Crisis and Collapse in EBA Greece. Examining variation in response to the EH III crisis at Lerna, Kolonna and Olympia through the study of architecture, mortuary practices and pottery.

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Research Master Thesis Art History and Archaeology,

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Crisis and Collapse

in EBA Greece.

Examining variation in response to the EH III crisis at Lerna, Kolonna and Olympia through the study of architecture, mortuary practices and pottery.

Iris Lisette Rom

20-8-2015

ReMa Art History and Archaeology. S1720953

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Acknowledgements

I would like to begin by thanking Prof. Dr. Sofia Voutsaki for supervising me during the master phase of my studies at Groningen and guiding me during the process of putting this thesis together. Writing this thesis has been a challenging process for me in which I lost sight of where I was going on several occasions. Nevertheless, thanks to Professor Voutsaki’s many critical comments and good advice a finished product now sits in front of you.

I would also like to express my gratitude to all the amazing scholars I have had the pleasure of working with an learning from the past three years during several internships and projects in Greece: J.B. Rutter, W. Gauss, O.A. Jones, A. Balitsari and of course the rest of the Ayios Vasilios crew. A special thanks goes out to my fellow Greek Bronze Age student Theo Verlaan for the inspiring discussions on Bronze Age Greece on the Plateia of Xirokambi the past three summers while enjoying a glass of red wine

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Chapter 1: Introduction

The goal of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of human response to crisis and collapse in Greece during the Early Helladic III (EH III) period (2200-2000BC). After a long time of prosperity with increasing social complexity in the Early Helladic I and II periods (3000-2200 BC), the societies of mainland Greece seem to have suffered a major crisis and consequent societal collapse in EH III, of which the most striking visible changes in archaeology are the loss of monumental architecture, profound changes in domestic architecture and material culture, as well as the decline of

interregional contacts. In the past, archaeological investigations have mainly focussed on the causes of this crisis rather than on the consequences of a crisis for the Early Helladic societies. However, as it is becoming more and more clear that variations existed in how societies were affected during and after the crisis, these variations need to be explained as they likely reflect more than just the degree of crisis impact. People are not just passive bystanders when a crisis occurs, but have to react to the problems at hand. Their responses determine how well a society was able to cope with a crisis and ultimately, the ways a society is changed after the crisis passes. Yet the cause of variations in response to crisis and the reasons behind why societies reacted differently have hardly been addressed for EH III Greece.

The role of people and their conscious choices have mainly received attention in theories about increasing social organization and the rise of civilizations. Unfortunately, their importance has been little addressed in relation to social decline. The choices people make during their lives are influenced by many factors, such as social, cultural, economic, ideological, symbolical and historical background. A society shapes and limits the choices available to the people within it. However, this is a reciprocal process: society shapes choice, but the choices themselves shape society as well. The choices people make when confronted with problems are therefore not only dependent on the specific problem at hand, but also on local/regional factors that influence the decision-making process itself. In their turn, the choices that are made may influence the structure of the society after problems have passed.

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5 material culture, and associated practices, changed or stayed the same in periods of increasing tension and crisis, may reveal how crisis impacted the social structure of a society. The three sites under discussion all had significantly different outcomes after EH III events and were thus affected by the crisis in different ways. Investigating their situations before, during and after the crisis hopefully gives an idea about how their social structure changed and possibly results in the identification of factors (most importantly social factors, but also cultural, ideological, economic, etc.) that may have contributed to the choices people made when faced with crisis. These social structures and factors may help explain the developments of each specific site in times of crisis. Subsequently comparing the different sites may identify which factors were most important in influencing the developments of the sites.

One of the biggest problems that occur when comparing changes between settlements in times of crisis is that it is unclear how much each settlement was influenced by the crisis itself. This is especially problematic in the case of EH III, where the nature of the crisis is still uncertain and much debated. If a crisis hit a society hard enough, the people within it may not even have had a choice in their response. Distinguishing between local choices and local restricting factors is extremely difficult and may not be correctly recognized until it becomes more clear what the nature of the EH III crisis was. Although this remains a major uncertainty when investigating crisis, I still hope that by carefully approaching the subject I can make some convincing points on the influence of local choices on the developments during crisis.

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6 more clear, an attempt can be made to compare the settlements, see where they differ and try to explain what may lie at the basis of their different developments.

In short, in this thesis I will try to answer the following research questions:  What are crisis and collapse?

 How have crisis and collapse been addressed in archaeology?

 How can agency and intentional action be incorporated in the study of social decline?  How can social practices and social relations be recognized in an archaeological context?

- How can the study of material culture, and specifically architecture, mortuary practice, and (pottery) technology, help to reconstruct social practices and the social relations they represent?

 How are architecture, mortuary practice and (pottery) technology affected by crisis and collapse? What changing practices and changing social relations would be expected? What changes in cultural, social, economic, ideological etc. factors would be expected and how would these influence material culture?

 How has the EH III decline been approached in archaeology?

 What changes in material culture are visible in Lerna, Olympia and Kolonna from the transition from EH II to EH III? (architecture, mortuary practice, (pottery) technology). - What social practices do they represent? What restructuring of social relations do they

represent?

 What continuity in material culture is visible in Lerna, Olympia and Kolonna during the transition from EH II to EH III? (architecture, mortuary practice, (pottery) technology). - What social practices do they represent? What continuities of social relations do they

represent?

 What can the changes and continuities tell about the EH II-III transition.

- What differences/similarities are visible in social structure and practices before the crisis.

- What differences/similarities are visible in the response to the crisis?

- Can these changes be explained in the light of social strategies in response to crisis? - If no, what could have caused the changes in material culture?

- If yes, what choices made by people do the changes reflect and can a meaning behind them be deduced?

