Fig 1 - uploaded by Cormac Mcsparron
Content may be subject to copyright.
A diagrammatic representation showing the interrelations of Group Agency, Host and Immigrant Community, and the display of identity in the internal and external domains. Figure: Cormac McSparron
Source publication
Unlike other social sciences, the archaeological discipline has been lacking a theoretical framework to discuss the mechanism of migration. Traditionally, patterns of population movements were denoted from material culture and interpreted within the context of ethnicity and the diffusion of ideas without considering underlying processes and incenti...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... depending on the strength or weakness of the migrating group. We believe that group agency is a concept that can be used to investigate the collective power or influence of a migrant group and, allied to Burmeister's ideas on external and internal domains, we have identified four groupings into which migration relationships may be placed ( Fig. ...
Context 2
... depending on the strength or weakness of the migrating group. We believe that group agency is a concept that can be used to investigate the collective power or influence of a migrant group and, allied to Burmeister's ideas on external and internal domains, we have identified four groupings into which migration relationships may be placed ( Fig. ...
Citations
... The chronological frame for the sharp force trauma is evidence supporting the proposal of a migration event that would participate in the process of redefining the socioeconomic systems on Gran Canaria in the first part of the second millennium. Although new studies are needed to investigate the complex processes that these movements and interaction of people involved, the archaeological data now available sketch out a scenario in which the migration relationships may be understood in the model of Medium Group Agency in the classification proposed by McSparron et al. (2020), according to which the newcomers "are not dominant but are not entirely powerless either" and "the host community may need the labour or skills of the migrant group". Moreover, these are realities that do not necessarily involve the movements of large groups of people. ...
This paper addresses the first case of perimortem trauma caused by a sharp metal weapon in a pre-Hispanic cranium in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands) dated before the first contacts with Europeans in the late Middle Ages. The fact that metalliferous minerals did not exist in the archipelago confers extraordinary significance to this injury, as evidence of an event involving the arrival of new population after the initial colonization of the Island around the 2nd century CE.
The chronocultural context of the violent event is analized in order to evaluate the possible role of this contact in the processes of change among ancient canarians. To this end statistical chronological modelling is assessed to specify timing behind major archaeological expressions of shifts detected on the island.
The results question the traditionally proposed isolation for the indigenous population, and reinforce the most recent proposals suggesting migration of new North African people to Gran Canaria and their contribution to the socioeconomical dynamics of the pre-Hispanic society.
... Relatedly, longer-distance migrations will mostly be done in a stepwise fashion. While many scholars studying contemporary migration patterns argue for more nuanced case-by-case examinations of "mobilities" that take into consideration things like agency (McSparron et al., 2020) and cultural variations in the concepts of space, time, and distance (Sheller & Urry, 2006) as well as a host of geopolitical and economic structures (Urry, 2007), the gravity model continues to provide a conservative approach to migration studies of prehistoric populations in which more simple patterns and scales of movement first need to be established. ...
This chapter focuses on using strontium isotope data from neighboring Late Prehistoric sites in Southwestern Portugal to find evidence of small-scale, short-distance migration and adjacent-site travel with the goal of understanding intraregional, cultural, and economic integration. The data suggests that human and domesticated animal travel to and from geographically close sites was likely common and perhaps seasonal, but permanent relocation may have been unusual. It is proposed that, based upon the gravity model of migration, the most parsimonious conclusion for each identified migrant animal and human at the examined sites is that they came from the nearest site with matching 87Sr/86Sr values.KeywordsHuman and animal mobilityStrontium isotopesPortugalChalcolithic
... Moreover, it was from the 14th century that this increase became most evident at coastal sites, to the detriment of those further from the shore, where the population gradually declined . Therefore the changes in the territorial and economic model and the technological innovations can be explained better by the arrival of people from North Africa in about the 11th century CE, in a model compatible with a migratory event of the 'medium group agency' type (Mc Sparron et al., 2019), i.e. one with the capacity to introduce significant changes in the way of life of local groups without the involvement of a large migrant population. A migratory event in the sense of a direct replacement is not, however, envisaged (Booth, 2019). ...
To understand the relationship between past peoples and the sea in a context of oceanic islands, just as in the case of other cultural behaviours, it is necessary to consider many more factors than the mere proximity to the coast. Traditions, ways of life, sailing ability and knowledge, diet, and so on, determine the way in which this relationship is expressed. This paper addresses this matter through the study of external auditory exostosis (EAE) among the aboriginal population of Gran Canaria. The analysis has been completed by contrasting this bioanthropological marker with such other variables as chronology, territory , social dynamics and environmental changes. The study examined a large sample (MNI ¼ 637) from all over the island and a time interval of more than 1200 years, practically the whole pre-Hispanic period. EAE is present in 17.1% of the total population analysed, with no statistically significant differences between males and females. This high prevalence is even more evident when considering its notable incidence among coastal communities and its chronological concentration, between the 13th and 15th centuries, that is, the last 300 years of the historical sequence considered. On balance, the results indicate relevant variation in the relationship that these populations had with the sea in accordance with the historical processes and social changes that took place over more than a millennium.
