Yasur-Landau, A. 2011. Deep Change in Domestic Behavioural Patterns and Theoretical Aspects of Interregional Interactions in the 12th-Century Levant. In: Karageorghis, V. And Kouka. O. Eds. On Cooking Pots, Drinking Cups Loom Weights and Ethnicity in Bronze Age Cyprus and Neighboring Regions. Proceedings of and International Archaeological Symposium, Nicosia, 6th – 7th November 2010. Nicosia: 239-249. (original) (raw)

2012 Stockhammer, P.W., Conceptualizing Cultural Hybridization in Archaeology. In: P.W. Stockhammer (Hrsg.), Conceptualizing Cultural Hybridization: A Transdisciplinary Approach. Berlin & Heidelberg: Springer, 43–58.

Today, there continues to be an enormous epistemological gap between the lively discussion on the phenomenon of cultural hybridization in cultural anthropology and the reality of methodological approaches in archaeological interpretation. The diversity of human interaction and the hybridization processes connected therewith, on the one hand, and the fragmentary and silent character of archaeological source material on the other have been seen as insuperable obstacles to the translation of this concept into a practical method for archaeology. In my contribution, I shall attempt to overcome these barriers by breaking down a complex anthropological discourse into components that may be useful for archaeological sources. My aim is to unravel hybridization processes, which I call processes of entanglement, into distinct stages and consider the potential of each stage to be materialized in the archaeological record. I shall further attempt to distinguish between the entanglement of objects and the entanglement of social practices, because foreign, but in their materiality still unchanged, objects can be used in already entangled social practices. Subsequently, I shall examine what stage of the process of entanglement has given rise to an entangled object or social practice. Finally, the application of the concept of hybridization in recent studies on the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean will be reviewed and my own approach demonstrated on the basis of a case study.

On postcolonial hybridity: limits and contributions to the Western Mediterranean Early Iron Age

Over the last decade, archaeologists have applied the term hybridity to interpret contexts of mixed material culture, and it has become a ubiquitous buzzword in the study of colonial situations. But does postcolonial hybridity (sensu Bhabha) differ from traditional explanations of cultural blend? Or is it simply (another) trendy lingo? Besides, the very notion of hybridity in postcolonial studies means politics in its most pure sense, but archaeologists have focused instead on social identities and cultural change, that have been at the forefront of the debate. In this paper I consider the implications of this concept to operationalize an ‘archaeology of hybridity’, testing its viability in two different milieus. In so doing, I compare the Phoenician impact in South Iberia and the Greek influence in South Etruria between the 9th-6th centuries BC through the analysis of funerary rituals and architecture.

On the Constitution and Transformation of Philistine Identity.Oxford Journal of Archaeology 32 (1): 1-38. (2013)

Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2013

Recent discussion of the formation and alteration of Philistine identity in the Levantine Iron Age continues to reference primarily pottery styles and dietary practices. Such traditional narratives propose that the Philistines comprised one group of the 'Sea Peoples' and that the cultural boundary markers that distinguished their society in the Iron Age I (twelftheleventh century BC) diminished in importance and disappeared suddenly in the early Iron Age IIA (tenth century BC), with the ascendancy of the Judahite kingdom. Based on data from the Levant (especially Philistia), the Aegean and Cyprus, we argue for a more complex understanding of the Philistines who came to the region with an identity that drew on, and continued to engage with, a broad range of foreign artefact styles and cultural practices with non-Levantine connections. Concurrently they incorporated local cultural attributes, at least until the late ninth century BC, a feature that we argue was unrelated to the supposed tenth century expansion of the Judahite kingdom. ; Hitchcock in press a). The result was encounters, entanglements, appropriations and merging of numerous constituent groups, due to shared economic and/or socio-political interests, each with its own characteristics. Sorting out these varying relations goes beyond the scope of this paper, whose purpose is to initiate debate and promote future research into a range of issues relating to Mediterranean identity. As discussed below, cultural interaction is demonstrated in Philistine culture by the presence of extensive links to many different worlds that served as conceptual and physical sources of material goods and religio-cultural practices: Cypriot (Cypro-Minoan script, hearths, bi-metallic knives, bronze stands, seal styles, pottery styles), Anatolian (hearths, personal names, pottery styles), Mycenaean (cooking jugs, preference for hearths, pottery styles, personal names, loom weights, figurine styles), Minoan (sacrificial practices and ritual activity, seal use, iconography, pottery motifs, plaster technology), south-central European (e.g. Edelstein and Schreiber 2000; Wachsmann 2000; Sherratt 2003) and possibly even Italian (handmade burnished ware ('barbarian ware'), e.g. Karageorghis 2011; Pilides and Boileau 2011).

Maeir, A. M., Hitchcock, L. A., and Kolska Horwitz, L. 2013. On the Constitution and Transformation of Philistine Identity. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 32(1): 1–38.

