Van Pelt - Archaeology and Cultural Mixture

Archaeological Review from Cambridge
Division of Archaeology
University of Cambridge
Downing Street
Cambridge CB2 3DZ
Archaeological Review from Cambridge 2013 www.societies.cam.ac.uk/arc
Archaeology and Cultural Mixture
Introduction
W. Paul van Pelt
From Hybridity to Entanglement, from Essentialism to Practice
Philipp W. Stockhammer
Postcolonial Baggage at the End of the Road: How to Put the Genie Back into its Bottle and Where to go From
There
Eleftheria Pappa
Beyond Creolization and Hybridity: Entangled and Transcultural Identities in Philistia
Louise A. Hitchcock and Aren M. Maeir
Convivencia in a Borderland: The Danish-Slavic Border in the Middle Ages
Magdalena Naum
Problematizing Typology and Discarding the Colonialist Legacy: Approaches to Hybridity in the Terracotta
Figurines of Hellenistic Babylonia
Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper
Signal and Noise: Digging up the Dead in Archaeology and Afro-Cuban Palo Monte
Stephan Palmi
Hybridity at the Contact Zone: Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives from the Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia
Marcus Brittain, Timothy Clack and Juan Salazar Bonet
Considering Mimicry and Hybridity in Early Colonial New England: Health, Sin and the Body Behung with Beades
Diana D. Loren
Our Children Might be Strangers: Frontier Migration and the Meeting of Cultures Across Generations
Hendrik van Gijseghem
Ethnogenesis and Hybridity in Proto-Historic Period Nicaragua
Geofrey G. McCaferty and Carrie L. Dennett
Bi-Directional Forced Deportations in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Origins of the Samaritans: Colonialism and
Hybridity
Yigal Levin
Networking the Middle Ground? The Greek Diaspora, Tenth to Fifth Century BC
Carla M. Antonaccio
Cultural Mixing in Egyptian Archaeology: The Hyksos as a Case Study
Bettina Bader
Mixing Food, Mixing Cultures: Archaeological Perspectives
Mary C. Beaudry
Hybridity, Creolization, Mestizaje: A Comment
Parker VanValkenburgh

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Ar c haeol ogi c al Revi ew f r om Cambr i dge
Volume 28.1 April 2013

Edited by W. Paul van Pelt

Archaeology and Cultural Mixture
Archaeol ogi cal Revi ew from Cambri dge
V o l u m e 2 8 . 1 . A p r i l 2 0 1 3
Ar chaeol ogy and
Cul tur al Mi xtur e

Edited by W. Paul van Pelt
About ARC
The Archaeological Review from Cambridge is a bi-annual journal of archaeology.
It is run on a non-proft, voluntary basis by postgraduate research students at the
University of Cambridge.
Although primarily rooted in archaeological theory and practice, ARC increasingly invites
a range of perspectives with the aim of establishing a strong, interdisciplinary journal
which will be of interest in a range of felds.
Archaeological Review from Cambridge
Division of Archaeology
University of Cambridge
Downing Street
Cambridge
CB2 3DZ
UK
http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/arc
Volume 28.1 Archaeology and Cultural Mixture
Theme Editor W. Paul van Pelt
Production W. Paul van Pelt
Cover Image Designed by Beatalic, 2013 (www.beatalic.com; hola@beatalic.com)

Printed and bound in the UK by the Labute Group Limited, Cambridge.
Published in April 2013. Copyright remains with the authors. Opinions expressed in con-
tributions do not necessarily refect the opinions of the editors.
All images are the authors' own except where otherwise stated.
ISSN 0261-4332
Committee, Archaeological Review from Cambridge
April 2013
General Editors
Katie Hall
Danika Parikh
Treasurer
W. Paul van Pelt
Secretary
Kate Boulden
Editors
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Book Reviews
Penny Jones
Subscriptions
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Publicity and Events
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Back Issue Sales
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IT
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Contents
Introduction
W. Paul van Pelt
From Hybridity to Entanglement, from Essentialism to Practice
Postcolonial Baggage at the End of the Road: How to Put the Genie Back into its
Bottle and Where to Go from There
Eleftheria Pappa
Beyond Creolization and Hybridity: Entangled and Transcultural Identities in
Philistia
Convivencia in a Borderland: The Danish-Slavic Border in the Middle Ages
Magdalena Naum
Problematizing Typology and Discarding the Colonialist Legacy:
Approaches to Hybridity in the Terracotta Figurines of Hellenistic Babylonia
Signal and Noise: Digging up the Dead in Archaeology and Afro-Cuban Palo
Monte
Stephan Palmi
Hybridity at the Contact Zone: Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives from
the Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia
Considering Mimicry and Hybridity in Early Colonial New England:
Health, Sin and the Body "Behung with Beades"
Diana D. Loren
Our Children Might be Strangers: Frontier Migration and the Meeting of Cultures
across Generations
Hendrik van Gijseghem
Ethnogenesis and Hybridity in Proto-Historic Period Nicaragua
Bi-Directional Forced Deportations in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the
Origins of the Samaritans: Colonialism and Hybridity
Yigal Levin
Networking the Middle Ground? The Greek Diaspora, Tenth to Fifth Century BC
Carla M. Antonaccio
1
11
29
51
75
95
115
133
151
169
191
217
241
The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion edited by
Timothy Insoll
REVIEWED BY PAMELA J. CROSS
The Idea of Order: The Circular Archetype in Prehistoric Europa by Richard
Bradley
REVIEWED BY JOHN MANLEY
The Funerary Kit: Mortuary Practices in the Archaeological Record by Jill L. Baker
REVIEWED BY VAN PIGTAIN
The Ten Thousand Year Fever: Rethinking Human and Wild-Primate Malaria by
Loretta A. Cormier
REVIEWED BY LEONIE RAIJMAKERS
Human Adaptation in the Asian Palaeolithic: Hominin Dispersal and Behaviour
during the Late Quaternary by Ryan J. Rabett
REVIEWED BY PATRICK J. ROBERTS
Ethnozooarchaeology: The Present and Past of Human-Animal Relationships
edited by Umberto Albarella and Angela Trentacoste
REVIEWED BY JANE SANFORD
Archaeological Theory in Practice by Patricia Urban and Edward Schortman
REVIEWED BY VALERIA RIEDEMANN L.
Ancient Egyptian Technology and Innovation: Transformations in Pharaonic
Material Culture by Ian Shaw
REVIEWED BY KIMBERLEY WATT
Forthcoming Issues
Subscription Information
Available Back Issues
Book ReviewsEDITED BY PENNY JONES
Cultural Mixing in Egyptian Archaeology: The 'Hyksos' as a Case Study
Bettina Bader
Mixing Food, Mixing Cultures: Archaeological Perspectives
Mary C. Beaudry
257
287
301
323
331
335
341
346
352
356
360
364
366
367
A r c h a e o l o g i c a l R e v i e w f r o m C a m b r i d g e - 2 8 . 1 - 2 0 1 3
Introduction
W. Paul van Pelt
Division of Archaeology, University of Cambridge
wpv20@cam.ac.uk
I
n the past decades the postcolonial concepts of 'creolization' and
'hybridity' have shown a remarkable diffusion in archaeological
discussions of cultural dynamics in colonial contexts. Closely related
to and often following colonial encounters, these concepts and others
such as 'transculturation', 'mestizaje' and the 'middle ground' have
been used to describe discursive processes in which different social
and economic relations are continually negotiated and renegotiated
and through which 'new' or 'mixed' social and material conditions are
developed. From Roman Gaul to colonial New England there has been a
plethora of contributions that emphasize multivocality and seek out the
previously underrepresented people of the past. Amid this trend even an
experienced reader may easily be bemused by the variety of theoretical
strands dealing with the subject and wonder how any particular
2 Introduction
A r c h a e o l o g i c a l R e v i e w f r o m C a m b r i d g e 2 8 . 1 : 1 1 0
framework differs from the others. The proliferation of concepts is largely
a result of the highly specific geohistorical and intellectual contexts in
which each of them developed (Palmi 2006: 435) and until quite recently
separate Anglophone, Francophone and Hispanic traditions existed side
by side (Gunew 2003). The resulting theoretical panoply has led many
archaeologists into a conceptual quandary; a situation which has been
exacerbated by differential usages of the same concept(s) within and
between academic disciplines (Stewart 2007: 3; VanValkenburgh, this
volume) and the tendency of some scholars to fuse various concepts
together by unreflexively treating them as related or even as generalized
descriptive synonyms (Stewart 2011: 48).
While much ink has been spilled on terminological pursuits (cf.
Pappa, this issue) and problems of definition (Bader, this issue; Stewart
2011: 4851), archaeologists on the whole have taken little note of the
fact that discussions of creolization, hybridity, etc. have provoked heated
debates in related fields and their parent disciplines. These debates
have nonetheless highlighted several of the concepts' discontents; their
primary drawbacks allegedly being those of reifying natural cultures
(Palmi 2006: 448) and relying on classical dichotomies, such as colonizer
vs. colonized or centres vs. peripheries, to understand cultural dynamics
(Schulze-Engler 2009: xi). In addition, very few studies have explicitly
tried to operationalize the concepts of creolization, hybridity, etc. within
archaeology, touching upon related issues such as typology, the circulation
of material culture and the relationship between objects and meaning
(VanValkenburgh 2011). This lack of archaeological operationalization is
remarkable since there exists an enormous epistemological gap between
discussions of cultural mixture in, for example, cultural anthropology
and methodological approaches in archaeological interpretation
(Stockhammer 2012: 43). Probably most important in archaeological
terms is that the adopted concepts lose much of their interpretative
value if they cannot be sufficiently traced in the material record. After
all, as highlighted by Palmi (this issue), any form of historical (and
archaeological) knowledge is knowledge from material signs. But even if
material signs of cultural mixture do exist, how should these be evaluated
3 W. Paul van Pelt
and under what conditions? In the words of VanValkenburgh (2011): "[w]hat
is the relationship between the recombination of cultural forms observed
in language, texts and daily practices and those observable in artifacts
that preserve in the archaeological recorde.g. portable material culture
and architecture?" Archaeologically important questions such as these
are rarely followed up in sufficient detail in related fields, but are vital to
push concepts of cultural mixture forward in archaeologically meaningful
and achievable ways.
Without the existence of a practical framework, archaeological
usages of creolization and hybridity have often been reduced to
metaphors (Stockhammer 2012: 48). Considering that archaeologists have
attempted to identify and interpret cross-cultural influences since the
birth of the disciplinealready using terms such as hybrid (albeit with
a reductive meaning) and syncretism almost a century ago to denote
cultural phenomena and artefacts that fell between established cultural
landscapes and typological categories (cf. Langin-Hooper, this volume)
one could wonder in what ways current applications of creolization
and hybridity theory actually bring something new to the table. The
concepts may on first sight offer more effective physical descriptions
of certain types of archaeological data, but do they actually further our
understanding of the complex processes that formed past (post)colonial
landscapes? Or should they perhapsand now I am playing devil's
advocatebe seen as examples of theoretical window dressing and
ephemeral vogues in archaeology's long history of borrowing concepts
and methods from other disciplines? Similarly important is whether the
adopted concepts can be understood and productively applied beyond
colonial and postcolonial contextsthat is, outside of the contexts in
which they were initially developed (cf. VanValkenburgh 2011)?
