Yasur-Lau Assaf. Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond
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12 james w. hardin
traces, functionally related forms, and source studies began to appear
alongside the more traditional style/typological studies (see Rathje
and Schier 1982: Chapter 4). To answer these more anthropological
questions, archaeologists turned to ethnoarchaeology, pioneering an
approach seeking to identify formally and functionally denable types
of households that served as building blocks of communities (Kramer
1979; Ashmore and Wilk 1988: 9). Houses and households, largely
regarded as the most elementary building block of society, became the
foci of these approaches.
Household Studies in the Levant
In the early–mid-1990s, when I began my doctoral research analyz-
ing activity areas in domestic structures in an attempt to understand
household organization in Iron II Judah, I could nd very little research
based on Levantine sites. At that time, the works described in the sec-
tion above, regrettably, had only minimally impacted the archaeology
of the southern Levant. While studies could be found that centered
on domestic structures, their main foci had been demography (Shiloh
1980; Routledge 1996) and descriptions of domestic architectural fea-
tures (Beebe 1968; Shiloh 1970, 1973, 1978; Braemer 1982; Wright
1985; Holladay 1992, 1997), with the most notable being the works of
L. Stager (1985a) and P. M. M. Daviau (1990, 1993).
Stager’s seminal investigation of the Iron I family, as reected in
the location and organization of domestic structures in Iron I settle-
ments, took a multivariate approach to understanding the past. He
employed archaeological, ethnographic, ethnoarchaeological, biblical,
and extra-biblical textual data to pose statements regarding the social
organization of the Iron I inhabitants of the highlands of Palestine,
particularly at the household/extended household level (Stager 1985a).
Stager maintained that such a varied approach increased the strength
of his inferences about household organization. Most archaeologists
would still agree that this is the case.
Daviau took a more narrowly focused approach to understanding the
household, by concentrating on the identication of activities taking
place in domestic contexts from sites dating to the second millennium
bce (Middle Bronze and Late Bronze Ages) (Daviau 1990, 1993). She
undertook a spatial analysis of hundreds of archaeological locus groups
that she meticulously reconstructed from the publications of various
understanding houses 13
Levantine sites in an attempt to identify activity areas in domestic con-
texts. Loci were identied functionally by their associated “toolkits.”
She reconstructed these toolkits (called functional paradigms) using
iconographic data from contemporary Egyptian tomb paintings and
from ethnoarchaeological data recovered in western Iran.
While these two studies vary in the success with which they address
their respective issues, they both focus research on a better understand-
ing of domestic space—Daviau on its use and identication, Stager on
how informative this space may be regarding societal organization at
and above the domestic or household level.
Since Stager’s and Daviau’s early work, there has been an increasing
emphasis placed on household archaeology for periods from the Natu-
an to the Hellenistic. is is true not only in the Levant, but through-
out much of the Mediterranean eastern littoral as well. A whole bevy
of new analytical technologies including, but not limited to, microde-
bris analyses (as well as sampling and computer-based methodolo-
gies for dealing with microartifacts), soil chemistry studies, and other
micromorphological studies have added signicantly to our abilities to
understand ancient households—including the activities in which its
members were involved, the organization of their activities, and varia-
tion within and between households. Additionally, the usefulness of
these studies for addressing larger anthropological issues has also been
demonstrated. e great quantity of Levantine archaeological data
related to households from many dierent periods facilitates cross-
temporal comparisons, thereby providing improved understandings of
the processes of culture change and how certain household types may
be very stable or fragile through time with changing social, economic,
and/or political factors. Household archaeology in the Levant is mov-
ing in a direction similar to that followed in other areas of the world
and there are a number of reasons why household archaeology in this
area (as well as in the eastern Mediterranean) should perhaps even set
the bar with regard to what can be learned from archaeology about
ancient households. More will be said about this below.
