arrangement of four posts into a ‘Y’-shape (Fig. 16.3.2.c and d); almost as if to present a certain message to any visitors. Moreover, the different kinds of spatial organization were not linked to surface area, which could vary between 9 and 27m2 for the same type of spatial organization (which is not the case for the front and rear parts).
Finally, in isolated or short-lived villages, the central part was the same for all houses. The rate of variation in the organization of the central section is also low in the margins of the Danubian territory, but high in the dense networks of settlements in central Europe at the time of the greatest expansion of the LBK. This indicates that the existence of a well-developed exchange network (of goods, people, and skills) and a good knowledge of the environment in the zones that were first colonized were compatible with the expression of differences between households. Inversely, isolation and incomplete exploration incited the members of a community to reinforce the similarities between them. This is a phenomenon also encountered in the architecture of the ancient colonial cities of classical Greece, in which the marginal population was strongly dominated by Greek ideology and the ‘democratic’ ideal, and thought of itself as such to the maximum extent possible.
THE REAR SECTION: THE LOCUS OF THE GREATEST PRIVACY
The rear section is situated at the end of the building, separated from the central section by a second corridor. It is the most withdrawn and the least accessible to visitors. The simplicity of its spatial organization (a regular succession of spatial units) seems, indeed, not to convey any message to potential visitors. The number of units seems directly related to the size of this section, as if the organization was more ‘quantitative’ (related to the number of people in the household) than qualitative. This was probably the most private part of the dwelling—it was not necessary to express any specificity because only the household and close friends had access to it. The longer the village was occupied, the more the number of spatial units in the rear section varied between buildings, as if with time the size of domestic groups became more varied.
A RISKY WORLD: THE CONTEXT OF BANDKERAMIK SOCIAL RELATIONS
Bandkeramik populations existed in a ‘risky’ context; there were no permanent threats to their existence, but the accumulation of several disequilibria risked causing a ‘tipping point’ at which the usual solutions to challenges were no longer effective and traditional practices inappropriate. What may these risks have been?
First of all, the Bandkeramik people were the first farmers to colonize this part of Europe, at the time covered by a primary forest with seasonal food production. Its dense canopy limited the plant cover of the lower, food-producing levels accessible to humans. Moreover, there was competition from insects and other mammals (Clarke 1976, 1978; Gregg 1988).
The territory was poorly explored, except by small groups of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers exploiting very different ecological niches. Social alliances did exist, as is evident f
rom certain stone tools, but their limited potential did not contribute to solving the difficulties the Bandkeramik colonists must have encountered.
Then, the means of production were limited and the soil quickly exhausted, at least where it rained frequently and where there was no calcareous subsoil (Langohr 1990). The absence of the plough favoured the development of weeds to the detriment of crops; the absence of fertilizer (except burning) accentuated the irregularity of yields which were difficult to predict anyway, and could often fall below the necessary minima.7 The small proportion of domesticated pigs also implies that food production was limited, because humans and pigs are partly in competition for the same foods.
Finally, the residential units were small, comprising on average between five and eight contemporaneous households—which drastically limited their potential to survive.
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF EGALITARIAN STRUCTURE
In this kind of ‘risky’ situation, the differences in perception, appreciation, and creativity between individuals (or groups of individuals: nuclear or extended families, lineages, clans, etc.) guarantee to some extent their adaptive potential and success. Utilizing all the knowledge and capabilities of the group may allow the latter to adapt and to rapidly find solutions to the challenges posed by the contingencies of history and climate.
An egalitarian social structure—which brings into play everyone’s adaptive potential—clearly improved the Bandkeramik populations’ chances of success beyond what these would have been if knowledge and capabilities were hierarchically organized.
THE SOCIAL EQUALITY OF BANDKERAMIK POPULATIONS
It appears that each of the individual domestic units of a Bandkeramik village possessed more or less all available technical know-how. The relative, yet extraordinary, uniformity of architecture and discarded material culture, and the similar amounts of meat eaten by each household (Hachem 2000; Bedault and Hachem 2008), show the absence of prestige goods and above all of wealth products: only a few elements of personal adornment and some adze fragments qualify (Bakels 1987, 80; Bonnardin 2004; Allard 2005). Everything points to a structural equilibrium and equivalence between the elementary socioeconomic units.8 In other words, equality of expression reflects equality in terms of decision-making and production, and a social structure in which no social rule is incompatible with access of all socioeconomic units to resources and sources of information. This does, however, not imply equality in the narrow sense, as if every individual would have completed the same tasks, benefited from the same status, and assumed the same responsibilities. Such an identity of individual roles and treatment is not observed archaeologically.
For one of the best preserved and most studied sites, Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes, France, it has been possible to estimate the population of a village on the basis of the length of the buildings and the number of spatial units in their rear sections. This allows us to suggest a number—which certainly varied through time—of between 80 and 250 people living in contemporaneous households. This is amply sufficient to carry out all the farming tasks, but a true handicap if the equality among them was as narrow as we have just discussed.
For every event requiring a consensual decision, the increase in the number of information sources exponentially multiplies the number of necessary interactions. Only about 15 exchanges are needed for six participants to share their information, but 66 exchanges are needed if the number of participants grows to 12 (that is, when it is doubled). This increases the potential number of disagreements and the time necessary for each collective decision. Equality would, under those circumstances, have been a source of obstacles, and could have had catastrophic consequences in times of crisis.
