A Paper on Corinthian Peasants

As regular readers of this blog know, David Pettegrew and I have been working on a paper about peasants in the Corinthian countryside for a joint APA/AIA panel at this years annual meeting in Philadelphia, PA.

Here’s the panel and the details:

Session 5J:
Joint AIA/APA Colloquium: Finding Peasants in Mediterranean Landscapes: New Work in Archaeology and History
1:30 p.m.−4:00 p.m.          
Independence Ballroom
Organizers: Cam Grey, University of Pennsylvania, and Kim Bowes, University of Pennsylvania

1:30 introduction (10 min.)
1:40 Producing the Peasant in the Corinthian Countryside 
David K. Pettegrew, Messiah College, and William Caraher, University of North Dakota (20 min.)
2:05 Placing the Peasant in Classical Athens
Robin Osborne, University of Cambridge (20 min.)
2:30 Not Your Run-of-the-Mill Cereal Farmer? The Evidence from Small Rural Settlements in the Cecina valley in Northern Etruria 
Nicola Terrenato, University of Michigan, and Laura Motta, University of Michigan (20 min.)
2:50 Break (15 min.)
3:05 Stuffed or Starved? Evaluating Models of Roman Peasantries
Robert Witcher, University of Durham (20 min.)
3:30 Excavating the Roman Peasant
Kim Bowes, University of Pennsylvania (20 min.)

And here’s the paper:

View this document on Scribd

Crossposted to Corinthian Matters

Even More on Peasants

I finally got a copy of “Excavating the Roman Peasant I: Excavations at Pievina (GR)” by M Ghisleni, . Vaccaro, and Kim Bowes in the Papers of the British School at Rome (79 (2011), 91-145). I am co-authoring a paper on peasants on a panel this January co-chaired by Kim Bowes, so my co-author and I, David Pettegrew, thought that this article might give us valuable insight into the central questions that Mediterranean archaeologists are asking about peasants.

This paper documents their preliminary excavations at a rural site represented on the surface by a low density scatter of pottery. This excavation was part of a larger project designed to document site that could be associated with peasants in the Italian countryside. Their argument is that survey archaeology has not produced particularly robust assemblages of material from rural sites making it difficult to make arguments for chronology or function at site potentially related to peasant producers. By excavating a sample of rural site identified through survey, this team hopes to establish a closer relationship between surface scatters and subsurface remains, a clearer picture of the smallest class of rural settlement (< .5 ha), and an understanding of peasant life in the Mediterranean basin.

This is a long and substantial article, so I am only going touch on some main points. The most interesting point from the perspective of a survey archaeologist is that their excavation of a low density (“off site”) scatter did produce a rural activity area. While the excavators do not provide a figure for artifact density on the surface, they did note that the scatter was predominantly 1st century BC to 1st century AD. The confirmation that a low density, offsite scatter could produce a substantial rural site fits well with David Pettegrew’s arguments from way back in 2001 where he argued that contingent practices associated with rural settlement are apt to produce only ephemeral traces in surface assemblages. He goes on to suggest that we should look beyond mono-causal arguments for off site scatters (like manuring) and recognize that the surface assemblage most likely represented a wide range of relatively short term activities, diverse depositional practices, and site life-cycles.

The structures revealed at Pievina produced just that kind of site. They revealed a number of structures ranging from a kiln probably for tile production, a cistern, a possible granary, what might be the remains of a Late Antique house and a small “rubbish tip”. The kiln, granary, and cistern were probably almost contemporary and they enjoyed a rather short period of use. The kiln, granary, and cistern appear to have been buried by a “localized, but significant colluvial event, probably a landslide”.   The site appears to have been abandoned between the 2nd and 3rd centuries only to see renewed activity in the 4th century A.D. At this time it seems to have been the site of a short lived Late Roman house.

It is interesting that the same site sees renewed activity after two centuries of abandonment, and it speaks both to issues of historical memory and issues of persistent, productive places in the landscape. The relatively short periods of occupation at the site invite us to consider an ancient countryside made of short-lived, relatively low investment places that blink on and off when opportunity for gain present themselves. This fits will with recent interpretations of the peasant economy which have tended to see peasants as dynamic figures in the ancient countryside continuously modifying their practices to manage risk, take advantage of opportunities, and survive amidst the contingencies of history.

