Abstract
Traditional models of the introduction, spread and impact of the Neolithic way of life tend to assume that novel reorientations and developments are something that happens elsewhere to which people merely respond—for example, by adopting agriculture, settling down and creating permanent houses. This chapter suggests that we need to investigate the deeper structure of these pioneering societies and to reconceptualise the Neolithic house as an active social framework for life, as a context for the transformations that occur. Indeed, it is in the continually shifting relationships within and between social groups that wider developments can be best understood. This view is explored through an examination of the different manifestations of early settlement in Greece, the role and forms of houses, the interplay between the different scales of space and time at which all this happened and the range of relationships that it involved.
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Souvatzi, S. (2013). Diversity, Uniformity and the Transformative Properties of the House in Neolithic Greece. In: Hofmann, D., Smyth, J. (eds) Tracking the Neolithic House in Europe. One World Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5289-8_3
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