ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the possible influence of two institutions, the 'household' and the 'inheritance rules', on the historical development and the archaeological record, for Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Southeast Europe. For prehistoric societies that are organized on the baseline of household economies, the link between the development of the institutions of 'inheritance' and 'household' might contribute to an explanation of population changes on a political level. In South Central Europe, house sizes decreased, settlement patterns became agglomerated and general population estimations indicate an increase in population after 4300 BCE. In consequence, on a wider scale significant changes in the archaeological record might be due to a change of the inheritance system and its consequences on the organization of social space, on population sizes and the mobility of people. Within such a model, the reduction of evidence on domestic sites in one area and increased evidence in other regions could be associated with the described change of a social institution.
