From “communities of practice” to “translocal communities”: A practice-theoretical approach to mobility and the sociospatial configurations of Neolithic groups

Heitz, Caroline (2023). From “communities of practice” to “translocal communities”: A practice-theoretical approach to mobility and the sociospatial configurations of Neolithic groups. In: Heitz, Caroline; Wunderlich, Maria; Hinz, Martin; Furholt, Martin (eds.) Rethinking Neolithic Societies. New Perspectives on Social Relations, Political Organization and Cohabitation. Open Series in Prehistoric Archaeology: Vol. 5 (pp. 63-97). Sidestone Press

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The paradigm of cultural history still has an influence on how forms of Neolithic social
cohabitation are imagined. Once established for the purpose of relative chronology, and
based on pottery, concepts of Neolithic cultures implied the existence of homogeneous, static
social units with more or less clear spatial-temporal boundaries. Even if their initially ethnic
interpretation has long been rejected, the prevention of any other social interpretations led
to a blind spot, which was filled unintentionally by top-down projections of premises onto
the past. Furthermore, I observe a lack of epistemological and theoretical reflections on
what determines different forms of social cohabitation and how they could be approached
archaeologically. How do things, social practice, and social formations relate to each other?
What can be inferred from the distribution and mobility of things regarding the social?
By taking mobility as an epistemological entry point to understanding forms of social
cohabitation, I will explore pottery production and distribution practices by drawing on
ceramics from precisely dendrochronologically dated Neolithic wetland sites on the northern
Alpine foreland (3920–3800 BCE). Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and
social practice, I propose an inductive bottom-up approach to explore typical local pottery
production practices. Following Wenger, it is assumed that pottery was produced within
settlements in so-called communities of practice, leading to the (re)production of typical local
pottery styles. However, shifting to a supra-regional perspective, it can be shown that stylistic
and thus social and cultural diversity in settlements was not an exception but a reoccurring
phenomenon that suggests cross-regional entanglements, which were related to spatial
mobility between settlement groups with different pottery production practices. The material
and social histories of ceramic vessels correspond well with known settlement histories. From
a social archaeological perspective, both point to the residential mobility of individuals or
subgroups and can be understood as forms of horizontal social organisation of translocal
social groups and thus sociospatial configurations.

Item Type:	Book Section (Book Chapter)
Division/Institute:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of Archaeological Sciences 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of Archaeological Sciences > Pre- and Early History
UniBE Contributor:	Heitz, Caroline Franziska
Subjects:	900 History > 930 History of ancient world (to ca. 499)
ISSN:	2701-2867
ISBN:	978-94-6427-068-6
Series:	Open Series in Prehistoric Archaeology
Publisher:	Sidestone Press
Funders:	[4] Swiss National Science Foundation
Projects:	Projects 194326 not found. Projects 221722 not found.
Language:	English
Submitter:	Caroline Franziska Heitz
Date Deposited:	31 Jan 2024 08:52
Last Modified:	31 Jan 2024 08:52
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/152465