—Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
It is customary to thank one’s family at the end of the acknowledgements, but in this case it would be utterly inappropriate. My wife and colleague, Janine L. Gasco, and our son, Nathan Moore, read various versions of this manuscript, pointed out weakness in its organization and my explication, and through it all remained steadfastly supportive. More importantly, Jan and Nate are my home, and thus shaped this entire project and my scholarly interest in home in profound and subtle ways. This book is dedicated to Jan and Nate, who bring me home.
I am also privileged to have a group of friends and colleagues who read and commented on this project, when it was just a loose set of ideas that were progressively transformed into a book. I am particularly indebted to Brenda Bowser, Andrew Stewart, and Leah Weed for their careful insights on previous drafts. I also want to thank Bill Fox for his support of this project from its inception, his insights into place-making, and for his companionship on archaeological journeys in Baja California and Chile. I also appreciate the constant support provided by other friends and colleagues including Joanne Pillsbury, Helaine Silverman, and Charles Stanish.
For scholars who answered specific questions about their respective fields of research, I thank Patricia J. O’Brien, Professor Emerita, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Kansas State University; and Esther Jacobson-Tepfer, Maude I. Kerns Professor Emeritus, Department of Art History, University of Oregon. For permissions to reproduce original artwork I want to thank Meredith Chasson and Eric Carlson, Notre Dame University; Janine Gasco, California State University–Dominguez Hills; Stephanie Hawkins, New Mexico State University; John Middendorf; Christopher Rodning, Tulane University; and Santiago Uceda, Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, Peru. A full list of illustration credits is found on page 261.
I would like to acknowledge the granting agencies who have supported my archaeological projects over the last three decades, investigations that are discussed at various points in this book: National Science Foundation/Archaeology Program (1981–1982, Manchan; 1998–1999, Baja California; 2006–2007, Tumbes); the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (1995, Baja California; 2010, Perú and Ecuador); National Geographic Society/Waitt Grants Program (2010–2011, Baja California); the H. John Heinz Foundation (1996, Tumbes); the University Research Expeditions Program, University of California (1986, Quebrada Santa Cristina); the Curtis and Mary T. Brennan Foundation (2003, Tumbes); and the CSUDH Research and Scholarly and Creative Activities Program (1991, 1994, 1995, Baja California; 2000, 2003, Tumbes).
At the University of California Press, I want to thank Blake Edgar, for his support and guidance of this project. Although inundated by book “pitches” at an annual archaeology meeting, Blake expressed interest in this book, stimulating me to actually complete a long-considered project. I also thank Hannah Love at the University of California Press, for her cheery assistance. I particularly appreciate the calm guidance of Lynn Meinhardt, editorial coordinator, Science Publishing Group, at the University of California Press, who shepherded this book into existence, and to Marilyn Schwartz, managing editor at the University of California Press, for seeing the project through to conclusion. I also grateful for the careful copy-editing provided by Jennifer Eastman. I am deeply indebted to all these individuals for all their contributions.
I am grateful to Wendy Ashmore, Professor of Anthropology, University of California–Riverside, and two anonymous readers for reviewing the manuscript for University of California Press; it was gratifying that these three scholars understood the objective and audience of this book.
The final manuscript was prepared with modest support from the California State University–Dominguez Hills grant, providing a course off from a normal heavy teaching load. I want to thank my colleagues in the Department of Anthropology, California State University–Dominguez Hills—Jan Gasco, Susan Needham, and Ana Pitchon—for creating such a supportive academic environment in which to work. Also at CSUDH, I want to thank Dr. Sandra Parham, Dean of the Library, and Ms. Faye Phinsee-Clack, Inter-Library Loans, for their support of my research and writing projects.
Finally, I must acknowledge the efforts and insights of the scores of archaeologists whose investigations are summarized in this book. As I researched this book, reading the sometimes dry and technical reports of archaeological data—a genre as spare as haiku—I was so impressed by the scope and detail of research by my fellow archaeologists. As an archaeologist, I understand the difficulties involved in fieldwork, the painstaking and meticulous lab work that understatedly summarized in a simple data table or figure. In their independent but ultimately collective efforts, the archaeologists discussed in the following pages and referenced in the footnotes have recovered the fragments of the past, preserved it for future generations, and illuminated the contours and specifics of the human experience. I and any person interested in the question “What does it mean to be human?” all stand in their debt.
CHAPTER 1
The Prehistory of Home
Our trowels scrape through time. A dozen of us—archaeologists, students, and workmen—are excavating in far northern Peru. Digging through hard layers of ash-black clay and past thick jumbles of ancient oyster shells, we carefully scoop up the loosened midden and sieve it through dry shaker screens, trapping durable potsherds and glinting flakes of obsidian. We watch for traces of archaic structures: postholes from long-gone timbers, subtle variations in soil color and texture, a slightly more compacted surface. We speak in low voices as we dig, afraid that any distraction will cause us to miss the ancient traces of home.
Various animals build shelters, but only humans build homes. Humans build dwellings in different environments, constructed with diverse materials and in distinct forms, and associated with nuanced meanings. We have done this for millennia.
No other species lives in such a variety of shelters. Despite the diversity of the constructions that other animals create—the pendulous baskets of oriole nests, the intricate dens of prairie dogs, or the decorated nests of bowerbirds—humans construct the broadest array of dwellings on Earth.
Our words for “dwelling” point to this diversity:
Palace, hovel, hogan, ranch house, croft.
Tipi, chalet, duplex, kraal.
Igloo, bungalow, billet, cabin.
Cottage, crannog, adobe, manor.
Wickiup, villa, lean-to, abbey.
Hacienda, barrack, lodge, shanty.
Pithouse, penthouse, pueblo, condo.
In the Kalahari Desert, !Kung San women construct veldt-brush windbreaks for their families in less than an hour, a dwelling abandoned in a few days when the foraging band moves on.
Among the Toraja of Sulawesi, the saddleback roof and sweeping facades of noble “origin houses” (tongkonan) link generations of kinfolk and spatially anchor rituals shared by members of “house societies.”
And in Beverly Hills, the home of the late television producer Aaron Spelling was put up for sale in March 2009 and finally sold in July 2011 for a discounted price of $85 million to the 22-year-old British heiress, Petra Ecclestone. Generally considered the largest home in Los Angeles County, the 56,500-square-foot, 123-room mansion on six acres includes such amenities as four wet-bars, a screening room, a bowling alley, a giftwrapping room, parking for one hundred cars, and a 17,000-square-foot attic containing a beauty salon and a barbershop. Built in a “French chateau style,” the Spelling house is nonetheless only one-fourth the size of the Palace of Versailles.
All these places are homes.
The social anthropologist Timothy Ingold has written about the difference between “animal architecture” and our buildings. Comparing, as an example, beaver lodges to human dwellings, Ingold notes that “wherever they are, beavers construct the same kinds of lodges…. Human beings, by contrast, build houses of very diverse kinds, and although certain house forms have persisted for long periods, there is unequivocal evidence that these forms have also undergone significant historical change.” As the