Recent discussion of the formation and alteration of Philistine identity in the Levantine Iron Age continues to reference primarily pottery styles and dietary practices. Such traditional narratives propose that the Philistines comprised one group of the 'Sea Peoples' and that the cultural boundary markers that distinguished their society in the Iron Age I (twelftheleventh century BC) diminished in importance and disappeared suddenly in the early Iron Age IIA (tenth century BC), with the ascendancy of the Judahite kingdom. Based on data from the Levant (especially Philistia), the Aegean and Cyprus, we argue for a more complex understanding of the Philistines who came to the region with an identity that drew on, and continued to engage with, a broad range of foreign artefact styles and cultural practices with non-Levantine connections. Concurrently they incorporated local cultural attributes, at least until the late ninth century BC, a feature that we argue was unrelated to the supposed tenth century expansion of the Judahite kingdom. ; Hitchcock in press a). The result was encounters, entanglements, appropriations and merging of numerous constituent groups, due to shared economic and/or socio-political interests, each with its own characteristics. Sorting out these varying relations goes beyond the scope of this paper, whose purpose is to initiate debate and promote future research into a range of issues relating to Mediterranean identity. As discussed below, cultural interaction is demonstrated in Philistine culture by the presence of extensive links to many different worlds that served as conceptual and physical sources of material goods and religio-cultural practices: Cypriot (Cypro-Minoan script, hearths, bi-metallic knives, bronze stands, seal styles, pottery styles), Anatolian (hearths, personal names, pottery styles), Mycenaean (cooking jugs, preference for hearths, pottery styles, personal names, loom weights, figurine styles), Minoan (sacrificial practices and ritual activity, seal use, iconography, pottery motifs, plaster technology), south-central European (e.g. Edelstein and Schreiber 2000; Wachsmann 2000; Sherratt 2003) and possibly even Italian (handmade burnished ware ('barbarian ware'), e.g. Karageorghis 2011; Pilides and Boileau 2011).

Hybrid go-betweens: the role of individuals with multiple identities in cross-cultural contacts in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age central and eastern Mediterranean (2018)

in: Ł. Niesiołowski-Spanò & M. Węcowski (eds.), Change, Continuity, and Connectivity. North-Eastern Mediterranean at the Turn of the Bronze Age and in the early Iron Age, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 196-220.

Introduction: The point of departure for this paper is a number of tombs found in locations scattered over the central and eastern Mediterranean. Together they cover a period that encompasses the outgoing Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Although dispersed in time and space, these tombs have in common that each of them has features that are definitely of a non-local nature and is different or unusual in comparison to the graves that accompany them. The ambiguity of these tombs and the individuals buried in them has confused archaeologists, which is another element that these burials share. Scholars are divided over the question how to evaluate these individuals and, more in particular, what kind of ethnic identity they had. In this contribution I take a closer look at these tombs with two main aims in mind. First, I wish to offer a different perspective on these ambiguous individuals. I will treat them not in isolation but consider them as manifestations of a more widely occurring phenomenon. I will argue that these individuals had hybrid or multiple identities, and compare them to other individuals attested in the archaeological and textual records who seem to have possessed comparable positions in intercultural or transcultural situations of increasing interconnectivity. In many recent studies on culture contact, the focus is on larger collectives, such as migrants or colonists. In this paper, however, I will highlight the possible role of individuals in culture contacts and explore the phenomenon of cultural hybrids, which constitutes the second aim of my paper.

Voss, B. L. 2015. What’s new? Rethinking ethnogenesis in the archaeology of colonialism. American Antiquity 80(4):655-670.

Many archaeological researchers studying colonialism are critiquing theories of cultural change (e.g., hybridity, creolization) in favor of interpretive models that emphasize cultural persistence and continuity. Ethnogenesis, the emergence of new cultural identities, has been put forward as a consensus model: what is “new”—the “genesis” in ethnogenesis— is increasingly interpreted as an authentic remaking of communal identities to foster persistence and survival. This somewhat utopic emphasis on continuity in ethnogenesis theory broadens the concept of ethnogenesis to the point that its value as a theory of identity transformation is being lost. Overall, the archaeological emphasis on ethnogenesis as a tactic of resistance among subaltern communities has led to a general neglect of how ethnic identity practices are deployed in the exercise of power. The increasing use of bioarchaeological evidence in ethnogenesis research also raises pressing ethical and epistemological issues about the relationship between the body and identity. A more focused and restricted application of ethnogenesis theory is necessary to identify and investigate those situations in which colonialism and its consequences resulted in ruptures and structural transformations of identity practices.

Cypriote Archaeology Within the Discourse on the ‘Purity of Tradition’ , in G. Garbati, T. Pedrazzi (eds.),Trasformations and Crisis in the Mediterranean. « Identity » and Interculturality in the Levant ad Phoenician West during the 12th-8th Centuries BCE, Rome, May 8-9 2013, Rome 2014, 117-130.

The disappearance of a “monolithic” concept of identity in all social sciences, including anthropology and archaeology. When the power relationships have been extensively revised in the postcolonial critics, the Other began to be perceived as dynamic and as an “infinity” : it is also characterized by cultural hybridity featuring a high degree of “neutralization” or, in some cases, the complete obscuration of the original distinguished cultures. The interest in the ancient civilizations of Cyprus developed as the result of a consistent and continued presence of European powers over the island (France, Great Britain). This “sense of the past” has been very influential during the process of acculturation of the indigenous population first deployed by the Republic of Venice and, later, by European nations. The use of local antiquities has been linked to the political project of promoting the myth of old and modern empires, and to sponsor the idea of an imperialising rhetoric. The pretext was archaeological research ; the true aim was the creation of a “stable” and immutable concept of identity. Through knowledge dissemination, ethnic identity research, and collecting, it was possible to produce a view of the world and an idea of cultural history in Europe. Keywords : Cyprus ; ethnocentric paradigm ; national identity ; collecting; memorial power.