Material Evidence for Urbanism in Archaic Crete

Archaic Cretan urbanism has been described by its heterogeneity and lack of definition. Although the study of early Cretan settlements by American archaeologists dates to the turn of the 20th century, more complex analyses of these data are still emerging. This work seeks to understand Archaic urbanism in Cretan settlements by placing the specific body of material at Azoria in East Crete within a broader theoretical and analytical context. The first part, focusing on methods, deals with the background of theory that enables material evidence to be used to understand the past. I discuss approaches that enable economic and social inferences to be gleaned from artifacts, houses, and settlements, as well as the larger historical narratives that cover the Archaic period in the Aegean. I also discuss the basis for quantitative inference and its applicability to archaeology as a means of dealing with knowledge and uncertainty. The second part deals with two particular sites, Azoria and Prinias, which currently inform much of the discussion of Archaic Cretan urbanism. With access to the unpublished catalog of small finds from Azoria, as well as the project’s databases, I carry out an extensive analysis of the small finds from the late Archaic levels to define the preservation of the site and to treat the tools used for food processing and textile production. I then link these with the spatial information from houses and the public buildings in order to infer complex labor organization and public-household distinctions in Archaic Azoria. I finish with the juxtaposition of Prinias with Azoria as alternate forms of social organization and settlement transformation. I build a small numerical model that provides some small insight into how population may alter social preferences, with the implication that other such explanatory models need to be developed to better understand the heterogeneity of Cretan urbanism rather than merely describe it.Bachelor of Art