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A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean
Abstract
The process of ethnic identification is a major driving force in cultural as well as political history, and this is valid also for the organization of communities and the construction of civilizations in antiquity. In the European context, language has always been a prime marker of ethnic self-awareness, and of boundary-marking vis-à-vis other ethnic groups. Against the background of a general assessment of ethnicity and related concepts, the functioning of ethnic identity is addressed for a wide array of significant ethnic issues, and these include the interactions, cultural exchange, and linguistic fusion between Paleo-Europeans and Indo-Europeans, conceptualizations of Greekness and Roman-ness, the impact of Etruscan culture and language on Roman civilization, processes of Romanization in the western Mediterranean, ethnic interactions in seafaring and trade, and the instrumentalization of ethnicity in myth-making, particularly in myths of origins.
... 24 Also cf. Haarmann (2014). 25 Hall (1997) 22. 26 The term "Caucasian Albanian" is generally used to distinguish the region at issue from that of Albania on the Balkans, which may have caused confusion in late Classical and early Medieval times already (cf. ...
... 69 Haarmann (2014) 22. 70 Schulze (2016) 190. 71 except for some few every-day objects the provenience of which, however, is not also ascertained, see Aslanov & Vaidov & Ione (1959), Trever (1959), Rzaev (1976 From an external view, only few data are available that relate to sociocultural patterns of the peoples at issue. The main source is Strabo . ...
Superficially, a relatively broad array of relevant data is available for statements concerning features of ethnicity with respect to the so-called ‘Caucasian Albanians’. Since antiquity, this exonymic term has been used to label both a distinct tribal group and the members of the later-on Christianized ‘Albanian kingdom’ that has existed in the northern and central parts of present-day Azerbaijan from the 2nd to the 7th century AD. However, little is known about the ethnic background of these Albanians. In my paper, I will pose the question to which extent the available sources allow us to make corresponding statements at all. In this context, the discovery of Bible passages written in a particular script (the so-called Caucasian Albanian palimpsests) and representing a language akin to present-day Udi (a small East Caucasian minority language in Azerbaijan) plays a crucial role in determining the relevance of language in the context of the reconstruction of possible ethnic patterns underlying ancient denominations of peoples. I will argue that it is far from being self-evident to assume the existence of an ethnic unit because of a distinct language, just as a distinct language does not necessarily hint at a distinct ethnic unit.
This study examines the impact of genetic evidence on language diffusion during colonization by exploring the synergy of archaeology, linguistics, and genetics. It addresses the challenge of integrating genetic and archaeological data and examines the influence of massive migrations on linguistic changes in Europe.
The paper explores three colonial dimensions: the interbreeding of Homo neanderthalensis with Homo sapiens, linguistic colonization leading to language replacement, and the materiality of the colonial process. It discusses the coexistence and interbreeding of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, proposing the concept of genetic colonization to explain language replacement.
The study examines linguistic colonization through the Basque language and draws parallels with historical cases such as the Spanish conquest of the Americas. It emphasizes the interplay between linguistic dominance, language survival, and genetic diversity. The study also discusses material inconsistencies between genetic and archaeological data, highlighting the limitations of each discipline.
Graded: 8,5/10
Paper discusses concepts of ‘neolithic package’, ‘demic diffusion’ and ‘revolution of symbols’ in relation to the process of Neolithisation in South-eastern Europe and the phylogeography of Y chromosome haplogroups I1b*, J and E. It is suggested that ‘demic diffusion’ is not a realistic scenario, and that there were two Neolithisation trajectories and two related, archaeologically and genetically readable, regional palimpsests in South-eastern Europe.
Linguists, biological anthropologists, and cognitive scientists come together in this book to explore the origins and early evolution of phonology, syntax, and semantics. They consider the nature of pre- and proto-linguistic communication, the internal and external triggers that led to its transformation into language, and whether and how language may be considered to have evolved after its inception. Evidence is drawn from many domains, including computer simulations of language emergence, the songs of finches, problem-solving abilities in monkeys, sign language, and the structure of languages today.