Identifying Domestic Space: Houses and Households
Regardless of where one is doing household archaeology, one must
deal with problems that arise when moving from the material record
to the activities and the organization of the household—or from stu
14 james w. hardin
to people, the things they do, and their organization. e household
is oen dened in systemic terms as an intermediate level of articula-
tion of processes between the individual and the community. ese
processes include social, material, and behavioral elements. I have
found the following denition of “household” useful when attempting
to identify its material correlates in the archaeological record: a cul-
turally dened, task-oriented domestic unit (Carter and Merrill 1979)
that is usually, but not always, coresident (Laslett 1972: 1; Horne 1982;
Kramer 1982a: 673; Netting et al. 1984: xxvi–xxviii). It is composed of
three elements: (1) the social, (2) the material, and (3) the behavioral.
e social unit (1), or the demographic unit, identies the number of
members and the members’ relationships (e.g., extended or nuclear)
(Laslett 1972: 28–34; see also Hammel and Laslett 1974). is unit may
include visitors, captives, servants, apprentices, laborers, lodgers, and
boarders in addition to blood relatives and adopted members as occu-
pants of its bounded residential space (Netting 1982: 642–643; Kramer
1982a: 666). e material unit (2) includes the dwelling, activity areas,
and possessions. e behavioral unit (3) includes the activities in which
the household engages (Wilk and Rathje 1982: 618), including some
combination of production, distribution, transmission, and reproduc-
tion/socialization (Wilk and Netting 1984: 5).
Archaeology cannot address equally well all three elements, because
we do not directly excavate households. As culturally dened, task-ori-
ented units, households are not directly observable in the archaeologi-
cal record. Such intangibles as kinship and anity (the social element)
do not exist as entities to be exposed through excavation. For this
reason, the basis for the archaeological understanding of the house-
hold is the identication of the tasks or activities it performed—i.e.,
what households did (so Wilk and Netting 1984: 2–6). All household
activities fall into four categories: production, distribution, transmis-
sion, and reproduction/socialization. While activities (the behavioral
element) are no more observable directly in the archaeological record
than concepts such as kinship and anity, residual remains produced
in the execution of household activities (the material elements of the
household) are preserved in the archaeological record as are other
features necessary for their performance. Patterns discerned in these
remains can be associated with specic activities and can therefore be
used to infer which activities took place, where they occurred, and,
possibly, who carried them out (behavioral and social elements of
the household). It is more likely that patterned, repeated activities, as
understanding houses 15
opposed to single activities, leave residues in the archaeological record
that can be associated with specic activities (Binford 1987; Rapoport
1990: 9).
Determining the form of domestic space—houses—in the archaeo-
logical record requires the identication of the material elements of
domestic space and the discernment of where these elements occur
in archaeological sites. e house is dened as a physical structure
or area within which domestic activities take place. It is the physi-
cal setting of consumption, reproduction, and other activities that
may be included in the domestic sphere (Ashmore and Wilk 1988:
6). e domestic space occupied by a household is oen identied by
the architectural unit that bounds, and to some degree determines the
structure of, the space where domestic activities are regularly carried
out by household members. is space is oen termed the household’s
“built environment” and consists of the organized temporal relation-
ships among architectural resources, spaces, features, artifacts, ani-
mals, and people (Clarke 1979: 460–464; Rapoport 1980: 291–296). It
is the locus where many, but not all, household activities are regularly
carried out. Also, it is the environment where the inhabitants’ cultural
choices are frequently expressed in material form, albeit oen covertly
(cf. Glassie 1975; Deetz 1982; Leone 1982; Rapoport 1990: 9–10). is
built environment, as architecture, has bounded space (Kent 1990a: 3)
and ultimately constitutes “a logical pattern of entities and relation-
ships built around activities” (Martin 1971: 6). e organization and
form of this bounded space is heavily inuenced by human behavior,
and, conversely, human behavior is inuenced by the built environ-
ment (Altman 1975; Rapoport 1980; Sanders 1990).
In addition to human behaviors, a number of additional factors can
inuence the organization, form, and function of domestic space and
its placement in the community. Based on the work of others, Sanders
discerns seven factors inuencing the form and function of the built
environment: climate, topography, available materials, level of tech-
nology, available economic resources, function, and cultural conven-
tions (Sanders 1990: 44; cf. Trigger 1968: 55–60; Altman and Chemers
1980: 156; Rapoport 1980; Netting 1982; McGuire and Schier 1983;
Noble 1984: vol. 1; Oliver 1987: 9–11, 57–120). Sanders groups these
factors into three categories: naturally xed, culturally xed, and ex-
ible (1990: 44).
