The Mediterranean's Iron Age period was one of its most dynamic eras. Stimulated by the movement of individuals and groups on an unprecedented scale, the first half of the first millennium BCE witnesses the development of Mediterranean-wide practices, including related writing systems, common features of urbanism, and shared artistic styles and techniques, alongside the evolution of wide-scale trade. Together, these created an engaged, interlinked and interactive Mediterranean. We can recognise this as the Mediterranean's first truly globalising era. This volume introduces students and scholars to contemporary evidence and theories surrounding the Mediterranean from the eleventh century until the end of the seventh century BCE to enable an integrated understanding of the multicultural and socially complex nature of this incredibly vibrant period.
The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean offers new insights into the material and social practices of many different Mediterranean peoples during the Bronze and Iron Ages, presenting in particular those features that both connect and distinguish them. Contributors discuss in depth a range of topics that motivate and structure Mediterranean archaeology today, including insularity and connectivity; mobility, migration, and colonization; hybridization and cultural encounters; materiality, memory, and identity; community and household; life and death; and ritual and ideology. The volume's broad coverage of different approaches and contemporary archaeological practices will help practitioners of Mediterranean archaeology to move the subject forward in new and dynamic ways. Together, the essays in this volume shed new light on the people, ideas, and materials that make up the world of Mediterranean archaeology today, beyond the borders that separate Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Recently, complex interpretations of socio-cultural change in the ancientMediterranean world have emerged that challenge earlier models. Influenced bytoday’s hyper-connected age, scholars no longer perceive the Mediterranean as astatic place where “Greco-Roman” culture was dominant, but rather see it as adynamic and connected sea where fragmentation and uncertainty, along with mobilityand networking, were the norm. Hence, a current theoretical approach to studyingancient culture has been that of globalization. Certain eras of Mediterranean history (e.g., the Roman empire) known for their increased connectivity have thus beenanalyzed from a globalized perspective that examines rhizomal networking, culturaldiversity, and multiple processes of social change. Archaeology has proven a usefuldiscipline for investigating ancient “globalization” because of its recent focus on howidentity is expressed through material culture negotiated between both local andglobal influences when levels of connectivity are altered. One form of identity that has been inadequately explored in relation to globalizationtheory is insularity. Insularity, or the socially recognized differences expressed bypeople living on islands, is a form of self-identification created within a particularspace and time. Insularity, as a unique social identity affected by “global” forces,should be viewed as an important research paradigm for archaeologies concerned with re-examining cultural change. The purpose of this volume is to explore how comparative archaeologies of insularitycan contribute to discourse on ancient Mediterranean “globalization.” The volume’s theme stems from a colloquium session that was chaired by the volume’s co-editors atthe Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in January 2017. Given the current state of the field for globalization studies in Mediterranean archaeology,this volume aims to bring together for the first time archaeologists working ondifferent islands and a range of material culture types to examine diachronically how Mediterranean insularities changed during eras when connectivity increased, such asthe Late Bronze Age, the era of Greek and Phoenician colonization, the Classicalperiod, and during the High and Late Roman imperial eras. Each chapter aims tosituate a specific island or island group within the context of the globalizing forces and networks that conditioned a particular period, and utilizes archaeological material toreveal how islanders shaped their insular identities, or notions of insularity, at thenexus of local and global influences.
"In The Open Sea, J. G. Manning offers a major new history of economic life in the Mediterranean world in the Iron Age, from Phoenician trading down to the Hellenistic era and the beginning of Rome's imperial supremacy. Drawing on a wide range of ancient sources and the latest social theory, Manning suggests that a search for an illusory single "ancient economy" has obscured the diversity of lived experience in the Mediterranean world, including both changes in political economies over time and differences in cultural conceptions of property and money. At the same time, he shows how the region's economies became increasingly interconnected during this period." -- Publisher's description
From North Syria to Sicily and North Africa, this is the first study to bring together such a breadth of data, and compares responses to colonization in the Iron-Age Mediterranean.
In this book, Catherine E. Pratt explores how oil and wine became increasingly entangled in Greek culture, from the Late Bronze Age to the Archaic period. Using ceramic, architectural, and archaeobotanical data, she argues that Bronze Age exchange practices initiated a strong network of dependency between oil and wine production, and the people who produced, exchanged, and used them. After the palatial collapse, these prehistoric connections intensified during the Iron Age and evolved into the large-scale industries of the Classical period. Pratt argues that oil and wine in pre-Classical Greece should be considered 'cultural commodities', products that become indispensable for proper social and economic exchanges well beyond economic advantage. Offering a detailed diachronic account of the changing roles of surplus oil and wine in the economies of pre-classical Greek societies, her book contributes to a broader understanding of the complex interconnections between agriculture, commerce, and culture in the ancient Mediterranean.
This ambitious study documents the underlying features which link the civilizations of the Mediterranean - Phoenician, Greek, Etruscan and Roman - and the Iron Age cultures of central Europe, traditionally associated with the Celts. It deals with the social, economic and cultural interaction in the first millennium BC which culminated in the Roman Empire. The book has three principle themes: the spread of iron-working from its origins in Anatolia to its adoption over most of Europe; the development of a trading system throughout the Mediterrean world after the collapse of Mycenaean Greece and its spread into temperate Europe; and the rise of ever more complex societies, including states and cities, and eventually empires. Dr Collis takes a new look at such key concepts as population movement, diffusion, trade, social structure and spatial organization, with some challenging new views on the Celts in particular.
