The UN’s Human Development Index provides new explanations for the success of Europe’s first large settlements.

Kiel/Germany, December 2nd, 2024 Shards of pottery vessels, traces of house foundations, a few bones – archaeological excavations primarily bring to light the remains of material culture. Numerous tools are needed to draw conclusions about social conditions or the thoughts and feelings of people in the past. These include philosophical concepts. So far, however, these have tended to be used in fundamental archaeological debates, rather than in the analysis of specific finds and findings.

In the international journal Open Archaeology, two archaeologists and a philosopher from the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence at Kiel University now present a way of using the so-called ‘capability approach’ to investigate questions of identity and social organisation directly from archaeological data. The authors use the first large settlements in Europe between 7,000 and 5,000 years ago as a case study. ‘Ultimately, for the first time we were able to relate archaeological categories to those of the United Nations Human Development Index. The approach presented thus also enables links to be made between the distant past and the present,’ says Dr Vesa Arponen, one of the three authors.

Applying the Human Development Index to archaeological findings

The ‘capability approach’ is a philosophical concept that goes back to the work of the Indian philosopher and economist Amartya Sen in the 1970s and 1980s. ‘The approach assumes that human well-being is not only measured by material possessions, but also by other means that enable and facilitate action, as well as the ability to lead an active life. It is about the opportunities for groups and individuals to realise themselves,’ explains Dr Arponen.
Today, this concept of human well-being serves as the theoretical basis for the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI). However, applying it to human communities in the distant past poses a major challenge. ‘How can we use the static remains of material culture to reconstruct dimensions of the dynamic activity behind it?’ says co-author Dr René Ohlrau, summing up this challenge.

Large settlements up to 7000 years old as case studies

In order to master them, the authors first correlated the dimensions and levels of analysis of the Human Development Index with archaeological indicators. ‘One of these categories, for example, is the standard of living, which is also reflected at a societal level in the capacity for innovation. Technical innovations are something that we can trace in archaeological finds, for example when a certain shape of plough or new looms appear in the finds,’ explains co-author Prof. Dr Tim Kerig.

In a second step, the authors applied the newly developed scheme to the Cucuteni-Trypillia societies (ca. 5050-2950 BCE) in present-day Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. They are known for large, ring-shaped settlements that extended over up to 320 hectares and were home to up to 17,000 people.

‘The application of our analysis tool confirms previous studies that these settlements were characterised by great social equality in their heyday and that people had extensive opportunities to be active themselves,’ says Dr Arponen, “but our results point to other explanations for this than previously”.
Until now, climate change or population growth have often been seen as triggers to which people responded with innovations in politics and technology.

‘Our analytical approach opens up the possibility of interpreting the developments in the Cucuteni-Trypillia societies the other way round. It could rather have been the expanded possibilities of the people, their chance of realisation, that attracted more people, which led to population growth and innovation,’ summarises Dr Arponen.

In future, the approach will also be applied to other societies of the past and in other archaeological contexts. ‘In any case, it offers the opportunity to question traditional patterns of explanation in archaeology and to stimulate new discussions on the interpretation of finds,’ Dr Arponen is convinced.

Translated with Deepl.com

Original publication:

Arponen, V., Ohlrau, R. & Kerig, T. (2024). The Capability Approach and Archaeological Interpretation of Transformations: On the Role of Philosophy for Archaeology. Open Archaeology, 10(1), 20240013. (https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2024-0013)

Further Information:

(http://www.cluster-roots.org) Der Exzellenzcluster ROOTS

ImageSource: Uni Kiel,Susanne Beyer,
Reconstruction drawing of a meeting scene in a Cucuteni-Trypillia settlement. In their heyday, these settlements were characterised by great social equality.