The Architectural Expression of Social Categories at Five Early Bronze Age West Anatolian Communities

This study is both a critical examination of the social category of the individual in archaeological interpretations as well as a demonstration of how architectural remains can be analyzed as a material expression of social units and boundaries. I argue that the category of the individual is socially constructed and culturally variable. Cross-cultural research has shown patterned differences in the way that people conceptualize the relationship between an individual and larger social groups. Western ideas of the individual within society have developed in a specific way and may be inadvertently misapplied in archaeological interpretations of ancient societies. Archaeologists need to develop better methods to investigate the changing material expression of the individual in relation to other social categories within ancient contexts. Ideas of the individual and relationships between social units can become physically manifested in forms of material culture. The built environment has a special relationship to the expression of social categories by providing a physical structure, which can either enclose or create boundaries between them. There are specific aspects of the built environment, including segmentation, privacy controls, and canonical communication that offer potential in exploring the ancient material expression of social categories. Five excavated sites: Thermi, Poliochni, Troy, Karatas and Demircihuyuk, from the West Anatolian Early Bronze Age (early 3rd millennium B.C.E.) provide a case study. I show how investigating questions about the form of houses and communities may reveal how people thought of and used spatial arrangements to express their social knowledge of themselves as an individual and larger social categories.