Archaeologists employ many methods to identify and isolate domes-
tic space and the built environment in the archaeological record. Early
16 james w. hardin
attempts included the application of the “principle of abundance,” by
which the architectural category with the majority of structures within
a town or community was thought to represent domestic structures
(e.g., Willey et al. 1965; Haviland 1966). is principle seems to hold
true cross-culturally (Leventhal and Baxter 1988: 52). Other common
methods incorporate the analysis of the architectural layout of build-
ings (Wauchope 1934, 1938; Smith 1962: 217–218). ese include ana-
lyzing the quality of construction (A. M. Rosen 1986; Leventhal and
Baxter 1988: 58–59); determining structure size (Leventhal and Bax-
ter 1988: 59); associating the dwelling with a delineated cooking area
within a complex of rooms (Gnivecki 1987: 186; cf. Kramer 1982a:
669–670); identifying a delineated living room (Horne 1982: 685;
Kramer 1982a: 668; Reid and Whittlesey 1982: 69); isolating rooms
oriented toward an enclosed or otherwise isolated courtyard, plaza, or
outside space (Horne 1982: 678; Leventhal 1983); isolating bounded
space by analysis of circulation patterns within and among buildings
(Kramer 1982a: 671); and identifying structural and artifactual redun-
dancies (Kramer 1982a: 673). Artifacts excavated from structures also
have been used to identify dwellings (Daviau 1990). Statistical analy-
ses (e.g., cluster, discriminate, or multivariate) have been applied to
artifacts (and, more recently, microartifacts) discovered in structures
and functionally correlated with activities taking place within domes-
tic contexts (Haviland 1981; Kent 1984; Leventhal and Baxter 1988;
Daviau 1990, 1993).
While all of these methods are useful for studying the domestic
structure, these structures can still be elusive entities in the archae-
ological record. An understanding of the domestic structure can be
complicated by the oen makeshi and continually changing nature
of houses, necessitated by the need to suit its residents, who also are
in a constant state of ux (see Goody 1958). A great deal of variabil-
ity in the spatial organization of patterns of circulation, artifacts, fea-
tures, and activities within an architectural setting may be a further
complication.
However, diculties identifying domestic space generally are not
true of the domestic structures of the Levant. While identications of
domestic space oen are intuited, use of any of the methods above usu-
ally conrms the intuited identications. Houses in some geographi-
cal and temporal areas of the Levant exhibit remarkable isomorphism
while others vary signicantly. However, the sheer volume of archaeo-
logical examples of domestic structures from the Levant greatly aids
understanding houses 17
the identication process as do the preservation and types of remains
revealed in many excavations.
e Levantine Archaeological Record
e quantity of archaeological work undertaken in the Levant, par-
ticularly the southern Levant, is truly remarkable when compared with
that in other areas of the world. Much of this has to do with the area’s
location along an important corridor connecting three continents, as
well as its proximity to centers of early civilizations in Egypt, Mesopo-
tamia, and Anatolia. It also has much to do with Western interest in
the ancient biblical world. Regardless of the reasons, we have a great
deal of archaeological data to draw upon for household study, from
the times of the earliest sedentary-trending settlements to very recent
towns and cities. Available for study are numerous partial houses,
complete houses, entire domestic areas/quarters, and even virtually
complete towns and city plans. e quality of these remains can also
be impressive. e most frequently used building materials (especially
mudbrick and stone) are quite stable in the archaeological record and
structures are oen preserved up to or above oor levels, especially in
tell sites (see A. M. Rosen 1986). e excellent preservation of domes-
tic structures is oen due to the way they entered the archaeological
record.
A common phenomenon quite unique to the eastern Mediterra-
nean and specically the Levant is the ubiquitous destruction stratum
so prevalent in many types of sites but particularly tells. ese strata
are usually derived from remains le aer military conict, accidents,
or natural disasters (especially seismic activity). ey oen consist
of site-wide destructions where settlements are burned or otherwise
destroyed and covered over rapidly before the site is reoccupied. e
structures preserved among the destruction debris oen contain largely
intact systemic inventories of artifacts preserved in or near their use
locations. When the locations of these assemblages of artifacts are
carefully mapped within domestic contexts, and when patterns intro-
duced by natural and cultural formation processes are accounted
for, these assemblages become invaluable for understanding house-
hold activities. e retrieval of similar information from the oors
of domestic structures that yielded few or no systemic artifacts has
been accomplished by recent advancements in soil chemistry studies
18 james w. hardin
and microdebris recovery techniques and analysis. erefore, the
Levantine archaeological data available for household investigations
are rich in both quality and quantity.
