Perspectives: Household-centered approaches to transformative change

A household-centered approach to identifying and analyzing transformative change prioritizes relationships and connections and positions the household as a multiscalar unit with valuable perspectives on the causes and consequences of social change. The house or dwelling is the place in which these the various networks that support daily life intersect, making the domestic realm one of the most comprehensive in its connection to greater society and very likely to contain visible markers of change. Household-centered work begins with detailed accounts of household assemblages which include critically connecting these materials with the relationships and networks they represent. The timing of change in different materials can be examined. We often seek to identify points at which multiple lines of evidence change simultaneously. These may have been moments when people experienced change from different sources and scales, which may be particularly identifiable as transformations in the archaeological record. As we improve our chronological control, we become more capable of differentiating between abrupt and gradual change and better understanding the relationships between small-scale decisions and the long-term processes to which archaeology is particularly well-positioned to study.