3 - Household subsistence and ritual

Summary

In the degenerate time of Shao-hao, however, the Nine Li threw virtue into disorder. Men and spirits became intermingled, with each household indiscriminately performing for itself the religious observances which had hitherto been conducted by the shamans. As a consequence, men lost their reverence for the spirits, the spirits violated the rules of men, and natural calamities arose.

“Severance of heaven–earth communication” in Kuoyu, a fourth-century BC text; translated by Derk Bodde (1961)

Introduction

The household is the most common social component of subsistence, the smallest and most abundant activity group. It is composed of three elements: social, material, and behavioral (Wilk and Rathje 1982b: 618). A household, as the most basic social unit, provides crucial information for understanding economic, ecological, and ritual processes in a given society. Although archaeologists recover dwellings and domestic artifacts, not social units, we can infer the corresponding social units based on non-random patterns revealed in the material remains of architecture.

Understanding household behavior has been one of the aims in household archaeology. This may be achieved by investigating patterns of architectural remains and associated artifacts (e.g., Allison 1999; Blanton 1994; Kent 1990c). Architecture is a reflection of behavior, which, in turn, is a reflection of culture (Kent 1984, 1987; 1990a: 3). The factors which affect the built environment include both cross-cultural and culture-specific variables.