Patterns of Imports in Iron Age Italy - 2007 (original) (raw)
2013
(2013) - Throughout the local Bronze and Iron Age, European and Mediterranean societies appear to have been involved in complex systems of exchange networks which invariably affected local customs and historical developments. Archaeological evidence suggests social and economic phenomena, cultural expressions and technological skills stemmed from multifaceted encounters between local traditions and external influences. Examples of cultural openness and transcultural hybridisation seem to be more of a norm than an exception. The articles in the volume explore the dynamic relationship between regionally contextualised transformations and inter-regional exchange networks. Particular effort has been put in approaching the issue in a multi-disciplinary perspective. Continental Europe and the Mediterranean may be characterised by specific development and patterns of relations, but the authors draw attention to how those worlds were not alien to each other and illustrate how common interpretative tools can be successfully applied and a comprehensive approach including both zones adopted. more info and table of content at http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/oxbow-books-imprint/exchange-networks-and-local-transformations.html"
The paper will briefly introduce the session “Long-distance contacts and Acculturation in central Italy from 1000 to 700 BC” that was organised for the XVII International Congress on Classical Archaeology in Rome, September 22-26, 2008. The other contributions to this session discuss contacts with various regions to the North, West and East of Italy but do not introduce the pan-Adriatic koinè and therefore the article will open with a brief review of data for exchange between East Italy and the regions on the opposite side of the Adriatic. Evidence for these contacts increased during the 8th century BC as is demonstrated by excavations at sites such as Verucchio in the province of Emilia Romagna. Some elite tombs from this site can act as an example of developments that are also traced in other Italian regions, meaning the selection and gradual spread of Levantine artefacts and symbols of power within a Late Villanovan context during the 8th century BC. Subsequently the article focuses on the internal network of Iron Age centres crossing from South to North Italy by examining the mounting deposition of amber and iron in tombs. The spread of iron and its technology is reconstructed as emerging during the 10th century BC, being locally worked in the whole Peninsula during the 9th century BC and more widely employed during the following 8th century BC. The general adoption of iron during the 9th century BC in Italy is reconstructed as a regional process on account of typical artefact types produced at some key sites. The cultural shift referred to, emerges from 850-800 BC onwards, when the elite of Italy became buried with a growing number of artefact types that refer to the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Orientalising idiom of the artefacts and symbols of power supplemented and replaced those of Villanovan origin with their link to central Europe, north of the Alps. This cultural redirection was not just restricted to goods but also affected architecture, burial customs and religion. There were direct, personal contacts with people from the Near East since not only the form of the artefacts is mimicked but also their function. The Orientalising phenomenon came to shape several aspects of society in central Italy and was important for the rise of City States/Early States, which were formed on the sound foundations of stratified Iron Age/Villanovan centres. This cultural shift is presented here as one of longue durée, lasting at least 75 to 100 years. Thus distinctions and preferences of the select few triggered the hybridization process that resulted in the archaeological characteristics of the subsequent Orientalising period (ca. 725-580 BC) documenting centralisation and urbanisation.
Economy and Cultural Contact in the Mediterranean Iron Age. Perspectives from East and West
Martin Guggisberg and Matthias Grawehr (Eds.) Economy and Cultural Contact in the Mediterranean Iron Age Panel 5.9 Archaeology and Economy in the Ancient World – Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Cologne/Bonn 2018, 2022
In the past decades, the study of cultural contacts in the Mediterranean has tested an ever-increasing number of theoretical models to describe the exchange between people from different backgrounds, and, as one of the outcomes of the still ongoing discussion, the basic concept of culture, as a monadic entity has been questioned. A growing discomfort has been felt in dividing the people of the Mediterranean into distinct cultural entities, which then can come into contact with each other. As an alternative, in the panel "Economy and Cultural Contact in the Mediterranean Iron Age", an approach was chosen, that turns away from the discussion of theoretical models and instead tries to understand economy as a basic driving force of cultural exchange: Which commodities and objects were shifted from on place to another, and which were not? In our introductory contribution we will concentrate on the 8th century BC and develop two perspectives on the east and the west, both involving traders from the Aegean.
