Aegean parallels and other thoughts

In class we spent most of our time considering the intellectual history behind ideas of pristine state formation and/or urbanism, and then moved on to consider the archaeological manifestations usually associated with these processes (esp. the Uruk phenomenon). In particular, the trope of the city-state (urbs + rus), centred on a temple which managed agricultural production and distribution as a hegemonic force came to the fore. Whilst this has been critiqued, it seemed to be the case that the notion of a polity structured around a redistributive process was alive and well, at least (albeit implicitly) in Stein's manifesto for future research on Mesopotamian urbanism. This struck something of a chord; for a significant amount of time, Aegean prehistory has been concerned with what is apparently a similar problem. However, the explanation which still seems to possess some currency in Mesopotamia (the redistribution thesis) has come under pressure in the last decade or so. Qualitative and quantitative differences in the data sets notwithstanding, I'd briefly like to explore some of these new emphases in the Aegean scholarhsip, to assess whether they have potential applicability to similar phenomena in the Near East.

The primary function of the LBA 'palaces' in the Aegean (seemingly urban centres on Crete - Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia etc. - and on the mainland - Pylos, Mycenae) was understood to be the management and redistribution of an agricultural surplus (Renfrew 1972). This surplus was believed to support the existence of the elites who were responsible for distributing it, and in permitting the existence of the craft specialization which resulted in the material culture which the elites used both to impose their ideology and to engage in social competition. The venue for this redistribution was the central node of the polity (state), the palatial centre, where the Priest-King presided over a complex bureaucracy (i.e. the paraphernalia of state). This possesses obvious similarities to the temple-state narrative of the Uruk phase urban centres, and is associated with a desire in Aegean scholarship to understand the Cretan polities as primary states a la Uruk (see Cherry 1986).

This interpretation has been problematized on a number of levels, and I leave the question open as to whether these criticisms apply to the Mesopotamian model also. A few are worth noting:

- SURPLUS. It is the existence and control of surplus which allows the development of an elite and simultaneous craft specialization in the classic Aegean model. Surplus plays a similar role in the Mesoptamian sphere (Eridu and then Uruk). However, recent ethnographic research suggests that sedentary agricultural societies always produce a surplus, as a solely subsistence-oriented strategy is fundamentally unviable over the long-term (Horden and Purcell 2000: 175-230; Halstead 1999). Surplus is therefore to be expected in the preceding Neolithic. Consequently, the appropriation of the control of that surplus by the 'temple' must be explained, or it conceded that surplus doesn't play as central a role as it has been seen to.

- CONSUMPTION. Further work has suggested that the monumental centres of the LBA were places for consumption as much as redistribution; furthermore, this explains their capacity to store in bulk. Large-scale, hierarchical feasting is attested at Knossos and Pylos, amongst others (Day and Wilson 2004; Dabney et al. 2004; Hamilakis 2000). This commensal consumption has been understood to be socially constitutive; consequently, these centres become places for the enactment of social difference. Recent research has suggested that the practice of feasting on a massive scale has antecedents in the Late Neolithic (Pappa et al. 2004). Consequently, LBA consumption, associated as it is with architectural elaboration, has been taken to represent a 'hardening' of these practices, of a process of making conspicuous. On this reading, the palatial centres become, not cities or urban centres in any true sense, but rather the material manifestation of social difference in the landscape, primarily places of performance and enactment, but not products of 'urbanization.' I wonder whether there is any potential in addressing the Uruk centres in these terms?

- RURAL FOCUS. Ilse Schoep (2006) has recently suggested that an unrelenting focus on the products of so-called state formation and urbanization (i.e. Knossos, Mycenae, or by extension Lagash, Uruk) neglects developments away from these nodes (in indeed they are nodes). Schoep points to the countryside and the chora, and suggests that competition and interaction amongst, not just the agricultural labor, but also amongst landowners etc., can be located here, especially in extra-urban ritual and display (funerary? domestic?). Stein talked of the tension between centrifugal and centripetal tendencies. Implicitly, he associates centripetal with the urban elites (temple?), and centrifugal with non-elites (anti-urbanizing forces). However, it is perhaps important to remember that the interaction and negotiation of power in the hegemonic group (which is after all composed of people) can be played out across the canvas of the landscape, not just in the perceived centre.

- EPIPHENOMENA. As noted, there has been an autonomist tendency in Aegean scholarship (Renfrew, Cherry - refs. in Barrett and Halstead The emergence of civilisation revisited), albeit one tempered by an exogenous school (A Sherratt, Watrous - refs. in ibid). In attempting to move beyond this, the LBA mainland centres have recently been characterized as mere epiphenomena of wider Mediterranean processes (Sherratt 2001). Rather than centres for control of hinterlands and control of production, they have been seen as localized responses to wider patterns of long-distance exchange, which lose social relevance when these patterns are reconfigured. May we see the 'Uruk phenomenon' states in these terms? Rather than the Mesopotamian urban polities being primary states in-and-of themselves, would it be possible to re-interpret them as epiphenomenal with regard to Uruk, the immense consumptive demand of which (at c.500-600 ha in Uruk IV/V?) must have been prodigious?

I deliberately leave these questions open-ended, both as food for thought and because answering them would require detailed work outside of the scope of this paper. But I would argue that the approaches seen here would prod the study of the Mesopotamian phenomenon in productive new directions, not least by attempting to de-emphasize the 'city' as the sole object of study and reference.

Cherry, J.F. 1986. Polities and palaces: some problems in Minoan state formation. In Renfrew, C. and Cherry, J.F. (eds.). Peer polity interaction and socio-political change, Cambridge: CUP, 19-45

Dabney, M.K., Halstead, P. and Thomas, P. 2004. Mycenaean feasting on Tsoungiza at Ancient Nemea. In Hesperia 73: 197-215

Day, P.M. and Wilson, D. 2004. Ceramic change and the practice of eating and drinking in Early Bronze Age Crete. In Halstead and Barrett 2004: 45-62

Halstead, P. 1999. Neighbours from Hell? The household in Neolithic Greece. In Halstead, P. (ed.). Neolithic society in Greece, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 77-95

Halstead, P. and Barrett, J. (eds.) 2004. Food, cusine and society in prehistoric Greece, Oxford: Oxbow

Hamilakis, Y. 2000. The anthropology of food and drink consumption and Aegean archaeology. In Vaughan, S.J. and Coulson, W.D.E. (eds.). Palaeodiet in the Aegean, Oxford: Oxbow, 55-63

Horden, P. and Purcell, N. 2000. The corrupting sea: a study of Mediterranean history, Oxford: Blackwell

Pappa, M., Halstead, P., Kotsakis, K. and Urem-Kotsou, D. 2004. Evidence for large-scale feasting at Late Neolithic Makriyalos, Greece. In Halstead and Barrett 2004: 16-44

Renfrew, C. 1972. The emergence of civilisation, London: Methuen

Schoep, I. 2006. Looking beyond the first palaces: elites and the agency of power in EMIII-MMII Crete. In AJA 110: 37-64

Sherratt, E.S. 2001. Potemkin palaces and route-based economies. In Voutsaki, S. and Killen, J. (eds.). Economy and politics in the Mycenaean palace states, Cambridge: PCPS, 214-238