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1.1 Structure of thesis

In this thesis the questions formulated above will be addressed in two parts. The first part (consisting of the first three chapters) will consist of a theoretical discussion to provide a background to the problems of crisis and collapse and the way they have been addressed in archaeology. In this section I will address the way the processual and post-processual schools of thought have dealt with issues of crisis and collapse and how I will approach them. I will then continue with a discussion of how the EH III-crisis/collapse has been interpreted by archaeologists. In the second part of the thesis I will focus on the specific groups of material culture, pottery (technology and function), architecture and mortuary practice and their role in expressing social change in relation to crisis. In three separate chapters I will first discuss the way each category of material culture can be used to reconstruct practices of the past and their role in the expressions of the different factors (social, cultural, economic, ideological, symbolical, etc.) that make up a society. This will be followed by a discussion of how a crisis/collapse might influence each category of material culture and the ideas behind their production process. I will continue by taking a close look at the material culture of the different case-studies Lerna, Kolonna and Olympia to see how their material culture was locally affected, what social changes they may reflect, and in what way crisis may have played a role in this. I will finish the second part with a discussion of the EH III crisis in each of the three settlements and the similarities and differences between these settlements. Hopefully this will give an insight in the possible local/regional influences on the choices people made and may even help explain the different trajectories the three sites followed during and after the EH III period.

Before moving on to the theoretical discussion, I first would like to use this introductory chapter to briefly address the current interest in crisis and collapse in archaeology, as well as introduce my approach and specify my choice of material culture groups and specific case-studies.

1.2 Current interest in crisis and collapse.

Social change has always been one of the core subjects of archaeology and has received much attention from scholars. However, the theoretical debate on social change originally focused on the increasing complexity of societies, and not so much on the decline. More recently, the study of societal collapse has been receiving more and more attention. This increasing interest in the study of crisis may be due to two major reasons:

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8 renewal or its eventual collapse (Mitchell, 2013, p.6). However, one should be cautious when trying to interpret the collapse of past societies, as interpretations are often coloured by current events and thought (O’Brien, 2013). Interpretations may in some instances tell us more about the society engaged in archaeological interpretation, than it does about the society under study (O’Brien, 2013, p.13). Nevertheless, putting the problems of

interpretation aside, crises can be catalysts for change. People want closure after a crisis (especially if it coincided with loss of life) and make sure that the crisis does not re-occur. It is under those conditions that new religious ideas, and new leaders emerge that take cultures in a new direction (Jennings, 2008, p.177).

2. Perhaps of more influence on the current popularity of the study of crisis and collapse is its comparability. Since the experiencing of crises is not limited to a certain time or place, crisis lends itself well to comparisons (Mitchell, 2013, p.6). As people currently experience stresses on their own society such as the financial crisis, issues of climate change, increasing

population and the need to feed this population, the interest in the crises of ancient civilizations has grown.

The increased interest initially resulted in a large increase in physical science approaches (such as ecology and geology) to find the origins and dates of past crises (van Buren, 2001, p.141). However, this will be discussed more extensively in chapter 2, how all this scientific data relates to the impact on a society is not well theorized. Too often a natural disaster or other external factor has been labelled as the primary cause of a societal collapse even when its actual impact on a society is not well understood (van Buren, 2001, p.142). One should be aware that past crises and the way they develop are rarely mono-causal. They are affected by a complex combination of internal and external factors as their development is firmly embedded in a specific historical and geographical context. Therefore crises of the past cannot easily be compared to those of our present societies, nor can those crises be easily compared to each other.

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9 to each other. Material culture can reveal many things: Its use in social practices may reveal the economic structure, social and political organization of a society as a whole, and ultimately may reveal the motivations and values of the people that made and used the objects themselves. As mentioned before, in my comparisons I will address three different kinds of material culture: architecture, mortuary remains (or other traces hinting towards changing ideology when available) and (pottery) technology.

1.3 Studying material culture to infer meaning

Everything that people make is created, used and deposited with a specific meaning. What this meaning is, is variable and differs from society to society. Each society is shaped by its social, cultural, economic, ideological, symbolical and historical background. All, some or hardly any of these society-specific aspects may be reflected in the material culture. During production, the producer is

influenced by his/her socio-cultural context and will transmit this in the produced object through the following aspects: style, function or technology (Spencer, 2007, p.70). The object is to fit in the locally accepted/preferred styles, to participate in the local practices and made in the local technologies available and preferred. The study and interpretation of these practices and technologies (and to a lesser extent style, as it is extremely difficult to interpret its meaning in past societies) consequently may lead to an understanding of the social relations and values that are associated with the

production of the objects.

Studying changes in a societies material culture occurring over time has proven a highly interesting topic for archaeologists to address. The causes and consequences of these changes in appearance have been much debated by the major streams of thought within archaeology. Changes in the material culture can be caused by many things. Causes may range from practical

considerations (for instance a resource no longer being available or a newly-developed technique improving the quality or production process of an object) to the expression of new ideas or cultural influences from elsewhere. In this thesis I will explore the changes in material culture in a period of crisis/collapse. During unstable times, people are forced to review their way of life and they are more likely to reconsider their values and how to express them (Mitchell, 2013). This may result in new or altered practices, which will be visible in changes in the material culture. Changes in times of crisis may be even more abrupt/pronounced because crisis may also decrease the level of social

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10 The three categories of material culture I have chosen to discuss in the second part of this thesis have each played a significant but different role in the interpretation of ancient cultures. I have chosen architecture (more specifically: buildings, both monumental and domestic), as, together with pottery, it is the most abundant material category available. Architecture on a basic level reflects the practical needs of the people who used it (domestic residence, storage space, etc.), yet architecture was also used to convey and maintain the social/cultural values of the people using the buildings (household vs community, expression of social differentiation etc.). For the EH III period, changes in architecture are very pronounced. The disappearance (destruction) of monumental architecture, as well as the introduction of the apsidal house have been at the core of interpretations of an EH III crisis/collapse and it has been suggested that these were caused by the arrival of new people. Yet besides these changes, it is becoming more and more clear that there were also continuities: settlements stayed in use/were restructured, walls were reused (Weiberg & Lindblom, 2014, p.389). So if these changes are not due to the arrival of new people, what other causes may there be for the changes in architecture? How can crisis/collapse influence architecture? What practical

consequences may crisis have on the way buildings are constructed. What effect may crisis have on social relationships and values that can be expressed in architecture? What was expressed in EH III architecture and how did this differ from the preceding EH II period? Can these changes be assigned to the effects of a crisis, or to other forces? Are there differences between the sites in both EH II and EH III? How can these difference be explained, can they help explain the way the sites developed during EH III? I will address these questions in chapter 4, however answering them all may prove complicated. The architectural evidence is quite uneven between the to be discussed settlements. Although Lerna is well documented, Kolonna’s early architecture is much disturbed by later occupation and the evidence from Olympia is even more fragmentary. This influence of this unevenness must not be underestimated when trying to interpret and compare the three sites. The second category I have chosen is mortuary practice. The way people deal with their dead gives significant clues about ideas concerning the afterlife and hence about ideological choices. But mortuary evidence has also been used to make inferences on social differentiation, social identities of the deceased, as well as the relation of the living with the environment by claims of ancestry. Compared to architecture, the study of mortuary practices for the EH III period is rather problematic. Mortuary evidence is scarce for all of the EH period, becomes very rare in EH III and MH I, but again appears relatively abundant later in the MH period. Somewhere in the transition

between EH II and MH ideas on burial and the treatment of the dead change drastically.

