Household Behaviour and Settlement Organisation at Late Geometric Zagora

Abstract

This thesis investigates past household behaviour and social dynamics using material excavated at the Early Iron Age (EIA) site of Zagora on Andros. Through a rigorous contextual study of domestic evidence, it addresses persistent scholarly statements about the settlement’s social organisation founded on assumptions drawn from later historical periods or superficial readings of the site plan. Specifically, it challenges discussion of Zagora as a formally planned settlement and the politicised contrast frequently made between the larger central-plateau houses and smaller-roomed houses elsewhere on site. By contextualising the excavated data in terms of the many processes that shaped it, this research also challenges shallow attempts to read gender into houses at LGII Zagora. Instead, it is argued that the settlement’s development was the cumulative consequence of household decisions, variously shaped by multivalent social, economic, and practical considerations. Building histories suggest ongoing spatial negotiation between households at the site, with evidence that earlier additive ambilocal residency patterns became increasingly difficult to sustain due to escalating spatial pressure. As a result, the final generations to inhabit the site developed more creative approaches to spatial modifications and behavioural patterning. Contrary to earlier studies that rely on room size as a measure of status, there is little evidence for the overt material manifestation of pronounced social inequality. Emphasised is the need to develop multi-layered, material understandings of people and their houses, before attempting to extrapolate socio-political inferences from settlement data. We must explicitly engage with lived experience, household spatiality, and deposition processes if we wish to convincingly interpret domestic archaeological evidence. This study emphasises the dynamic nature of households, alongside the considerable variability inherent to household spatiality and practices. Central is the importance of context to interpreting archaeological data: whether the original behavioural context, stratigraphic context, or research context. The result is a frank and reflexive consideration of how archaeological methods and practices can shape the data from which we infer past behaviour.