Journal Article

Response. Connecting proposals for a post-colonial global archaeology in the Mediterranean (and beyond)

Mira, Ignasi Grau, Riva, Corinna

2022

Overview

The Iberian case study which we treated represents one of several, multiple examples which we could have used (and would have liked to use) in the varied Mediterranean of the 1st millennium B.C. – a veritable laboratory for comparative analysis – in order to draw out the problems we have raised. Only attention to the truly micro-scale level of interaction can bring this to the fore, as we have argued for south-eastern Iberia, and as further exemplified by another case study, that of coastal and interior Campania in the central Mediterranean, the former an open society, the latter resistant to change and to connectedness (Cuozzo 2007). [...]while a micro-scale analysis of south-eastern Iberia reveals key anomalous features in the life of urban communities and the nature of their cohesion (e.g. the disappearance of cemeteries once sanctuaries are established, the lack of social hierarchy within urban society), it is, in fact, in the broader overall trend of urban participation and belonging that Athenian citizenship, as an instance of such a trend, looks like an anomaly even within the Greek world, as ancient historians have recently argued. Last but not least, Stoddart adds other solutions to the challenges by proposing that (1) we exploit the evidence coming from settlements as foci of local activity and experience (in fact we agree: our focus on cemeteries was motivated by the theme tackled, namely the role of the ritual sphere in fostering cohesion in the urban community); (2) we integrate the quantitative with the qualitative elements of our evidence, which can be done by investigating all foci of activities and therefore types of archaeological context; (3) we exploit recent instruments in our toolbox (e.g. the application of radiocarbon) to appreciate multiple scales across time, not simply space, which global approaches often fail to take into account.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: Archaeology / Case studies / Citizenship / Discussion / Globalization / Postcolonialism / Regions / Society / Trends