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Mycenaean Megara and Nordic Houses
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
Extract
The results of recent prehistoric excavations in Greece show that there is no evidence to support, still less to prove, the widespread assumption that the round hoop-roofed house is the original type from which all forms of human houses have been evolved. The truth is that there is a greater variety of primitive house types than is usually supposed, and allowance must be made for the possibility that in course of development these exercise reciprocal influence on one another.
Dr. Bulle has pointed out that from the earliest times both rectangular and round huts and houses occur contemporaneously and that both forms are to be found to-day in use among primitive peoples. This is exactly what the archaeological evidence shows for Greece. Neither by stratification, nor by transitional forms does the Greek evidence support the view that in Greece the rectangular house developed from a round hut like those of Orchomenos I. Dr. Mackenzie, to whose paper I would refer, has collected most of the material for this question, and the case has also been clearly stated by Fimmen.
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- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1921
References
page 161 note 1 This assumption underlies most of what has recently been written about primitive houses, cf. Prof. Fiechter's article Haus in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopaedie, or Prof. Pfuhl's, remarks, Ath. Mitt. 1905, pp. 331 ff.Google Scholar, and also those of Montelius, in Antikvarisk Tidskrift, xxi. pp. 1 ff.Google Scholar, and DrBulle, in Orchomenos I. (Abhand. d. Muench. Akad. d. Wissenschaften, 1907), p. 36 ff.Google Scholar
page 161 note 2 Op. cit. p. 3 f.
page 161 note 3 See Fimmen, , Kretisch-Mykenische Kultur, pp. 39 ff.Google Scholar; cf. Pfuhl's, Vorgriechische und griechische Haustypen (Festgabe für H. Blümner, Zurich, 1914), p. 190.Google Scholar
page 161 note 4 B.S.A. xiv. pp. 343 ff.
page 161 note 5 Op. cit. pp. 39 ff.
page 161 note 6 L.c. pp. 358, 360, 408.
page 162 note 1 At Tsangli, , Wace-Thompson, , Prehistoric Thessaly, p. 115Google Scholar; at Sesklo, ibid. p. 63 (especially house No. 38); cf. also ibid. p. 217.
page 162 note 2 In Crete the tholos tomb and perhaps the hut vases possibly prove this, see Fimmen, op. cit. p. 41. For Thessaly see Wace-Thompson, op. cit. pp. 64, 74, 217.
page 162 note 3 Bulle, , Orchomenos, I., p. 21Google Scholar, Pls. II., IV., V., VI., IX.–XI.
page 162 note 4 Ibid. p. 25.
page 162 note 5 Wace-Thompson, op. cit. p. 194.
page 162 note 6 Ibid. p. 63, Sesklo.
page 162 note 7 Bulle, op. cit. pp. 25 ff., Pls. II., IV., V., XIV., XV.
page 162 note 8 Ibid. p. 34.
page 162 note 9 Ibid. p. 25.
page 163 note 1 J.H.S. 1921, p. 260.
page 163 note 2 Karo, , Führer d. d. Ruinen v. Tiryns, p. 7Google Scholar; cf. Fimmen, op. cit. p. 43, especially as regards the great circular building built above curved walls, ibid. pp. 40, 41.
page 163 note 3 Wace-Thompson, op. cit. p. 132.
page 163 note 4 B.S.A. xiv. pp. 417 ff.
page 163 note 5 Montelius, , La civilisation primitive en Italie, ii. Pl. CXL.Google Scholar; Id. Die vorklassische Chronologie Italiens, Pls. XIX., XXVI. Cf. ProfessorM. P.Nilsson's, suggestions, Den stora folkvandringen i andra årtusendet ƒ. Kr. in Ymer, xxxii. (1912), pp. 2211 ff.Google Scholar
page 164 note 1 Bulle, op. cit. p. 57, Pls. II., III., XX.
page 164 note 2 A very interesting survey is given by DrThordeman, B. in Förhistoriska hustyper i Norden (Studier tillägnade Oscar Almgren, 1919, Rig, ii., iii. pp. 269 ff).Google Scholar A fine series of Swedish and German hut vases is given by Stephani, , Der älteste deutsche Wohnbau, 1, pp. 14 ff.Google Scholar; cf. Schultz, , Das Germanische Haus, pp. 58 ff.Google Scholar The oval Bronze Age foundations mentioned were found in 1906 by Professor Almgren, O. at Boda (Upland, Sweden), Fornvännen, vii. (1912) pp. 132 ff.Google Scholar The remains show that the walls were of wattle and daub; the door was on the long side facing south. They are the ruins of a house like the hut vase shown in Fig. 1a. For the late Iron Age oval house of Augerum (Pl. VI. 6) (Blekinge, Sweden), see below, p. 172.
page 164 note 3 Cf. the Rachmani houses, Wace-Thompson, op. cit. pp. 39 ff., see also Bulle, op. cit. pp. 34 ff.
page 164 note 4 Cf. the Rachmani houses, Wace-Thompson, op. cit. pp. 37 ff.
page 166 note 1 B.S.A. xiv. pp. 398 ff.
page 166 note 2 See Thordeman's survey mentioned above, p. 164, note.
page 166 note 3 See above, p. 164, note.
page 166 note 4 Germania, 16.
page 167 note 1 Compare the rectangular and round huts of the Marcomanni on the column of M. Aurelius at Rome, where buildings with vertical staves are well illustrated.