In order to evaluate the conceptual and methodological diversity of
archaeological studies of cultural mixture, the call for papers of this volume
did not focus on a single concept but allowed contributors to use various
analytical frameworks. The resulting collection of papers highlights
the great variety of approaches to cultural mixture in archaeology and
4 Introduction
illustrates how archaeologists have widely borrowed perspectives from
inter alia linguistics, cultural studies and anthropology. However, rather
than simply adopting approaches that have been developed in other
fields, archaeology has a responsibility to contribute creatively to the
discourses with which it engages. Archaeology is one of the few academic
disciplines that can provide a true long-term record of the changing
nature of human cultures, offering a unique diachronic perspective on
the variability of human organization and behaviour (Smith et al. 2012:
7616; Upham 1999). Whereas current discussions in policy making and the
humanities often depict the multicultural style of thinking and feeling as
a condition of contemporary history, it will be immediately apparent to
any archaeologist or historian that multicultural situations are far from a
new phenomenon in world history. Shouldn't archaeology under these
conditions hold great promise to contribute meaningfully to theories of
cultural mixture in the humanities and social sciences, thereby adding to
their utility in unforeseen ways?
The papers presented in this volume form, on one level, a collective
effort to address these issues. In the first contribution Stockhammer
attempts to bridge the epistemological divide between discussions
of cultural hybridization in cultural anthropology and archaeological
methodology. He introduces a practical framework that distinguishes
between the entanglement of social practices and the entanglement of
objects and demonstrates his approach in a case study of Philistine fine
ware pottery.
The second contribution by Pappa presents a critical and impassioned
discussion of the advent of postcolonial theory in archaeology. Pappa
argues that the rise of postcolonial theory has gradually created a
rigid framework where material culture in cross-cultural settings is
interpreted almost by default as the input of mixed material conditions.
She also highlights how 'hybridity talk' in archaeology displays an almost
fetishistic preoccupation with terminology, diverting the discussion
of archaeological phenomena to trivial pursuits on the semantics of
individual words.
5 W. Paul van Pelt
Maeir and Hitchcock discuss the appearance, definition and
transformation of the Philistine culture during the Iron Age. They argue
that a transcultural, entangled perspective provides a more nuanced
framework for understanding the formation and transformation of
Philistine identity by allowing for multivalent patterns of identity
negotiation. In their view, entanglement and appropriation represent
complementary aspects of a transcultural approach, which considers
function, symbolic use, social styles of acting and doing and hence agency
of objects as determined by context. Maeir and Hitchcock illustrate
their argument through a number of highly charged objects with pan-
Mediterranean meanings attached to them that played important roles
in the negotiation and maintenance of Philistine identity.
Naum explores borderlands as ambivalent and contested landscapes
and argues that they can be usefully described using postcolonial
paradigms due to their internal social and cultural processes. To illustrate
this point, she examines the relationships, mentalities and material
conditions of the medieval border between Denmark and the Slavic
Obodriti. By analyzing both archaeological and historical sources, Naum
demonstrates the complexity of the interactions in this region and
highlights their effects on material culture.
Langin-Hooper discusses scholarly modes of object categorization,
particularly typology, in which remnants of colonialist perspectives
(such as essentialized categories) linger unchallenged. She shows how
archaeological typologies generally operate under an unspoken principle
of universality, with ancient categories often being assumed to overlap
with modern categories of objects as if universal rules of categorization
exist. However, according to Langin-Hooper the categorization process
necessary to create a typology is neither as scientific, nor as lacking
in interpretive bias as it might seem. She puts forward a theory of
'entanglements' as a new and more flexible approach to inter-object
associations. This approach is explored in two case studiesone
investigating gender, the other cross-cultural interactionthrough
6 Introduction
which it is shown that the entanglements approach can better access the
diversity of figurine forms in Hellenistic Babylonia.
Palmi provides a thought-provoking confrontation of some of the
tenets of 'modernist archaeology' with an Afro-Cuban practice that to
archaeologists may look like a highly destructive form of 'indigenous
osteoarchaeology', involving the theft and sale of human bones and the
subsequent production of so-called nganga-objects. Palmi represents
the latter as a form of 'anti-archaeology' in that it deliberately creates
'live' entities by hybridizing what Cuban government preservationists
may think of as 'the archaeological record'. Palmi illustrates how the
fashioning of a nganga-object blurs a multiplicity of lines by which
contemporary Western ontologies (and epistemologies) divide subjects
and objects, agents and patients, matter and spirit, people and things, life
and death, present and past. Such ontological insights have important
ramifications for archaeological endeavours around the globe.
Brittain et al. assess the dynamic nature of the material culture of the
Mursi agro-pastoralists of the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia during the
recent past. They show how an entangled web of clan affiliation, alliance
and complex codes of interaction established open-ended systems of
identification in the area through which the dynamic blending of cultural
forms takes place. Rather than attempting to identify particular hybrid
forms, Brittain et al. argue that in the lower Omo Valley hybridization is
the condition upon which diverse assemblies are brought together in
a hybrid community, presenting a tension and constraint upon which
considerable labour and adjustment is expended.
Loren explores the material transformations and processes of
hybridity that occurred in early colonial New England. She suggests
that when hybrid processes are viewed through the lens of mimicry and
mockery, archaeologists can gain better insights into the complexity of
colonial entanglements. She illustrates this approach through a study of
Puritan and Native American conceptualizations of a properly-dressed,
healthy body, capturing some of the sensual aspects of colonial life: the
7 W. Paul van Pelt
uncertainties, anxieties, sexualities and performances implicit in the
crossing of borders and the resulting mixing of bodies and objects.
Van Gijseghem describes one particular type of cultural encounter
that may occur on archaeological frontiers following migration and
settlement. He explores the notion that the culture of frontier settlers
and that of their children and subsequent generations can be radically
different, but that their articulations nonetheless constitute a cultural
encounter albeit across generations rather than across space. Van
Gijseghem provides an archaeological example of such an encounter
from Pre-Hispanic Peru and suggests that many instances of rapid social
change following migration can be understood using the presented
framework.
McCafferty and Dennett consider the dynamic cultural landscape of
Pacific Nicaragua during the Bagaces/Sapoa transition. Drawing on a rich
data set, including pottery shapes, settlement patterns and foodways,
they challenge previous models of cultural replacement in favour of an
interpretation of cultural hybridity in which indigenous elements were
transformed as foreign traits were introduced. This approach represents
a groundbreaking shift from existing culture historical models that are
largely based on Spanish historical accounts.
Levin combines biblical accounts and texts describing the policies
of mass deportation of the Neo-Assyrian Empire with archaeological
evidence in order to shed light on the ethnogenesis of the Samaritans.
He adopts a diachronic view that highlights how the Assyrian policy
of bidirectional deportations led to the exile of much of the ruling
urban population from what had been the kingdom of Israel and their
replacement by 'others', brought from other conquered lands of the
Assyrian Empire. These 'others' remained part of the Assyrian ruling
apparatus and mimicked Assyrian material culture, but when the Assyrian
Empire fell and was replaced by new regimes the 'others' began to
acculturate, discarding their former 'colonial' identity and adopting that
of the indigenous populations around them.
8 Introduction
Antonaccio draws on the model of the middle ground and illustrates
how this concept can be fruitfully applied to study cultural process in
the western Mediterranean. She emphasizes the importance of cultural
misreadings and violence between Greeks and non-Greeks during the
tenth to fifth century BC. She also discusses how non-Greek objects
were deployed in Greek contexts, illustrating the reciprocal influences
of the middle ground and extending the model to the Greek homeland
itself. Antonaccio concludes by discussing attempts to combine the
concept of the middle ground with network theory. Her findings show
how archaeological data can revise borrowed models in important ways
and has the potential to contribute more broadly to discourses about
intercultural encounter.
Bader discusses the concepts of creolization, hybridity and syncretism
in connection with the archaeology of Tell el-Dab
c
a/Avaris. At Tell el-
Dab
c
a there is a rich material corpus for the study of cultural contact,
the adaptation of cultural traits and the autochthonous development
of a 'mixed' material culture with affinities to both Egypt and Levantine
Middle Bronze Age cultures. Bader stipulates the importance of diachronic
analysis and the detailed publication of objects. She also argues that there
is a great need for a clearly defined and unencumbered terminology if
further progress is to be made.
The last paper by Beaudry investigates the role of food in cultural
encounters. Using two case studies from the New Worldone focusing
on the Inca incorporation of groups into their empire through feasting
and provisioning, the other concerning the emergence of Creole
cuisines in colonial New Orleansshe demonstrates how food can play
an important role in cultural mixing, incorporation and creolization
processes. Beaudry juxtaposes these examples with a case study from the
Old World, illustrating Jewish resistance to the Roman cultural conquest
of Palestine through a refusal to adopt a specific Roman dish until the
food and the pots used to prepare it could be redefined as local and
therefore as culturally acceptable.
9 W. Paul van Pelt
Finally, VanValkenburgh offers an insightful commentary asserting
that discussions of cultural mixture in Bronze Age, Iron Age and Classical
Mediterranean contexts and those focusing on the colonial Americas and
other areas often have slightly different ways of framing their subjects of
study. Researchers working in these fields largely draw on three different
definitions of hybridityvernacular, Bakhtinian or Latourianthat
are primarily concerned with one of three phenomena: epistemology,
discourse or ontology. These competing definitions are not merely
semantic in their distinction, but substantially influence how authors view
the problems posed by cultural mixture. As such, they each encourage
research into different but equally vital subject areas that all further our
understanding of cultural mixture in the archaeological record.
Acknowledgements
In the course of the production of this volume I was very fortunate to
receive the help of numerous friends and colleagues without whose
unselfsh eforts on my behalf this issue could never have been
completed. Members of the ARC committee, both past and present, have
helped me enormously with editing and numerous practical problems.
As a group they read the entire manuscript several times and suggested
improvements on almost every page for which I owe an enormous
debt of gratitude to them. Discussion or advice with a wide variety of
topics came from my supervisor Dr. Kate Spence and Tessa de Roo, who
have supported me throughout the preparation of this issue with their
patience and knowledge. Jefrey Watumull and Danika Parikh proofread
this introduction and greatly improved my written English. Special thanks
are due to the artists of Beatalic Studios for designing the issue cover and
to my friend Regina Garza for introducing me to their work. I would also
like to express my deepest gratitude to the Managers of the Wallis Budge
Fund at Christ's College, Cambridge, for making my research possible
through their generous fnancial support. Last, but certainly not least, I
need to thank the contributors to this volume for submitting papers and
for taking part in what I hope will be an interesting read for all. I take full
responsibility for any remaining editing errors in this volume.
10 Introduction
References
Gunew, S. 2003. Transcultural translations: performative pedagogies. Paper presented at
the Transcultural Translators: Mediating Race, Indigeneity, and Ethnicity in Four
Nations Workshop, Rockefeller Center, Bellagio, Italy.
Palmi S. 2006. Creolization and it discontents. Annual Review of Anthropology 35:
433456.
Schulze-Engler, F. 2009. Introduction. In Schulze-Engler, F. and Helf, S. (eds), Transcultural
English Studies: Theories, Fictions, Realities. Amsterdam: Rodopie, ixxvi.
Smith, M.E., Feinman, G.M., Drennan, R.D., Earle, T. and Morris, I. 2012. Archaeology as a
social science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America 109(20): 76167621.
Stewart, C. 2007. Creolization: History, ethnography, theory. In Stewart, C. (ed.),
Creolization, Ethnography, Theory. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press Inc, 125.
Stewart, C. 2011. Creolization, hybridity, syncretism, mixture. Portuguese Studies 27(1):
4855.
Stockhammer, P.W. 2012. Conceptualizing cultural hybridization in archaeology. In
Stockhammer, P. W. (ed.), Conceptualizing Cultural Hybridization: A Transdisciplinary
Approach (Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context). Berlin and
Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 4358.
Upham, S. 1999. The privilege of time depth: Responsibility and obligation in American
Archaeology. Paper presented at the presidential symposium Anthropology at the
Crossroads of Time, Chicago.
VanValkenburgh, P.N. 2011. Hybridity, creolization, and mestizaje: Archaeology and (inter)
cultural process. Website: http://scholar.harvard.edu/vanvalkenburgh/classes/
hybridity-creolization-and-mestizaje-archaeology-and-intercultural-process-0,
accessed on 2 March 2013.