Thus, to be operational, an egalitarian group must be ‘horizontally hierarchized’ (Johnson 1982). Each social unit (composed of several individuals, nuclear families, or lineages) participates on an egalitarian basis in maintaining and reproducing society, in the full respect of the entity that it constitutes. If we assume equivalence at a more inclusive level (between households, lineages, or clans, for example), then the number of Bandkeramik social units per cluster (between five and eight per settlement) offered an acceptable upper limit to the number of communications involved in decision-making. We envisage, therefore, an egalitarian structure combining the minimum number of actors necessary for farming with an upper limit to the number of potential conflicts.
Thus, the activities of egalitarian societies are diversified, as seen in the New Guinean Baruya (Godelier 1982, 1986) and Ankave (Lemonnier 1991) tribes, or in the American Southwest among the Hopi (Connelly 1979) and Zuni (Watts 1997). Among the Bandkeramik populations some people managed cereal storage, and the manufacture of grindstones may have been the task of specialists, whilst their use was accessible to all (Hamon 2006). Roles, status, rights, and obligations were not necessarily the same for every individual or household (e.g., some consumed more big game or domesticated animals than others, but all had access to them). Real distinctions existed according to sex, age group, etc. and above all when exercising certain special tasks or responsibilities (e.g. deciding the beginning of the sowing season, as in the case of the Hopi; see Talayesva 1942). Behind such temporal and sequential activities, one could envisage the ‘Great Men’ of Maurice Godelier (1982, 1986, 1991) or the ‘leaders’ of Pierre Lemonnier (1991).9
However that may be, the individual’s political power is, in this context, exercised for the benefit of all, and under the control of all. It is a kind of delegated power, because the group uses the specialist, Great Man, or leader; the group benefits from his talents, rather than being exploited for his own interest. Recognition of a special role may lead the group to treat a Great Man or specialist in some respects differently to the remainder of the community. This could explain the existence of specific Bandkeramik buildings—either very long ones (between 35 and 43 metres), or ones of the usual length (between 21 and 35 metres), but with walls inserted in foundation trenches; in all other respects, these houses conform perfectly to the shared model (see also Last 2013; this volume). The associated refuse does not indicate that these were connected to any kind of durable political power.
Equality is thus simultaneously a product of society, an analytical convention, and an anthropological concept, and in no way excludes the occurrence of the individual variations and differences in status that every ‘egalitarian’ society needs to reproduce itself. Looking at Bandkeramik houses, their inhabitants’ egalitarian social structure did not exclude variations and differences, but integrated them. These differences nevertheless constituted the seeds for the true inequalities and specialization of later periods.
WHY AND HOW DID THE EGALITARIAN PRINCIPLE PERSIST SO LONG IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY?
The fact that human societies have initially and for a long time functioned according to principles of equilibrium and equivalence does not automatically imply the ‘natural’ priority of the egalitarian principle over that of social stratification: equality is not at all ‘natural’. It is a social rule, and can only be implemented socially. If egalitarian societies characterize the long beginning of modern humankind, it is because—given their demographic conditions and context of production—only an egalitarian structure allowed them to be consistently successful enough to leave archaeologically visible traces: basically a kind of ‘social selection’.
Individual differences are inherent in human behaviour and the normal state of societies is to change, rather than to maintain themselves. We should therefore ask why and how the principle of equality persisted and recurred, rather than why and how hierarchies and social inequalities emerged.
For the Neolithic, two essential questions pose themselves:
1.Which social rules, collective representations, and cultural norms contained and limited these differences for so long in favour of equivalence and equality?
2.Which dynamics led egalitarian social systems to nevertheless accord their elementary units and individuals a sufficient freed
om of action to ensure that their adaptability, inherent in the diversity of human beings, allowed societies to change, and not only to maintain themselves (and hence disappear)?
THE ROLE OF THE BANDKERAMIK HOUSE IN REPRODUCING AND TRANSFORMING EGALITARIAN SOCIAL STRUCTURE
The necessarily collective construction of the Bandkeramik longhouse was, through its extreme standardization, a privileged (although probably not the only) occasion to reaffirm—through and for each participant—the collective identity and structuration of Bandkeramik society. By building their dwellings according to strict norms for many centuries (construction almost becoming a quasi-ritual), households—probably helped by kin and allies—reaffirmed that they belonged to their society, whilst simultaneously reproducing the egalitarian principle of that society. Reciprocally, the rules and norms re-imposed the egalitarian principle upon builders and households by immersing them in that egalitarian structure.
But how do we appreciate—in the light of this multi-secular normalization—the process that ultimately transformed the egalitarian social structure of Bandkeramik populations?
If the virtually ritualized construction and the everyday use of the house were essential instruments in the almost identical reproduction of Bandkeramik society, the inherent variations in the architectural system offered the possibility to act upon that system from within. The dynamics of reproduction and transformation should analytically appear in the relationships between the uniformity of certain components and the different degrees of variation of the other elements of the house. Bringing these relationships to light necessitated the archaeological ‘deconstruction’ of the building into its observable elements and the classification of them according to the number of alternative options that occur (in other words, the extent of variation).