Other Sources of Household Data
In addition to the rich archaeological record, we are fortunate to have
other sources that are useful for addressing ancient households, par-
ticularly the textual/historical record and the ethnographic/ethno-
archaeological record. e complementary role these sources play
with archaeology in reconstructing ancient households and their social
structure was already realized by Stager (1985a) in his work on the
Iron I household. A brief discussion of the usefulness of these data
when analyzed together with archaeological data follows.
Textual Data
Using texts to understand ancient household organization has a long
history in biblical studies (see, especially, Gottwald 1979; but also
Porter 1967; Safrai 1976; Wright 1979, 1992; Meyers 1991; Perdue et
al. 1997; Levine 2003) as well as in the broader Near East in general
(Mendelsohn 1948), from Egypt to Syria-Palestine (Kempinski and
Na’aman 1973; Schloen 2001; Levine 2003), Anatolia, and Mesopota-
mia (Larsen 1977; Roth 1987; Westbrook 1991; Dercksen 2004; Tricoli
2006). Texts useful for understanding households extend back more
than four millennia in many of these areas and have been used to
identify households and individual household members; reconstruct
household organization; identify the activities in which households are
involved; investigate the way household activities are organized; and
understand a household’s relationships with other social institutions
and the economy.
Some texts used for reconstructing households date later than the
events they describe (e.g., biblical texts, king lists, etc.). Others are
found in archaeological contexts and are contemporary with, as well as
geographically near to, the more mundane types of archaeological data
used for reconstructing households. Both sources provide excellent
comparative data for better understanding household organization.
ey can be especially useful for establishing links between material
understanding houses 19
culture, on the one hand, and behaviors, activity areas, and social
structure, on the other. When archaeological and textual sources are
used together, they can provide important support or correctives for
one another (e.g., see Meskell 1992). Many scholars see the value of
textual data for establishing correlations between material culture and
the social organization of those who produced and/or used it. How-
ever, there is less agreement regarding the similar usefulness of ethno-
graphic data.
Ethnographic, Ethnohistoric, and Ethnoarchaeological
1
Data
Other important sources of data used by archaeologists to establish
links between material culture and behaviors, activity areas, and social
structure include ethnography, ethnohistory, and ethnoarchaeology.
e Middle East is rich with many examples of these types of stud-
ies. Archaeologists have long claimed that ethnographic and ethno-
archaeological resources provide rich data and cultural information
with which to supplement the oen insucient information provided
by textual evidence and archaeological excavations for reconstructing
elements of past societies. e same spatial organization of activities
observed in the ethnographic or “systemic” context may underlie the
patterning of debris recovered from the archaeological record (Brooks
and Yellen 1987: 63). erefore, it was believed by many archaeolo-
gists that ethnography, ethnohistory, and ethnoarchaeology, at the
very least, worked well as points of departure for testing identica-
tions of cultural material and behavior by providing analogous materi-
als that could be used in interpretations of archaeologically recovered
material culture.
2
Direct ethnographic data collected from cultures
spatially and/or temporally near the study group are seen as the most
1
e term “ethnoarchaeology” is used here to describe ethnographic work that
was undertaken to provide potentially useful data/materials to aid in the identication
and interpretation of archaeological materials based on insights gained from the study
of recent or contemporary observations (see, e.g., Ascher 1961, 1968; Kramer 1979,
1982a; Watson 1979; Hodder 1982; Gould and Watson 1982; Wilk 1983). Ethnoar-
chaeologies oen are used in tandem with the more traditional ethnographies.
2
London (2000: 3–4) cites examples of the types of issues addressed recently in the
Middle East, including ceramic technology ( Johnston 1974; Matson 1974; Rye 1981),
bread and cooking oven technology (McQuitty 1984), architecture (Aurenche and
Desfarges 1985; Khammash 1986; Layne 1986; Kamp 1993), agriculture (Fuller 1986;
Palmer 1998), Bedouin camp sites (Lane 1986; Suleiman 1988; Simms 1988; Saidel
20 james w. hardin
useful, but comparative materials taken from indirect or cross-cultural
ethnographic data also are seen as useful. Cross-cultural comparisons
have been used to demonstrate patterns intelligible across cultural
lines, highlighting those things that one culture shares with others
and thus providing plausible explanations of the observed similari-
ties. On the other hand, such comparisons can also draw attention to
aspects of culture that are particular to only one group, highlighting
the need for explanations of the observed dierences. However, direct
ethnographic observations, or what are termed by some as relational
analogies (Hodder 1982; Wylie 1985), are generally seen to be the most
reliable and useful.
