Session: #644

Content:

Pre-Roman Italy (i.e. the various communities that populated the Italian peninsula before the Roman conquest) constitutes a fascinating but also contentious field of study. The consistent degree of heterogeneity of ancient Italy often leads to an analytical approach that considers the various peoples/cultures separately (the 'handbook' approach, so to speak), and not as part of a strongly interconnected and dynamic world. One of the possible ways to overcome this ethno-regional approach is to highlight characteristics that enable a transcultural approach, so as to emphasize what connects these communities beyond their differences. As several influential recent studies (e.g. Isayev 2017) have pointed out, one of the most striking features of ancient Italy is its internal mobility. Paradoxically or not, this feature developed alongside the creation of territorially expressed cultural communities as visible in the material culture from the late Bronze age to the Hellenistic period.

This panel aims to take this theme of mobility and territoriality further in three interrelated sections: routes of mobility, movement of ideas, movement of objects. This approach enables us to better appreciate the changeable character and intensity of movement and exchange in ancient Italy. The panel seeks to generate new ideas on the societal circumstances stimulating this dynamism, as well as on the mechanisms of mobility and exchange on the ground. Departing from that basis, the panel aims to investigate the interaction of this enhanced mobility with the development of cultural biographies, socio-political structures as well as cultural and socio-economic networks, and their territorial expressions. Ultimately, we consider the products of these punctuated interactions between people, objects and ideas, and its legacy at the dawn of Roman imperialism.

Session: #644

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