Geoarchaeological Relations between Architectural Space and Social Practices

ongoing

The understanding of architectural space is of fundamental importance in archaeology. However, to fully comprehend architectural space, both social practices and activities (as well as their temporality) should be taken into consideration as cultural groups not only create space but also define themselves through the activities that they perform within and around it. This reflexive relationship between space and society is challenging to study, especially in Mediterranean prehistory. While part of the problem lies with the way social theory is applied to archaeology and the understanding of space, the biggest challenge consist in the poorly preserved record regarding architecture and activities, and in the lack of methodology to implement the data resolution of archaeological deposits. The proposed project, “Geoarchaeological Relations between Architectural Space and Social Practices” (GRASSP) seeks to propose a new theoretical and methodological approach to the study of space in archaeology. GRASSP propose to study the relationship between architectural space and social practices at the Mycenaean site of Pylos (Greece) by using cultural sediments as primary dataset. GRASSP has access to a unique dataset of samples and it uses an interdisciplinary methodological and theoretical toolkit consisting of archaeological and social theory, and diverse geoarchaeological techniques in order to reveal the architectural characteristics of the buildings, identify the type of activities performed in these structures, their temporality (transformation/abandonment), and their associated knowhow. GRASSP will bring attention on aspects of material culture that are other than material while rediscussing the role played by cultural sediments in the understanding of space and practices. It will also advance the archaeological discipline by filling deficiencies in methodology and theory applied to the study of the active mutual relationship existing between space and social practice.