Archaeology of Identity Research Papers (original) (raw)

- by and +1
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- Archaeology, Roman History, Archaeology of Identity, Roman Archaeology

From Saxon mercenaries to prince Beowulf – Scandinavian identity in Anglo-Saxon England ca 450 – 800 AD.
Through an analysis of the spatial, chronological and social organization of Scandinavian material culture in England during the early and middle Anglo-Saxon period, it is argued that the Scandinavian cultural traits take part in a social discourse relating to the manifestation, negotiation and transformation of Anglo-Scandinavian identity. Both archaeological and contemporary historical sources are explored, and the analysis focuses on the intersection of manifestation of ethnic identity in the different medias/sources. The theoretical basis of the analysis is the perception of ethnicity as a dynamic, contextual and multidimensional phenomenon, generated in a situation where a cultural encounter between peoples of differing cultural traditions takes place. The cultural content of ethnic identities is seen as dependent on both the cultural practices of the agents involved, and the social conditions that characterize the specific historical situation where the meeting takes place.
The analysis of Scandinavian material culture indicates that in the period immediately following the ”Anglo-Saxon” invasion, Scandinavian identity is incorporated in a common Germanic, ”Saxon” identity that is contrasted and defined in opposition to a British/Romano-British ethnic identity. Then, in the period ca 475 – 575 AD, Scandinavian culture seems to be actively involved in a process of polarization between different regional groups. These groups are based on a constellation of different ethnic groups, such as Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Francs, ”Norwegians”, a ”native” Romano-British population etc, and are later to be known as Angles, Saxons and Jutes referred to in historical sources from the 8th and 9th centuries. At the end of the 6th and beginning of the 7th century, Scandinavian identity is going through a process where it is structured in accordance with a hierarchical principle, in which it comes to symbolize the common cultural heritage of an emerging aristocracy.

A metalwork hoard dated to the Wilburton phase of the later Bronze Age, found at Barway close to the Isle of Ely in the Cambridgeshire Fens, is reported. Consideration of the hoard, in the context of later prehistoric hoarding in the local landscape, reveals that particular sorts of artefacts were associated with particular places in the landscape. In particular a strong association between later Bronze Age hoards and causeways connecting the Isle of Ely to the outside world is identified, and an interpretation suggested. This study demonstrates the potential of a detailed contextual approach for providing a more nuanced understanding of later Bronze Age metalwork deposition that moves away from a simplistic wet-dry dichotomy.

- by David Barrowclough
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- European History, European Studies, Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology

About the Book: Archaeological Theory in the New Millennium provides an accessible account of the changing world of archaeological theory. It charts the emergence of the new emphasis on relations as well as engaging with current theoretical trends and the thinkers archaeologist regularly employ. This book will be an essential guide to cutting-edge theory for students and for professional wishing to reacquaint themselves with this field.

- by Oliver Harris and +1
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- Semiotics, Anthropology, Practice theory, Material Culture Studies

Lo scopo di quest’articolo è realizzare una sintesi introduttiva sullo stato della ricerca per ciò che riguarda il genere. Comincerò rivedendo tutto ciò che riguarda l’origine degli studi di genere per poi soffermarmi su una delle aree in cui questo nuovo campo dell’archeologia ha avuto più successo, quello della critica all’impostazione androcentrica. Introdurrò poi alcune considerazioni su come si dovrebbe concepire il genere, vale a dire come una categoria multidimensionale e diversa. Gli studi di genere sulla sussistenza e sulla produzione, sulla cultura materiale, su genere e paesaggio, e come que¬sto tipo di identità può essere studiata in relazione al potere e alia gerarchia sociale, sono altri temi sui quali si soffermerà questo lavoro.

