Focusing on a living community in rural northeastern Iran, Village Spaces explores the relationship between the material, social, and cultural dimensions of human settlement and its architecture. Applying current ethnoarchaeological theories, Horne asserts that settlement anywhere in the world is a dynamic, flexible adaptation that adjusts to changing conditions with varying degrees of success.

The architectural environment shapes and is shaped by technology social relations, expressive and communicative behavior, and ideas about the world and society.

Horne moves from the general to the specific - both analytically and spatially - detailing the processes by which settlement relates to society in the small agricultural and pastoral villages in Khar o Tauran on the Iranian Plateau. Shifting her focus from rooms and activities to houses and households, then to the entire village and its fields, Horne provides a theoretical framework for studies of settlement throughout the world.

She discusses such issues as the location of settlements in relation to subsistence choices and social interaction, the architectural expression of wealth and status, the effects of architectural reuse on the archaeological record, and the processes of mound formation. The first ethnography to be written about rural settlement in eastern Iran, Village Spaces presents a unique database from an area now inaccessible to Western scholars.