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 leads a three-part, multiscalar analysis of human settlement as a means to understand basic dynamics of social, political, and economic organisation. The three scales of analysis are handled in this chapter for the regional pattern of settlement distribution with respect to cultural landscapes, in Chapter 4 for the structure of individual settlements with respect to the layout of houses and other spaces, and in Chapter 5 for the character of individual households. A multiscalar approach helps explicate alternative means by which prehistoric, European populations built up their organisations by articulating modular, but variable, units of family, community, and polity. Each of these organisational levels maintained distinctive dynamics that were balanced with and against larger formations (Johnson and Earle 2000).

At the level of the microregion, we attempt to reconstruct changing patterns of settlement for the three major areas of study in Scandinavia, Hungary, and Sicily. Work involved detailed, systematic surveys in each region to identify, date, and describe settlements from late prehistory. As the surface signatures and preservation of sites varied from region to region, the particular survey methods used had to be adapted to local conditions, but our objectives were always to describe sites according to criteria that would be comparable across time and across the three regions. Using survey results, we examine how human populations spread out with respect to each other and to economic and social opportunities in the landscape in order to understand the regional organisation and economy of prehistoric society. We thus consider the size of settlements, their spacing and association, their correspondence with productive and trading opportunities, and, ultimately, how settlements were organised into political systems. The three regions document parallel developments of settlement hierarchies that suggest chiefdom-like political organisations. The centrality, scope, and openness of these systems were, however, highly variable, and we argue that the different pathways of development reflect specific conditions of regional and international political economies, the export and import of key commodities, and the control over trade in key wealth objects. Although the pieces were similar, the nature of political hierarchies proved to be quite variable, especially in the degree of centrality and their political power. Material and historic conditions appear together to determine these alternative pathways towards complexity.

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.