Direct ethnographic observations from contemporary settlements
located in the same region as the archaeological settlement under
investigation are seen as particularly useful for comparison with
archaeological data (and biblical and other textual information). ese
make good comparisons because they operate under the same ecologi-
cal constraints, are generally demographically similar, and have mostly
the same resources available for exploitation as did the ancient inhab-
itants that preceded them. In fact, some scholars would limit the use of
ethnographic analogy only when a demonstration of conservatism and
continuity with the prehistoric society under study is strongly exhib-
ited (Hill 1998: 109; see already Gould 1978a).
While few scholars would disagree that ethnographic, ethnohis-
toric, and ethnoarchaeological data are useful for understanding
the more functional aspects of material culture in the past, there
is less agreement with regard to their usefulness for understanding
the organizational aspects of past societies—whether social, political,
or economic. Some scholars have questioned the usefulness of com-
parative ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological studies on several
bases. ey fault those engaged in these studies for including erro-
neous emic views and interpretations about ethnographic and archae-
ological data, neglecting gender studies, viewing social organization as
static and crystallized, and implicitly assuming similar, uniform social
organization between ethnographic cultures and the ones being inves-
tigated archaeologically.
3
2001), tent construction (Banning and Kohler-Rollefson 1986); and animal husbandry
(Geraty and LaBianca 1985).
3
is stems from functional and processual theoretical models of the 1950s, 60s,
and 70s, when much ethnographic eldwork was undertaken and when culture was
understanding houses 21
With regard to gender studies in particular, issues neglected include
studying gender as an organizing principle, ignoring or paying insuf-
cient attention to studies of women’s technologies and productive
tasks, neglecting women’s roles in inuencing and changing social
organization, assuming absolute divisions of labor between men and
women, assuming gender divisions are based on an absolute division
of labor, and viewing gender roles and activities as static and unifor-
mitarian rather than dynamic and adapting (e.g., Blackwood 1984;
Conkey and Spector 1984; Meyers 1988, 2002a, 2003a, 2003b; McGaw
1989, 1996; Meigs 1990; Conkey 1991, 1993; Conkey and Gero 1991;
Gilchrest 1991; Hastorf 1991; Whelan 1991a, 1991b; Wylie 1991, 1992,
1993; Classen 1992; Fagan 1992; Moore 1993, 1994; Herdt 1994; Con-
key and Tringham 1995; Stanton and Stewart 1995; Meskell 1996;
Wright 1996; Friend 1997; Nelson 1997, 1993; Hill 1998).
All of these issues are valid and important, and must be kept in
mind when using ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological data to aid
interpretation of archaeological remains. Numerous ethnographic
and ethnoarchaeological studies have addressed problems inherent
to analogical-based studies (e.g., Ascher 1961; Binford 1967; Dunnell
1978, 1992; Gould and Watson 1982; Salmon 1982; Wylie 1982, 1985).
Others have gathered the kind of data necessary for assessing the use-
fulness of archaeological data in determining aspects of past societies
(e.g., Ascher 1961; Roberts 1965; Oswalt 1967; Crystal 1974; Gould
1978a, 1978b; Matson 1974; D. E. ompson 1974; Adams 1976; Stiles
1977; Yellen 1977a, 1977b; Binford 1978; Kramer 1979; Watson 1979;
Downing et al. 1981; Kent 1984, 1987; Newell 1987). Others still have
researched the location and use of activity areas to determine whether
etic notions regarding the use of space are accurate or even useful
when attempting to reconstruct past activities (e.g., Binford 1978a;
Bonnichsen 1973; Kent 1984, 1987; Newell 1987; Portnoy 1981; Yellen
1977b). e archaeological literature on this subject also is abundant
(e.g., Hammack 1969; Watson et al. 1971; Anderson 1974; Blake 1976;
Schier 1976; Brugge 1980; Breternitz 1982; Kent 1984; Newell 1987).
Related to these studies are ethnographic and archaeological research
undertaken to study male/female use of space (e.g., Bourdieu 1973;
Flannery and Winter 1976; Yellen 1977b; Agenbroad 1978, 1982; Kent
viewed largely as a reaction to ecological constraints and the availability of land and
labor resources, and seen as proceeding along unilinear evolutionary trajectories.