On other thing to mention briefly about the methods and procedures used by this team in excavating these rural sites. They make it clear that they employed techniques derived from CRM (Cultural Resource Management) practices to expedite the excavation and documentation of their sites. This included the use of earthmoving equipment to remove topsoil, minimal use of hand drawn plans, kite photography (which presumably served as the basis for their digital plans), and other “short cuts” that allowed them to excavate quickly while documenting at a satisfactory level of detail for their research questions. They also backfilled at the end of the season. As someone who is planning to excavate a relatively uncomplicated site this summer, their compromise between professional and academic practices is thought provoking. Archaeologists focused on rural sites should maybe learn from the people whose remains they excavate: come in with flexible tools, make minimal permanent investment, and leave little trace after you complete the project.

A new semester and a new year…

The new semester begins tonight at 5 pm (or something). This is my first semester with tenure which I officially received on August 15.  It felt a lot like my team winning the World Series (which I have experienced) or the Super Bowl.  I woke up the next day expecting things to be or feel different and then was disappointed when they were the same. My coffee tasted the same, the sky looked the same, my office did not become larger or smaller.

And my teaching and research loads did not change either. So here’s my fall semester:

1. Two old classes. I’m teaching two classes that I’ve taught every semester for the past four years. I love the routine, the opportunity to tweak the classes minutely and judge the results the next semester, the battle with boredom of going through the same material each semester (which I liken to acedia, a kind of monastic boredom), and the chance to compare students in very similar situations. And I often think of it as a kind of cricket match (as I watch Sachin Tendulkar in what is likely his last at bat in England). The patience to do the same thing over and over, but also the flexibility to adjust to variables and changes. The two classes are: History 101: Western Civilization I (online) and History 240: The Historians Craft, which is the required course for our majors.

2. A new class. I am also teaching a new class of sorts. I am teaching a digital and public history practicum. This course will focus on developing a boutique-y collection of digital artifacts to celebrate the Chester Fritz Library’s 50th Anniversary (The Fritz @ 50: 1961 to 2011).  I have a class of four diligent but inexperienced graduate students, some good allies in the Department of Special Collections, a Gigapan, a brilliant tech advisor, and a bunch of good will.  Like my effort in the Spring, our goal is to produce a small, well-curated digital exhibit, for the library using off the shelf components as much as possible.

3. Got Papers? I have somehow committed to four (?) conference papers this fall and winter. I have no idea how this happened. I’ve posted a rough draft of the first one here already. I’ll be giving “Liminal Time and Liminal Space in the Middle Byzantine Hagiography of Greece and the Aegean” at the International Anchoritic Society Conference here in Grand Forks. At the American Schools of Oriental Research Conference, I’ll be (co-)authoring a paper on our ongoing work at the site of Pyla-Vigla on Cyprus. (I might also be involved in a paper on my work on Polis at this conference, although this is not at all clear). Finally, in January I’ll be giving a paper with David Pettegrew at the Archaeological Institute of America’s Annual Meeting titled “Producing Peasants in the Corinthian Countryside“. This paper will draw on our decade old survey data from around the Corinthia.  (To make my life easier, I’ve decided not to actually attend ASOR or the AIA.)

4. Publication Projects. I also have four ongoing publication projects. The first and most pressing one is to shape my paper, “The Ambivalent Landscape of Christian Corinth” from the Corinth in Contrast Conference into publication shape. I’ve received really good feedback from the editors of a volume that will come from this conference, and now I need to take it all in. I also need to push into final form my short encyclopedia article on Early Christian Baptisteries. I’ve also (more or less) committed to writing up a piece on post-colonialism in Byzantine Archaeology.  This will develop from a paper I wrote years ago, with every intent of publishing, and gave at a working seminar at the Gennadius Library in Greece. The last publication project involves the results of our survey on Cyprus. We have finally decided to publish the results of the survey aspects of the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Survey separate from the results of our excavations at the site. We have a completed draft of this manuscript more or less prepared and have submitted a book proposal to the American Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological Reports Series.

5. And the other stuff:

• Did I mention that we’re moving?
• I continue to tilt at windmills in an effort to document an early 20th century church here in Grand Forks. We have a verbal agreement with an architect to illustrate the building.
• I’ve been working with some people looking to revitalize the College of Arts and Sciences webpage (ssshhhh… this is the top secret not ready for primetime development page.)
• Teaching Thursday!
• At least one book review.
• Following Formula 1, NASCAR, Cricket, Baseball, the NFL, and College Football.

So it should be a fun semester!!!