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11 period it is worth to see how the available EH III mortuary evidence relates to the other periods. In chapter 5 I will look more closely at how mortuary practices in general may be affected in times of crisis, and how they developed during the EH III period. Some of the questions to reconsider are: What effects may crisis/collapse have on burial practice in general or associated ideology? What burial practices can be reconstructed for EH III (Who were buried, where were they buried, how were they buried)? What social relationships/values may have been expressed through the EH III mortuary practices? How do the mortuary practices (and underlying relationships/values) compare to the mortuary practices in the preceding EH II period and later MH period? Could an EH III crisis/collapse be at the basis of these changes, or are other causes more likely? Even though the burial material is scarce, combining it with the other categories of evidence and thus putting them into context may give a clue about the nature of the changes taking place in burial custom.

The third category of material culture I will address in this thesis is pottery. Pottery is

incredibly useful in the study of ancient people as it is almost always abundantly found in excavations due to its frequent production, relatively short period of use and likelihood of ending in

archaeological record, as well as good preservation after deposition (Skibo, 2013). It is however also a much debated subject, as the emphasis put on pottery by archaeologists today may not have been put on the pottery by the people at the time of production. Pottery has been used to make

inferences about almost all aspects of ancient societies: cultural influence, socio-economic status, cult, group affiliations, identities, level of specialization and so on. At the basis of the inferences is the debate which of the pottery attributes style, function and technology give what information (Spencer, 2007, p.69). Although I believe that all these attributes are important to understanding the past, I will limit my discussion in this thesis to the function, use and technology of the pottery. EH III pottery has a very local character and completely understanding all the differences in decoration and styles is not something that is easily interpreted without having the opportunity to touch and

compare the material in person. In this thesis I will therefore focus on pottery function, which may reveal something about changing social and cultural practices, their use within the community to reveal which social relations were emphasised through the use of pottery, and on pottery

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12 may this say about changing practices. But also, how could crisis/collapse influence the production (function and technology) of pottery? Here the discussion of technology comes into focus. How specialized was EH III pottery production? What effect may crisis/collapse have had on the

technological process? By comparing the function and technology between sites an insight may be gained if practices between sites differed, and whether these sites were affected differently by crisis. If so, what could be the social implications of these different choices? Again some differences in quality of the evidence is present. Lerna’s pottery is by far the best published site of the three

settlements. Although both Kolonna’s and Olympia’s pottery have been featured in discussions on EH III developments, there is significantly less material available and the context/stratigraphy is not always as clear as at Lerna. The influence of the unevenness of the evidence should therefore be considered when comparing the different settlements.

I will approach these material culture specific questions in the second half of the thesis in chapters 4, 5 and 6 along with the case-studies. I will use the remainder of this chapter to introduce the selected EH III sites, before moving on to the discussion of crisis and collapse in archaeology.

1.4 Geographical background

The archaeological evidence of EH III practices in Greece is very uneven and problematic. The material remains from the period are often scarce as well as poorly recognizable. Furthermore, not all areas in Greece have received the same level of attention by archaeologists (Rutter, 2002). Past research on EH III has focused mainly on sites in the eastern Peloponnese, the Argolid. This area, which has been often (wrongly) considered the heartland of the Mycenaean world, played an important role throughout most of the Greek Bronze Age and has therefore been extensively excavated and researched. For a long time ideas on EH III crisis on the mainland have largely been based on events taking place at the Argolid site of Lerna. This well-preserved site has been characterized as type-site of the period, and its local destructions have been interpreted as

representing large-scale contemporary destructions throughout most of mainland Greece (Caskey, 1960).

Although the notion of a widespread problem hitting the Mediterranean at the end of EH II still persists (many theories on climate change, land-overuse, hostile invaders and collapsing

networks have been launched, as will be discussed in chapter 3), attention is slowly shifting. As more recently other areas of Greece have started to receive more attention, it becomes possible to start looking more closely at subtle differences between sites and discuss the variability in events taking place throughout mainland Greece, the Greek Isles and other areas of the Mediterranean in EH III, rather than seeing EH III events as a widespread, uniform development (Rutter, 2002; Forsén, 1992).

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13 importance of Kolonna, which has been object of archaeological research and German publications for a long time, has only (fairly) recently been recognized. The site, located not far from the Argolid and Lerna, seems to have been affected less by the crisis, or at least it did not lose its level of social complexity and quickly became an important settlement with monumental architecture throughout EH III and the Middle Helladic period. On a regional scale differences have also become evident, with the western Peloponnesian site of Olympia in the centre of a discussion on the influence of a western trade network/sphere of influence that differed from the east (Maran, 2007).

In this thesis I will discuss these three sites, Lerna, Kolonna and Olympia (Figure 1). I will compare the differences and similarities in their transition from EH II to EH III, and try to interpret the social implications associated with this.