The Iron Age in South Italy: Settlement, Mobility and Culture Contact
In a study concerned with understanding the types of population and modes of contanct in the multiple ecosystems of Iron Age southern Italy, ranging from the Greek poleis of the coastal flood plains to the Appenine mountain regions of Calabria and Lucania, it is necessary to examine the contexts carefully, as each culture or cultural or social group and every region may react differently to contacts with other cultures. Particularly instructive in this respect is the picture that emerges from the Ionnian coast between Taras and Sybaris and its immediate hinterland, where it is possible to compare and differentiate realities that are not necessarily homogeneous or fully standardised. This paper discusses three different contexts along the Ionian coast, namely L'Amastuola, Incoronata and Francavilla Marittima, where the traditional reconstruction of the settlement dynamics, as proposed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, saw the presence of the Greek as a disruptive element which shattered a static indigenous situation and that led first to the conquest and subjugation of the indigenous inhabitants who lived around the immediate hinterland of the colonial settlements, and then resulted in full-blown inter-ethnic conflict. This perspective interpreted the clear traces of transformations between the eight and the seventh centuries in the indigenous settlements around the area later occupied by the Greek chorai as evidence of local communities succumbing to the impact of the Greeek arriva. In this paper, I will first discuss this traditional reconstruction, with particular attention to the inland regions of the Appennine mountains, before considering mobility and cultural contact in the Italic world and exploring the settlements and developments of indigenous communities between Iron Age I and II.
The book under review is in line with the growing popularity of Social Network Analysis in archaeology. The Mediterranean region in particular is witnessing a surge in studies on ancient networks and their significance for cultural development in different regions and periods. The importance of maritime connectivity has eloquently been made clear by N. Horden and P. Purcell,1 C. Broodbank2 and several others. Social Network Analysis is emerging as a powerful tool to quantitatively map and evaluate connectivity and its effects on material culture.3 Time will tell whether this popularity of Social Network Analysis constitutes a veritable paradigm shift in the study of the ancient Mediterranean. But it does lead to new perspectives on established fields in archaeology, of which this book is an example.
Linking the Mediterranean: The Construction of Trading Networks in 14th and 15th-century Italy
The Globalization of Renaissance Art: A Critical Review, ed by D. Savoy, 2018
This essay explores Mediterranean trade as described in eight mercantile manuals composed in Venice and Florence between the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries. Whereas scholars have read these manuals as historical documents, this essay reflects on their creative dimension. It reads them as projects: proposals on how trade can overcome its imbalances by adopting a logic that defies geographical proximity. In other words, these manuals construct trade as a network. While the word "network" is on everybody's lips these days, it is mostly employed uncritically to signify inter-dependence generally, without realizing that networks instead identify specific behaviors and opportunities for growth. To overcome such a shortcoming this essay retrieves quantitative geographers' analyses of networks in the 1960s and then applies some of their conclusions to interpret early modern mercantile manuals, thus suggesting new paths for art historical research and interpretation. (The text printed by Brill contains a few typos and errors that have been corrected in the present version.)
Regional Interaction (in Roman Italy)
A Companion to Roman Italy, (ed.) A. Cooley, Wiley-Blackwell, 2016
Regional interaction and local travel in Roman Italy, with a special focus on advertisements for gladiatorial games (edicta munerum) and the regional market cycle (indices nundinarii).
Italy, Macedonia and Dacia – networks of interaction in the 2nd – 1st centuries BC
Although the interactions between pre-Roman Dacia and the Mediterranean world are a quite popular topic of the Romanian historiography, various studies focused almost exclusively on trade and/or conflict. This approach is problematic, since the distinct "biography" of each site, characterised by a wide variety of social-political and economic structures, functions and activities, and their particular archaeological contexts are overlooked. The article examines the role played by local and regional contact networks in the circulation, adoption, adaptation and even rejection of various goods, practices, beliefs and ideas of Mediterranean origin. These contact networks were the result of a series of more or less formal social-political or/ and economic relations established between social groups and communities, and even between certain individuals, some of them even predating the period in question. Archaeological evidence suggests that the interactions between pre-Roman Dacia and the Mediterranean were much more than just conflicts or trade, as they involved a large variety of individuals, groups and communities, each with its own interests and means of action. The analysed case-studies reveal the existence of different and sometimes overlapping regional and trans-regional networks of contact and communication, which facilitated the flow of goods, trends, practices, ideas etc.