- by Danijel Džino
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- Ancient History, Archaeology, Celtic Studies, Balkan Prehistory (Archaeology)
- by Sarah Geijsels
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- Archaeology of ethnicity, Archaeology of Identity

This essay is an examination of Udjahorresnet’s Persian identity. Best known from the inscription on his naophorous statue now in the Vatican, Udjahorresnet was a high-ranking courtier in Egypt under the Saite pharaohs Amasis and Psamtik III, and subsequently under the Persian kings Cambyses and Darius. While his statue’s form, function and inscription make it clear that he was an Egyptian, certain representational features of the statue indicate that he had a Persian identity as well. These features include the statue’s garment, which evokes the Persian “court robe” depicted at Persepolis and elsewhere, and the lion-headed bracelets on his wrists, which are examples of a well-known class of Achaemenid jewelry. The court robe, which derives from Elamite tradition, is a key visual marker of the idealized “Persian man,” a central aspect of Achaemenid royal ideology, and the lion bracelet, which draws on various material culture traditions from Iran, is a symbol of imperial unity. Udjahorresnet’s decision to include these features on his statue thus suggests that he constructed a Persian identity for himself.

- by Henry Colburn
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- Achaemenid Persia, Elamite, Archaeology of Identity, Achaemenid archaeology
- by Ivan Vranic
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- Postcolonial Studies, Greek Colonisation, Greek Archaeology, Balkan archaeology
- by John Bennet
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- Funerary Archaeology, Aegean Archaeology, Archaeology of Identity, Tholos Tombs
- by Benjamin Smith
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- Art History, Rock Art (Archaeology), Southern Africa, Archaeology of ethnicity

Ch 1 Introduction; Ch 2 Gender identity; Ch 3 The archaeology of age; Ch 4 Status identity and archaeology; Ch 5 Ethnic and cultural identities; Ch 6 The archaeology of religion
The Archaeology of Identity presents an overview of five of the key areas that have recently emerged in archaeological social theory: gender, age, status, ethnicity and religion. This book reviews the research history of each of them, and the different ways in which they have been investigated, as well as offering potential ways forward. Emphasis is placed on exploring the ways in which material culture is structured by these aspects of individual and communal identity, with a particular stress on social practice. A wealth of scholarship is brought together in this book, which provides an integrated approach to identity not commonly found in similar studies. This book is suitable for students and readers interested in issues of identity, as well as social scientists dealing with similar aspects in sociology, anthropology and history.

- by Margarita Díaz-Andreu and +2
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- Archaeology of Gender, History of Religion, Gender Archaeology, Archaeology of Identity
- by David Barrowclough
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- European History, Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Anthropology

We discuss the important role of the feminist critique in bringing awareness to gender, childhood, and identity research, and in giving voice to the perspectives of underrepresented groups. As a case study of ancient social lives and gender, we discuss a range of Marajoara identity markers interpreted through the study of ceramic tangas (female pubic coverings) from Marajó Island in the Brazilian Amazon (A.D. 400-1400). There, tangas were made and used by women as a material representation of social position, gender, and individual identity. We argue that identity constitutes a fundamentally important aspect of archaeological research, and that the strongest case studies in identity are those that encompass a variety of gendered inferences to understand social lives of the past.

- by Fernanda Neubauer
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- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Gender Studies, Anthropology
- by Kirsten Leach
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- Religion, Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Roman History

Late antique identities from the Western Balkans were transformed into new, Slavic identities after c. 600 AD. It was a process that is still having continuous impact on the discursive constructions of ethnic and regional identities in the area. Building on the new ways of reading and studying available sources from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the book explores the appearance of the Croats in early medieval Dalmatia (the southern parts of modern-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina). The appearance of the early medieval Croat identity is seen as a part of the wider process of identity-transformations in post-Roman Europe, the ultimate result of the identity-negotiation between the descendants of the late antique population and the immigrant groups.

Personhood has become an important element of archaeological theory in the last two decades. Following C. Fowler's (2016) analysis, most approaches to the study of personhood conceptualise it through either a Single-Spectrum or a Multiple-Spectrum model. The former tends to assume that the tension between individual/dividual personhood is a central, structuring element of personhood, usually making use of extensive ethnographic analogies. The latter, on the other hand, rejects the centrality of the individual/dividual tension, along with any evolutionary understanding of the development of personhood and any sort of aprioristic assumption about how it might have looked in any given society. At the same time, the increasing popularity of posthumanist approaches, including the arrival of both the Ontological and Affective turns, raise questions about how these new trends will contribute to debates on personhood. This session aims to debate the current state of approaches to personhood in archaeology, particularly focusing on the following questions:
• To what extent are historical and ethnographic analogies still useful for the archaeological study of personhood?
• How can new approaches, such as New Materialism and the Ontological Turn, contribute to the study of non-human personhood?
• Is the single-spectrum model still relevant to the study of prehistoric personhood?
• How can archaeological approaches contribute to the study of personhood in contemporary societies?

