ΚΑΤΑΣΚΕΥΗ
ΤΩΝ ΚΟΙΝΟΤΗΤΩΝ
ΑΠΟ ΠΗΛΟ:
ΝΕΑ
ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞΗ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΑΚΡΩΤΗΡΙ
ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΜΕΤΡΗΣΗ
ΤΗΣ ΜΕΤΑΦΟΡΑΣ ΤΕΧΝΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ
ΚΑΙ ΤΗΣ
ΑΛΛΗΛΕΠΙΔΡΑΣΗΣ ΟΜΑΔΩΝ
ΣΤΟ ΝΟΤΙΟ ΑΙΓΑΙΟ
CONSTRUCTING
COMMUNITIES FROM CLAY:
NEW EVIDENCE
FROM AKROTIRI FOR CONSIDERING TECHNOLOGY TRANSMISSION AND GROUP INTERACTION
WITHIN THE SOUTHERN AEGEAN
Του JILL HILDITCH
An exciting
theme to emerge from recent material culture theory, in particular debates on
materiality and agency, is that human-object/artefact engagement is active,
reflexive, and dynamic: in other words, we should move beyond a ‘people make
pots vs pots make people’ dichotomy. Yet the implications of such an approach
have made little impact upon the traditional domain of archaeological science.
Within the Aegean, however, a new way of approaching changes in material
culture and social practice is now emerging. Over the past 30 years, systematic
and sustained ceramic analyses within this region have enabled archaeologists
to anchor characterization data within theoretical approaches to material culture
change. This is particularly relevant for investigating, for want of a better
word, the process of ‘Minoanization’, that is the perceived increase in Minoan
influence beyond the island of Crete during the later MBA and LBA periods, as
seen in the material record. Using the later MBA ceramic assemblage from the
Cycladic site of Akrotiri, I outline how traditionally scientific approaches
have been integrated within recent theoretical frameworks.
A key feature
of this approach is to acknowledge that material culture change must be
addressed not only at the micro-scale of pot production, but from a wider
community perspective (meso-scale) and at the regional macro-scale too. This
multi-scalar methodology has enabled us to reconstruct not only the dynamic
interactions between potter, raw materials, and environment, but also those
interactions that characterize community engagement with, or rejection of,
Cretan ways of ‘doing things’.
The notion that
humans construct their ‘self’ – who they are and their wider social relations –
through constant engagement with the material world in the production, use, and
distribution of material culture lies at the heart of agency theory in
archaeology. However, the role of agency and the individual in the production,
transformation, and negotiation of material culture is the issue that
archaeologists return to most. Within that question we must also consider the
locus of agency: who is engaging with what and what effect does this have on
the individual, group, or even society dynamic? We must also consider how
technology is transmitted and adopted through the interactions taking place
between agents, i.e. craftsperson, raw material, environment, and consumer.
Studying these communities in the periods immediately preceding significant
shifts in material culture patterning can help determine platforms from which
decisions on novelty and change can be made, i.e. we must identify the range of
choices and behaviours taking place within a community before the transmission
of a new technology to truly understand in what way that new technology changes
or transforms the community which chose to adopt it.
Mechanisms of
technology transfer involve both short- and long-term interactions, focused at
multiple scales of analysis. When we talk about the introduction of a new
ceramic technique to an area, such as the potter’s wheel, we are considering
the different ways and social contexts in which potters learn their technical
skills. The Aegean case study discussed uses a methodology that acknowledges
that modes of transmission, the social contexts of learning craft skills, and
the materiality of artefacts create a mutually reinforcing relationship with
their producers and consumers. Also, by defining the relevant scales at which
activities and behaviours pertinent to the MBA ceramic assemblage at Akrotiri
can be addressed, and by using appropriate conceptual tools and analytical
techniques that help us move between processes at different scales of analysis,
this research contributes to the study of wider organizational dynamics within
the Cycladic arena throughout the later Bronze Age. In other words,
archaeologists really do have the ability to reconstruct past communities and
their interactions out of clay.
5.12.2012
ΠΗΓΗ: 128 BICS-57-1 – 2014
© 2014
Institute of Classical Studies University of London.
ΛΕΞΕΙΣ-ΚΛΕΙΔΙΑ: ΑΚΡΩΤΗΡΙ, ΘΗΡΑ, ΣΑΝΤΟΡΙΝΗ, ΚΥΚΛΑΔΕΣ, ΠΗΛΟΣ, ΚΡΗΤΗ, ΜΙΝΩΙΚΟΣ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΜΟΣ, ΑΙΓΑΙΟ, ΝΟΜΟΣ ΚΥΚΛΑΔΩΝ
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