Introduction: Archaeological approaches to cultural identity

Setting Theoretical Egos Aside: Issues and Theory in North American Archaeology

Abstract: Theory in North American archaeology is characterized in terms of foci and approaches manifested in research issues, rather than in explicit or oppositional theoretical positions. While there are some clear-cut theoretical perspectives—evolutionary ecology, behavioral archaeology, and Darwinian archaeology—a large majority of North American archaeology fits a broad category here called “processual-plus.” Among the major themes that crosscut many or all of the approaches are interests in gender, agency/practice, symbols and meaning, material culture, and native perspectives. Gender archaeology is paradigmatic of processual-plus archaeology, in that it draws on a diversity of theoretical approaches to address a common issue. Emphasis on agency and practice is an important development, though conceptions of agency are too often linked to Western ideas of individuals and motivation. The vast majority of North American archaeology, including postprocessual approaches, is modern, not postmodern, in orientation. The relative dearth of theoretical argument positively contributes to diversity and dialogue, but it also may cause North American theory to receive inadequate attention and unfortunate misunderstandings of postmodernism.

Textile Production in Pre-Roman Italy

Abstract: Older than both ceramics and metallurgy, textile production is a technology which reveals much about prehistoric social and economic development. This book examines the archaeological evidence for textile production in Italy from the transition between the Bronze Age and Early Iron Ages until the Roman expansion (1000-400 BCE), and sheds light on both the process of technological development and the emergence of large urban centres with specialised crafts. Margarita Gleba begins with an overview of the prehistoric Appennine peninsula, which featured cultures such as the Villanovans and the Etruscans, and was connected through colonisation and trade with the other parts of the Mediterranean. She then focuses on the textiles themselves: their appearance in written and iconographic sources, the fibres and dyes employed, how they were produced and what they were used for: we learn, for instance, of the linen used in sails and rigging on Etruscan ships, and of the complex looms needed to produce twill. Featuring a comprehensive analysis of textiles remains and textile tools from the period, the book recovers information about funerary ritual, the sexual differentiation of labour (the spinners and weavers were usually women) and the important role the exchange of luxury textiles played in the emergence of an elite. Textile production played a part in ancient Italian society's change from an egalitarian to an aristocratic social structure, and in the emergence of complex urban communities.

Pots, people, and politics : a reconsideration of the role of ceramics in reconstructions of the Iron Age Northern Levant

Abstract: This study aims to reconsider current reconstructions of the Iron Age Northern Levant and the role that ceramics studies have played in these interpretations. The author presents a regional ceramic typology for the Iron Age (including the Persian period) and undertakes an analysis of the distribution patterns of this typology across the Northern Levant. An alternative interpretation of the ceramic data is offered, before being compared with the conventional historical model. This alternative reconstruction focuses on theories of practice, and foodways, whilst appreciating the dynamic manner by which material culture is used to constantly negotiate and consolidate social structures.

Out of Many, One: Style and Social Boundaries in Tiwanaku

Abstract: Archaic state formation simultaneously involved political integration and socioeconomic differentiation, which many archaeologists consider mutually reinforcing processes. Differentiation is considered to have consisted primarily of status and specialization, forms of heterogeneity that ultimately supported state integration. This paper addresses the role of differentiation in the Andean polity of Tiwanaku (A. D. 500–1150). Specifically, it evaluates expressions of social identity in relation to differences in status and specialized production in the urban settlements of Tiwanaku and Lukurmata. Patterns of ceramic style are compared with other types of material culture and residential activities. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that, in the context of a potent and ubiquitous state culture, significant social boundaries persisted at multiple social scales, ranging from urban corporate groups to more encompassing regional affiliations. At larger scales identity potentially involved some degree of political autonomy, as it did in later sociopolitical organizations in the south-central Andes. For several hundred years, Tiwanaku rulers, facing profound social diversity and enduring local identities, emphasized incorporative strategies of integration, leaving a great deal of productive management and sociopolitical organization in the hands of local groups. Social boundaries played critical roles in state formation and centralization, and ultimately may have precipitated its disintegration.

Massive Migrations? The Impact of Recent aDNA Studies on our View of Third Millennium Europe

Abstract: New human aDNA studies have once again brought to the forefront the role of mobility and migration in shaping social phenomena in European prehistory, processes that recent theoretical frameworks in archaeology have downplayed as an outdated explanatory notion linked to traditional culture history. While these new genetic data have provided new insights into the population history of prehistoric Europe, they are frequently interpreted and presented in a manner that recalls aspects of traditional culture-historical archaeology that were rightly criticized through the 1970s to the 1990s. They include the idea that shared material culture indicates shared participation in the same social group, or culture, and that these cultures constitute one-dimensional, homogeneous, and clearly bounded social entities. Since the new aDNA data are used to create vivid narratives describing ‘massive migrations’, the so-called cultural groups are once again likened to human populations and in turn revitalized as external drivers for socio-cultural change. Here, I argue for a more nuanced consideration of molecular data that more explicitly incorporates anthropologically informed mobility and migration models.