Landscape, Ethnicity and Identity in the archaic Mediterranean Area

Gabriele Cifani, Simon Stoddart

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781842177280
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

The main concern of this volume is the multi-layered concept of ethnicity. Contributors examine and contextualise contrasting definitions of ethnicity and identity as implicit in two perspectives, one from the classical tradition and another from the prehistoric and anthropological tradition. They look at the role of textual sources in reconstructing ethnicity and introduce fresh and innovative archaeological data in reconstructing ethnicity, either from fieldwork or from new combinations of old data. Finally, in contrast to many traditional approaches to ethnicity, they examine the relative and interacting role of natural and cultural features in the landscape in the construction of ethnicity. The volume is headed by the contribution of Andrea Carandini whose work challenges the conceptions of many in the combination of text and archaeology. He begins by examining the mythology surrounding the founding of Rome, taking into consideration the recent archaeological evidence from the Palatine and the Forum. Here primacy is given to construction of place and mythological descent. Anthony Snodgrass, Robin Osborne, Tim Cornell and Christopher Smith offer replies to his arguments. Overall, the nineteen papers presented here show that a modern interdisciplinary and international archaeology that combines material data and textual evidence - critically - can provide a powerful lesson for the full understanding of the ideologies of ancient and modern societies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• 1. Introduction: contextualizing ethnicity
• 2. Urban landscapes and ethnic identity of early Rome
• 3. Landscape, ethnicity, and the polis
• 4. Ionians and Carians in the Mycale: the discovery of Carian Meliaand the Archaic Panionion
• 5. Are there altenatives to ‘Red-Figure Vase People’? Identity, multi-ethnicityand migration in Ancient Greece
• 6. Landscape and identity of Greek colonists and indigenous communitiesin southeast Italy
• 7. Before the Samnites: Molise in the eighth and sixth century BC
• 8. Ethnicity, identity and state formation in the Latinlandscape. Problems and approaches
• 9. Ethnicity and the identity of the Latins. The evidence from sanctuariesbetween the sixth and the fourth centuries BC
• 10. Political landscapes and local identities in Archaiccentral Italy – Interpreting the material from Nepi (VT, Lazio)and Cisterna Grande (Crustumerium, RM, Lazio)
• 11. Approaching ethnicity and landscapes in pre-Roman Italy: the middleTiber Valley
• 12. Exploring a frontier area in Etruria: the Civita di Grott e di Castro survey
• 13. Between text, body and context: expressing ‘Umbrian’identity in the landscape
• 14. Space, boundaries and the representation of identityin the ancient Veneto c. 600–400 BC
• 15. Limits, frontiers and boundaries among the Iberians of the GuadalquivirValley (Eighth century BC–fourth century BC)
• 16. Landscape and ethnic identities in the early states of eastern Iberia
• 17. The politics of identity: ethnicity and the economy of powerin Iron Age north-west Iberia
• 18. Changing identities in a changing landscape: social dynamicsof a colonial situation in Early Iron Age south-east Iberia
• 19. Endnote: situating ethnicity
• Bibliography
• Index