1.4.1 Lerna

The site of Lerna is located in the Eastern Peloponnese on the western shore of the Bay of Argos. It was discovered as an artificial mound of approximately 160x180x5.5 metres and excavated by the American School of Classical Studies under John Caskey’s direction from 1952 till 1959. He discovered a well preserved corridor house, “The house of the Tiles”, as well as the existence of a clear cultural break at the time of its destruction and he interpreted this evidence as the arrival of invaders causing the destructions and bringing their new, inferior culture (Caskey, 1960, p.298, 301-302). This

interpretation was used for a long time to explain the EH III situation as a whole, but was later re-evaluated with the theories of invasion questioned, largely abandoned and replaced by theories of cultural influence (Rutter, 1979; Forsén 1992; Banks, 2013, p.1)). Till this day, Lerna remains one of the sites I that is most frequently mentioned in the discussion of EH II/EH III-decline and has been used as an EH III/MH type-site, although the realization that Lerna is in fact a rather exceptional case is slowly permeating Early Bronze Age archaeology, and the possibilities of synchronous variability are receiving more and more attention (Weiberg & Lindblom, 2014). Both the EH II and EH III periods have been well published . EH II and III architecture has been extensively discussed by Wiencke (2000a,b) and Banks (2013), the pottery and small finds by Banks (1967) and Rutter (1995). For the EH III period close to a hundred structures/buildings have been identified, assigned to at least three phases of construction. However it is estimated that only 20% of the settlement of this period has been excavated (Wiencke, 2000a, p.3). Also, although well-excavated for the time, no sieving and soil sampling took place and also the competence of trench supervisors and recording procedures varied, leaving the evidence rather uneven (Rutter, 1995, p.1).

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14 provided natural harbours. The harbours and easy accessibility to Argos in the north and Arcadia to the south made Lerna the ideal location for a trading post. Although some trade took place in the EH period (metal imports, and some imported pottery were found), Lerna would not grow into a

prosperous trading post until the Middle Helladic period (Wiencke, 2010, p. 660, 667). However, Lerna’s location also had a large disadvantage: the drying out/filling of lakes and the receding of shoreline could at times leave extensive swamp areas (Zangger, 1991). The swampy areas would attract mosquitoes and with them malaria. Skeletal remains show that the inhabitants of Lerna were plagued by this disease (Angel, 1971).

In EH II, Lerna blossomed. Monumental architecture was built such as a large defensive wall with entrance to the city, as well as a corridor house (building BG), later replaced by the House of the Tiles. The House of the Tiles, together with some other buildings, was destroyed at the end of EH II and covered with a (ritual?) tumulus. It is unclear if the site was abandoned for a period, but Lerna’s society had markedly changed in EH III compared to the previous phase. Architecture changed, new types of pottery were introduced and (although few) the first intramural burials occurred. Society had altered and seems to have been less complex.

Because of Lerna’s important role in the discussion of EH III, this site needs to be included in any discussion of the EH III period. Although not representative of all aspects of the EH III crisis, Lerna offers a very interesting case study of a settlement losing central organization in the face of the EH III crisis. Its excellent publications (mostly on architecture and pottery) allow for not only a comparison of changing practices between EH II and EH III but also within EH III itself. A

reconstruction of how social practices changed during the crisis may help understand the underlying processes and local values of the Lernian people. Was there a restructuring of social relationships? If yes how abrupt/drastic were these changes? And can the social organization before the crisis, which greatly influence the behaviour of people, help explain how the site developed during the crisis?

1.4.2 Kolonna.

The settlement of Kolonna is located on the western part of the Island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. The settlement has known a long research history, starting in the late 19th_{century and continuing to} the present day. Excavations came under Austrian direction in 1966. Hans Walter excavated from 1966-1987, with later fieldwork seasons following in 1993 under F. Felten and S. Hiller and from 2002 to 2010 under Felten, W. Gauss and R. Smetana, as part of the “Synchronization of Civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd_{Millennium BC Stratigraphic Project Aegina (EH III-LH I)” which has} been focusing more on MBA stratigraphy and ceramic sequence (Gauss, 2010, p.737). The

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15 some aspects of the cultural break with Lerna, such as destructions and disappearance of several pottery types, the site also had a pronounced difference: it did not seem to have lost the social complexity that took Lerna hundreds of years to recover from. In contrast, Kolonna continued to develop a ranked society in the MH period with a large commercial and perhaps a political centre (Gauss, 2010, p.737). With the construction of the “Large building complex” and the strengthening of its fortification walls in MH I, it may even have been rivalling contemporary Minoan political entities on Crete (Niemeier, 1995). Because of the long research history the quality of excavation, documentation and publication varies greatly. Especially the findings from before the 1960s are poorly documented (Gauss & Kiriatzi, 2011, p. 19-21). The research has resulted in a rather detailed phasing of complex architectural plans of the prehistoric settlement later followed by a complete stratigraphic sequence of the site’s prehistoric levels in the inner-city (Walter and Felten, 1981). However, the amount of pure EH pottery contexts is low compared to those at Lerna. Also, not nearly as many EH III houses or preservation of remains comparable to those Lerna, were found at Kolonna. The excavators have used the fragmentary data to produce reconstructions, which need to be approached critically. Yet they sketch a significantly different situation: the (heavily) reconstructed EH III floor plans indicate a settlement planning with buildings along streets. However, an apsidal house was also found, which indicates variety in house types was possible.

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16 III/MHI hoard, may indicate the urge to hide wealth perhaps due to outside threats. Despite the changes and possible stress, the site was able to recover quickly.

That is why Kolonna serves as an example of a site that, although struck by problems in EH III, seemed to have been able to retain much of its social complexity and continued to be built on during the next period. Yet its changes in pottery and architecture (unfortunately there is little burial evidence) suggest that it suffered some of the same stresses Lerna had. It is therefore an interesting case-study to compare to Lerna. It will be interesting to see if the material culture allows for the reconstruction of practices that differ from Lerna. How do social practices change during the EHII/III transition at Kolonna? What social relationships may Kolonna’s practices emphasise, can they help reconstruct social values? Can changes be explained as responses to crisis? What similarities and differences are there in the changes and continuities between Kolonna and Lerna? Can the changes in values have contributed the choices people made and thus indirectly to Kolonnas’s retention of social complexity?