... A small number of migrants are likely to make external efforts to integrate with the community, de-emphasizing any differences while privately maintaining their own cultural habits (low group agency). This is compared to migration on a large scale, where the immigrant group dominates and makes little effort to integrate or hide their cultural differences with the receiving population (McSparron et al. 2019). On this theme of visibility, Hemer (2014) suggests that some multiple burials in early medieval contexts may point to groups of travelers who arrived and died together, their multiple grave symbolizing both their difference and identity as a migrant group. ...
Migration is driven by the young but despite this, few isotope studies focus on adolescent migrants or the intricatenature of their movement. Using a multi-analytical approach, the authors explore this mobility and the impact of urban living on the diet and health of adolescents from the pre-and post-Black Death periods of Northern England. Isotope analysis (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and strontium) and lead concentrations were measured in 63 adolescents (10–25 years) from three sites in medieval York and from the nearby small town of Barton-upon-Humber. York was an important center in medieval England, acting as a magnet for adolescents seeking a new life and independence; Barton was seen as less attractive and harder to reach. In the pre-Black Death sample, 33% of adolescents (n=8/24; including five males and two females) were identified as possible migrants by their oxygen and strontium values. Following the Black Death only 5% (n=2/39) of adolescents, both from Barton, appeared to be migrants from elsewhere in Britain, indicating the pattern changed from individuals traveling long distances to more local, isotopically “invisible” movement. The non-locals appear to have been well integrated, sharing the same diet as the locals, but there was some evidence for different burial practices. Working in medieval York posed significant health risks for all of the young inhabitants, with lead concentrations at pathological levels, and possibly linked to anemia and vitamin D deficiency. This research highlights the importance of combining historical, archaeological, paleopathological, and chemical data to understand complex life histories of adolescents in the past. La migración es impulsada por los jóvenes. No obstante, pocos estudios de isótopos se centran en los adolescentes migrantes o en la naturaleza de sus movimientos. Utilizando un enfoque multi-analítico, las autoras exploran esta movilidad y el impacto de la vida urbana en la dieta y la salud de los adolescentes de los períodos anterior y posterior a la peste negra en el norte de Inglaterra. El análisis de isótopos (carbono, nitrógeno, oxígeno, y estroncio) y las concentraciones de plomo se midieron en 63 adolescentes (10–25 años) de tres sitios en la York medieval, y de la pequeña ciudad cercana de Barton-upon-Humber. York era un centro importante en la Inglaterra medieval, actuando como un imán para los adolescentes que buscaban una nueva vida e independencia. Barton era visto como menos atractivo y más difícil de alcanzar. En la muestra previa a la peste negra, el 33% de los adolescentes (n=8/24) fueron identificados como posibles migrantes por sus valores de oxígeno y estroncio (cinco masculinos y dos femeninos). Después de la peste negra, solo el 5% (n = 2/39) de los adolescentes, ambos de Barton, parecían ser migrantes de otras partes de Gran Bretaña, lo que indica que el patrón cambió de individuos que viajaban largas distancias a un movimiento isotópicamente “invisible” más local. Los no locales parecen haber estado bien integrados, compartiendo la misma dieta con la población local, pero hubo evidencia de diferentes prácticas de entierro. Trabajar en York medieval planteaba riesgos significativos para la salud de todos los habitantes jóvenes, con concentraciones patológicas de plomo posiblemente relacionadas con anemia y deficiencia de vitamina D. Esta investigación destaca la importancia de combinar datos históricos, arqueológicos, paleopatológicos, y químicos para comprender las complejas historias de vida de los adolescentes en el pasado.
... Evidence for the movement and migration of children following catastrophic incidents have been reported from numerous historical contexts, many of which are evident in the archaeological record. Whilst many studies have focused on the reasons for migration in archaeology (Burmeister 2000;van Dommelen 2014;Ames 2020;McSparron et al. 2020), the impact of child migration is often overlooked. During epidemics and, indeed, periods of war, children are frequently moved away from immediate sources of danger. ...
Natural disasters, pandemics, and epidemics have devastating impacts on communities. Poverty, famine, ill health, social isolation, and death are some of the consequences of such events. Transformations in culture, religion, political and economic stability, and other social aspects can also be attributed to catastrophic incidents. Whilst such events have been well documented and studied, little attention has been given to their effect on children. Using osteoarchaeological and historical evidence, this review article explores how children appear to have been affected during, and in the aftermath of, natural disasters and epidemics. A range of cases from Antiquity to the modern day is provided, alongside three focal case studies. This research demonstrates analogies with the present-day where countries face disease outbreaks, droughts, floods, and earthquakes. Ultimately, the findings presented in this paper illustrate the extent to which these events shaped the lives and deaths of children in the past.
... Once considered a primary driver of change-separate groups of people carried equally distinctive cultural baggage-migration's significance in regional cultural trajectories was largely dismissed with the focus of New Archaeology on autochthonous change. Recently, however, increasing interest has been directed toward the part played by population mobility in societal transformations (Gregoricka, 2021;McSparron et al., 2020;Smith, 2014). ...