page 167 note 2 Castrén, ; see Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, ix. (1909) p. 60.Google Scholar
page 168 note 1 Fornvännen, 1916, pp. 194 ff.
page 169 note 1 Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, vi. (1906) pp. 74 ff. In pent roof structures where the roof has no gables and rises directly from the foundations or low walls, variations between round huts, rectangular huts, and rectangular huts with curved corners are quite natural. Cf. Pl. VI. 3, and the interesting suggestions of DrAberg, , Mannus, xiii. p. 111.Google Scholar
page 169 note 2 Dr. Mackenzie's suggestions about the early date of the Nordic Megaron and sub sequent conclusions are incorrect, B.S.A. xiv. pp. 349 ff. Very possibly simple rectangular wooden huts may have existed in Sweden from the earliest times contemporaneously with subterranean winter dwellings and round or oval houses which are clearly a highly developed type. But these hypothetical prototypes may have been the natural outcome of what nature and material required—all traces of developed rectangular house types are wanting in the Nordic evidence. Graves, as correctly pointed out by Pfuhl, , Ath. Mitt. 1905, p. 335Google Scholar, cannot be supposed to prove the existence of early rectangular Nordic buildings of an imported type, and there is certainly no connexion at all with the Iron Age when the ‘Nordic House’ is first found in Sweden.
page 170 note 1 Thordeman, op. cit. p. 275; Schultz, , Das germanische Haus, p. 104.Google Scholar
page 170 note 2 See DrErixon's, S. excellent monograph on the ‘Nordic House,’ Fataburen, 1917, pp. 145 ff.Google Scholar, especially p. 149; cf. Sirelius, , Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, ix. (1909) pp. 63 ff.Google Scholar
page 170 note 3 See above, p. 169, note 1.
page 170 note 4 Cf. Thordeman, op. cit. pp. 273 ff.; Åberg, , Mannus, xiii. p. 114.Google Scholar
page 170 note 5 Germania, 44.
page 170 note 6 Kungl. Vitterhetsakademiens Månadsblad, 1886, p. 146, 1888, pp. 50, 109, 129.
page 170 note 7 Archiv. ƒ. Anthropologie, xxiii. (1895) PP. 455 ff.; Mannus, xiii. pp. 104 ff.
page 170 note 8 Montelius, op. cit. p. 455; Thordeman, op. cit. pp. 274 ff.
page 171 note 1 Uplands Fornminnes förenings tidskrift, vi. (1910—12) p. 343; Thordeman, op. cit. p. 277.
page 172 note 1 Cf. Thordeman, op. cit. p. 277.
page 172 note 2 Holland, , A.J.A. 1920, pp. 323 ff.Google Scholar; Rodenwaldt, , Jahrb. 1919, P. 95.Google Scholar note 2 ‘Der archaisch-griechische Tempel ist ein junges Reis aus demselben Stamm aus dem ein halber Jahrtausend früher das mykenische Megaron abzweigte.’
page 173 note 1 Op. cit. p. 44.
page 173 note 2 Mitt. d. anthrop. Vereins in Schleswig-Holstein, xviii. (1907) pp. 3 ff.; Thordeman, op. cit. p. 270; Schultz, op. cit. p. 77.
page 177 note 1 Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, viii. (1908) pp. 8 ff., ix. (1909) pp. 17 ff., xi. (1911), pp. 23 ff. Compare the same author's monumental work, Suomen kansanomaista kultuuria, ii. pp. 141 ff.
page 179 note 1 The novelist K. E. Forslund has collected much modern Swedish material in his description of the parishes and towns of Dalecarlia, , Med Dalälven från källorna till havet, i. p. 11Google Scholar, ii. pp. 14, 102. These timber screens in connexion with the more elementary birch bark screens are to be compared with the primitive tents of the Lapps and their rectangular tent-like timber huts with pyramidal roofs mentioned by Montelius, , Antikvarisk tidskrift, xxi. 1, p. 86.Google Scholar
page 180 note 1 For the conjunction of the different parts (see Figs. 12, 13b) compare the various stages of development by which two huts are ultimately united as seen in Fig. 5a; cf. Fataburen, 1917, pp. 165 ff. and Forslund, op. cit. ii. pp. 67, 81.
page 180 note 2 In discussing the beginning of a possible evolution to a rectangular hut the modern Swedish material has been deliberately avoided and Fig. 17 is given only as an illustration of a roof type without claiming anything about its origin. The whole question in Sweden is rather complicated, because of the highly developed Iron Age Megaron, which already occurs in the Viking Age and is capable of either improvement or degeneration. Further research is necessary, cf. Erixon, op. cit. pp. 185, 189. The material used by Dr. Sirelius is quite different.
page 180 note 3 Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, ix. (1909) pp. 59 ff.
page 182 note 1 Fataburen, 1917.
page 182 note 2 The projecting gable, the object of which is quite clear, is often carried only by posts, as in the house mentioned by DrMackenzie, , B.S.A. xiv. p. 402Google Scholar, Fig. 17; cf. Fataburen, 1917, pp. 172, 180.
page 182 note 3 Op. cit. p. 151.
page 182 note 4 Sirelius, , Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, ix. (1909) p. 63.Google Scholar
page 182 note 5 Montelius, , Civilisation primitive en Italie, i. Pls. XII. 3: XIII. 1.Google Scholar
page 182 note 6 Thordeman, op. cit. p. 275; Schultz, , Das germanische Haus, p. 104.Google Scholar
page 183 note 1 iv. 108.