Measuring Complexity in Early Bronze Age Greece: The Pig as a Proxy Indicator of Socio-Economic Structures

Abstract

The interpretative potential of faunal analysis has long been underestimated in Greek archaeology. In the absence of written texts, zooarchaeology can be used to address economic organization- a central component of social complexity. Archaeological excavation has revealed variation among Early Bronze Age settlements in Greece. This variability in settlement size, coupled with evidence for craft specialization and possible administrative centers, suggests the naissance of a socially complex society. This examination suggests an alternate approach to complexity in society; it employs faunal analysis to address whether evidence for social complexity exists in the raising of livestock. Social complexity in ancient societies has been studied by historians, classicists, archaeologists and anthropologists alike. Material remains such as written texts, pottery, personal ornament, architecture, and art have provided the main corpus of evidence examined. Yet the most basic necessity has traditionally been over-looked - food. Subsistence strategies are a central facet in the lives of every individual, poor or wealthy, and are influenced by economic and ecological constraints, and by social mechanisms. Food choices are also a reflection of these and other factors - especially in the social realm. Amazingly, animal bones, often the most prevalent body of material recovered at archaeological sites, have not figured prominently in studies of social complexity in the early Greek Bronze Age.