More on Peasants

This week, between grading final papers and planning for my research trip to Cyprus, I indulged myself and read (slowly and superficially to be sure) Eric Wolf’s Peasants (1966). This is one of those short books (just over 100 pages) that represents moment in time and captures many of the essential features of a particular topic. Wolf’s analysis of peasant societies recognizes the deeply interconnected character of peasant modes of production, social order, and ideological predilections. (This is part of a larger project on peasants that I have discussed elsewhere in my blog.)

Wolf identified the peasant first and foremost as an economic creature set within a larger and more complex system. Importantly, the peasant is characterized by: “an asymmetrical structural relationship between the producers of surplus and the controllers.”  In other words, peasants pay rent of some kind and this distinguishes the peasant from the group that Wolf calls a primitive cultivator.  Peasants live in a more complex society with a greater degree of social stratification that requires the “transfer of wealth from one section of the population to another.” (10)  In general, settlement patterns reflect this transfer of wealth with peasants living in the countryside and powerholders residing in more densely built up areas.

This economic relationship to other segments of a complex society and the way in which powerholders in society extract the peasants’ surplus for their own gain play key roles in the social, economic, and ideological organization of peasant society. The role of phenomenon like social insurance, the economic analysis of kinship and residential organization, and the existence of ceremonial funds intersect with the specific power relationships that characterize the extraction of wealth from peasant groups.  The influence of this kind of structural analysis persists in some form in many modern considerations of peasants. H. Forbes recent consideration of peasants on the Methana peninsula depended, in part, on a similar constellation of structural relationships (see my comments on this book here).

Such broad reaching conclusions are framed by the assumption that peasants are both transhistorical figures appearing in different times and places and historical figures in the development of human society:

“This book is concerned with those large sections of the mankind which stand midway between the primitive tribe and industrial society.  These populations, many million strong, neither primitive or modern, form the majority of mankind. They are important historically, because industrial society is built upon the ruins of peasant society. They are important contemporaneously, because they inhabit that “underdeveloped” part of the world whose continued presence constitutes both a threat and a responsibility for those countries which have thrown off the shackles of backwardness. While the industrial revolution has advanced with giant strides across the globe, the events of every day suggest that its ultimate success is not yet secure.” (p. vii)

Thus peasants become a kind of looking glass through which scholars can recognize earlier forms of human development in general, and the precursor to local phenomenon.

The challenge for archaeologists, particularly those studying the ancient world, is how to identify the material analogs to the kind of relationships that characterize peasant life.  While we know that peasant life did exist in antiquity and in ancient Greece in particular, it much more difficult to recognize the manifestations of peasant life in the countryside. It would be problematic to identify all rural producers as peasants, for example, because the Greeks used slaves for some forms of agricultural production and we also know that landowners could reside in the countryside for stretches of time.  It is ironic for the archaeologist, that peasants who through cultivation made such a tremendous impact on the lived environment of rural space would have left such complex and problematic traces in the material record.

Periods and Peasants

David Pettegrew and I are working on a paper (very slowly, I might add) about peasants for a conference next winter. Our current plans are to look at three contexts for peasants: the Isthmia corridor outside of the ancient city of Corinth, a fortified area around a small harbor southeastern coastal of the Corinthia, and a rather more isolated inland valley called Lakka Skoutara in the far southeastern Corinthia.  We plan to approach these three areas through the lens of methodology.  In each area, we conducted intensive pedestrian survey and produced different assemblages. The rural nature of these assemblages qualified the inhabitants of these areas as “peasants” (using an incredible broad definition of this term).

My recent reading of Kathleen Davis’ Periodization and Sovereignty has made me reconsider my ease with such seemingly transhistorical categories like “peasants”.  While I am neither qualified to speak with any authority on ancient, medieval, or even modern peasants, I do recognize that the identification of an individual or group of individuals as peasants is not unproblematic. This is a category rooted, at least in part, in assumptions of pre-modern modes of production, like subsistence agriculture, and various kinds of economic and political relationships associated with these practices.  Peasants play a key role in our definition of the pre-modern and consequently undeveloped world.

The transhistorical category of the peasant, in fact, made it easy for early ethnographers and archaeologists to find parallels between modern Greek “peasant” farmers and their ancient predecessors. This not only provided the foundations for at least some of our understanding how ancient Greeks worked the land, but also (in a circular way) provided a justification for the persistence of ancient Greek culture and practices in the attitudes, practices, and beliefs of 19th and 20th century rural denizens.  In short, the peasant became one of the crucial points of contact between ancient and modern and represented both the stability of the Greek culture and its backwardness.