From Hybridity to Entanglement, From Essentialism
to Practice
Cluster of Excellence 'Asia and Europe in a Global Context' and the Institute for Prehistory and Early
History and Near Eastern Archaeology, Heidelberg University
philipp.stockhammer@zaw.uni-heidelberg.de
Introduction
H
ybridity and hybridization have recently become buzzwords in
archaeological studies. In particular archaeologists working in the
Mediterranean on Bronze Age networks of interaction (e.g. Feldman
2006; Knapp 2008, 2009, 2012; Steel 2002; Voskos and Knapp 2008), on
Early Iron Age colonization (Antonaccio 2003, 2010; Dietler 2010; van
Dommelen 2006; Hodos 2010; Vives-Ferrndiz Snchez 2005, 2007,
2008) and on Romanization (van Dommelen and Terrenato 2007; Hodos
2006; Webster 2001) have found it a highly useful term to describe
archaeological phenomena. Whereas Bhabha (2007) defined hybridity as
a strategy of the suppressed and subaltern against their suppressors in
a colonial context, archaeologists particularly perceive those objects as
'hybrid' which seem to resist classification within predefined taxonomies.
12 From Hybridity to Entanglement, From Essentialism to Practice
A r c h a e o l o g i c a l R e v i e w f r o m C a m b r i d g e 2 8 . 1 : 1 1 2 8
Thus, hybridity is most often a phenomenon which cannot be clearly
attributed to a certain archaeologically defined culture such asin the
case of Mediterranean archaeologythe Mycenaean, Canaanite, Greek,
Phoenician or Roman culture. The subliminal perception of an object's
resistance to classification is most easily handled by creating the loosely
defined category of the hybrid.
Hybridity and PurityIt Takes Two to Tango
In my view, the epistemological process of the categorization of an
object or practice as hybrid still needs further reflection. 'Hybridity'
cannot exist without 'purity', 'international' not without 'nation states'
and 'transculturality' cannot be used without acknowledging the
existence of distinct 'cultures' in a container-like understanding of the
term (Stockhammer 2012a: 12). Therefore, the notion of purity has been
unconsciously reintroduced into postcolonial studies, which originally
aimed to overcome exactly this politically so often misused division of
human existence into 'pure' and 'impure'. There is no way out: every
scientific aim to transcend borders begins with the acknowledgement
of the existence of those borders, confirming the existence of what
originally is hoped to be overcome. Without doubt, individuals or groups
can perceive something as pure on ideological grounds. However, this
perception of purity is often deeply linked with xenophobia and racism.
Purity has so frequently been manipulated by the powerful as a strategy
of suppression that this term must be handled with the utmost caution.
Whereas purity has to be abolished from political discourse, to my
mind it remains indispensable in the humanities from an epistemological
point of view. If we discuss hybridity, we have to define what we
understand to be pure. If nothing can be designated as pure everything
is hybrid and hybridity becomes a redundant term which might then
be used in a metaphorical way for stimulating discussion, but not as a
conceptual tool. In my view, it is possible to develop the metaphor into
an epistemologically useful concept by using terms such as hybridity
13 Philipp W. Stockhammer
and others only for the analysis of distinct processes of appropriation
(Stockhammer 2012b: 48).
It may come as a surprise, but we are already operating with purity
on a daily basis in our disciplines: every taxonomic category created by
the observer is pure and distinctive by definition. In archaeology, we
most often operate with so-called monothetic types.
1
A monothetic
type is defined as a representative for a class of phenomena (objects,
practices, etc.) that all share at least two predefined features. Every
type, every classificatory unit is therefore a pure entitywhich does not
mean that the phenomena attributed to the class of a certain type are
also pure. The type is pure as a concept, whereas the object as such can
never be something pure. The use of terms like 'Mycenaean', 'Roman' or
'Asian' already means accepting the existence of something pure from
an epistemological point of view, at least in the context of the analytical
process. When Bhabha (2007) speaks of the 'postcolonial society', he
creates another pure entity that he himself perceives as social reality.
Thereby he ignores the fact that postcolonial society is also a product
of scientific classification and not an entity that exists in reality. Most
archaeologists are nowadays aware that our archaeologically defined
cultures are nothing butmore or lessarbitrarily created entities that
are more the result of our discipline's history of research than an adequate
representation of past realities.
If we acknowledge the arbitrary and pure character of the entities
defined in the course of our analyses, what is then the hybrid? From
an epistemological point of view, the hybrid is what falls between the
analytical categories defined by us. One could call it the double bias of
the hybrid: it is 'in-between' our categories;
2
it comprises myriad features
that remain unclassified; it is the accidental remainder that does not fit
into the arbitrarily classified. As our categories are never all-inclusive, we
should not wonder that there are always remaining phenomena that
1 For the diferentiation and defnition of types and types of types cf. Rouse (1960: 315316, 1970: 8, 1972: 48, 300)
and Stockhammer (2004: 1718).
2 In addition to the term hybridity the notions 'in-between' and 'third space' are crucial in Bhabha's (2007) work.
cannot be attributed to a certain type of class. Something always remains
outside. In archaeology, this 'something' most often comprises unique
objects with singular features or uncommon combinations of features.
However, it is only the second step which transforms the by-product of
any classification (the 'unclassifiable') into a category of its own that is
considered as meaningful in its perception for past human beings. In
the end, we propose that those phenomena which we were not able to
include in our categories were also meaningful and perceived as being
in-between by past human beings.
3
We force the hybrid to speak and
propose that it has always done so. We forget the genesis of this category
and try to emphasize the particular character of the hybrid, instead of
considering its dynamic and creative character as an artificial bridge
between artificial categories.
Archaeology as Experiment
My analysis of the epistemological process of defining something as
hybrid brings archaeology surprisingly close to the natural sciences. Our
archaeological evidence is like water with salt dissolved in it. Initially the
salty water and material culture evidence seem to be in a state of chaos
that has to be ordered first. A chemist uses a series of analytical methods
to determine which elements make up compounds based on the unique
properties of those elements. (S)he uses electrodes and electric current
in order to separate the different ions into substances like natrium and
chlorine. Archaeologists use the toolbox of taxonomy to differentiate
their heap of sherds into vessel shapes, time periods, etc. From a
conceptual perspective, a vessel type is as pure as a chemical element.
Both processes are structurally identical from an epistemological point
of view. The purity of the substances is the prerequisite for the chemist
to study their subsequent intermixture. (S)he initiates the encounter
of the substances and describes the process of intermixture, i.e. their
reaction and the result of the reaction, which is often a new substance
3 I am fully aware of the fact that the perception of objects changes per time frame and individuals. Thus, a 'correct' or
'normal' perception is nonexistent. Archaeologists can only grasp momentary individual perceptions of objects as long as
they resulted in practices that materialized in the context.
with new attributes and properties. Precisely this step of the reaction
cannot be studied by archaeologists in its dynamics: we can only analyze
what remains of the end product. We are confronted with the unique
character of an object that resulted from the creative power triggered by
intercultural encounter (i.e. the reaction of formerly distinct substances)
and we are unable to document the process of reaction. Of course, we
can try to split the hybrid into its former substances and imagine how
those may have reacted with each other. In this respect, however, the
difference between the humanities and the natural sciences poses the
major problem. Whereas chemical substances always react the same way
under the same conditions, humans (fortunately) do not. Therefore, we
are only able to hypothesize about the possible dynamics of the reaction,
but we will never be able to understand it completely.
Another danger is engendered by the arbitrary construction of etic
entities: it is the notion that these entities possess agency. Latour (2005)
rightly criticizes that many scholars perceive sociologically constructed
entities like 'elite' or 'lower classes' as meaningful agents. He argues that
these categories must not stand at the beginning of any analysis as an
explanation for individual action, but only at the end. However, he is not
aware of the fact that these terms can also be understood as abstract
types, as descriptive categories for classes of objects, humans or social
practices that share the same predefined featuresin the sense of a
descriptive type. Every time we use these terms, we have to be aware
of their genesis, their epistemological potential and their necessity. They
are "crutches for understanding" as Geiger (1964 [1947]: 126127) so aptly
stated.
From Hybridity to Degrees of Entanglement
After having demonstrated that it is possible and necessary to create the
hybrid, I would now like to argue for the use of a different term, albeit
with the same epistemological meaning. In my view, the present-day
understanding of hybridity is either governed by its biological origin as
a means of classifying, for example, the offspring of two individuals of
different races as something 'impure' (Ackermann 2012: 6; Papastergiadis
1997; Stewart 1999: 45; Weikppel 2005: 317319; Young 1995) or by its
purely political definition in postcolonial studies with Bhabha (2007) as
its most prominent advocate (cf. Stockhammer 2012b: 4546). In order
to navigate through this Scylla and Charybdis of the term's inherent
problems, I instead chose the German terms 'Geflecht' and 'Verflechtung',
or, in English, 'entanglement':
Both terms comprise the aspects of agency, processuality
and the creation of something new which is more
than just an addition of its origins. 'Entanglement' and
'Geflecht/Verflechtung' avoid the notion of textand
therefore culture as a textwhich is connected with
terms like 'texture' or 'Gewebe', and point rather to the
unstructuredness of human creativity (Stockhammer
2012b: 47).
The term entanglement is also favoured by Thomas (1991), Dietler
(1998) and, more recently, by Hodder (2011a, 2011b) to term human-
thing-relationships. The historians Conrad and Randeria (2002) proposed
'entangled history' in order to enforce the manifold intercultural
entanglements, particularly in the context of colonial systems (cf. also
Kaelble 2005). Thus, in the discussion that follows, I will use the term
entanglement instead of hybridity to describe phenomena that are the
result of the creative processes triggered by intercultural encounters.
Due to the particular character of archaeological sources I
distinguish two different states of entanglement after the encounter with
a foreign object: 'relational entanglement' and 'material entanglement'
(Stockhammer 2012b: 4951). The first stage, relational entanglement, is
reached when the object is appropriated and thus integrated into local
practices, systems of meaning and worldviews.
4
Whereas the human
relation to the object andin consequencehuman perception
4 Most important for the understanding and conceptualization of processes of appropriation are several works by
Hahn (e.g. 2004: 218220, 2005: 102104).
of the surrounding material world and the related practices have
changed within the process of appropriation, the object in its sheer
materiality remains unchanged. This is important from an archaeologist's
epistemological point of view as only the context of the object reveals
whether processes of appropriation have taken place. If the context has
been lost, an appropriated object cannot be identified as the state of
relational entanglement can only be identified through context. It is only
the second step, material entanglement, which signifies the creation of
something new that is more than just the sum of its parts and combines
the familiar with the previously foreign. This object is more than just a sum
of the entities from which it originated and clearly not the result of local
continuities. It can be taken as a representative of a new taxonomic entity,
what I would call the Geflecht and others would call the hybrid. We can
still identify such an object as an entangled artefact in the archaeological
evidence from an etic perspective, even if it has lost its context over time
(Stockhammer 2012b: 4951).
My distinction between relational and material entanglement
helps us to characterize states and grades of transcultural entanglement
more clearly than has hitherto been the case. Moreover, it draws our
attention to the dynamics and processuality of the Geflecht. Whereas
many scholars place their focus on the distinction of the hybrid from
other phenomena, I argue that we have to study the way in which the
entangled phenomenon creatively connects the formerly separated
entities and how entanglements might have played an active role within
daily practices andin the endworld views. We have to study the
practices associated with the entangled object in order to understand
its meaning(s) and function(s) instead of ending with the declaration
of its state of entanglement. Taking the practice turn of the humanities
seriously means acknowledging the active role of objects as proposed
by Latour's (2005) actor-network theory and also the complexity of the
human-object relationship in the course of archaeological analysis
(Stockhammer 2012c).
