Food storage, surplus and the emergence of institutionalized inequality: A study of storage jars and food storage for central Northern Greece in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age.

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the significance of food storage and its relation to the emergence of institutionalized socioeconomic inequalities in societies with little or no socioeconomic stratification (also known as middle-range or transegalitarian). Is storage (as evidence for surplus) a reliable measure of socioeconomic inequality for such social formations? Furthermore, is storage the best material evidence for surplus in such societies? I investigate these issues on the basis of the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age (1700/1500--700 BC) communities of central Northern Greece. Little is known about Northern Greece in later prehistory. Although archaeological research in the area has intensified during the past thirty years, prehistoric Northern Greece is still considered a backward, marginal area compared to the palatial centers and the later city-states of southern Greece. In this dissertation I put aside issues of similarities or dissimilarities with southern Greece. My goal is to assess the evidence among the main sites known from the area thus focusing on <italic>the region itself</italic>. My research focuses on storage in large vessels known as pithoi from the mounded site of Thessaloniki Toumba. I discuss pertinent material from the sites of Kastanas and Assiros Toumba. Food storage has been viewed as one of the main sets of evidence for the existence of a small-scale hierarchy among Northern Greek communities beginning in the Late Bronze Age. Here, I propose that food storage needs to be better refined if we are to understand its role in the generalized economies of such non-state formations. I propose a methodology that permits us to discriminate between the many dimensions of storage and suggest ways in which these can be retrieved archaeologically. Using this methodology I study the storage jars from Thessaloniki Toumba and compare them with a similar assemblage from Kastanas. I also analyze other evidence for storage from these two sites as well as from the site of Assiros. Although storage may not provide the best evidence for surplus, especially in the absence of studies of consumption in the prehistoric communities of this region, it affords a better understanding of socioeconomic relations within these communities in later prehistory.