Thinking the Bronze Age Life and Death in Early Helladic Greece

Sammanfattning: This is a study about life and death in prehistory, based on the material remains from the Early Bronze Age on the Greek mainland (c. 3100-2000 BC). It deals with the settings of daily life in the Early Helladic period, and the lives and experiences of people within it.The analyses are based on practices of Early Helladic individuals or groups of people and are context specific, focussing on the interaction between people and their surroundings. I present a picture of the Early Helladic people living their lives, moving through and experiencing their settlements and their surroundings, actively engaged in the appearance and workings of these surroundings. Thus, this is also a book about relationships: how the Early Helladic people related to their surroundings, how results of human activity were related to the natural topography, how parts of settlements and spheres of life were related to each other, how material culture was related to its users, to certain activities and events, and how everything is related to the archaeological remains on which we base our interpretations.Life and death in Early Helladic Greece is the overall subject, and this double focus is manifested in a loose division of the book into two halves. The first deals primarily with settlement contexts, while the second is devoted to mortuary contexts. After an introduction, the study is divided into three parts, dealing with the house, the past in the past and the mortuary sphere, comprising three stops along the continuum of life and death within Early Helladic communities. Subsequently, mortuary practices provide the basis for a concluding part of the book, in which the analysis is taken further to illustrate the interconnectedness of different parts of Early Helladic life (and death).