Case Study: Philistine Fine Ware Pottery
The phenomenon of the so-called Philistine settlements, known from
the Biblical narrative, which started in the early twelfth century BC in the
southern Levant, has been at the centre of scholarly research especially
since Dothan's (1982) influential publication The Philistines and Their
Material Culture. The emergence of the Philistine settlements (i.e. the five
'cities' of Ekron, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Gaza) is accompanied by a
radical change in material culture and social practices. This is connected
by most scholars with the immigration of a foreign population from
either the Aegean or Cyprus or both areas. Philistine fine ware pottery
has always been considered one of the hallmarks of Philistine material
culture.
I am aware of the fact that speaking of 'Philistine fine ware pottery'
means creating another analytically pure entity that is positioned
between the categories Mycenaean and Canaanite into which it does not
fit. On a higher taxonomic level, the term Aegean-type pottery comprises
both Mycenaean and Philistine fine ware pottery, but not the Canaanite-
type vessels.
5
So far, Philistine fine ware pottery has been perceived as a local
imitation of a foreign, Aegean-type set of dishes in order to enable the
migrants to continue their traditional eating and drinking practices.
Therefore, this pottery has been intensely studied with regard to the
existing range of shapes and motifs (see Dothan and Zukerman 2004)
as well as their possible non-Levantine region(s) of origin (see Killebrew
2005). However, although of major importance for the whole argument,
the social practices connected with the use of these vessels have not
found equal interest.
6
Moreover, the emphasis has always been placed on
the differences between the local Canaanite and the Philistine fine ware
pottery. Only recently, scholars have demonstrated the integration of
5 In my understanding, Aegean-type pottery comprises all vessels produced in a Mycenaean or Minoan (Cretan) tradi-
tion of vessel forming irrespective of where such vessels were actually produced.
6 In contrast to the Philistine fne ware, the Philistine cooking pottery was excellently studied with regard to related
cooking practices by Yasur-Landau (2005: 180183, 2010: 124132, 234240).
Canaanite stylistic elements in the shaping and painting of the Philistine
fine ware pottery (e.g. Mountjoy 2010) or have enforced the overall
transcultural character of the Philistine culture, thereby questioning the
dominating narrative (Hitchcock 2011).
In my view, it is time to modify our perspective on the Philistine fine
ware pottery. I conceptualize this pottery and the practices connected
therewith as the result of cultural encounter and, therefore, as a creative
and highly dynamic phenomenon. In the discussion that follows, I will
concentrate on the feasting practices associated with Philistine fine ware
pottery in comparison to Mycenaean and Canaanite feasting dishes. On
the basis of the vast amount of excavated, documented and published
Philistine, Mycenaean and Canaanite pottery, I make the assumption that
the quantity of a certain shape of feasting vessel in the archaeological
record is 1) very roughly representative of the quantitative relationship
of the different shapes in the prehistoric households and 2) that a high
number of vessels of a certain shape indicates more frequent use in daily
practices.
7
In Mycenaean Greece of the thirteenth and early twelfth century BC
the most common feasting set comprised one krater for mixing water,
wine and probably spices and several pairs of nearly identical kylikes of a
different kind (painted or unpainted, with a conical, rounded or carinated
bowl) used for drinking (fig. 1; Stockhammer 2008: 135, 169, 306, 314, 320,
325). Sometimes, shallow or deep cups or mugs were used as alternative
drinking vessels. However, from the late fourteenth until the early twelfth
century BC the kylix is clearly the most prominent drinking vessel shape.
8

7 I am fully aware of the fact that the number of sherds of a certain vessel shape in the archaeological record is the
result of a highly complex process of pre- and post-vessel breakage practices, ranging from the size of the vessel and the
frequency of its prehistoric use to its identifability by the archaeologist.
8 Whereas it was common to paint kylikes very elaborately in the late fourteenth and frst half of the thirteenth cen-
tury BC, the number of painted kylikes sharply decreased after the mid-thirteenth century. As unpainted kylikes unfor-
tunately did not fnd the same scholarly interest and, therefore, remained mostly unpublished, the number of kylikes
published from the second half of the thirteenth century BC (LH III B2) is no way representative of the actual recovered
quantity of this vessel type in pottery inventories, at least in the Argolid. In Tiryns, there is clear evidence for a continu-
ous preference to use kylikes in the context of feasting in LH III C Early in the frst half of the twelfth century BC. It is only
after 1150 BC that there is a marked decrease in the number of both painted and unpainted kylikes at Tiryns which points
Fig. 1. Kylikes from Tiryns, North-Eastern Lower Town (Courtesy of the author; cf. Stockhammer 2008: Catalogue Nos.
11941195).
Fig. 2. Philistine deep bowl from Tell es-Saf/Gath (Courtesy of Prof. Aren Maeir, Tell es-Saf/Gath Archaeological Project).
Shallow bowls FS (Furumark shape) 295 and deep bowls FS 284 were also
used in great numbersmost probably for eating, although I do not
want to exclude that they were also sometimes used for consuming more
liquid food.
The Canaanite ceramic repertoire is dominated by a large number of
more or less shallow bowls of different sizes. Kraters can also be identified
which were either used for ladling an alcoholic beverage or for drinking
from them with straws. Mixing water and wine is so far unattested in
the Late Bronze Age southern Levant. Drinking vessels, however, are
surprisingly rare in the archaeological evidence. The very small number of
chalices and stemmed bowls that have long been used to fill this gap were
obviously used as incense burners, not as drinking vessels (Namdar et al.
2010; Stockhammer 2012c: 2429).
9
There is no doubt that the inhabitants
of the southern Levant drank beverages. However, they obviously did not
have a specific shape for drinking vessels, but used numerous bowls for
both eating and drinking. This is an interesting difference in comparison
to the apparently more specific functions of feasting vessels in Mycenaean
pottery.
Like the Mycenaean ceramics, the Philistine fine ware repertoire
comprises a large number of shallow carinated bowls FS 295 and deep
bowls FS 284 (fig. 2) as well as a certain number of kraters (Dothan and
Zukerman 2004: 716). Kylikes, however, are almost completely absent in
the Philistine settlements (Dothan and Zukerman 2004: 22)as are cups
and mugs. This is in clear contrast to the range of Aegean-type pottery
shapes outside Philistia. As the migrants did not stop drinking after arriving
to the end of this preference (Stockhammer 2008: 143, 157, 163, 169, 186187). Hitchcock and Zukerman (2011) have
recently proposed an innovative interpretation for the genesis of the deep bowl as a feasting vessel in Mycenaean Greece,
explaining it as the local appropriation of the Near Eastern practice of using a vast amount of bowls for feasting practices.
However, their idea is based on the notion that there was a decline in the number of kylikes in Mycenaean Greece from
the middle of the thirteenth century BC onwards. As I have argued above, such a decline cannot be seen at least in the
settlements in the Argolid.
9 Zuckerman (2007: 193194, 197198) emphasizes that the consumption of liquids obviously did not play an impor-
tant role in Canaanite feasting practices. She bases her argument on the ceramic inventory of the so-called royal precinct/
ceremonial palace at Hazor, where 781 vesselsmostly bowls of diferent typeswere found in situ and defnite
drinking vessels were absent.
in the southern Levant, they obviously changed their drinking practices.
I would like to explain this marked difference between Mycenaean and
Philistine ceramic feasting assemblages by suggesting that the Philistines
used their bowls for eating and drinking in a similar manner as the local
Canaanite population in the Levant, who had done so long before the
arrival of the migrants.
The Philistine deep bowls also exhibit an interesting difference in
vessel size in comparison to their Aegean counterparts. Deep bowls with
rim diameters of less than 12cm are a rarity in the Aegean where the rim
diameter almost invariably ranges between 12 and 18cm with 14 to 16cm
as the most common size (e.g. Stockhammer 2008: figs 80:e, 80:f for early
twelfth century Tiryns). In Mycenaean Greece, rim fragments with deep
bowl-type lips and diameters of less then 12cm can quite consistently
be attributed to deep cups. In the Philistine settlements, however, a
surprisingly high number of very small deep bowls has been found,
especially at Ashdod, with rim diameters of only 7 to 9cm (Dothan and
Zukerman 2004: 8, 10, figs 6, 11, tab. 4). The average rim diameter for deep
bowls in the inventories of Philistine pottery is only 12 to 14cm (Dothan
and Zukerman 2004: 8). This might be interpreted as evidence that the
small deep bowls were used as drinking vessels as their rim diameters
are similar to those of deep cups FS 215 and carinated kylikes FS 267
(Stockhammer 2008: fig. 82).
10
The abandonment of the differentiation between certain vessel
shapes for eating and drinking in Philistine fine ware pottery can best be
explained as the result of the encounter with local Canaanite practices of
consumption that triggered a process of appropriation of these practices,
but which was most interestingly not accompanied by the appropriation
of Canaanite vessel shapes. In my view, the Philistine ceramic feasting
assemblage may be interpreted as the translation of Canaanite practices
into the stylistic vocabulary of Aegean-type pottery. Following my own
terminology, we can speak of a relational entanglement of the Philistine
10 Unfortunately, the corpus of metrical data on Mycenaean potteryspecially unpainted waresis still very
small, which reduces the explanatory power of my argument.
fine ware pottery. Only those Philistine vessels which exhibit the
integration of features of Canaanite potterysuch as certain motifs of
decoration or certain rim shapes of kratersshould be termed material
entanglements.
11
While the material culture of Canaanite settlements in the vicinity
of the Philistine ones clearly shows the resistance of the local population
against the material culture of the newcomers (e.g. Bunimovitz and
Lederman 2011), the Philistines obviously saw no need to completely reject
the foreign practices they encountered in their new homeland. It may
have been the creative potential of a migrant communitywell-known
in modern day contexts/situations (Bailey 2001; Bhabha 2007)that
resulted in the creative entanglement of Aegean-type and Canaanite-
type objects and practices.
Conclusion
Although often used, hybridity as an epistemological concept has long
been undertheorized. I argue for an approach that acknowledges the
creation of both the 'hybrid' and the 'pure' as necessary, but artificial
categories. In order to better analyze the processes triggered by the
encounter with otherness on the basis of archaeological sources, it is
further necessary to differentiate degrees of entanglement, as it makes
a huge difference for archaeologists to identify an entangled object
(material entanglement) or the entanglement of past practices with
an object (relational entanglement). After this second step, we have to
analyze the role of entanglements in past societies, in casu the Philistine
feasting dishes and the practices and concepts of consumption connected
therewith. It is the focus on the networks, on the connectivity of humans,
objects and practices that enables us to achieve new insights into past
social worlds.
11 It would be interesting to see what parts (shapes, motifs) of the Philistine ceramic inventory show a stronger de-
gree of material entanglement, and what parts remained 'purely' Aegean-type from an etic point of view.
Acknowledgments
This contribution is part of my postdoctoral research on 'Material
Entanglement: The Appropriation of Foreign Pottery in the Eastern
Mediterranean Late Bronze Age' within the Cluster of Excellence 'Asia
and Europe in a Global Context' at Heidelberg University. I would like to
thank Louise Hitchcock, Hans Peter Hahn, Joseph Maran and Carol Bell for
critical discussions and helpful comments.
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Eleftheria Pappa
Department of Archaeology, Classics and Near Eastern Studies, VU University Amsterdam
e.pappa@let.vu.nl
Postcolonial Baggage at the End of the Road:
How to Put the Genie Back into its Bottle and Where
to Go from There
Introduction
I
n recent years, a proliferation of conference topics, monographs and
museum exhibitions across the humanities and the social sciences have
shown a cataclysmic presence of what McClintock (1992: 85), during the
early stages of the phenomenon, called an "almost ritualistic ubiquity of
'post' words". McClintock attempted to halt an emerging shift in academia
towards the millenarian rhetoric that popularized postmodernism
and its semantically fawed consort, postcolonialism. Both conceptual
frameworks seem to reveal a haunting concern for beginnings and
ends in a linear development that replaces the "binary axis of power"
(e.g. colonizers vis--vis colonized in the case of postcolonialism) with
"the binary axis of time", which renders the understanding of modern
sociopolitical dynamics and economic contexts particularly problematic.
