Session: #34

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
5. Assembling archaeological theory and the archaeological sciences
Session format:
Regular session

Title & Content

Title:
Scales of Interaction in the Bronze and Iron Age Central Mediterranean
Content:
The cultures of the Central Mediterranean played a crucial role in the pan-Mediterranean interactions of the Bronze and Iron Ages. At large scales, these cultures facilitated trade across the Mediterranean Sea and beyond, reaching eastward to Cyprus, Crete, and the Near East, northward into mainland Europe, and westward to Iberia. These long-distance exchanges thrived despite the marked differences in social organization between the cultures of the Central Mediterranean and many of the cultures they contacted. Such exchanges carried people, ideas, and goods into new markets and new communities. At regional and local scales, the internal dynamics of Central Mediterranean communities created opportunities for both physical and social imports to become embedded in existing cultural structures, changing them and being changed by them. These dynamics are often investigated through artifact distributions, settlement patterns, and site hierarchies, but can also be addressed through materials analysis, isotope studies, and aDNA. This session will bring together research on the many scales of interaction operating in the Central Mediterranean during the Bronze and Iron Ages, with the goal of untangling the interwoven threads of cultural connection.
Keywords:
cultural interactions, social dynamics, Mediterranean, Bronze Age, Iron Age
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:

Organisers

Main organiser:
Emily Holt (United Kingdom) 1
Co-organisers:
Davide Schirru (Italy) 2
Affiliations:
1. Cardiff University
2. Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”