Ned Heite wrote:
There is a palpable difference, at least in these parts, between the
European sense of privacy and personal space, and the prehistoric sense of
community.
 
Despite the qualification "at least in these parts"- to suggest the dichotomy
between prehistory and historical archaeology is a distinction between the
study of individualistic and communal socities is alarmingly ethno-centric.
Communal organisation was very much a feature of medieval and even early
modern European societies. Deetz's Georgian world view was surely about the
breakdown of communalism under the influence of scientific humanism in 18th
century puritan New England. A process which only took place much later in
some other regions/classses if at all. Was the 17th century therefore
prehistoric. Ned's argument does not work either if you specify kinship-based
societies -probably Ned meant-( and not the same as communalism) because these
are also well documented in post-medieval Europe especially on its fringes.
Paul Courtney