Studying change in local and regional economic networks in Central Italy
Network theory, being dynamic in nature, seems better suited to deal with change than static, traditional economic-geographical models such as Central Place Theory. In our paper we present a network-based approach to the study of economic change through archaeological data. We will present a first application of this approach, which will be elaborated within a recently started research project that studies the role of minor centres in the regional economy of the Pontine region, central Italy. In this project we study patterns of production, exchange and consumption of goods in the light of infrastructural change and elite involvement. We aim to show that concepts developed within Network Theory are very useful to explain changes in these patterns.
Cambridge University Press. Can be ordered directly at: http://www.cambridge.org/academic/subjects/archaeology/archaeology-europe-and-near-and-middle-east/trade-and-civilisation-economic-networks-and-cultural-ties-prehistory-early-modern-era?format=HB#p6VJ94A3qBKIJ0vA.97 , 2018
This book provides the fi rst global analysis of the relationship between trade and civilisation from the beginning of civilisation around 3000 BC until the modern era around AD 1600. Encompassing the various networks including the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean trade, Near Eastern family traders of the Bronze Age, and the Medieval Hanseatic League, it examines the role of the individual merchant, the products of trade, the role of the state, and the technical conditions for land and sea transport that created diverging systems of trade and developed global trade networks. Trade networks, however, were not durable. The contributors discuss the establishment and decline of great trading network systems, and how they related to the expansion of civilisation, and to diff erent forms of social and economic exploitation. Case studies focus on local conditions as well as global networks until the sixteenth century when the whole globe was connected by trade.
American Anthropologist
Equally disturbing for the critics has been the economic-deterministic approach of the theory and the following disregard of complexities of socio-political structures and their nuances, which may manifest for example as syncretism and creolisation (Webster 1997; 2005), bilateral borrowing and adaptation of cultural elements (Price 2002), selective adaptation, abandonment and re-adaptation of cultural elements (Webster 1999; Nurmi 2009; Kuusela et al. 2016) or simply as internal factors within a society that drive cultural change forward (Stein 1999; 2002). Put simply, the critics point out that the theory enforces a "one size fits all"-model on a sweeping manner ignoring local unique circumstances and resulting historical processes (McGuire 1996, 51; Galaty 2011, 4). Alternatives and amendments Colin Renfrew was among the early and arguably most famous critics of the use of the worldsystem theory in archaeological research, and he presented an alternative model, which he termed peer polity interaction (Renfrew 1986). Peer polity interaction, like world-system theory (from an archaeological perspective), tackles the problem of culture change and interregional interaction, and like world-system theory it, too, acknowledges that the latter is an integral part in these dynamics, and it shares with the world-system theory a systemic approach to the relations of human societies (McGuire 1996, 54). Where it significantly differs is that it does not acknowledge a power asymmetry or a dominative relationship between interacting parties but, like its name denotes, assumes such interactions take place between autonomous peers (Renfrew 1986, 1).
The metal finds are a particularly important material for studying the contacts that flourished particularly in the period during the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and the beginning of the Early Iron Age (EIA). These artefactswere recovered mostly from hoards. Hoards testify not only to the economic prosperity of the people living in the italian sphere, but also to the Central Mediterranean being the real heart of the sea trade-routes between East and West. According to the interregional connections and traffic taking place during the latest phases of prehistory, Italy can be divided into two main regions. One was localised along the Tyrrhenian Sea; it was mainly connected in an earlier phase to the Eastern Mediterranean, then with the atlantic area: it includes Sicily Sardinia and, partially, Etruria. The other region was located in southern Italy, more precisely in Apulia and Calabria; it was mostly involved in trade with the Aegean and the Balkans – i. e. with the opposite shores of the Adriatic and Ionian Seas –, but not with Western Europe.