The question is, of course, what do we as archaeologists do when studying such transhistorical figures as peasants in the ancient landscape? Archaeological approaches traditionally embrace the kind of generalizations that create typologies (and ultimate feeds into periodization schemes both informed by the material culture and also informing our interpretation of objects).  While Davis’ book does not reject the need for periodization schemes, she does insist that we locate these themes historically and understand how they serve to structure power relations in the present.  Our paper leans toward a diachronic reading of peasant landscapes rooted in a particular set of methods which insist on the similarities in material culture among groups living in (demonstrably?) different historical circumstances.

An additional challenge comes from the spatial and material definitions of peasants in the landscape and asks that we mingle the spatial with the chronological in ways that reveal another layer of how we understand the the relationship between the pre-modern and modern worlds.  By writing the rural/urban dichotomy into ancient landscapes and locating the peasant in the rural sphere, we run the risk of isolating rural areas as spaces of historical stability (or even spaces “without history“) and set them against the dynamic culture of the urban.  Thus the rural/urban dichotomy reinforces the division between the developed and the undeveloped while locating the impetus for historical change within the confines of a dynamic urban space capable of modernization.

Producing Peasants from Pottery

This month David Pettegrew and I put together an abstract for a proposed panel at the 2012 Archaeological Institute of America meeting on peasants in antiquity. The motivation for submitting an abstract was our long-standing interest in the Corinthian countryside as well as our interest in the archaeology of rural habitation.

Despite these interests, I’m fairly sure that we never conceived of our rural Corinthians specifically as peasants.  After a brief conversation on the phone this week (we were both on spring break!), we found that we did not have a clear definition of what a peasant was in antiquity.  My gut feeling was that peasants were renters, and this was likely influenced by Guy Sander’s recent paper on share-cropping in the Corinthia (here’s a link to a pre-publication draft). David was not so sure and thought that peasants could have a range of economic relationships to the land that they worked. We both did agree, however, that we should define a peasant before we moved forward writing a paper on them!

We also agreed that peasants were likely to be poor and live at or near the variously defined subsistence level. As I have noted in some of my recent work, as individuals approach the barest levels of subsistence, their archaeological signature tends to diminish markedly.  Not only do farmers living at the subsistence pursue economic strategies that are incredibly flexible and dynamic and less likely to produce patterns of use and discard that leave strong material signatures, but the poor tend to have few objects to contribute to the archaeological record in general.  At the same time, peasants are barely visible in the textual records from the ancient world.  The best preserved ancient authors have the well-known tendency to emphasize elite and largely urban concerns and spare little ink for the vast majority of the ancient population.

The absence of literary and traditional archaeological sources for the peasant accounts for both our problematic understanding of what exactly a peasant is, and makes it difficult to understand the foundational organization of the ancient economy.  The growing interest in the archaeology of the ancient countryside has begun to problematize some of these issues in a more refined way and sketch out the limits to what we can say about ancient peasants in a more sophisticated way.

David and I propose to look at three area of the Corinthian countryside: the Isthmus, the recently published Late Classical or Hellenistic site of Ano Vayia, and the early modern site of Lakka Skoutara.  The goal with our paper is to link the ancient peasant to a set of archaeological practices.  Here’s the abstract:

Producing the Peasant in the Corinthian Countryside
W. Caraher and D. Pettegrew

The modern concept of the ancient peasant has been largely formed through the investigation of the places of rural habitation and work by archaeologists over the last forty years.  In this paper, we present a series of case studies from the eastern Corinthia that place the ancient peasant experience at the intersection of our methods, both historical and archaeological, and the contingent processes of habitation and land use that created the human landscape in the short and long term.  We juxtapose three case studies documented through the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey: 1) the diachronic and busy Isthmus, 2) a relatively isolated Late Classical to Hellenistic site near the harbor of Vayia, and 3) a small inland valley east of Sophiko.  The first region, the Isthmus, represents the immediate suburbs of Corinth that always abounded in a range of settlements from farms to towns throughout antiquity and produced one of the densest artifact-rich zones of Greece and the Aegean.  The coastal zones near Vayia represent more remote regions that experienced occasional and short-term bursts of investment in settlement, rural production, and fortification.  Our third case study, the inland valley known as Lakka Skoutara, is a seemingly isolated upland basin with diachronic patterns of habitation that relate to broad processes of regional and global connectivity as well as quotidian cultural behaviors like habitation, discard, and abandonment.  Through these case studies, we foreground the diverse experiences of Corinthian peasants within their connected and contingent worlds and underscore how our knowledge of their experiences follows the methods we employ.