Late Neolithic funerary consumption suggests that acquisitive behaviour was morally sanctioned by interaction with the dead. The analogous treatment of human remains and artefacts in Late Neolithic funerary contexts highlights complex relationships between persons and objects. This will situate the phenomenon of large-scale accumulation within a wider social matrix. Detailed study of burial practices over the long-term (Late Neolithic through to Late Uruk) will isolate major trends in funerary consumption over time. Adapting Weber’s insights regarding the origins of modern capitalist accumulation in changing modes of religiosity, this research investigates the changing relationship between funerary rituals and wealth consumption. This contrasts with earlier traditions where burials were routinely incorporated into domestic contexts.
A related aspect of urban growth is the virtual disappearance of human burials from the archaeological record.
However, the social and cultural mechanisms through which primary accumulation took place remain poorly understood. Current research links the concentration and mobilisation of capital in urban centres to the expansion of cross-regional trade routes. The accumulation of capital is a widely recognised, but little studied, feature of early urbanisation in Mesopotamia during the fourth-millennium BC.
0 kommentar(er)
