Not to mention that there's only so much the layout of ground floors can tell you about social organization of a civilization which isn't described in written records, even if relatively evenly preserved. As in the famous "Motel of the Mysteries" parody, in which an archaeologist of the future discovers the underground remains of a 20th century motel and ascribes probable religious significance to everything from the television to the toilet.
I mean, "lots of houses, all of them quite small and all nearby burials without ceremony" could describe a hierarchy free anarcho-syndicalist utopia. But it could also describe a monastery, a barracks, a ghetto, a town built for subjects of the undiscovered nearby imperial palace or a slave colony, all of which are usually associated with particularly rigid hierarchies. If apartheid era Soweto was buried under a volcano, it would probably look like a settlement organised on relatively egalitarian lines by late twentieth century standards...
I mean, "lots of houses, all of them quite small and all nearby burials without ceremony" could describe a hierarchy free anarcho-syndicalist utopia. But it could also describe a monastery, a barracks, a ghetto, a town built for subjects of the undiscovered nearby imperial palace or a slave colony, all of which are usually associated with particularly rigid hierarchies. If apartheid era Soweto was buried under a volcano, it would probably look like a settlement organised on relatively egalitarian lines by late twentieth century standards...