‘Home is Where the Hearth is’

Description

The aim of this study is to examine patterns of spatial organisation in rockshelters inhabited during the Upper Palaeolithic, based on examination of two such sites in northwestern Greece: Klithi, a site in the steep-sided Voidomatis gorge, and Kastritsa, a site in open terrain on the shore of Lake Pamvotis. It also examines the evidence for spatial variation in a number of functionally and geographically comparable Upper Palaeolithic sites in physically confined locations. The analysis is organised around three questions: (a) To what extent can the distribution of artefacts and food residues tell us how life was organised in these camps? (b) Do the sites show common patterns of spatial organisation, and do these exhibit temporal or regional variation? (c) What underlies variation in patterns of site structure? Do site function and its social, seasonal and demographic corollaries do so independently of time and place, or are other culture-specific factors involved?