1.4.3 Olympia

The third case-study will be Olympia. Olympia is located in eastern Elis on the Peloponnese near the Alpheius river. Although Olympia is most famous as the location of the Olympic games in the Classical period, there is evidence that the site already was inhabited in the Early Bronze Age. Excavations at the site started as early as 1875 under the auspices of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens, and work has continued under German supervision ever since. Most EH III remains were uncovered by Dörpfeld and published in some detail in 1935 (Dörpfeld, 1935). New attention was directed to the prehistoric remains by Rambach, Maran and Kyrieleis because of Olympia’s possible role in a western trade network stretching from the Balkans to Malta and Italy (Rambach, 2002). Olympia has a unique mix of western and eastern influences: it also shows many parallels with the Eastern

Peloponnese, such as a ritual tumulus comparable to the one in Lerna, apsidal houses and the introduction of some rare intramural burials. However, the settlement’s pottery also shows parallels with that of the Cetina culture in the Balkans. Therefore the evidence from Olympia has revived the idea of invasion/migration of people from this Cetina culture into (western) Greece during EH III (Maran, 2007). Its unique position is very interesting to study in the light of EH III developments, although the remains were heavily disturbed by later activities at the site, and very fragmented information is available. EH III traces have been found in two locations in Olympia: the Altis and at the site of the construction of the New Museum. The evidence from the New Museum is very limited and publication poor: only several walls and some pottery have been found here. The evidence from the Altis is slightly better and revealed several house-plans, a tumulus and in-situ pottery.

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17 Olympia was located at a convenient location in the valley of the river Alpheus and its

tributary Kladeos, where there was plenty of access to fresh water and fertile soils. Occasionally however, the area would flood, and its occupants were probably forced to relocate. Although it is not completely clear when habitation of Olympia started, substantial amounts of EH II pottery have been found indicating settlement of the area in this period. The size and role of the settlement is unclear for this period because unfortunately, house architecture and burial remains are absent. There was no destruction layer found between the EH II and III phases, but as in Lerna a ritual tumulus seems to have been constructed toward the end of EH II, which was not covered by EH III architecture. The earliest domestic structures are dated to the EH III period. At the Altis several relatively well-preserved EH III apsidal house remains were found (Forsén, 2002). Although not published, some curved EH III walls have also been found at the location of the New Museum, suggesting here too the presence of apsidal houses (Koumouzelis, 1980). Some pottery changes occur as well. The Balkan-influenced wares seem to appear, but also some of the new drinking vessels as introduced in Lerna. Dated to EH III are also some of the first intramural pithos burials. Olympia did not clearly loose or gain complexity during/after the EH III crisis, but habitation at the Altis continued into the MH period when people seem to have moved to a nearby location (Wiersma, 2014, p.178).

Olympia does provide a unique case-study as being a hybrid between the west and the east. The settlement seems to have been included in the interactions along Greece’s western coast, but may also have exploited land connections with the east and has been theorized to have functioned as a trading post between these areas (Rambach, 2004). However the quality of the archaeological material and publications are poor in comparison to Lerna and Kolonna. The unevenness of the evidence may influence the perceived patterns used in comparisons and these comparisons should therefore be approached with caution. Comparing Olympia with the other two settlements may nevertheless help understand the poorly understood western EH III developments a bit more. Questions to consider are: What social practices can be reconstructed from Olympia’s material culture. Can these be used to reconstruct local values and social structures? Are there any signs that a crisis hit Olympia and if yes, how did it affect local practices? What similarities and differences are there in the changes and continuities in material culture between Olympia and the other sites? How were the influences of a western network incorporated in Olympia during EH III. Are there any signs that Olympia’s possible role in a western network affected the site’s specific developments?

1.4.4 Summary

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18 geopolitical situation, different pre-existing social structures, different degree of “crisis” in

combination with locally-made decisions based largely on the local values, that dictate what are socially acceptable actions and what are not. Even though a comparison between the sites is difficult because of differences in the quality and intensity of past research, an attempt can be made to identify some of the actions taken in this period of crisis. By studying changes in the material culture, changing social practices may be identified. These practices in turn can be used to reconstruct the social relationships important to the Bronze Age people. Studying how these relationships changes may help to identify changing social/cultural/economical/ ideological factors that lie at the basis of these relationships. Ultimately this may bring us closer to understanding people’s changing values, which play a pivotal role in the decisions they make. Obviously we cannot disregard the influence of other factors that, besides people’s choices, influenced the material culture in times of crisis such as the extent and impact of the crisis. However, anthropological research has shown that disasters are more likely to accelerate changes that were already underway rather than create them (Oliver-Smith, 1996, p.313). Comparing the sites and identifying in what way social practices and their underlying social structures and (if interpretable) values differed from each other may help determine if some of these differences made the settlements more or less vulnerable to the impact of a crisis. Which ultimately might help explain why the sites developed the way they did.

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Chapter 2: Theoretical background: Approaching Crisis and Collapse

In this chapter I aim to address the way archaeology has dealt with the issues of crisis and collapse. In the past, the concepts of crisis and collapse were approached in different ways by archaeologists. Different ideas on what crisis and collapse mean, what causes them and how they develop have been formulated and are closely associated with ideas on increasing social complexity. Crisis and collapse have been addressed to some degree by all the major schools of thought in archaeology, but they have been extensively reviewed by scholars of the processual school, also known as “New

Archaeology”. Although this is by no means a wrong approach, it is incomplete and seems to have added a specific negative connotation to the concepts of crisis and collapse. Although occasionally criticized by the post-processual movement, few post-processual studies have addressed the issue in detail and thus add only bits and pieces to the general discussion. Discussing the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, will help in determining my own approach to crisis and collapse and the discussion of the EH III crisis/collapse.

2.1 What are crisis and collapse?

Although everybody is likely to have a sense of what crisis and collapse entail, their definitions can be defined and perceived in several ways. In archaeology different characteristics of crisis and

subsequent collapse have been used to recognize and interpret certain events in the past, and succeeded with varying success. Before discussing these approaches in detail it may be interesting to take a closer look at the defining characteristics of crisis and collapse.

A key feature of “crisis” is its sudden nature. One or multiple events may suddenly result in problems for a society. Of course not every disaster or problematic event leads automatically to a wider crisis and possible collapse, so it is important to take long-term processes into account when trying to explain the cause of a crisis. Besides suddenness, crises have three more characteristics: - Crises create uncertainty, and challenge previous preconceptions on which people relied;

- Crises may bring threat, difficulty and distress, which gives crises generally a negative connotation. - Crises can be transformative. Decisions may have to be made to resolve/counteract the crisis (Mitchell, 2013, p. 5). When a society deals with a crisis it may go back to the way it was (this may be quite difficult to recognize in archaeology), it may be altered, or it may “collapse”. However, what does it mean for a society to collapse? How useful is this term? The dictionary defines collapse in a general sense as:

a. (Of a structure) suddenly fall down or give way:

b. Fail suddenly and completely (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014a).