Headdresses of Sophisticated Ladies – Hallstatt Period Gold Spheres from the Dürrnberg at Hallein
Due to its salt mines and the excellent location for traffic, the Dürrnberg mountain at Hallein is one of the most important economic and communication centres in Iron Age Europe. Immediately after its settlement and the beginning of salt mining in the period Ha D1, members of the local population were buried with rich grave good assemblages under barrows with wooden chambers. Grave 353 of the »Eislfeld« cemetery contained a young woman alongside a large set of pottery and bronze vessels of partly Italian-south Alpine origin. Apart from brooches, bracelets and anklets of the usual pattern her personal ornaments comprised an elaborated headdress consisting of hair rings and seven spheres of gold sheet. Similar needle and ornamental bonnets are known only from a few late Hallstatt female graves in the centre of the West Hallstatt culture. By comparing these graves with gold spheres, the position of the Dürrnberg within the supra-regional network of cultural relations is analysed on the basis of grave 353. The contact and cultural impulses which are recognised, contributed to the creation and further development of the social structures within which the women wearing gold spheres assumed an outstanding position.

- by Adriano Orsingher
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- Pottery (Archaeology), Phoenicians, Anthropology of Food, Identity (Culture)

This chapter and the larger body of work on which it builds focuses on what I characterize as the environmental, spatial, and visual bases of Iranian iden- tity and royal power: that is, landscape, architecture, the built environment, and the ritual activities they hosted. These, I argue, played a complementary, and no less central role in establishing and changing Iranian identity as that of textual or oral discourse. I have argued in several places that royal engage- ment with natural, urban and architectonic space was not merely a reflection or trapping of imperial power, but a fundamental tool by which sovereigns created and transformed royal identity and continually instantiated it with ritual practice.

This volume challenges previous views of social organization focused on elites by offering innovative perspectives on "power from below." Using a variety of archaeological, anthropological, and historical data to question traditional narratives of complexity as inextricably linked to top-down power structures, it exemplifies how commoners have developed strategies to sustain nonhierarchical networks and contest the rise of inequalities. Through case studies from around the world - ranging from Europe to New Guinea, and from Mesoamerica to China - an international team of contributors explores the diverse and dynamic nature of power relations in premodern societies. The theoretical models discussed throughout the volume include a reassessment of key concepts such as heterarchy, collective action, and resistance. Thus, the book adds considerable nuance to our understanding of power in the past and opens new avenues of reflection that can help inform discussions about our collective present and future.

- by Manuel Fernández-Götz and +1
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- Power (social), Collective Action, Resistance (Social), Social Archaeology
- by Elizabeth Foulds
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- Archaeology, Celtic Studies, Dress Studies, Anthropology of Dress

The modern interdisciplinary exploration of ancient Egyptian burial sites represents one of the major trends of contemporary archaeological research in Egyptology. Cooperation among representatives of the natural, technical and social sciences is imperative if we are to understand the information collected during the excavation process. The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife similar to the life they had lived on earth, and their tombs – in terms of their location, architecture, decoration, inscriptions, and burial equipment – reflected many aspects of their world, including the administration of the state, the social standing of tomb owners and their families, the realities of everyday life, religious ideas, the anthropology of the population of that time, and the state of (and changes in) the environment.
Over time, four royal complexes of Fifth-Dynasty kings were built in the Abusir pyramid field during the Old Kingdom. In addition, members of the royal family and the state’s high officials constructed their tombs here. In their shadow, lower-ranking officials, along with their wives and children, would be buried. All of these monuments tell thousands of multifaceted stories, from which we can reconstruct the history of the world’s oldest territorial state.
As the Abusir burial ground is so vast, it comes as no surprise that several different non-royal burial sites gradually arose independently of each other in this widespread area over the course of the third millennium BCE. While the factors influencing their position, nature and time of origin varied, key considerations would undoubtedly have been the location of the Old Kingdom’s capital, White Walls, the evolution of the network of settlements, the local cult topography, and the main communications connecting the necropolis with the Nile valley. Although much of the site remains unexplored, current knowledge and archaeological research offer a relatively detailed awareness and description of how it developed in time and space. Each of the burial sites tells, in its own specific way, the story of its time and of the owners of the individual tombs. These monuments reflect the dynamics and transformations of ancient Egyptian society. The following text provides a very limited description of some of these sites, drawing on the enormous wealth of sources known to date .

