Familia y trabajo colectivo en las unidades domésticas griegas

Abstract

This chapter argues that the idea of women’s work has been generally viewed from a simplistic perspective stressing a ‘natural’ approach to sexual roles. However, recent research in archaeology has introduced a new set of approaches to the analysis of social and econo-mic relations at the household level. One of these pers-pectives is connected with the discovery that in a va-riety of ancient Greek settlements there were areas of craft production found in conjunction with domestic activities. This is precisely the case of the Hellenistic Quarter at the Greek site of Roses, in NE Catalonia, comprising a dozen or so houses spanning the 4th to the 2nd centuries BC. In at least four of theses houses, we see areas of metallurgy or ceramic production in close connection with domestic spaces. The author ar-gues that this may represent a family-based economy in which men, women and children participated.