Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T01:19:13.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Monuments, mobilization and Nuragic organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Gary S. Webster*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Penn State University, Mont Alto Campus, Mont Alto PA 17237-9703, USA

Extract

Over the last hundred years there have been many publications on the animal remains from the Swiss Neolithic lake sites, ranging from the first descriptions of Rütimeyer (1861) to the detailed analyses of Boessneck et al. (1963) and Becker (1981). During the 1970s I had the privilege to work on one of these faunal assemblages, retrieved by rescue excavation at the site of Yvonand IV on the shore of Lake Neuchätel in the canton de Vaud (Clutton-Brock 1990).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Grand and well-crafted buildings must mean grand and structured societies. So common sense tells. Here is a detailed study of the craft and labour demands that the nuraghe towers of later prehistoric Sardinia would have made on their builders; it allows a different vision of their society than a stratified hierarchy on the medieval model.

References

Abrams, E. 1984. Systems of labor organization in Late Classic Copan, Honduras: the energetics of construction. Unpublished Ph.D thesis. Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Abrams, E. 1987. Economic specialization and construction personnel in Classic period Copan, Honduras, American Antiquity 53(3): 485–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, R.J.C. 1961. Neolithic engineering, Antiquity 35: 292–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bafico, S. & Rossi, G. 1987. New light on the architecture of the nuraghe S. Antine Torralba in the province of Sassari, Papers of the British School at Rome 55: 6974.Google Scholar
Balmuth, M. 1981. The nuraghe towers of Sardinia, Archaeology 34(2): 3543.Google Scholar
Balmuth, M. 1984. The nuraghi of Sardinia: an introduction, in Balmuth, M. & Rowland, R. Jr (ed.), Studies in Sardinian archaeology: 2352. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Balmuth, M. 1986. Preliminary report of excavations 1975–1978 of the nuraghe Ortu Comidu, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichita 37 (1983): 353410.Google Scholar
Cavanagh, W. & Laxton, R. 1987. An investigation into the construction of Sardinian nuraghi, Papers of the British School at Rome 55: 168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Childe, V.G. 1958. Retrospect, Antiquity 32: 6974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creamer, W. & Haas, J. 1984. Tribe versus chiefdom in lower Central America, American Antiquity 50(4): 738–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Contu, E. 1981. L’architettura nuragica, in lchnussala Sardegna dalle origini all’età classica: 5175. Milan: Libri Scheiwiller.Google Scholar
Erasmus, K. 1965. Monument building: some field experiments, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 21: 277301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flannery, K. 1974 [1967]. The Olmec and the valley of Oaxaca: a model for inter-regional interaction in Formative times, in Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. & Sabloff, J. (ed.), The rise and fall of civilization: 6483. Menlo Park (CA): Cummings.Google Scholar
Fraser, D. 1968. Village planning in the primitive world. New York (NY): George Braziller.Google Scholar
Gallin, L. 1987a. The prehistoric towers of Sardinia, Archaeology 40(5): 2733.Google Scholar
Gallin, L. 1987b. Nuraghe Toscono: an architectural study, in Michels & Webster 1987: 163–9.Google Scholar
Gallin, L. 1989. Architectural attributes and intersite variation: a case study: the Sardinian nuraghi. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of California – Los Angeles. Ann Arbor (MI): University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Ardi, R. 1974. Indigenous African architecture. New York: Van Nostrand & Reinhold.Google Scholar
Gummerman, G. 1975. Alternate cultural models for demographic change: southwestern examples, Memoir of the Society for American Archaeology 30: 104–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lilliu, G. 1959a. The nuraghi of Sardinia, Antiquity 33: 32–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lilliu, G. 1959b. The protocastles of Sardinia, Scientific American 201 (December): 62–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lilliu, G. 1962. I nuraghi, torre preistoriche di Sardegna. Cagliari: La Zattera.Google Scholar