30 Postcolonial Baggage at the End of the Road
As McClintock demonstrated there is nothing that warrants the prefx
'post' in the 'postcolonial' era that its supporters zealously advocate (cf.
also Appiah 1991). Large swathes of the Earth's nations continue to be
colonized either by their erstwhile European rulers via economic policies
and/or political infuence or by emerging neocolonial powers (McClintock
1992: 90).
1
Despite this state of afairs, the "prematurely celebratory and
obfuscatory" concept of postcolonialism met with academic success
(McClintock 1992: 92).
In the English-speaking world, postcolonialism entered the
anthropological and archaeologically scene with full force, penetrating
and ultimately fooding the theoretical frameworks of these disciplines.
From the subversive, rogue stance of deconstructing an intellectual
order-afrming authority, it eventually became a successor 'regime' that,
like its predecessors, understood the world within a set framework with
fxed dimensions, constructing a peculiar system of logic that illogically
"proved its own postulates" as postmodernism had done before (Sangren
1988: 407). In archaeology, postcolonial theory has gradually marginalized
other theoretical approaches and viewpoints, thus stifing pluralism and
dismantling the polyphony it had avowed to uphold. More worryingly,
it wore the mantle of social and anthropological theory in order to
add gravity to its new theoretical concerns. Yet, in the course of time,
postcolonialism often kept adjusting or shifting the very same body of
theory from which it claimed to draw its legitimacy. A clear example of
this is the employment of the term 'hybridity', a concept which developed
within postcolonial studies, but which in recent archaeological studies
is often found with diminished potential as an epistemological tool. Its
usage in the study of culture contact (whether through trade, population
mobility or in colonial settings) in Mediterranean prehistory ofers an
eloquent example of an erupting revolution that broke down barriers
of thought and interpretation, seeking out the underrepresented in the
archaeological record and those silenced in the textual sourcesi.e.
those people and cultures largely ignored by Western-centric views.
1 The prefx 'neo' stands in clear semantic contrast to that of 'post'. Within archaeology see Gosden (2004: 152159)
for similar considerations on a 'neo-colonial world'.
31 Eleftheria Pappa
However, like many other theoretical vogues in the discipline (Bintlif
2004: 397), postcolonialism is itself a product of its time that projects,
more unconsciously than not, contemporary predicaments, problems
and ideas, such as multiculturalism, globalization and the transnational
individual, onto the past.
2
These are all contemporary social trends with
which academics often have to grapple in their own personal lives, as
in many cases mobility and its symptomatic outcomes are linked to an
academic career. In this contribution, I shall illustrate how developments
that at frst breathed fresh air into archaeological thought through the
application of postcolonial ideas have gradually led to the disfgurement
of the theories' underlying premises and saturated interpretations of the
archaeological record. As a result there exists a great need to confront
and break free from the trappings that the application of postcolonial
ideas has engendered.
Out of the Bottle: From the Liberating Revolution to the Alleged
Polyphony of the Single Voice
The advent of postcolonialism in archaeology in the late 1990s marked
a critical stage in the development of archaeological thought in the
context of culture contact, especially colonial encounters. From the study
of prehistory to the Early Modern period, there was a surge in approaches
that sought to emphasize multivocality. 'Colonizer' and 'colonized' came
under the microscope as semi-artifcial constructs that did not refect
the grand gamut of interactions and power relations between groups.
Populations and communities formerly subsumed under these binary
rubrics became accessible with the use of new theoretical tools through
which to approach their situations, experiences and power dynamics.
Gosden's (2004) exploration of some of these theoretical tools (i.e.
colonialism in a shared cultural milieu, middle ground and terra nulliae)
2 See, for example, recent debates on 'globalization' in the ancient Mediterranean. The impossibility to be a neutral,
'value-free' observer of the past remains one of the acknowledged, inbuilt biases of the discipline. Yet the conscious pro-
jection of contemporary realities onto the past refers more to the pressure under which archaeologists fnd themselves
from recent trends in research funding to render their work (into the past) 'relevant' to society (sadly misconstrued as
'analogous'). On contemporary transnational social spaces and their implications, see Kleinschmidt (2006), Pries (2001)
and Kim (2011) respectively.
in studying culture contact and colonialism from prehistory to modern
times typifes these approaches.
Such approaches proved almost revolutionary for the theorizing
of the colonization movements of the Greeks and the Phoenicians in
the central and western Mediterranean during the frst half of the frst
millennium BC. From Sardinia (van Dommelen 1998, 2002, 2005, 2006a,
2006b) to France (Dietler 1997, 2010), Sicily (Hodos 2009, 2010a, 2010b; Malkin
2004) and Spain (Domnguez 2002; Vives-Ferrndiz 2005, 2007, 2008),
postcolonial approaches gave voice to the indigenous populations as an
active component of the formation of social relations in colonial realms
and other culture situations. In tandem with earlier postprocessualist
approaches, the roles of various social groups and of people within these
groups were scrutinized, feshing out the individuals who had been
previously lost in general notions of 'societies' and 'populations'.
With the empowerment of the individual, refected in 'agency', came
'hybridity' as another crucial concept in these forays into postcolonialism.
Having repudiated its racist connotations of 'racial purity', hybridity
found fertile ground in the social sciences, becoming inextricably linked
with 'ambivalence' and 'ambiguity' in the work of Bhabha (1994), a
literary theorist, whose work lent to archaeology much of its postcolonial
theoretical panoply (van Dommelen 2006b: 136137). Bhabha built
on the work of Said (1978), another literary critic, whose seminal work
Orientalism criticized the construction and reproduction of the 'other'
in anthropology.
3
Said's thesis shook the foundations of the discipline as
it witnessed its epistemology, aims and methodologies ravaged by the
fundamental concern over its inbuilt Western-centric authority.
4
In an
archaeology largely undeterred by these criticisms, hybridity and agency,
rather belatedly, in the late 1990s, were allied with 'habitus', another social
theory concept that Bourdieu (1972, 1977) had elaborated in his social
practice theory (van Dommelen 2006b: 140141). The latter explained
3 A later book by Said (1994) also had an infuence on the intellectual production of the West.
4 A critique not without its opponents, but one which, decades on, stills reverberates in the discipline (cf. Argyrou
1999, 2002).
33 Eleftheria Pappa
human behaviour as created by the dynamic and mutually changing
responses between structure and agency.
Substantive weaknesses in the concept of hybridity, some inherent
and some acquired in the process of employing the term in diferent
contexts by diferent theorists, gradually shifted its meaning. Bhabha's
(1994) use of the term, which is the staple reference for archaeologists,
is a politicized one. For Bhabha, hybridity "becomes the symbol of the
strategies that the subalterns and migrants develop in colonial and post-
colonial contexts to deal with their particular situations" (Stockhammer
2012: 45). Yet in archaeology, despite the extensive use of Bhabha's work
as a legitimizing force for adopting hybridity as a theoretical stance, the
concept is often deprived of its political semantic substance. As recently
observed by Stockhammer (2012: 53), a clear example of this misuse of the
concept is found in Voskos and Knapp's (2008: 661) application of hybridity
to intercultural dynamics between Eteo-Cypriots, Greeks and Phoenicians
in Iron Age Cyprus. They treat hybridity as a mere cultural fusion resulting
from 'interaction' and 'negotiation' in a sense that is diametrically opposed
to Bhabha's defnition of the concept as a subversive, counter-hegemonic
strategy for undermining the role and demands of the colonial (or other
established) order. Despite this, Bhabha's interpretation of hybridity is
implied in Voskos and Knapp's study through the systematic referencing
of other archaeologists' work on hybridity, modelled after Bhabha. It is this
misconstruing of the concept that led Caete and Vives-Ferrndiz (2011:
124 and passim) to use the Phoenician colony of Lixus in Morocco (fg. 1)
as a case study of both hybridity and 'hegemony' as "two sets of tenets"
that are not "contradictory" in an attempt to inoculate hybridity against
the criticism of power neutrality. Yet this creates an obvious paradox,
for hybridity, as an epistemological tool, not only inherently embodies
power, but also expresses it as the counter-hegemonic response of the
suppressed, not of the order-afrming authority.
5

5 This goes beyond the obvious problems in Caete and Vives-Ferrndiz's study (2011: 138) of tracing hegemony in
the remains of a thick terraced wall with evidence for "ritual activities", coupled with the anthropomorphic fgurines of
diferent body representations, which allegedly refects social heterogeneity.
This repetitive misconstruing of concepts reveals the frequent
practice in social archaeology of invoking an anthropologist's or social
theorist's name, often en passante, as a (token) reference to their work,
in an attempt to imbue the application of a particular concept with
substance, albeit often stripped of epistemological meaningfulness. This
tendency normally manifests itself in an of-hand mention of a concept
or theory developed by such-and-such luminary of anthropological
or social theory, as if the mention of his or her name alone sufces
to guarantee the universality, permanence and absoluteness of the
axiomatic truth encapsulated in it. This occurs in archaeology regardless
Fig. 1. Map of the western Mediterranean showing sites with Phoenician material culture in nortwest Africa (Morocco) and Spain.
35 Eleftheria Pappa
of the fact that the concept does not go uncontested within its parent
discipline. Thus reliant upon a clear appeal to authority as a rhetorical
device for the valorization of persuasion power in many archaeological
writings on postcolonialism, the disjunction between malleable theory
on the one hand, and the archaeological record on the other, produces
an unbridgeable chasm that diminishes the explanatory potential of the
theory as applied to the evidence. This is doubly paradoxical since, on the
one hand, postcolonialism in its essence sets out to provide the counter-
hegemonic voice vis--vis the previous intellectual establishment as
the legitimating force behind the use of a particular understanding of
reality (thus belittling the authoritarian Western-centric voice). On the
other hand, it is itself subject to sharp critique from within the ranks of
social theory, where no trump card of authority is played to shield it from
criticism. The same tendency can be noted with regard to the notion
of habitus, which in archaeology often appears in brief references as
if a universal absolute, rather than as a contestable concept based on
ethnographic work in Algeria.
6

A commonly-ascribed criticism of hybridity as currently employed
remains its allegedly implied essentialism, the presupposition of an
imagined 'purity' of discrete, bounded cultures.
7
Eriksen (1993: 134), in
discussing the anthropological concept of 'cultural islands', succinctly
notes that "no society is entirely isolated, that cultural boundaries are not
absolute, and that webs of communication and exchange tie societies
together everywhere, no matter how isolated they may seem at a frst
glance". Each and every culture can be conceived of as hybrid in the
sense of having been formed in interaction with its cultural environs,
whether to a small or large extent. For Stockhammer (2012: 53), a broader
understanding of hybridity "reduces it to a metaphor". So then, to what
extent can a culture that has contact with and borrows from other
6 For a critique of habitus as a central concept in social theory see King (2000). Criticism has even come from its use in
the ethnographic context for which it was developed, the Kabylia region of Algeria (cf. Goodman 2003).
7 I shall refrain from rehearsing in detail one of the most tenacious tropes of the critique against hybridity. For the
quest of an imagined authenticity for the precolonial past, see van Dommelen (2006b: 138) and Jones (1997).
Fig. 1. Map of the western Mediterranean showing sites with Phoenician material culture in nortwest Africa (Morocco) and Spain.
cultures be regarded as a hybrid in a non-Bhabhan sense? The question
does not only refer to the degree of cultural permeation alone.
At the heart of this question lies the issue of agency, which
remains pragmatically elusive in hybridity, despite being systematically
implied.
8
This results from a particular overlooking of agency's temporal
dimensions, the specifcs of time and the individual. Is the person
partaking in practices that we defne as 'hybrid', conscious of their
actions or were these actions already so deeply embedded in an (already)
hybrid cultural context that no such consciousness could have been at
play? Is the hybridity of practices or material culture hybrid through
the archaeologist's eyes or did it appear in such a way to their agents
too? In the former case, can the material culture or cultural practices
still be referred to as hybrid, since the objective of the term is to show
a conscious stratagem (or in its misuse in many archaeological studies,
'negotiation')? De Groot (2011: 35) alludes to this critical concern when
studying the allegedly hybrid ceramic group of Gray Ware, a wheel-made
type of pottery that was supposedly the fusion of Phoenician pottery
making technology and indigenous ceramic shapes. If what is at play is
an unconscious reproduction of mixed socio-cultural traits that had been
already formulated and crystallized in a culturally diverse environment,
then are not these reproductions no diferent to all others, none of which
can claim an one-dimensional cultural derivation?
To address this potential shift in the meaning of hybridity towards
essentialism, and as an expression of an increasing dissatisfaction with
terminology, 'hybridization' was coined in an attempt to capture time,
freezing a snap of the on-going mixing of diferent cultural elements
(though occasionally used coevally with or in lieu of hybridity). For van
Dommelen (2006: 139140), hybridization is preferable, for it nuances the
local contexts and emphasizes the actor during the process. Yet even with
8 Agency here refers to humans. For the refection of human attributes (personhood, life cycles, biographies) on things
and the resulting theory of their agency (i.e. the less-tainted 'materiality' of both anthropology and archaeology), see
Holbraad (2011) and Malafouris (2010) respectively. For the more radical (and incredulous) call to eface the ontological
distinction between human and thing, see Latour (1993).
37 Eleftheria Pappa
hybridization, the temporal dimension of agency remains problematic,
at least in archaeology. Since hybridization has to be gauged through
material culture, strict time limits should be applied for its production
to warrant that it refects self-conscious decision making. For in the
opposite case of an unconscious production and perpetuation of ideas
and material culture, hybridization is reduced to a mere continuation of
previous traditions deriving from hybrid states which therefore no longer
index hybridization. This is a constant setback for archaeologists willing
to use hybridization, if the desire is to stay true to its routinely quoted
defnition as the process of hybridity (as subversive strategy), rather than
as a mere fusion or the often heard 'mixture'. This necessary and often
overlooked condition of a specifc time frame engenders the paradox of
searching for the outcome of a process (hybrid identities) in the material
remains of its process.
The increasing dissatisfaction with terminology has led to the
concurrent use of other terms such as 'entanglement' (Dietler 2010) or
'middle ground' (Antonaccio, this volume). The latter asserts the creation
of a new culture from diferent groups, diferent from the sum of its parts,
resulting from a series of misunderstandings of the other group's culture
and the subsequent accommodation of the misperception of the other.
The concept of middle ground, which difers from hybridity in that no
subversion is implied, was applied to the Greek overseas settlements
(Malkin 2004, 2005), but not to the Phoenician ones. This is somewhat
paradoxical, since a power neutral concept seems less suited to the
more formally colonial character of many Greek settlements than to the
Phoenician trading outposts. Evidently, the distinctionhybridity with
Phoenician contacts, middle ground with Greeksrelates more to the
particular preferences of people working on these subjects, rather than
an innate suitability of the ancient contextif anything, the contrary is
the case. 'Entanglement' (Dietler 2010) has also surfaced as a staple word
in the theorizing of culture contact. The semantic import here is that it
seems to point to appropriation, rather than mixing, albeit it remains
unclear if the distinction with 'appropriation' is merely one of degree
(alteration vs. complete transformation).
9

Thus, like other 'unfortunate' terms that were introduced to help
guide thinking along a particular path only then to be discarded for
the implications with which they were laden,
10
these terminological
preoccupations seem to fuel incessant discussions in an ever-spiralling
attempt to fnd the 'optimal' terma term that would nuance circumstance
and feature, and would encapsulate all particular characteristics of
a context and period, exhausting the discussion of archaeological
phenomena on trite pursuits on the semantics of individual words. This
attempt is futile for it always results in an evanescent term, one that
cannot hold up to describe precisely and fully each colonial or culture
contact context and period and which will always be defcient in one
semantically-charged implication or the other, for no circumstance is the
same. This fetishism of words adds little to our understanding of the past
and diverts the debate from the interpretation of the archaeological record
towards a petty game of semantics, which, in the long run, crystallizes
into a particular kind of jargonand a conditio sine qua non for anyone
writing on the subject at that. As an efect, this creates a kind of barrier
in the scholarship of culture contact for it introduces a particular kind of
scholarly 'realm' into which only certain members of the archaeological
discipline are admitted, even if the core of the approach is the same. This
often translates into a schism depending on the geographical locus of the
archaeologist,
11
since such terminological pursuits have acquired much
substance in Anglophone scholarship, but have little meaning for those
working in most other languages, let alone those using other approaches
to the past.
9 Cf. Hayne's (2010) study on Early Iron Age Sardinia where 'entangled' refers to the use of foreign objects by the
nuraghic society, but strictly as part of the latter's traditions. Over a long period of time and with an increasing degree of
intercultural interactions desired by both participating parties, the appropriating culture's habitus is altered, producing
'entangled identities'. Presumably, as in the case of objects appropriated, the altered identities are entangledas op-
posed to hybriddue to the (low) degree of said alteration.
10 Cf. Hofmann's (2008: 552) criticism of the term 'Orientalization' (vs 'Orientalizing') for "it has outlived its func-
tion". In a similar spirit, Mattingly (2010: 285) addresses the "-ization problems", postulating that terms such as 'Helleni-
zation' and 'Romanization' are problematic in nuancing identity and describe both "process and outcome".
11 A Western-centric perspective of these currents has been noted elsewhere (cf. Bintlif 2004: 398).
39 Eleftheria Pappa
A diferent problem of hybridity, not inherent to it but symptomatic
of its application, is the overarching emphasis it has conferred on cultural
or ethnic identity at the expense of other forms of categorization. For
example, Antonaccio (2010: 50), in defning and deconstructing the ethnic
dimension of material culture in Italy during the Greek colonization,
notes that "the mixing of genealogies and origins of things that is at the
heart of the concept of hybridity makes the discourse of things inherently
ethnic". This overemphasis results in a neglect of other factors and other
categories of social dynamics, including social or gender diferences.
For example, Mac Sweeney (2009) drew attention to the "overlooked
identities" that often get lost in the debates about ethnic or cultural
identity that have dominated our theoretical concerns during the past
years.
Efectively, this results in a problem of exclusivity and often tautology,
consisting in the circumscribed space of interpretation allowed by
hybridityfor if culture contact has to be seen under this light (and it is
immaterial if no hybridity can in the end be detected), the questions asked
are very limited by virtue of the theoretical framework adopted. This can
be aptly illustrated through articles that seek out to explore the hybridity
of material culture, intentionally looking for ambivalence, negotiation
and ambiguousness, and tautologically ending in their conclusions
with exactly these very same observations. It is after all hardly difcult
to spot hybridity in the archaeological record, for no cultural element
is born out of itself. For example, Counts (2008) applied hybridity to the
representation of the divine type he calls 'Master of Lions' as known from
statues and fgural representations in Cyprus from the sixth and ffth
centuries BC, asserting that "hybrid forms and recomposed identities are
perhaps the most distinguishing features of Cypriote [sic] cult during the
frst millennium". He refrains from using the common name 'Herakles'
or 'Melquart' for the type, for these are "culturally specifc" and goes on
to conclude that the 'Master of Lions' could claim authority over a wide
range of "divine spheres":
...this collective, hybridised iconography served the
needs of local Cypriote communities (whether identifed
as Greek, Phoenician, or Eteocypriote), who embraced
the deity without needing to reference external cultural
contexts or meanings (Counts 2008: 19).
The statement is unwarranted, since the generic "divine spheres" of
which Counts talks are conjecture and more so than it can be deemed
conjectural to call a divine type with a lion's skin and a club Herakles.
12

To contextualize the representation of this god into a generic context is
legitimate, but to proceed in depriving it of its name and attributes is
not, regardless of how many layers the god may have had in diferent
contexts and periods. In this way, the application of hybridity does not
clarify the local context, but obfuscates it with the generic. Admittedly
the representation of the human fgure with the two lions had ceased to
be a foreign Phoenician or Egyptian one by being translated into a Cypriot
context. But the Cypriot context itself was not one immersed in oblivion
and dedicated to the generic: the type was adopted either because it
found a correspondence in a local deity or as the representation of an
adopted one. To claim that the type can only be referred to as Master
of Lions in an attempt to move away from nineteenth-century culture-
historic paradigms does not elucidate the issue, but adds another
layer of interpretation that needs to be deconstructed so as to fnd out
something about a particular historical reality. Even if the god was shared
among the culturally diferent communities of Cyprus, it was bound to
have a specifc name and identity, which can be glimpsed through its
predecessor and later mutations. To simply describe it as 'hybrid' with
the generic characteristics known from two or three millennia of ancient
Near Eastern religious history (i.e. the wide range of "divine spheres"
Counts loosely describes) ofers little clarity to the issue. This results in an
obvious loss of heuristic value. By the end of the article, we have no new
12 Especially given the attested self-conscious quest for the origins of many of the deities venerated in ancient Greece.
For example, the list of ancient hypotheses as to the origins of Herakles are many and diverse (Hdt. 2.4; cf. also Shapiro
1983: 14), suggesting that people did, in fact, "reference external cultural contexts or meanings" unlike Counts's (2008:
19) suggestion of people unrefectingly contending to hybridized forms.
41 Eleftheria Pappa
insights and know nothing more other than that a god was venerated
in Cyprus, it served (some of) its communities and had a long past that
could be traced to the Near East. Employed in this way, the concept of
hybridity has become merely descriptive, not explanatory and adds little
to our understanding of a historical process.
Rebottling the Genie: A Case Study of Argued Hybridity in
Phoenician Archaeology
In contemporary archaeological practice, pottery can no longer be (mis)-
identifed with a specifc cultural or ethnic group, but it can unlock secrets
as to the social practices particular groups performed. This is where
Bourdieu's practice theory comes in to link a reconstructed habitus with
specifc groups of people and their identities. However, the archaeological
record is often too poor to allow the reconstruction of social practices
to a degree with which we can really 'get' to the people represented by
the material culture. In such cases, a ladder of inferences often leads us
full circle to the same association of material culture with cultural/ethnic
identity that has been justly anathema to modern archaeology. Thus, the
veneer of a theoretical background that supposedly moves beyond the
crude identifcation of the cultural/ethnic identity of people with pottery
(or other types of material culture that are used as insignia of identity)
can often be swiftly brushed of to expose the underlying, almost
unaltered, way of utilizing types of material culture as identity markers. In
postcolonial archaeology, where identity has become a central issue, this
shortcoming acquires signifcant dimensions.
Where is the line to be drawn then between adoption of material
culture, adoption of technology and actual hybridized cultures? An
example will help illustrate the point here. Delgado and Ferrer (2007:
2529) attempted to dissect cultural encounters and identity construction
at Cerro del Villar in Malaga (fg. 1), a Phoenician colony in south Spain.
Their study encompassed "local cultures or hybrids" connected to
'maintenance tasks' in domestic contexts, tasks that are culture specifc
and are resilient to change, including, allegedly, the preparation of food.