... Migration in the deep past-both of large numbers of people all at once and gradual trickles of them over time-has attracted increasing archaeological attention over the past several decades (Anthony, 1990;Burmeister, 2000;Gregoricka, 2021;McSparron et al., 2020;Smith, 2014;Snow, 2009). If movement was unequally distributed by sex and age, one might detect alterations in the composition of skeletal samples. ...
Much of paleodemography, an interdisciplinary field with strong ties to archaeology, among other disciplines, is oriented toward clarifying the life experiences of past people and why they changed over time. We focus on how human skeletons contribute to our understanding of preindustrial demographic regimes, including when changes took place that led to the world as we know it today. Problems with existing paleodemographic practices are highlighted, as are promising directions for future work. The latter requires both better age estimates and innovative methods to handle data appropriately. Age-at-death estimates for adult skeletons are a particular problem, especially for adults over 50 years that undoubtedly are mistakenly underrepresented in published studies of archaeological skeletons. Better age estimates for the entirety of the lifespan are essential to generate realistic distributions of age at death. There are currently encouraging signs that after about a half-century of intensive, and sometimes contentious, research, paleodemography is poised to contribute much to understandings of evolutionary processes, the structure of past populations, and human-disease interaction, among other topics.
... However, perhaps the most important point might be that the arrival of people and their cultural contributions occurred during a time of change in Gran Canarian society. This was a time of population growth, possibly not without social and territorial tensions, in which new formulae for the symbolic appropriation of territory, the generation of a new collective identity and the exhibition of social differences were all able to penetrate successfully (McSparron et al. 2019). In this case, the different contributions would not have signified a total break with the past, but rather the introduction of new ways for expressing identity in accordance with the needs of a society undergoing change. ...
... It is in this way that we may understand continuities in the procedure of wrapping the bodies, the position of the body in supine decubitus and the persistence of cave burials. The permanence of those practices, which were in use from the first stages of the island's occupation, would have acted as a nexus between the past and the new developments (Burmeister 2016;Gatto et al. 2019;McSparron et al. 2019). The introduction of an original form of mortuary architecture would thus have expressed the emergence of a different society, but also one that maintained links with its origins through the persistence of funerary rituals, among other things. ...
This paper addresses the study of tumulus necropolises among the pre-Hispanic population of Gran Canaria. In this first characterisation, their emergence is contextualised in the social framework of the ancient Canarians and historical links with the North African sphere are proposed. Published radiocarbon determinations for the tumulus phenomenon of the first millennium AD on the continent have been reviewed and a Bayesian model has been created to estimate the onset and later tempo of this cultural expression on the island and its relationship with the African context. The tempo plot technique has also been used to examine the temporal activity pattern of tumulus necropolises in Gran Canaria. The results show that it was a late phenomenon, basically constrained to the eighth to eleventh centuries AD, and that it therefore represents a break with previous funerary practices. To explain these circumstances, the chronological data are related to the available archaeological and genetic information. They point to a complex process of endogenous social change, probably accelerated by external influences inserted within regional dynamics on the African mainland. It is proposed that tumulus monuments in Gran Canaria were the insular expression of this continental phenomenon that reached the island by the hand of people different from those who were the protagonists of the island’s first settlement event.
Migration is an established topic in archaeology, approached by researchers in multiple ways. We argue, however, that new ways of thinking are needed to understand migration in new ways in relation to new results coming from ancient DNA studies and other archaeometric analysis. We apply a transdisciplinary approach and engage with (critical) migration studies, critical heritage studies and archaeology to unwrap essential theoretical aspects of migration. Based on our results, we propose a conceptual/theoretical framework as our contribution to migration studies in archaeology.
En este trabajo se toman en consideración algunas de las materias que en el curso de las primeras décadas del siglo XXI han sido objeto de debate o reformulación en la investigación arqueológica canaria. En un ejercicio de reflexión global se abordan asuntos como la precisión y fiabilidad del C14 como herramienta de análisis histórico en las islas, la posibilidad de eventos migratorios diferentes al de la primera ocupación humana permanente, el aislamiento y la adaptación como paradigmas invariables o los agentes sociales involucrados en los procesos de cambio observables en el registro arqueológico. El eje central del discurso propuesto es la necesidad de cambios en el concepto de tiempo empleado para explicar el pasado prehispánico, evitando las perspectivas teleológicas y unidimensionales a las que normalmente hemos recurrido y abogando por un acercamiento al pasado a partir de enfoques más dinámicos y en los que puedan incorporarse diversas escalas de análisis temporales y territoriales.
Historians of the ancient Near East and Biblical Scholars have shown interest in movement and migration as features of ancient texts and ancient lived experience, but few have appreciatively integrated theoretical groundings from mobility or migration studies in their analyses. Through the addition of both theory and data, mobility and migration studies hold promise as interlocutory fields that can enrich understandings of movement and migration at various scales. Mobility and migration studies admittedly stand as dauntingly large fields. This article, therefore, provides initial guidance on what theoretical groundings from mobility and migration studies can be most useful for modeling and interpreting movement in the ancient Near East and in biblical sources. This necessary (re)focus on fundamental conceptual categories and terminological frameworks will further guide ongoing interdisciplinary studies of mobility and migration in the ancient past.
