C.A. Hope

Housing and Habitat in the Ancient Mediterranean C.A. Hope

This volume presents the outcome of the international conference
'Housing and Habitat in the Mediterranean World: responses to different
environments' that celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Monash
University Centre in Prato in 2011. It incorporates comparative and
recent research on the housing in the Mediterranean world investigating
social, cultural and environmental aspects. The topics of the
contributions deal with the development and internationalisation of
domestic architecture in the Mediterranean, the transformation and
diffusion of different housing typologies, the implications for social
interaction, and the adaptation to varying regional environments of
Classical models of housing. The contributors present new archaeological
data and fresh interpretations, various theories, methods and evidence
to investigate the characteristics of and change in social space and
dynamics in both the urban and rural environment. Rather than dealing
with one discrete region or time frame, the aim of the conference and
these papers is diachronic, incorporating data from around the entire
region and ranging broadly across the 1st millennium BCE to Late
Antiquity. In so doing, regional characteristics can be highlighted but
also compared with contemporary developments throughout the region and
long-term trends, both local and again regional, can be identified. The
volume illustrates different priorities in the study of housing and
habitat that hopefully will prove stimulating to all researchers
concerned with the lived-in environment.