- by Miroslav Barta
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- Religion, History, Ancient History, Archaeology
- by Michael Searcy and +1
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- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Southwestern United States (Archaeology in North America), Southwestern Archaeology

Being Avar! A Case Study for Changes in the Social Display of Identity in the Early Avar Period. Appendix: Tamás Szeniczey – Antónia Marcsik - Tamás Hajdu: The Physical Anthropological Analysis of Grave A-108 of the Kölked-Feketekapu Cemetery. In: Lebenswelten zwischen Archäologie und Geschichte. Festschrift für Falko Daim zu Seinem 65. Geburtstag. Jörg Drauschke, Karin Kühtreiber, Ewald Kislinger, Thomas Kühtreiber, Gabriele Scharrer-Liska, Tivadar Vida (Hg.) Monographien des RGZM (150). Mainz 2018, 419-436.

- by Tivadar Vida and +2
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- Early Medieval Archaeology, Byzantine Archaeology, Merovingian period, Archaeology of the Avars

The Aegean-inspired pottery of Iron I Philistia has received a great deal of scholarly attention. Many have studied the various influences that shaped it, its development during the Iron I, the ethnic identity of its users, and even its disappearance at the beginning of the Iron II. While constantly changing during the first 150 years after the initial settlement of the new immigrants in Israel’s southern coastal plain, this decorated pottery grew in popularity, and steadily increased its percentage in the ceramic assemblages of the Philistine centers. Later, in the early Iron II, this Aegean decorative tradition disappeared. The decorated pottery in Iron II Philistia (Ashdod Ware) was more akin to Phoenician decorative traditions, was applied to different vessel forms, and was far less popular than its predecessor. It is the aim of the present article to reevaluate the developments of the Aegean-inspired pottery during the Iron I and to reexamine the drastic transition from this decorated pottery to a local type of decorated ware in the Iron II, in order to learn about processes of development and change within the society of Philistia and about the relations between the Philistines and their neighbors, both within and without Philistia, at that time.

- by Avraham Faust
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- Social Change, Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Archaeology of Gender
- by Battista Sangineto
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- History, Ancient History, Modern History, Archaeology

This paper challenges the common ethnocentric notion of the Faliscans as an autonomous and autochthonous group inside Etruria and emphasizes the Faliscan ethnicity as a ductile ideology linked with the geopolitical changes which occurred in the middle Tiber Valley between the 8th and the 3rd centuries BC.
Within this framework the paper analyses the landscape history of the ager Faliscus between the 10th and the 3rd centuries BC to identify significant changes in the territorial organization such as aspects of the political identity of the Faliscans.
The Faliscans appear as allied or dependent communities of the powerful Etruscan city of Veii from the 8th century BC onwards, but substantial changes in Faliscan political unity could have occurred from the 6th century and particularly after the fall of Veii in 396 BC.
The political identity of the Faliscans is newly negotiated after 241 BC, despite the drastic modifications occurring in the territory because of the military conquest by Rome.
This paper also proposes to identify the area around the via Flaminia as the part of the territory directly controlled by Rome after the peace treaty with the Faliscans, and where the expropriation of lands known from the literary tradition can be identified thanks to the remains of land divisions found by recent archaeological surveys.