The notion is derived from Bourdieu's theory as we are told. Examining
the ceramic assemblages from domestic contexts, they postulate
the presence of two diferent "culinary traditions" associated with
Phoenician and native customs based on the presence of spherical bowls
"characteristic ofnative communities" and plates and trays associated
with colonists, despite their acknowledgement that they do not "know
anything about how food preparation and cooking were practised in
colonial communities" (Delgado and Ferrer 2007: 28). Specifcally in
House 2 at the colony, they see a household unit "composed of people
of diferent origins" on the basis of typologically Phoenician and local
coarse tableware. The latter, being fewer than the Phoenician plates and
found with other types of material culture (e.g. ostrich eggshell, perfume
bottles), apparently suggest that "colonial identity was in the process
of being constructed" with the indigenous women of the household
"expressing their membership in the Phoenician community" (Delgado
and Ferrer 2007: 29).
Efectively, while purportedly employing the use of postcolonial
ideas (emphasizing hybridity, mixture and a new identity) and citing
Bourdieu, the authors identifed the hand-made pots with indigenous
people, and women at that, violating any notion of gendered analysis.
The syllogism not only entails conceptual, but also factual (i.e. related
to the archaeological record) shortcomings. The following ladder of
inferences can be discerned:
1. The coarse, hand-made ware, deemed 'indigenous', is connected
to cooking. Therefore the pottery must have been used by people
involved in an indigenous cooking tradition.
2. People involved in indigenous cooking traditions must have been
indigenous themselves.
3. Since the pottery related to cooking preparation, it must have
involved women.
4. The wheel-made, Phoenician-style tableware was introduced by
other occupants of the house that were Phoenician.
43 Eleftheria Pappa
This syllogism highlights where the weakness of this application of
hybridity lies: in a hardly less brazen manner than the straightforward
identifcation of pots with people, it actually returns tout court to that. The
indigenous cooking pots signify indigenous women and the concurrent
presence of some Phoenician pots indicates the presence of Phoenicians
(men?). In this case, the evidence is tailored to the theory so as to appease
archaeology's newly found interest in postcolonialism and practice
theory.
Overlooking factors of availability, immediacy and efciency critically
undermines the assumptions made about user identity as refected in
material culture. Only hand-made coarse ware was used at Cerro del Villar
for direct cooking above the fre until later periods (Delgado and Ferrer
2007: 26)in this line of thinking, every house at the colony must have
boasted indigenous women! In my opinion this fact says a lot more about
functionality than identity, since the more expensive, wheel-made pottery
would have been reserved for less demanding tasks. Empirical evidence
shows that people are very adaptable and will make use of the resources
that do exist; as a result, the preparation of food is far less rigid than the
authors make it out to be. Escacena (2011: 169) recently criticized the
insistence in the archaeology of Iberia to equate hand-made pottery with
indigenous people, especially given the dearth of information regarding
precolonial indigenous contexts. In addition, and crucially, deep bowls,
which in Delgado and Ferrer's (2007: 28) argument were used for serving
the liquid foods of the indigenous "culinary tradition", are actually known
from contemporary Phoenician communities in the homeland (Nez
2004, 2008). Conclusively, pottery alone is not a sufcient indicator of
cultural or ethnic identities as Arangeui et al. (2011: 315) already remarked
in a similar investigation in contemporary Lixus.
Where to Go From Here?
The foray of postcolonial studies into dusting of old ways of thinking,
into bringing to the forefront the unprivileged people of history and
of giving voice to those who did not write history is an achievement
that drastically redrew the epistemological boundaries of archaeology,
widening the feld of enquiry and revising old assumptions. Hybridity
armed archaeology not only with the inspiration and motivation to look
for the hidden and the socially oppressed, but it also gave it a theoretical
tool with which to analyze their positions and situation. Yet in time, the
transformation of a particularly politicized concept into a ubiquitous,
quasi-universalist theory, into which all interpretation of culture contact
was expected to ft, turned the victory of postcolonialism into baggage,
refected in the infexibility of its totalizing presence. In that way, the
explanatory potential was soon lost and there remained the a priori
description: of mixture, negotiation and ambivalence that structures both
the description of the evidence and the analysis of the situations studied,
as if positioned on a time-less, place-less plane of human interaction
without specifc content and possibilities of deviating from a constantly
reiterated pattern of abstractly-perceived negotiation and ambivalence.
What is then the tactical advantage of maintaining the concept of
hybridity? The saturation of the feld of colonial studies in Mediterranean
prehistory with an obsession of hybridity, middle ground and the re-
invented habitus as a de facto one-way interpretation of the archaeological
evidence detracts from the multiplicity of viewpoints one may be willing
to explore in the material record. Additionally, it restricts not only the
way the available material culture can be viewed, but the availability of
material culture itself, since it fxes the boundary of the discourse within
the limits of its own preoccupations, hence limiting the datasets used. In
essence, it has become a straitjacket.
The observation that diferences in material culture refect social or
gender diferences is not new, nor is the concept that these diferences
can provide information about identity (Heymans 2010: 53). Postulating
hybridity from changes in the material culture, however, has little meaning
unless accompanied by other correlates that could be used as identity
markers. In using hybridity as cultural fusion, deprived of its particular
meaning regarding power, the term denotes any degree of cultural mixing.
But ambivalence in actual reality would have manifested in very diferent
45 Eleftheria Pappa
terms from context to context, for example from trade to violence (be
that coercion or war), to neighbourly relations to intermarriage, to cite
but a few. Identity markers express social identity not merely by habitual
forces, but also by an act that is intentionally performed and which may
be intended to be received in diferent ways by diferent individuals
(Hodos 2010a: 1112). As such, our own understanding of past identities
through the material remains of what may have been polysemic actions
can only ofer a circumscribed and at times fawed picture.
A call for emancipation from debates following trajectories that
lead to trite interpretation is much needed. The irony cannot be lost
that in such a plea, one merely replicates the past. The obsession with
postcolonial ideas, more than being conceptually fawed in that the era
of postcolonialism is yet to arrive (and so no perspective can be 'post-
postcolonial' in actuality), reproduces the trajectory and fate of previous
ephemeral trends in archaeology. Do these trends then represent an
empty vogue by the "chattering academic classes" in Bintlif's words
(2004: 404), devoid of any value that survives the passage of time? In
the latter's critique (Bintlif 2004: 398399) of the excesses of "thinking
about how we think" within the discipline (rather than on its subject), the
value of this ephemeral theory is placed on the enrichment it ofers to the
collection of archaeological data for "the desire to treat contemporary
issues in our research often means we have to collect diferent kinds
of data to previous researchers, so new kinds of evidence appear".
For example, if we adopted a Western-centric attitude, known for its
historical sympathies with ancient colonizers as sources of inspiration and
legitimization, to Phoenician settlement in the western Mediterranean,
much of the knowledge of the indigenous society would have been lost
as peripheral or mere 'clutter' to the importance of the 'superior' culture
brought by the easterners who had by that stage developed an alphabet
and were skilled merchants. Other modern preoccupations with gender
equality led us to search for women in the Early Iron Age, which again
would not have been achieved unless the people studying this past were
living in societies and eras that were conducive to the emergence of
those felds of enquiry. The value of these new theoretical trends lies in
the widening of datasets and approaches that lead us to question what
we took for granted, to enrich with new data, to revise older theories, to
nuance, to broaden the horizons and to re-interpret, thus "enabling the
past reality to come gradually into sharper focus" (Bintlif 2004: 398). For
this to occur and for the theory to have this knowledge-bearing capacity,
intellectual dogmatism (whether implicit or otherwise) of the approaches
adopted should be avoided and the theory should not be turned into a
universal template.
As an efect, and despite the hype of hybridity, the concept does not
ofer the only, nor always the most appropriate way of interpreting the
evidence in every culture contact situation in the ancient Mediterranean.
Freeing interpretation from the straitjacket of looking for that ubiquitous
(and because of this, hardly informative) ambivalence and negotiation
will allow for a more balanced or nuanced way of seeing what was after
all, a particular, specifc historical reality. Theory will always be a cultural
product of the theorist's time and place and should be self-consciously
seen as that. Only with this relativism in mind can one proceed to apply
the theory onto the material culture of the past, knowing that our
viewpoints and ideas are only a facet of many possibilities, many of which
will be replaced by others in the lapse of time.
Acknowledgements
Research for this article was carried out within a project fnanced by the
Netherlands Organisation for Scientifc Research (NWO), entitled 'Merging
Boundaries. Phoenician communities in the western Mediterranean and
the Atlantic: cultural consumption and adaptation strategies circa 750
550 BC'.
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Beyond Creolization and Hybridity:
Entangled and Transcultural Identities in Philistia
Introduction: Narrativizing the Philistines
D
espite thirty years of new discoveries and scores of new publications
on the Philistines, for the most part the narrative about them has not
altered substantially.
1
To a large extent, the appearance, definition and
transformation of the Philistine culture of the Iron Age southern Levant
('Philistia') has been seen as part of the incursions of the so-called 'Sea
Peoples', which took place at the transition between the Late Bronze and
Iron Ages (fig. 1).
2
The Philistines were largely portrayed as an intrusive,
1 Notable exceptions are Gilboa (20062007) and Russell (2009).
2 The Sea Peoples or Peoples of the Sea are believed to be multi-ethnic groups of disenfranchised and/or displaced
peoples from around the Mediterranean that inter alia engaged in piracy and attacks in the Aegean and the East and
served as mercenaries in various late Bronze Age kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean. Some eventually settled in
Anatolia, Cyprus and the Levant. It is possible that as the Sea Peoples moved around the region they acquired additional
followers from the places they were in contact with and in fact when settling down may have readily intermixed with
52 Beyond Creolization and Hybridity
migratory force, who on arrival in the southern Levant forcibly took
over from the Canaanite culture that had been dominant in the region
beforehand and replaced it with a largely Aegean-oriented culture.
Despite the fact that the term Sea People collectively refers to multiple
groups, artefacts and behavioural patterns with different cultural
origins in the Mediterranean, proponents of migration or colonization
narratives (most recently Faust and Lev-Tov 2011) emphasize ceramic
and faunal evidence and still argue for origins that are either Aegean,
western Aegean, Anatolian or Cypriot.
3
According to these proponents,
the Philistine culture was increasingly influenced by local Levantine
cultural norms, ultimately leading to the later Iron Age Philistine culture
various indigenous groups. It is also believed that their actions contributed to the end of the Bronze Age and the begin-
ning of the Iron Age. Some of their activities are known from the records of the Egyptian kings Ramses II, Merneptah and
Ramses III and from several letters from the king of Ugarit. Because historical records documenting their activities are
minimal, their origins, identities, activities and fate remain matters of scholarly debate (see e.g. Gitin et al. 1998; Harrison
2008; Oren 2000; Sandars 1978; Wood 1985).
3 Russell (2009) made a similar argument in his study of the 'Ashdoda' type of fgurine by showing that it combined
Cypriot, Aegean and Canaanite features.
Fig. 1. Map of Mainland Greece, Crete, Cyprus and Israel, showing major sites at the end of the Bronze Age and the start of the Iron
Age (illustration copyright of the Tell es-Saf/Gath Archaeological Project).
Louise A. Hitchcock and Aren M. Maeir 53
becoming much less foreign oriented. This development has by and
large been interpreted either as a process of assimilation, acculturation
or creolization.
Recent finds and new perspectives warrant a new understanding
of the underlying mechanisms and processes relating to the dynamism
of Philistine culturefrom its appearance in the early twelfth century
BC until its demise in the late Iron Age in the late seventh century BC.
While it is evident that many components of Philistine culture have a
foreign origin, it is clear that these foreign traits are of a mixed nature
and include features from the Aegean, Cyprus, Anatolia, Southeast
Europe and beyond (Maeir et al. 2013). Likewise, it is now clear that the
Philistines did not capture and destroy the late Bronze Age settlements
of the Canaanites, but at most destroyed elite zones in some of the sites
(Maeir 2012a: 1819). It rather appears that from the very beginning of
the Iron Age foreign objects and symbols were appropriated by and
integrated into local Canaanite cultural practices at Philistine sites. By
the same token, Canaanite objects and symbols were appropriated by
and integrated into foreign practices at Philistine sites. In other words,
certain objects and built features underwent a transformation, becoming
entangled (Stockhammer 2012a: 5051). Thus, from the very early stages
of its appearance, the Philistine culture was characterized by an on-going
negotiation and renegotiation between various cultural groups of local
and foreign origin.
