| Abstract: |
That the continuity of house location over time was socially meaningful is further demonstrated in Ruth Tringhams diachronic analyses of domestic architecture of the Neolithic era in Southeast Europe. Most of the houses in that time-place were made of clay, and they were frequently burned as part of the life cycle of individual dwellings. Far from being a simple act of destruction, the firing of clay houses transformed them into enduring phenomena. It also facilitated their incorporation into a new structure that replaced the old at the same location, even after the passage of many years, creating a social memory of place in the purposeful action of materially incorporating what had been there before into a new incarnation. Understanding the importance of the endurance of the house, as the most salient material manifestation of the social group associated with it and with the land upon which it was built, is greatly facilitated by the concept of house societies, even in the deep past for which specific information on kinship or marriage alliances is lacking. From a larger perspective, Tringhams comparison of Neolithic house continuity patterns in Southwest Asia and Southeast Europethe basic dichotomy of tells and not-tells or open sitesreveals an unwarranted bias in understanding the social motivations of house replacement practices, which feeds into the common assumption that Southwest Asia was more precocious in its advancement towards urbanism. She suggests that instead of experiencing differences in a linear evolutionary sense, the peoples of these two regions developed different trajectories in sitting their housesmanipulating the built environmentto maintain a continuity of place.
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