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20 society become completely eradicated, nor does it instantly loses all its societal traits. As people survive, some of their heritage, continues as well. Since there is some continuity of people it is likely that there will be some continuity in cultural behaviour from the collapsing civilization to the emerging one (Tainter, 1988, p.40).

So how may societal collapse be defined? Different archaeological approaches, of which the two most relevant to this discussion are the processual (or New Archaeology) and the

post-processual approaches, have dealt with this part of the discussion quite differently. Because of their different viewpoints, the different approaches have contributed in very different ways to the discussion and research of crisis and collapse in archaeology. Where processualists have long looked for causes of crisis, and models explaining collapse, post-processualists have more recently stressed variation and the influence of agents. In the next sections I will discuss both approaches in more detail.

2.2 The processual approach to crisis and collapse

The processual approach regards societal collapse as the loss of social complexity. In the past, and even today, the development of societies has often been compared to evolution. Elman Service (1971) already clustered human development in several evolutionary stages: tribes evolve into chiefdoms and then into states (Service, 1971), each stage being more advanced and complex than the previous stage. Although Service’s terminology is slightly outdated by now, it is still used today in that societies ideally evolve towards increasing complexity. This complexity of societies was

measured by processualists in terms of aspects of society such as the size of a society, the number and distinctiveness of its parts, the variety of specialized social roles and social personas, as well as the variety of mechanisms for organizing the society into a coherent, functioning whole (Tainter, 1988, p.23). Increased complexity is generally seen as a positive thing, in which people could specialize and improve their living conditions. However, it has only been in the last 6000 years that this development towards complexity has taken place and it has been far from a linear process. In many instances societies lost social complexity, which needed a theoretical explanation.

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21 (Renfrew, 1972).

However, in the processual approach the increased complexity of a social system comes at a price: increased energy input. Anthropologist Tainter has formulated thoughts on this subject which deeply permeate the general discussion on crisis/collapse in archaeology (Tainter, 1988, p.194). The energy input needed to sustain a social system varies from providing basic needs for its people such as producing food for a growing population, to a more advanced energy investment in things such as getting more resources, the processing of these resources and training people to process the

resources. With increasing complexity, more energy per capita will be needed. However, as complexity grows, more and more energy has to be invested while the marginal return will decline (Tainter, 1988, p.194). This can be best explained by some examples:

 Whenever a society needs food, energy or raw materials they will look for materials that are easiest to attain, process and distribute. Only when these resources are no longer sufficient more energy will be invested in attaining less accessible resources, even when this does not yield more profit (Tainter, 1988, p.194).

 With increasing complexity, the society will encounter problems that will need increased energy expenditure such as increasingly complex bureaucracies, increasing costs for

legitimizing activities, increasing cost of internal control and external defence (Tainter, 1988, p.195).

As problems keep arising, increased complexity is used as a problem-solving skill, although it will keep decreasing the marginal return (Tainter, 1988, p.196). In this approach, a society becomes more rigid with increasing complexity. The society has less energy to direct to stress and becomes less flexible. A change in one component of society is now more likely to cause change in another and may cause a problem (Rappaport, 1977).

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22 Whatever the cause of a problem, the system will need to direct energy towards solving problems caused by the calamity, but there may be insufficient energy reserves to be able to counter these problems. The energy must come from within the system and in the process weakens it further. For instance, a society dependent on farming to feed its population will have to work less suitable land as population increases. When a drought strikes, the less suitable land will no longer be able to sustain farming, and food shortage will ensue. More energy will have to be directed towards getting food, and less towards maintaining the system. Even when people survive the drought, the system may be weakened because of its lack in maintenance.

The idea of a society automatically becoming less able to respond to crisis as complexity grows, combined with the second problem that an ever decreasing marginal return makes

complexity a less attractive social strategy, led to the idea that collapse may be unavoidable unless counteractions are taken (Tainter, 1988, p.196). Anthropologist Rappaport (1977) goes as far as stating that increasing social complexity is by definition “maladaptive” and inevitably leads to collapse (Rappaport, 1977). Whether unavoidable or not, if a society in crisis eventually cannot recover this may result in the loss of social complexity/organization, or “collapse”. Some of the visible side effects on this inability on the part of the society to deal with its problems have been described by processualists as:

 loss of social stratification and differentiation,  loss of economical and occupational specialization,  decrease in centralized and social control,

 decreased coordination between individuals and groups,

 decrease in epiphenomena of complexity (such as monumental architecture, communal works, or specialized art forms)

 decreased flow of information between social groups and individuals,  loss of trade and contacts (Tainter, 1988, p.4).

Most of the points on this list have negative connotations -something is lost or decreased-. Also, most of the side effects in this list suggest that a society must have a degree of complexity to be able to lose it. Indeed processual collapse theories have predominantly been applied to more advanced societies rather than to simpler societies like Greece’s EH II society. However, simple societies can be affected by a crisis just as well. Explaining changes caused by crisis in simple societies in the

processual way proves more difficult. Societies that no not have a pronounced social stratification and centralized control may still abandon their social structures/ideologies etc. and be transformed by crisis. Yet this transformation does not necessarily have to result in failure, in fact the

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23 Those opportunities or gradations in who are affected by a crisis are often not addressed by the processual approach.

The processual approach has been vastly influential in the discussions on crisis and collapse. Its testability, comparability and predictability appealed to researchers. Research on the influence of specific failing system parameters on the process of collapse has been extensive. The search for universal factors that may predict if a society fails or survives was useful, and lends itself well to comparisons between regions and different periods of time. However, some critiques to this approach have become clear. There has not been a satisfactory universal explanation of why some societies collapsed after a crisis while others could resist crises repeatedly, nor is there room for individuals and their actions taken in response to a crisis and the opportunities a crisis might create to restructure a society and its social and political structures. The overemphasis on social complexity and the ignoring of individuals and their actions, beliefs and symbolisms in archaeological theory was why processualism was criticized in the 1980s by the post-processual movement (Weiberg, 2012; Hodder & Hutson, 2003).

