Session: #258

Content:

One of the notable aspects of the major central places that emerges in many areas of the world is the apparent presence of empty areas within their enclosures. Most studies of such complexes have, however, focused on the examination and interpretation of their internal built structure and the enclosure features themselves,at the expense of these seemingly ‘empty’ areas.The aim of this session is to discuss the possible function of empty spaces within such major social centres, examining the non-built up areas from a contextual and functional point of view. This issue cannot be resolved only by traditional archaeological methods: combining different approaches (geophysics, archaeology, geoarchaeology and environmental archaeology) will enable to address the question of management of these areas.
This session seeks to develop from an increasing number of studies that suggest examination of these areas is potentially fundamental to understand the function of such centres, recognising the nature of the social structures of their communities,and perhaps even their unique trajectories of urbanism. It is clear that these spaces were not devoid of meaning and differed depending on size (e.g. space between the houses, such as courtyards vs. large public spaces) and on the control by various levels of authority, ranging from elites to neighbourhood groups to individual households.
From a chronological point of view, the main focus of our session is on prehistoric, protohistoric and early historic sites. This approach is mainly focussed on Europe, but papers from other areas are also welcome.
Contributions dealing with the following issues are expected, but not limited to:
- Empty areas in space organisation and urbanisation (low-density urbanisation).
- Patterns in placement of empty spaces.
- Role of empty areas from the point of view of sociology of space and in the urbanisation process
- Methods for estimation of function.

Session: #258

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