Lithics as Markers of Societal Change in the Prehistoric Aegean

This dissertation explores the onset of social complexity and differentiation through the theoretical framework of heterarchy. Key to understanding the emergence of such anthropological phenomena and the formation processes of early socioeconomic systems in pre-state societies are the very early aspects of socio-economic interactions: craft production and the exchange of goods. I investigate how production organization can provide insights to the evolution of differential dynamics among pre-modern communities. These processes are explored in the Aegean region, where multiple interactions occur, at different scales and intensities, in the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (5th - end of 4th Millennium BCE) – a critical temporal juncture of social and economic transformations. The above concepts are investigated through the analysis of obsidian stone tools, one of the most common artifacts encountered at Aegean sites of the Late Neolithic (LN) and Early Bronze Age (EBA). I reconstruct the lithic production organization and exchange at an interregional scale, mapping interactions within and among communities, uncovering their roles in broader networks. To that end, I use as techno-economical markers a lithic collection of 32,778 artifacts and perform an extended, multi-scalar regional analysis. I use the chaîne opératoire approach and spatial analysis to analyze a diverse lithic dataset from both excavations and surveys, from regions located in southern Euboea and eastern Attica, key trade routes with increased activity from the LN to the EBA. These are (i) the Katsaronio valley, whose regional production and distribution hubs controlled trade-route access and defended key resources, (ii) the Gourimadi site, a strategic and naturally-defensible production center where projectile points were crafted en masse at the end the Neolithic, yielding the largest collection of lithic arrowheads ever recorded in the region, (iii) the Porto Rafti Bay, whose lithic production hubs are prime examples of specialized activities and regulated regional movement of lithics from the Cyclades to Attica and beyond, and (iv) the Agia Triada cave, whose lithics from domestic and burial/ceremonial contexts reveal how technology changes through time. The outcomes of this study give new insights on societal change and power relations at the dawn of proto-urban communities.