Nightmares of solitude

Collectivism and the body politic in the Pre‐Pottery Neolithic

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7515066
AutoresRémi Hadad (0000-0002-6166-7082, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, autor correspondente)
Ano2026
Volume32
FascículoS1
Páginas138-158
Data de publicação2026-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1359-0987 • E-ISSN: 1467-9655
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9655.70069
OpenAlexW7127325721
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas65

Known for its large settlements, monumental buildings, and elaborate funerary practices, the early Neolithic of the Near East is often seen as a case‐study of emergent inequalities. Yet, none of those markers correlate with pronounced distinctions of wealth or status. Plastered human skulls exemplify this issue: although they have been assumed to portray remarkable individuals, they were in fact deliberately deposited in collective sets that enhanced their incomplete and generic features. The immediate intelligibility of a face gives way to uncanny resemblances. In this respect, the interpretation of early Neolithic remains is not unlike that of dreams. This essay uses dreamwork as an analogy for interpreting archaeological evidence as evocative distortion of the past, rather than its mirror representation. In the seemingly egalitarian early Neolithic of the Near East, hierarchy existed without translating, as we would expect, into a single discrete scale of social differentiation. Instead, it operated in a fractal dimension that lay latent in interpersonal relations and intermittently appears as visions of composite identities in artistic or mortuary practices. Conversely, the individuation of bodies in the archaeological assemblage is not the relatable sign of a political order, but rather its manifest perversion: a nightmare of solitude

Analogy · Collective identity · Collectivism · Hierarchy · Interpretation (philosophy · Politics · Uncanny · Vision · Ancient Near East History · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology