Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.

Accepted Paper:

Surplus manipulation and social formation: the contribution of archaeological storage studies in tracing socio-cultural change  
Ioannis Voskos (University of Athens)

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between changing economic patterns and the appearance of asymmetrical power relations and social inequality in Prehistoric Cyprus via the assessment of storage activities.

Paper long abstract:

The accumulation of agricultural surplus is a key factor in the development of complex societies and surplus storage is an integral part of production and social reproduction. Although the link between surplus production and storage is vital for the understanding of social organisation, little attention has been paid to the causative character of this relationship.

In this paper, I argue that a careful examination of storage technology, storage installations and their interrelation with the use of space may provide useful insights into the organisation and relations of production, who controls the mobilisation and distribution/redistribution of agricultural surplus, which are the basic oppositions within a community that promote social change, etc. The economic consideration of given communities in specific chronological contexts may benefit from a theoretical framework which comprises issues such as the Marxian concepts of "mode of production" and "surplus value" as well as the employment of household-level and intra-site analysis. In this attempt, examples from prehistoric Cyprus (Ceramic Neolithic - Chalcolithic - Bronze Age) will be discussed.

Panel S35
Marxism in archaeology, reprised: the continuing relevance of power, ideology and structural change for an interpretive and socially engaged archaeology
  Session 1