This book explores the role of written and oral communication in Greece and is the first systematic and sustained treatment at this level. It examines the recent theoretical debates about literacy and orality and explores the uses of writing and oral communication, and their interaction, in ancient Greece. It is concerned to set the significance of written and oral communication as much as possible in their social and historical context, and to stress the specifically Greek characteristics in their use, arguing that the functions of literacy and orality are often fluid and culturally determined. It draws together the results of recent studies and suggests further avenues of enquiry. Individual chapters deal with (among other things) the role of writing in archaic Greece, oral poetry, the visual and monumental impact of writing, the performance and oral transmission even of written texts, and the use of writing by the city-states; there is an epilogue on Rome. All ancient evidence is translated.
In this book Jonathan Hall seeks to demonstrate that the ethnic groups of ancient Greece, like many ethnic groups throughout the world today, were not ultimately racial, linguistic, religious or cultural groups, but social groups whose 'origins' in extraneous territories were just as often imagined as they were real. Adopting an explicitly anthropological point of view, he examines the evidence of literature, archaeology and linguistics to elucidate the nature of ethnic identity in ancient Greece. Rather than treating Greek ethnic groups as 'natural' or 'essential' - let alone 'racial' - entities, he emphasises the active, constructive and dynamic role of ethnography, genealogy, material culture and language in shaping ethnic consciousness. An introductory chapter outlines the history of the study of ethnicity in Greek antiquity.
This book is a study of the process conventionally termed 'Romanization' through an investigation of the experience of Rome's Gallic provinces in the late Republic and early empire. Beginning with a rejection of the concept of 'Romanization' it describes the nature of Roman power in Gaul and the Romans' own understanding of these changes. Successive chapters then map the chronology and geography of change and offer new interpretations of urbanism, rural civilization, consumption and cult, before concluding with a synoptic view of Gallo-Roman civilization and of the origins of provincial cultures in general. The work draws on literary and archaeological material to make a contribution to the cultural history of the empire which will be of interest to ancient historians, classical archaeologists and all interested in cultural change.
In Race and Citizen Identity in the Classical Athenian Democracy, Susan Lape demonstrates how a race ideology grounded citizen identity. Although this ideology did not manifest itself in a fully developed race myth, its study offers insight into the causes and conditions that can give rise to race and racisms in both modern and pre-modern cultures. In the Athenian context, racial citizenship emerged because it both defined and justified those who were entitled to share in the political, symbolic, and socioeconomic goods of Athenian citizenship. By investigating Athenian law, drama, and citizenship practices, this study shows how citizen identity worked in practice to consolidate national unity and to account for past Athenian achievements. It also considers how Athenian identity narratives fuelled Herodotus’ and Thucydides’ understanding of history and causation.
Since its inception in 1991, the design of the proposed Human Genome Diversity Project has shifted several times. However, one unchanging and central Project goal is to collect blood and other human tissue samples from 'genetically distinct' indigenous groups around the globe. This goal has proved highly controversial, and the Diversity Project has thus far failed to move beyond the planning stage. In this paper I argue that the reason for the Project's inconclusive and open-ended character is that project organizers are attempting to stabilize and control a highly contested terrain structured by emotionally and politically charged discourses. These discourses inextricably entangle scientific and social issues -including North/South relations, colonization, intellectual property rights and the origins of human diversity. To move forward, as the paper demonstrates, project organizers would have to negotiate these entanglements, and 'coproduce' a natural and social order that could accommodate their project. The paper explains why this process of coproduction proved to be so labour-intensive in the case of the Diversity Project, and why the Project's main responses to its critics to date have failed to provide the tools needed to do this work.
From antiquity to the Renaissance, rulers of Western empires inspired hero worship by proclaiming their divine origins. This book focuses on the importance of the Roman emperor's mythic image for the development of Western political thought.
How should archaeologists approach ethnicity? This concept, which has such wide currency in social and anthropological studies, remains elusive when we seek to apply it to the archaeological past. The importance of ethnicity in our late twentieth-century world can easily lead us to believe that it must long have been a key element in human relations and awareness. The practice of defining oneself and one's group by contrast and opposition to other individuals and other groups, from the family level upwards, appears a basic feature of human behaviour. Ethnicity is a part of this social logic, though ethnic groups, and ethnicity itself, are notoriously difficult to define.