Lilliu, G. 1982. La civiltà nuragica. Sassari: Carlo Delfino.Google Scholar
Lilliu, G. & Zucca, R. 1988. Su nuraxi di Barumini. Sassari: Carlo Delfino.Google Scholar
Lo Schiavo, F. 1986. Sardinian metallurgy: the archaeological background, in Balmuth, M. (ed.), Studies in Sardinian archaeology 2: 231–50. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Mncini, F. 1966 Breve commento alla carta dei suola d’Italia. Firenze: R. Coppini.Google Scholar
Michels, J. & Webster, G. (ed.). 1987. Studies in Nuragic archaeology: village excavations at Nuraghe Urpes and Nuraghe Toscono in westcentrai Sardinia. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moravetti, A. 1985. Il patrimonio archaeoiogico del comune di Birori. Cagliari: Pisano.Google Scholar
Moravetti, A. 1980. Nuovi modellini di torri Nuragiche, Bollettino d’Arte, Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali 7: 6584.Google Scholar
Murdock, J.P. 1967. Ethnographic atlas. Pittsburgh (PA): University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Muroni, A. 1984. Borore e il Marghine. Sassari: Carlo Delfino.Google Scholar
Naroll, R. 1962. Floor area and settlement population, American Antiquity 27: 587–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nijst, A.L. 1973. Living on the edge of the Sahara, a study of traditional forms of habitation and types of settlement in Morocco. The Hague: Government Publishing Office.Google Scholar
Perrot, G. & Chipez, C. 1890. History of art in Sardinia, Judea, Syria and Asia Minor. London.Google Scholar
Phillips, P. 1978. Aspects of research in Sardinian protohistory, in Papers in Italian prehistory 1: 93–6. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 41.Google Scholar
Plog, F. 1975. Demographic studies in prehistory, Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 30: 94103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1973. Monuments, mobilization and social organization in Neolithic Wessex, in Ucko, P. Tringham, R. & Dimbleby, R. (ed.), Man, settlement and urbanism: 539–58. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1982. Socioeconomic changes in ranked societies, in Renfrew, C. & Shennan, S. (ed.), Ranking, resources and exchange: 17. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Santhllo-Frizell, B. 1987. The nuragic domes – why false?, in Balmuth, M. (ed.), Studies in Sardinian archaeology 3: 5774. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 387.Google Scholar
Santhllo-Frizell, B. 1989 The autonomous development of dry masonry domes in the Mediterranean area – some considerations, Opusculo Romana 17(11): 143–61.Google Scholar
Santillo-Frizell, B. & Santillo, R. 1984. The construction and structural behavior of the Mycenaean tholos tomb, Opusculo Atheniensia 15(4): 4552.Google Scholar
Sequi, M. 1985. Nuraghi – manuale per conoscere 90 grandi torri megalitiche della Sardegna. Milan: Multigrafic.Google Scholar
Startin, W. & Bradley, R. 1981. Some notes on work organization and society in prehistoric Wessex, in Ruggles, C.L.N. & Whittle, A.W.R. (ed.), Astronomy and society in Britain during the period 4000–1500 BC: 289–96. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Steltzer, U. 1981. Building an igloo. Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre.Google Scholar
Taylor, D. 1975. Some locarional aspects of middle-range hierarchical societies. Ann Arbor (MI): University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Trigger, B. 1990. Monumental architecture: a thermodynamic explanation of symbolic behaviour, World Archaeology 22(2): 119–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trump, D. 1980. The prehistory of the Mediterranean. London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Udy, S.H. Jr., 1959. Organization of work. New Haven (CT): Human Relations Area File Press.Google Scholar
Webster, G. 1987. Vertebrate faunal remains, in Michels & Webster (ed.): 6992.Google Scholar
Webster, G. 1988. Duos Nuraghes: preliminary results of the first three seasons of excavation, Journal of Field Archaeology 15: 465–72.Google Scholar
Webster, G. 1990. Labor control and emergent stratification in prehistoric Europe, Current Anthropology 31(4): 337–66.Google Scholar
Webster, G. In press. The functions and social significance of nuraghi: a provisional model, Acta Instituti Romani Sueciae.Google Scholar