- by Gabriele Cifani
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- Archaeology, Classical Archaeology, Classics, Roman History

Famous as the homeland of Odysseus, Ithaca has been a preferred research area for archaeologists. However, the archaeology of Ithaca has been severely biased by its Homeric focus. As a result, Late Archaic and Classical Ithaca remains poorly understood. This biased research agenda combined with the lack of visible remains of monumental public architecture have created the impression that Classical Ithaca was an isolated backwater. This thesis aims to partially redress the balance. At Polis valley, northern Ithaca, relatively rich deposits of Late Archaic and Classical occupation have come to light. Six assemblages of fine ware pottery, Ithacan and imported, provide important insights on the hitherto unknown local pottery production and development, its relations to the Western Greek pottery tradition as well as the influences from the well-known pottery production centres of Athens and Corinth. The contexts of behaviour in which the pottery participated likely represent activities of communal feasting in the open and during daylight, followed by an arranged exposure of the leftovers on the surface. The social significance of the pottery is then investigated and it is argued that the local elite largely regulated pottery production and imports of foreign ceramics as strategies for maintaining the established social hierarchy. Furthermore, the depositional practices of the pottery may reveal a complex negotiation of social behaviours and concepts, such as insularity, acculturation, identity and connectivity. The final conclusion is that the local widely-connected seafaring elite deliberately cultivated a culture of austerity and traditionalism in order to maintain its power over the community, and the manipulation of fine ware pottery played a major role in the success of this strategy.

In this paper, I used theories of embodiment, identity, materiality and landscape dwelling to write an interpretative archaeology of the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age periods on Cranborne Chase in Dorset.
The paper also featured fictional vignettes intended to provide possible insights into very different past lives, world views and understandings of landscape. It was also illustrated with imaginative drawings by Cornelius Barton and Erica Hemming. The paper was an avowedly experimental exercise in interpretative narrative, to try and create a bridge between sometimes dense theoretical treatments, and more populist accounts. Inspired by some of Mark Edmonds' fictional accounts of working wood and flint, I tried to portray something of people's beliefs and cosmologies, a difficult task in which I was only partly sucessful. I was particularly keen to try and envisage a Mesolithic world of animist, relational ontologies. I also wished to focus on ideas of identity, including possible multiple genders; and the activities and taskscapes of women and children, which the illustrations too supported. I would love to continue these fictional thought experiments at a future date, perhaps in a graphic novel set during the British later Iron Age.
This paper represents the final Word text, with some remaining typos, but not the final paginated typeset Archaeopress formatted article. I have also removed the illustrations, but have retained the glossary of theoretical terms included at the rear of the book, one of the aims of which was to try and explain complex theoretical concepts in more accessible terms. There is also a bibliography for suggested further reading, though of course this is only valid up to 2004, and there have subsequently been many important contributions to landscape archaeology, cultural geography and archaeological discussions of identity.

- by Andrew Scherer and +2
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- Archaeology of ethnicity, Maya Archaeology, Maya Art, Maya Epigraphy

This article deals with the socio-political dimension of public space in 13th-century bc Ugarit, with a particular focus on the city’s squares. It approaches urban space as an organic, dynamic, and multiscalar system of intersecting interactions, in which
the street network functions as prime connector and point of encounter for different social groups. The paper combines the analysis of space configuration, the analysis of urban design, and the contextual analysis of small finds and their distribution.
This combined methodological approach helps identify at Ugarit a market square and a system of ceremonial squares, each with its own political and social value.

- by Alessandra Gilibert
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- Archaeology, Near Eastern Studies, Assyriology, Urbanism (Archaeology)

It is widely accepted that the Liburni, at some point in the Iron Age, ruled over much of the Adriatic. Professor Slobodan Čače was the first scholar to truly challenge these narratives through a critique of the written sources. The aim of this paper is to build upon the work of Čače in seeking to rethink identities in pre-Roman Liburnia through analysis of ancient literary sources. It also takes a multidisciplinary approach, and seeks to address ideas about identity and cultural change through material culture. A re- examination is undertaken into Liburnian identity through archaeological evidence, and the transformations it apparently went through during the Iron Age, focusing on ideas about ethno-cultural identities and ‘Hellenization’ in interpretations of developments in Liburnia during the last 4 centuries BCE.

- by Charles Barnett
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- History, Ancient History, Cultural Studies, Archaeology