Investigations of technology and crafts have resulted in well-understood technological trajectories, particularly for the development of prehistoric metalworking (Tylecote 1987; Craddock 1995; Ottaway 1994). The frequent emphasis on metalworking, however, has often been to the detriment of other crafts. The bringing together of different materials specialists, and the comparative approach taken by the Emergence of European Communities Project, allow us to explore contrasting, regionally distinct attitudes to a range of crafts at specific historical moments. Although craftspeople's technical decisions are affected by differential access to resources, their choices are not solely confined to the environment, raw materials, and tools; decisions are also socially and culturally defined (Lemonnier 1992; van der Leeuw 1993; Dobres 2000) and the investigation of such choices informs on regional social relations.

The most significant craft activities at our sites provided the material culture to support daily life: ceramic production, the manufacture of chipped and ground stone objects, and the construction of houses – the latter involving woodworking, stonemasonry, and clay manipulation. In addition, Százhalombatta had a substantial corpus of worked bone. Detailed excavation, recording, and use of modern scientific techniques, including petrology, micromorphology, archaeobotany, and use–wear analysis, along with experimental archaeology, illuminate these crafts. Interestingly, despite the frequent emphasis on metal technology in Bronze Age social models, at Thy and Monte Polizzo, our work has revealed little direct evidence for metalworking. At Százhalombatta, fragments of bronze, moulds, and slag attest to metalworking from the Early Bronze Age (Horváth et al 2000; Poroszlai 2000; Sørensen and Vicze in press), but are relatively few. With little substantial to add to knowledge about metal technology, we do not consider it here.

This chapter discusses the similarities and differences in the household across the three regions. The household is approached as a significant basic element of these societies, and the chapter will use the data provided by the case studies to explore and characterise this in detail. Excavations have traditionally revealed scant evidence about the ‘workings’ and character of the household, but the systematic approach to sampling employed in these case studies makes it possible to begin outlining such characteristics. The aims are to consider variations in how the later prehistoric households, as a nexus of social and economic activities, functioned and to identify spatial characteristics. Particular attention is paid to architectural elaboration of the house as, for example, internal divisions and furnishings provide clues about the organisation of activities within and around the house. The spatial distribution of different classes of artefacts and of food remains at different stages of their processing are also considered to understand how the household operated.

Substantial variation existed in the settlement organisations in different parts of Europe during later prehistory, as discussed in Chapter 4. We may, therefore, expect differences in the characters of the households as settlement organisation provides some of the social framework within which households functioned. As a background to the analysis of the household, therefore, differences between the three areas must be compared. In Scandinavia, the Early Bronze Age household is part of a system of dispersed open settlements, which were usually composed of one or a few single farmsteads with some evidence for additional buildings. Using ideas formulated by Gerritsen (1999:291) categorised such organisation as ‘house-based societies.’ In contrast, the Hungarian case study had densely occupied settlements, which appear to have little evidence of differentiation among dwellings and apparently little internal hierarchical organisation. In Sicily, on the other hand, the household is set within a densely occupied, semi-urban settlement with differentiation between individual households. These later prehistoric households, irrespective of other similarities or differences, have to be understood as integrated within different social and political structures.

This chapter compares the structure and organisation of settlements across Europe, bridging the chapters on regional settlement patterns and households. The settlement represents the local organisation of habitations: how households were placed with respect to each other and to common spaces for work, ceremonies, and social interaction. Important variables included the density and number of contemporaneous households, the permanence of house sites and their interrelations, the existence of defining fortifications, and internal social differentiation marking social distinction. Overall, the settlement types varied within each region and appear in each region to represent settlement hierarchies of regional polities (Chapter 3). The size and density of the largest settlements, however, show a marked trend from relatively small and informal aggregates in Scandinavia to large, proto-urban settlements in Hungary and Sicily. The larger settlements in Hungary and especially in Sicily appear to have a regular settlement structure, with houses in well-defined lots, roadways, and public spaces. In Sicily, a central, religious complex defines a new level of corporate labour investment. Although social differentiation surely existed in all circumstances, complexity varies quite markedly in its form. In Scandinavia, elite households stood out, but appear more as a part of a flexible network of changing power relationships seen also in the metal wealth and burial mounds; in Hungary, a more common, corporate group identity was signalled by apparent uniformity of houses and material culture; and, in Sicily, the formal settlement structure suggests a clear elite stratum defined by multiroom structures and international material culture evidently marking differences (Chapters 3 and 5).

Southern Scandinavia

Settlements and their organisation in southern Scandinavia during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age were heavily dependent on the significance of the individual regions and their natural resources, though some general trends seem valid for the whole area (Artursson 2005a,b; 2009). Our two case studies in southern Scandinavia focus on regions in close proximity to the sea – Thy in northwestern Jutland, Denmark (Earle 2002) and Tanum in western Sweden (Ling 2008). The Thy region, at least during the Early Bronze Age, must be considered an important part of the networks in the central Limfjord region, but Tanum was more marginal.