2.3 The post-processual criticism to processual models and approach to crisis and

collapse.

In the 1980s the post-processual approach started pointing out some of the inadequacies of the processual models. The passiveness of individuals and their material culture in processual models was emphasized, as well as a profound focus on function, economic and technological aspects rather than on social ramifications (Weiberg, 2012, p.148). The post-processual movement wanted a greater concern with meaning, history, agency, the social and the particular (Weiberg, 2012, p. 148). “Agency” was introduced to the discussion of social change. Agency has been interpreted in several ways, but in this thesis agency is used in the sense that it has to do with intentional action by

someone or something (Hodder & Hutson, 2003, pp.100-101). People (and on occasion objects) have agency. An individual (not presumed to be “individual” in a modern Western sense) functions within and is shaped by a society which is largely defined by its specific social, cultural, economic,

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24 an archaeological context are long gone, it is often impossible to reconstruct the agency of objects when no written sources remain.

As archaeological remains do not lend themselves well to identify individuals and their actions, research focussed more on understanding more general factors which may be identified archaeologically. Intentional actions (agency) are largely dependent on peoples values, e.g. the shared beliefs and ideals of a society about what is good/bad, desirable or undesirable. The beliefs and ideals of a society are again shaped many factors, such as social, economic, historical, cultural, symbolical, ideological background and many more. Those can be used to reconstruct if people adapted quickly, held strongly to traditions, were encouraged to experiment etc. As those social/economic/historical etc. factors are historically constituted it follows automatically that responses vary with place and time as conditions, perspectives and agents differ. In theoretical discussions this realization caused the emphasis to shift from the search for universal answers to a smaller scale of interpretation and the importance of context and variation in archaeological interpretation (Weiberg, 2007, p.17).

The post-processual critique can also be applied more specifically to the processual ideas on crisis and collapse. One of the problems of seeing a society’s collapse as the (inevitable) end point of an evolutionary process towards complexity and specialization is that some complex societies last longer than others, with some not failing at all (Yoffee, 1988, p.7). The processual approach neglects effects from both outside the system (both strengthening or weakening the society) as well as those of agents within a society that may influence the outcome of a crisis. The problem-solving,

purposeful actions of people to attain certain goals can avert (or cause/quicken) a society’s collapse (Yoffee, 1988, p.8). However, agents have only partial knowledge of their situation and their actions are shaped/limited by their specific socio-cultural background. Therefore intended actions may not always have the intended consequences (Hodder & Hutson, 2003, pp. 103-104). If agents are taken into account when thinking about crisis, it is easy to see how their intentional actions may

(intentionally or unintentionally) help create a crisis and influence its outcome. The presence of agents allows for a huge variability in responses to crisis. This, in combination with many different circumstances of crisis, historical background/ culture/ social situations etc., led to the realization that crisis and collapse may not be so comparable and predictable as previously assumed. Therefore also when discussing crisis and collapse, the post-processualist argument of the importance of context need to be considered. Drawing comparisons between the effects of crisis can only be attempted if the context of the societies is addressed as well.

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25 bring anything but a disaster. However, what is interpreted as a collapse by archaeologists may in the past not have had these negative connotations. In the early stages of social complexity, its influence on society may not have been so profound as today. Although the presence of a central power and specialization may be successful for a while, it could also become a burden if people/ groups of people did not feel that enough benefit was gained. When “complex” organization then was

“released”, rather than “collapsed”, a window for innovation and reformulation of social/ideological values etc. would be opened (Weiberg, 2013, p.158; Holling, 2001, p. 395).

Although, the post-processual approach had some valid points of critique concerning the processual systems thinking, it poses some problems of its own. Agency, meaning and the social factors should indeed be incorporated, but what exactly is their influence on social change? Certain events and their consequences may only be marginally influenced by agency, or different agents within society may not have the same opportunities to respond. Especially in the case of a crisis the question arises: did the people within a society even had a chance to avert/influence its causes and development? The impact of larger universal problems (environmental problems etc.) may be massive, and greatly limit the options the society and the “individuals” within it, have to deal with the problem. The post-processual approach initially offered a lot of critique to processual thinking, but did not offer an alternative coherent body of theory nor a coherent methodology to detect agency. In general, it did not offer a structured way to apply post-processual ideas on meaning and choice in the interpretation of social change, other than that they “played a role”. Especially in relation to crisis and regression the post-processual approach had largely neglected to offer a usable alternative.

2.4 Current approaches

Today the divide between processual and post-processual ideas is not as pronounced as it once was, with both sides taking a more case-specific approach dependent on the material and questions at hand.

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26 specific results these interactions produce (Kohler, 2011, p.6).

For the post-processual side of the argument, people have nuanced the power of individual choice. The importance of historical contingency on the way agents can and will act is more stressed (van Buren, 2001, p.144). Agents will not always foresee the consequences of their actions, nor will everybody within society have the same opportunities to act; sex, age and social standings of people (and the obligations coming with this) may influence the possibility and willingness to act before, during and after a crisis. Free-choice itself is a product of cultural/social circumstances. Because agency is poorly recognizable in archaeology, even post-processualists seek some sort of general patterns in the ability to make choices to be able to understand agency better.

Explaining why an individual does what he/she does remains debated. Voutsaki deals with this issue as follows: The individual is acting in pursuit of goods (I would like to add goals) that define the meaning and purpose of his/her lives (Voutsaki, 2010, p.69). The desired goods (goals) and means to obtain them vary significantly. Besides being embedded in the social/cultural/ideological values of a society, and possibly having an element of “free-choice”, also the notion of “personhood” was added to the discussion. An individual may have different modes of “personhood” or, in other words, social roles. A man can for instance be a chief but at the same time be a father and/or a warrior etc. Personhood is constituted in relations with other human beings, material objects and the cosmos (things like the natural world, ancestors, spirits, etc.) (Voutsaki 2010, p. 69-71). Personhood is fluid and does not limit itself to the physical body of an individual. For instance, it may stretch over time (ancestry, or objects that belonged to a specific person may “retain” aspects of that person) or be passed down from person to person (part of your identity may be who your father/mother was, or your spouse/child/friend etc.). People are composed of social relations with others or with the ancestors, and therefore owe part of themselves to others (Voutsaki, 2010 p 71).