Can we identify and distinguish ethnic groupings in the archaeological record? Had one posed that question earlier this century the answer would have no doubt have made immediate reference to the ‘culture-people hypothesis’; the idea that archaeological assemblages may be combined into ‘cultures’ defined by recurring features, be they metalwork, ceramic forms and decoration, or lithic technology. Each culture so defined might be equated (hypothetically at least) with a former people. Ethnographic studies, however, have long shown that these equations are overly simplistic. Phenomena such as the ‘Beaker culture’ are no longer assumed to be the material expression of a single ethnic group.
Where historical evidence is available, it may be able to overcome some of the difficulties and examine just how a historical ethnic group — as perceived and defined by its own members — relates to a body of archaeological material. Jonathan Hall's study of ethnic identity in ancient Greece provides an excellent example of just such an approach. It also raises broader issues concerning the definition of ethnicity and its recognition in the archaeological record. Hall himself takes the view that ethnicity depends on what people say, not what they do; hence material culture alone, without supporting literary evidence, is an insufficient basis for the investigation of ethnic identity in past societies. To accept that view is to rule out the study of ethnicity for the greater part of the human past; we may suspect that ethnic groups played a part, but be unable to identify any surviving cultural parameters. Against such a pessimistic assessment, however, there is the contrary argument, that ethnicity may be expressed as well in material culture as in words. Should that be the case, archaeology may indeed be well equipped to open a window on past ethnicity, whether or not there are relevant contemporary texts.
We begin this review feature in our usual way, with a summary by Jonathan Hall of the arguments set out in his book. Five commentators then take up the theme, raising comments and criticisms to which Hall responds in a closing reply.
This paper explores the complexity and the plurality of the Neolithization process in the Aegean area (including the Balkans). In view of recent multidisciplinary research, the Neolithization of that area can no longer be viewed as a simple colonization originating from the Near East and Anatolia. It has become increasingly apparent that the Childean Ex oriente lux concept is based on insufficient evidence. The autochthonous model of a localized Aegean or rather Balkan-focused process, and implying that the Neolithic has its roots in a diversified Mesolithic substratum, is increasingly gaining ground. The transition to the Neolithic in Southeast Europe is first and foremost a shift from the primeval Paleolithic and Mesolithic traditions (scavenging and hunting) to modernity (stock rearing and farming). The rise of the Aegean Sea level at the beginning of the Holocene considerably complicated any survey of Mesolithic and earliest Neolithic sites. Despite the views held by the diffusionists, the Aegean area was densely populated by the end of the Paleolithic and during the Epipaleolithic/Mesolithic period (10 000-9000 BP). This is the result of the richness of the resources for hunter gathering and incipient agriculture. The apparent paucity of Mesolithic and early Neolithic sites (9000-8000 BP) in Greece is largely due to the insufficient exploration. The difficulty of prospecting for small-size microlithic industries necessitates great experience and expertise. Numerous Mesolithic and initial Neolithic dwelling sites (both sedentary settlements and short or seasonal encampments) existed: along the coasts, in the interior and also in the highlands. One may reasonably suggest that various manifestations of environmental changes were at the base of the complex mosaic character of the Neolithization process in the Aegean World, and in the Balkans.
In today's cosmopolitan world, ethnic and national identity has assumed an ever-increasing importance. But how is this identity formed, and how does it change over time? With Hellenicity, Jonathan M. Hall explores these questions in the context of ancient Greece, drawing on an exceptionally wide range of evidence to determine when, how, why, and to what extent the Greeks conceived themselves as a single people. Hall argues that a subjective sense of Hellenic identity emerged in Greece much later than is normally assumed. For instance, he shows that the four main ethnic subcategories of the ancient GreeksâAkhaians, Ionians, Aiolians, and Doriansâwere not primordial survivals from a premigratory period, but emerged in precise historical circumstances during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Furthermore, Hall demonstrates that the terms of defining Hellenic identity shifted from ethnic to broader cultural criteria during the course of the fifth century B.C., chiefly due to the influence of Athens, whose citizens formulated a new Athenoconcentric conception of "Greekness."
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