Starting in Southwest Asia ~12,000 years ago, this new, Neolithic mode of economic subsistence triggered an unprecedented level of population aggregation: mobile or semi-mobile societies became sedentary and houses and villages emerged on a scale that had not previously been seen. This transition brought with it fundamental changes in economic relationships, symbolic behaviour, and social structure. Houses appear to have played a new, central role in these early farming communities and frequently formed the main foci of daily and ritual practice. For example, these structures were often rebuilt several times in the exact same position, suggesting strong ties to place and perhaps some sort of transmission of property. Most crucially perhaps, they provided not only space for the living, but also for the dead, which were frequently interred beneath the floors of houses during or shortly after their use.
Nonetheless, the composition of the social groups using these houses and the relationship between both their living and dead inhabitants is still a matter of debate. Whereas some scholars maintain that membership was mainly based on biological kin ties, others maintain that the house had a more practical function, hosting unrelated individuals that cooperated in joint work activities. At present, most research into the composition of the Neolithic social groups has been undertaken by looking at architecture and settlement structure, variations in intra-group mortuary practices, and by drawing ethnographic parallels with existing agricultural societies. Comparatively, few attempts have been made to gather evidence directly from the human remains. By integrating evidence of biological relatedness (ancient DNA) and human mobility (Strontium and Oxygen stable isotopes) from several Pre-Pottery to Pottery Neolithic sites with the evidence gained through more traditional avenues of archaeological investigation, the research project What’s in a house? Exploring the kinship structure of the world´s first houses aims to fill in this gap and contribute to a better understanding of the social changes that accompanied the emergence and development of the world's first sedentary societies.
Photo Credit: SAPPO (Seminari d´Arqueologia Prehistorica del Proxim Orient).