These notions of personhood, as well as a the emphasis on it being embedded within the social/cultural and ideological values of a society will also play an important role in my own approach to responses during crisis. The notion of “free choice” of individuals is unfortunately almost

unrecognizable in EH III archaeological remains and will therefore not be further discussed in this thesis.

2.5 Approach in this Thesis

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27 people were still dependent on their own subsistence.

I therefore do not want to look to much at how the changes in material culture during crisis represents a decline of economical organization and social hierarchy, but rather in what way social practices changed and what changing social relationships they represent. The uncertainty of a crisis may have functioned as a catalyst in the adaptation of social structures and renegotiation of power, social values and ideology (Van Buren, 2001; Jennings, 2008). As people of a society had to react to their problems, a society’s “traditional” responses may no longer have resolved the problems at hand and may have forced people to re-evaluate their socio-cultural values and subsequently adjust their social structures in a much more abrupt way than would have happened if no crisis had occurred. During EH III Greece, social practices seem to have changed quickly and quite drastically across a large region. However, variation between places is noticeable. To understand the reasons behind these variations, -if indeed crisis/collapse was the main motivator for these changes-, we need to take into account four factors (formulated by Mitchell, 2013):

1. The nature and extent of the crisis. Why did the specific reactions occur at a specific time and place? Were all regions/settlements affected to the same degree? Theories on these questions will be briefly discussed in the next chapter, but it can already can be said that the nature and extent of the EH III crisis are not well understood. Signs of instability such as destructions, and changes in material culture are widespread, but it is not always clear if they appeared simultaneously and which was cause and which effect (Forsén, 2002). Since the material is uneven, it cannot be assumed that the three settlements I will discuss were affected by the EH III crisis to the same degree and that the differences between the settlements are solely due to people’s choices. Associated with this is the second consideration:

2. The causal processes operating over different periods of time and space. Why did the instability create crisis at a particular moment and location? Societies are subject to stresses all the time, so is the stressor at the time of crisis that much greater, or have other processes already weakened the society? Placing the settlements in their specific socio-cultural context forms a large part of the discussion in this thesis. To do this it is important to study a society before the actual crisis hit. Stress on the social system may already be present making the society more vulnerable to the effects of a crisis. If this affected the way people interacted they may be visible in changing social practices and thus the material culture the archaeologist finds. A crisis may subsequently magnify the problems a society already had and provide an environment of uncertainty in which there is more opportunity to introduce changes (Jennings, 2008, p.177-178).

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28 effects of the crisis was not the main issue, but rather the loss of support and interaction with the surrounding society. This aspect of crisis will not be investigated in much detail as few EH III sites are known, and the study of their interconnection is an entire thesis in itself.

3. Constraints and possibilities of a society to react to its problems. Do people within a society even have the option to react to/counteract the problems they face? Could they even recognize their growing problems and their causes? Was there room within the social/political/cultural/ideological spheres to react to problems? If there were alternative reactions, why were they not taken? Actions taken in response to problems in the past may have had unintended/unforeseeable consequences. A sensible decision/socially acceptable in one context may have altered the

capabilities of a society to respond to a crisis later on (Mitchell, 2013, p.7). The level of awareness of a problem (especially in EH III where it is not exactly clear what the direct problem was) or the options open to a society to respond are difficult to reconstruct for a society where no written sources are available. However more general notions such as the adaptability and vulnerability of a society may be reconstructed by studying its material culture. If material culture is used to

reconstruct the social practices of a society this may reveal how social relationships were

constructed. For instance how was power constructed and expressed? How were community ties expressed. Was there an emphasis on the community as a whole or was there a more central role for the household. Did people strongly adhere to specific practices or was there a lot of variation and experimentation going on? Understanding those relations may help construct the role of the social/political/cultural/ideological factors within society and may help to get a sense of people’s values and obligations to the rest of society. Even when the specific choices people made in the face of crisis cannot be clearly recognized, at least a sense of what was considered in the initial responses to crisis (and whether this turned out to be working or failing), and what aspects of society eventually were broken during the course of the crisis.

4. Who was affected by the crisis? Was everybody within a society affected to the same degree? In answering this question the notion personhood starts playing a defining role. Differentiation within a society is always present to some degree whether only by basic variables such as age or sex, or more complex variables such as wealth/status differentiation. Too often archaeological research focusses on the role of the elites, but if the elites suffered from a crisis, did the general population as well (Mitchell, 2013, p.8),? In the case of EH III it is not clear whether an elite existed even existed. So who were affected with the destruction of monumental architecture and the other changes

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29 kin, age, sex group and social community, the relation with neighbouring or distant ethnic/cultural groups, relations with the supernatural (gods, spirits etc.), relations between persons and objects and the person’s relation with the natural world (Voutsaki 2010). For EH III, the scarce burial data makes it difficult to discuss gender and age differentiation, or in fact any division (wealth, status, etc.) at the level of the individual. This limits the discussion of personhood and individual agency

significantly. However, again more general social relations and divisions may be investigated.

Architecture can reveal how kin-relations were organized, as well as give a clue about differentiation between social groups. Pottery on the other hand may give more information how social-relations were constructed ((formalized) communal drinking/eating ), and possibly how relations between the people and the supernatural could be expressed. Studying which relations were affected during EH III may reveal who in society were affected by the crisis.

Considering these four factors together for the EH III transition may reveal more about the role people played in this transformative period, without disregarding the limitations people may have had in responding. In each crisis the balance between the four factors will be different and the options available to the people within a society will differ as well. All four must be considered when discussing crisis. In the past the processual approach focussed rather on factors 1 and 2 (with a particular focus on the socio-economic processes) in discussing a crisis, while post processualism overemphasized 3 and 4, and underestimated influences from outside and people’s limitations with regard to choice. In the next chapter I will first addressing the factor “nature and extent of the crisis” for the EH III situation. This aspect has received the most of the attention in EH III studies, but it remains problematic. The other three factors will be addressed in the second part in the thesis where I will look more closely at architecture, mortuary practices and pottery.

Crisis and Collapse in EBA Greece. Examining variation in response to the EH III crisis at Lerna, Kolonna and Olympia through the study of architecture, mortuary practices and pottery.

Research Master Thesis Art History and Archaeology,

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen