Abstract
Smith et al. have presented a case study that demonstrates the value of integrating the analysis of archaeological, geoarchaeological, archaeobotanical and faunal material when studying the organisation of house activity areas. As such, their work continues a long and important tradition of methodological research designed to further the ability of archaeologists to find and interpret patterns among excavated materials. While microrefuse, archaeobotanical, magnetic susceptibility and chemical analyses have all been successfully applied to the spatial analysis of activity areas in the past (e.g. Marshall and Smith, 1999; Metcalfe and Heath, 1990; Middleton and Price, 1996), these techniques have rarely been integrated together into the spatial analysis of a single building. In their study of House 312, a Norse period longhouse at Kilpheder, South Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, Smith et al. very successfully combined a range of archaeological, bioarchaeological and chemical techniques in a highresolution spatial analysis that permitted the identification of activity areas and an internal partition wall within the house. The results of this particular case study, as well as other settlement studies carried out under the umbrella of the SEARCH project (e.g. Parker Pearson and Sharples, 1999a), demonstrate the benefits of integrating various environmental specialists into the research framework and sampling methodology at all stages of archaeological investigation.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Amorosi, T., Buckland, P., Olafsson, G., Sadler, J. and Skidmore, P. (1992) Site status and the palaeoecological record: a discussion of the results from Bessastadir, Iceland, in C. Morris and D.J. Rackham (eds.), Norse and Later Settlement and Subsistence in the North Atlantic, University of Glasgow, Department of Archaeology, Glasgow, pp. 169–191.
Barrett, J. (1997) Fish trade in Norse Orkney and Caithness: a zooarchaeological approach, Antiquity 71, 616–638.
Boast, R.B. (1987) Rites of passage: topological and formal representation, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 14, 451–466.
Boivin, N. (2000) Life rhythms and floor sequences: excavating time in rural Rajasthan and Neolithic Çatalhöyüik, World Archaeology 31, 367–388.
Brown, F.E. (1990) Comment on Chapman: some cautionary notes on the application of spatial measurements to prehistoric settlements, in R. Samson (ed.), The Social Archaeology of Houses, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 93–109.
Buckland, P., Sadler, J. and Sveinbjarnardottir, G. (1992) Palaeoecological investigations at Reykholt, Western Iceland, in C.D. Morris and D.J. Rackham (eds.), Norse and Later Settlement and Subsistence in the North Atlantic, Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, pp. 149–167.
Chapman, J. (1990) Social inequality on Bulgarian tells and the Varna problem, in R. Samson (ed.), The Social Archaeology of Houses, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 49–92.
Doxtater, D. (1990) Socio-political change and symbolic space in Norwegian farm culture after the Reformation, in M. Turan (ed.), Vernacular Architecture, Avebury, Aldershot, pp. 183–218.
Fehon, J.R. and Scholtz, S.C. (1978) A conceptual framework for the study of artifact loss, American Antiquity 43, 271–273.
Fitzpatrick, A. (1994) Outside in: the structure of an Early Iron Age house at Dunston Park, Thatcham, Berkshire, in A. Fitzpatrick and E. Morris (eds.), The Iron Age in Wessex: recent work, Trust for Wessex Archaeology, Salisbury, pp. 68–72.
Foster, S.M. (1989) Analysis of spatial patterns in buildings (access analysis) as an insight into social structure: examples from the Scottish Atlantic Iron Age, Antiquity 63, 40–50.
Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society, Polity Press, Oxford.
Grøn, O. (1983) Social behaviour and settlement structure: preliminary results of a distribution analysis on sites of the Maglemose culture, Journal of Danish Archaeology 2, 32–42.
Hall, A.R., Kenward, H.K., Williams, D. and Greig, J.R.A. (1983)Environment and Living Conditions at Two Anglo-Scandinavian Sites, CBA, London.
Hawkes, C. (1954) Archaeological theory and method: some suggestions from the Old W orl d, American Anthropologist 56, 155 -168.
Hayden, B. and Cannon, A. (1983) Where the garbage goes: refuse disposal in the Maya Highlands, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 2, 117–163.
Hillier, B. and Hanson, J. (1984) The Social Logicof Space, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hingley, R. (1990) Private and public space: domestic organisation and gender relations among Iron Age and Romano-British households, in R. Samson (ed.), The Social Archaeology of Houses, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 125–147.
Hodder, I. (1998) Introduction and Summary, Çatalhöyük 1998 Archive Report, Website address: http://catal.arch.cam.ac.uk/catal/catal.html.
Jameson, M.H. (1990) Domestic space in the Greek city-state, in S. Kent (ed.), Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 92–113.
LaMotta, V.M. and Schiffer, M.B. (1999) Formation processes of house floor assemblages, in P.M. Allison (ed.), The Archaeology of Household Activities, Routledge, London, pp. 19–29.
Leach, E. (1978) Does space syntax really ‘constitute the social’?, in D. Green, C. Haselgrove and M. Spriggs (eds.), Social Organisation and Settlement: Contributions from Anthropology, Archaeology and Geography, British Archaeological Reports International Series (supplementary) 47, Oxford.
Marshall, P. and Smith, H. (1999) The chemical and magnetic analysis of soils, in M. Parker Pearson and N. Sharples (eds.), Between Land and Sea: Excavations at Dun Vulan, South Uist, Academic Press, Sheffield, pp. 205–209.
McGovern, T. (1985) Contributions to the paleoeconomy of Norse Greenland, Acta Archaeologica 54, 73–122.
McGovern, T. (1992) Bones, buildings, and boundaries: palaeoeconomic approaches to Norse Greenland, in C.D. Morris and D.J. Rackham (eds.), Norse and Later Settlement and Subsistence in the North Atlantic, University of Glasgow, Department of Archaeology, Glasgow, pp. 193–230.
McGovern, T., Buckland, P., Savory, D., Sveinbjarnardottir, G., Andreason, C. and Skidmore, P. (1983) A study of the faunal and floral remains from two Norse farms in the Western Settlement, Greenland, Arctic Anthropology 20, 93–120.
Metcalfe, D. and Heath, K.M. (1990) Microrefuse and site structure: the hearths and floors of the Heartbreak Hotel, American Antiquity 781–796.
Middleton, W.D. and Price, T.D. (1996) Identification of activity areas by multi-element characterization of sediments from modem and archaeological house floors using Inductively Coupled Plasma-atomic Emission Spectroscopy, Journal of Archaeological Science 23, 673–687.
Murray, P. (1980) Discard location: the ethnographic data, American Antiquity 45, 490–502.
Oswald, A. (1997) A doorway on the past: practical and mystic concerns in the orientation of roundhouse doorways, in A. Gwilt and C. Hazelgrove (ed s.), Reconstructing Iron Age Societies: New Approaches to the British Iron Age, Oxbow, Oxford, pp. 87–95.
Parker Pearson, M. and Richards, C. (1994) Ordering the world: perceptions of architecture, space and time, in M. Parker Pearson and C. Richards (eds.), Architecture and Order: Approaches to Social Space, Routledge, London, pp. 1–37.
Parker Pearson, M. and Sharples, N. (eds.) (1999a) Between Land and Sea: Excavations at Dun Vulan, South Uist, Academic Press, Sheffield.
Parker Pearson, M. and Sharples, N. (1999b) Wheelhouse architecture and social space: clues to Iron Age cosmology, in M. Parker Pearson and N. Sharples (eds.), Between Land and Sea: Excavations at Dun Vulan, Academic Press, Sheffield, pp. 16–21.
Price, N.S. (1995) House and home in Viking Age Iceland: cultural expression in Scandinavian colonial architecture, in D.N. Benjamin (ed.), The Home: Words, Interpretations, Meanings, and Environments, Avebury, Aldershot, pp. 109–129.
Samson, R. (1990) Introduction, in R. Samson (ed.), The Social Archaeology of Houses, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 1–18.
Schiffer, M.B. (1972) Archaeological context and systemic context, American Antiquity 37, 156–165.
Schiffer, M.B. (1996) Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Simms, S. R. (1988) The archaeological structure of a Bedouin camp, Journal of Archaeological Science 15, 197–211.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Milek, K. (2001). Environmental Archaeology and the Interpretation of Social Space. In: Albarella, U. (eds) Environmental Archaeology: Meaning and Purpose. Environmental Science and Technology Library, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9652-7_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9652-7_21
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5634-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9652-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive