Summing Up: Whither the archaeology of the Greek household?

The foregoing nine chapters adopt a wide variety of approaches to the study of Greek houses and households, and are unified by their archaeological perspective. They encompass a range of chronological and geographical contexts, as well as social, cultural, and economic ones. Far from underscoring any sort of homogeneity (whether in terms of ground plans, typologies, or domestic organization as a whole), the overarching themes have been change, diversity, and adaptability. Houses are seen as "meaningful architecture" (Locock 1994), constituting a unique form of "social space" (Parker Pearson and Richards 1994). They therefore merit consideration as an independent and highly significant form of evidence, as each contribution to this work demonstrates. The buildings themselves, and in some cases their artifact assemblages, have been read as primary sources, as "texts" for documenting both the minutiae of lives within them and how these lives articulated with wider social and economic spheres. In what follows we would like to offer some thoughts about what we take to be major themes introduced and points pursued throughout this work.