In: Armit, I., Potrebica, H., Črešnar, M., Mason, P. & Büster, L. (eds) 2016. Cultural Encounters in Later Prehistoric Europe. Budapest: Archaeolingua. This paper aims at analyzing cross-culture trade (i.e. trade between people of local origin and seaborne traders coming from Greek or Phoenician colonies or from Italy) in the northern part of the Iberian world (i.e. modern-days eastern Aragon, Catalonia and the southern part of the Languedoc), during the Iron Age and previously to the Roman invasion. It will discuss the prevalent and often implicit assumption according which trade would have been made according to norms established by the seaborne traders themselves. It will briefly review the institutions of trade typical of the ancient Eastern and Central Mediterranean, and outline the materiality of such institutions. Through comparison, it will emphasize the specificities of the Iberian trading practices, mainly based on interpersonal relationship and mutual trust, and show that the seaborne traders adapted themselves to this peculiar reality. Last, it will discuss the modalities of this adaptation, by reconsidering the well-known Greek text of Pech-Maho (Sigean, Aude, France).
Adaptation along Border Zones: Concepts, Strategies, Transformations, 2021
In Italian Archaeology, especially for the Iron Age period, traditional approaches have been based for more than 150 years on material studies as primary means to identify the ancient peoples mentioned in greek and roman written sources. Thus, the different archaeological cultures have been often perceived as close and immutable entities, defined by geographical and cultural sharp-edge boundaries and presumed specific languages, productions and rituals. Not surprisingly, several ‘buffer’ zones, always problematic, elusive and indistinct, had to be assumed all around the margins of the given ethic core areas, whatsoever labelled, for example in north-west Italy, as ‘celtic’, ‘ligurian’, or ‘etruscan’. However, in the last few years, new discoveries and reviews of ancient data from several sites, as well as theoretical advances, are providing evidence to undermine such an oversimplified, rigid and ‘culture-history’ biased framework. The present paper thus focuses on the complex cultural and trading network of northwest Italy, exploring the nuanced relations between the Golasecca culture, its neighbouring regions (Southern Piedmont, Liguria, southern Switzerland), and the so-called ‘etruscan’ population of the Emilian Po valley. We shall propose a critical review of the traditional markers of cultural identity, mobility, and interaction, questioning the role and the very concept of cultural margins. Thanks to a comparative and critical analysis of settlement patterns, productive modes, and funerary landscapes, we finally reconsider the traditional ethnic narratives, looking for alternative theoretical models and new understanding of the role of ‘indigenous’ Iron Age communities of northwest Italy within the broader picture of the Mediterranean-Central Europe relations.
Consumption and Exchange in Central Italy in the 9th through 6th centuries BCE
2015
This dissertation addresses issues of connectivity in central Italy in the 8 th and 7 th centuries BCE by examining consumption. Specifically, I analyze how indigenous consumptive practices created specific material demands that fostered contact with other Mediterranean regions. Large demands for banqueting equipment were driven by widespread, extant practices of wine consumption. Demands were largely met locally until the end of the 6 th century, when central Italians began to acquire large quantities of banqueting equipment from Greece, especially Athens. Central Italian demand for banqueting equipment drew Greek materials into the region, thereby explaining the large quantities of Greek drinking vessels discovered in central Italy. The 8 th and 7 th centuries in central Italy were a time of intense urbanization and increasing social stratification. Additionally, scholars often describe these centuries in central Italy as an Orientalizing Period, when materials and practices from the eastern Mediterranean were brought to central Italy by traders, mainly Greek merchants. Local Italian elites would have consumed foreign materials and adopted foreign practices as a means of differentiating themselves from non-elites. In the last 50 years, many scholars have drawn causal links between the arrival of Greeks in the central Mediterranean and the immense changes that occurred in central Italy. The resulting model for change is known as Orientalization. Models of Orientalization link urbanization and increasing social stratification in central Italy to increasing contact with the eastern Mediterranean, especially Greece. In this model, indigenous populations receive little credit for the changes that the region underwent. In this dissertation, I test models of Orientalization by v employing a statistical and contextual approach to the study of portable artifacts in central Italy. I have compiled a database of 43,000 artifacts deposited between 900 and 500 BCE at six sites, including Poggio Civitate, San Giovenale, Populonia, Caere, Veii, and Rome. For each site, I have tracked the places of production, deposition contexts, and dates of deposition of locally-made and imported artifacts. I have calculated the amounts and percentages of imports found in 50-year intervals and determined that in the 8 th and 7 th centuries, imports in central Italy were rare; they