As a result of such entanglements, the emergence of the Philistine
culture should not be viewed through the lens of a simplistic process of
cultural change, whereby the appearance of Aegean-style pottery and
other Aegean features is interpreted as Mycenaean colonists imposing
their civilization on backward Canaanite natives. Instead, multivalent
patterns of identity negotiation can be seen between the various groups
within Philistia. Such negotiations are evidenced in distinct material
culture patterns and regionalisms at different sites within Philistia and
between Philistines, Canaanites and surrounding polities and ethnicities
with influences travelling in multiple directions. While Philistine culture
Fig. 1. Map of Mainland Greece, Crete, Cyprus and Israel, showing major sites at the end of the Bronze Age and the start of the Iron
Age (illustration copyright of the Tell es-Saf/Gath Archaeological Project).
did change drastically during the Iron Age and shed many of its earlier,
non-local attributes, other cultural aspects continued to be used
throughout the Iron Age and were clearly of importance in the Philistines'
on-going group definition and identity.
Thus, we suggest that a more complex, multivalent and multi-
directional framework is needed in order to get a better understanding of
these processes. In this paper we will argue for a transcultural, entangled
perspective, which we believe can provide a more nuanced framework
for understanding the formation and transformation of Philistine identity.
Creolization, Hybridization and Acculturation in Philistine
Studies
Until the last twenty years or so, the communis opinio on the appearance,
transformation and demise of the Philistine culture was rather simplistic
(e.g. Bunimovitz 1990; Dothan 1982, 1989, 1995; Dothan and Dothan 1992;
Gitin 1992). Accordingly, following the arrival of a large foreign population,
which violently took over the region of the southern coastal plain of
the southern Levant, a material culture with a strong Aegean-oriented
character appeared. Following this, over a period of approximately
two centuries, this culture became increasingly influenced by the local,
Levantine cultures until somewhere in the Iron Age IIA (sometime
after 1000 BC) the unique, foreign attributes of the Philistine culture
disappeared. This was interpreted as a gradual process of assimilation,
in which the Philistines lost their foreign identity and became part of the
Levantine cultural scene.
As of the late 1990s, this understanding began to change. First of
all, it became clear that the Philistines did not simply assimilate in the
middle of the Iron Age, but continued with the use of various 'foreign'
traits of Philistine culture until the late Iron Age. Consequently, Stone
(1995), while adhering to the model of the largely foreign origin of the
Philistines, suggested that throughout the Iron Age they went through
a process of acculturation. As a result of this process they shed many of
the original foreign attributes, while at the same time, certain significant
foreign facets continued to be used until the end of the Iron Age. Thus,
despite this proposed process of acculturation, the Philistines retained
their 'foreign' identity throughout the Iron Age. Following this lead,
various scholars attempted to elaborate on this understanding in order
to propose more sophisticated explanations of this process.
One of the present authors (Maeir 2004; see also Ben-Shlomo et al.
2004) and others (e.g. Killebrew 2005) suggested looking at the emergence
of and changes in Philistine culture through a sociolinguistic perspective,
seeing the emergence of the Philistines as a process of creolization that led
to a blended culture. Others suggested understanding it as a process of
hybridization (e.g. Knapp 2008), while yet others suggested that Philistine
culture was simply a process of on-going cultural change (Uziel 2007).
Creolization, defined by Killebrew (2005: 201, 253) as cultural mixing, was
seen as a via media between the hyper-diffusionist colonization model
and the other extreme, which viewed the appearance of the Philistines
as a mercantile phenomenon (Sherratt 1998). The production of Aegean-
style pottery in two colours, known as bichrome, is cited as an example
of creolization and the increase in indigenous pottery in Philistine levels
is seen as evidence of a creolization process that led to the loss of the
Philistines' unique character (Killebrew 2005: 206, 225, 251). Creolization
and acculturation are treated as processes that typify Philistine 'colonialist
activity' (Killebrew 2005: 249). Creolization has come under criticism
(Hitchcock 2011: 271272) for functioning as a thinly veiled substitution
for the term colonialism, re-enforcing asymmetrical relationships and
reifying a dualistic approach to Philistine identity over the multivocal
approach argued for here. The term acculturation is also problematic
in that it implies that the Philistines passively adopted local Canaanite
social practices and influences rather than actively manipulated material
culture to construct, reconstruct and negotiate their identity.
In addition to these developing considerations of Philistine identity,
more attention was given to the early stages of the Philistine culture.
Close scrutiny of the archaeological evidence from the Late Bronze/
Iron Age transformation in Philistia and other parts of the Levantine
coast demonstrated that: a) evidence of widespread destruction of
the indigenous culture did not appear at all sites associated with the
Philistines or with the Sea Peoples, and b) in many of these sites, there is
significant evidence for the continuity of local cultural elements such as
the use of lamp and bowl foundation deposits (Bunimovitz and Zimhoni
1993) and pottery motifs such as the palm tree and the ibex (Dothan
1982; Yasur-Landau 2012), alongside newly appearing foreign traits. The
very basis for understanding the appearance and transformation of the
Philistine cultureof a foreign culture becoming increasingly locally
orientedwas therefore questioned (e.g. Gilboa 2005, 20062007; Yasur-
Landau 2010).
Clearly then the simplistic understanding of the origins, development,
change and ultimate disappearance of the Philistine culture is no longer
relevant.
Hybridization Processes, Entanglement, Appropriation and
Transculturalism in East Mediterranean Proto-History
The traditional narrative of the Philistine and Sea Peoples' cultures has
included grandiose, overwrought and inappropriate comparisons to
late Bronze Age Aegean culture. Notable examples of the grandiose
include Burdajewicz's (1990) attribution of the temples at Palaepaphos
and at Kition to the Sea Peoples or Aegean migrants, and the Dothans'
(Dothan 1998: 156157; Dothan and Dothan 1992: 245) and Karageorghis's
(1998: 277; 2002: 8788) inappropriate comparisons of simply constructed
Philistine and Cypriot hearths to Mycenaean palatial hearths (e.g. Maeir
and Hitchcock 2011). Recent excavations and studies of transitional or
Mycenaean IIIC period sites of the early twelfth century BC in the eastern
Mediterranean and southern Levant provide evidence of a new reality.
At the end of the Bronze Age, palatial centres in Greece such as at Pylos
and Mycenae were destroyed, while the one at Tiryns was damaged
and modified. At the same time, settlements were founded in the hills
of Crete, for example at Kavousi-Vronda, Chalasmenos-Katalimata and
Karphi. These destructions and displacements resulted in a decline in the
quality of art and architecture in the Aegean (e.g. Maran 2000: 121) and,
by Mycenaean IIIC, in an almost complete disappearance of writing and
administration. Similar changes took place in many (but not all) sites in
Cyprus (see Iacovou 2008) and in the Levant (e.g. Ugarit). These systemic
changes marked the end of Mycenaean palatial sites and their kingly
(wanax) rule, ultimately leading to the demise of elite patronage and the
ability to harness labour and resources.
The efforts of emerging elites at many sites in the Bronze to Iron Age
transition and in the early Iron Age Mediterranean seem to have been
directed toward establishing genealogical links with the past through the
creative manipulation of surviving symbols, and the establishment and
maintenance of social bonds and alliances through ritual drinking and/or
feasting, often in open spaces and sometimes around hearths.
4
It is against
such a background that new social formations in the Mediterranean
such as the Etruscans, Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites and Greek poleis
emerge and in which the study of Mediterranean entanglements in the
southern Levant must be conducted.
The earliest shift from the migration narratives of the past to more
nuanced approaches for understanding the region was by Knapp (2008)
for Cyprus in his discussion of hybridization processes. Hybridization
processes refer to the interactions between agents from two or more
social groups in any type of social situation. They also consider how
objects and practices are recombined in new ways, whereby the mixture
of groups and aspects of their cultures results in something new. As an
example of how this is exhibited materially, Knapp (2008: 266268) regards
foreign pottery styles on local shapes as indicative of "in-betweeness"
and giving "material expression to new social practices".
5
However,
4 See Stockhammer (2011a) on the integration of heirloom vessels taken from tombs into feasting activities at LH
IIIC Tiryns.
5 A former student of Knapp, Russell (2009) applies Knapp's concept of hybridization process to Ashdoda fgurines
(regarded as a Mycenaean introduction to Philistia) to argue that they combine Aegean and Canaanite characteristics
resulting in artistic hybridization and took on a function that was culturally specifc to the Philistines, possibly maritime
in nature.
little in the way of more specific scenarios in the hybridization process
is offered. Instead, the mixture of styles by the crafters is emphasized.
Further, it is rightly pointed out that the emphasis on Aegean influences,
to the frequent neglect or exclusion of Canaanite and other Levantine
influences, skews our understanding of social transformations occurring
in Cyprus (Knapp 2008: 289). Hybridization is a process that transforms
and ethnic identity emerges out of this transformation, rather than the
other way around (Knapp 2008: 292). In addition, a specific migration
event cannot be defined or identified, because it was preceded by other
events including trade, other small scale migrations, social exchange and
hybridization (Knapp 2008: 292; also Iacovou 2008). Knapp's model of
hybridization process is on firmer ground when it views Cyprus as a 'third
space' where interaction produced something new in the renegotiation
of identity (Bhabha 1994: 5456 and passim; Knapp 2008: 356).
The publication of Knapp's study of Cyprus was closely followed
by the work of Stockhammer (2009, 2011a, 2011b, 2012a, 2012b) and
Maran (2004, 2006, 2012), who used the concepts of appropriation and
entanglement (see Hodder 2011 for a discussion of the latter concept) to
understand changes taking place in the Late Helladic IIIC period at early
Iron Age Tiryns. These concepts allowed them to go into more detail
about specific contexts, writing object biographies in an attempt to
unravel the processes of hybridization (e.g. Stockhammer 2012a: 43), while
resisting any attempt at unlocking origins (Knapp 2008: 356). Instead,
it is the materiality of the object, its depositional spatial relationship
to context and its spatial relationship to other objects, which permit
the reconstruction of the relationship between the object and agents
(its makers, owners and/or users are primary concerns). In discussing
these relationships, Stockhammer (2012a: 4648) distinguishes between
'relational entanglement' whereby new meanings become attached
to a foreign object, which may even be transformed into a personal
possession, and 'material entanglement' whereby a newly created object
combines the familiar with the foreign and may become appropriated and
entangled with foreign social practices as well as local ones. At roughly
the same time that the work of the Tiryns team entered the scholarly
discourse (Stockhammer 2009, 2011a, 2011b, 2012a, 2012b; Maran 2004,
2006, 2012), Hitchcock (2011) began promoting a transcultural perspective
for understanding changes taking place in Cyprus and Philistia in the
early Iron Age. Transculturalism resists the duality implied by definitions
of hybridity (also questioned by Stockhammer 2012a), which is situated in
nineteenth-century practices of cross-breeding plants and animals and
emphasizes the intentionality behind the use of an object. In addition,
social practices termed as hybrid have become associated with resistance
by subaltern groups (Bhabha 1994), while art works combining stylistic
characteristics of two or more cultures have also been termed hybrid and
have been used to promote elite status and domination (e.g. Feldman
2006).
6
The term has become greatly diluted to the point of contradiction
and emphasizes the style of objects over their consumption and
use. Instead, a transcultural approach regards the transformation of
Cypriot identity and the emergence of Philistine identity as multivocal,
drawing on the symbolisms, objects, social practices and artistic and
technical styles of a broad cultural and ethnic range of social actors from
around the Mediterranean. Entanglement and appropriation represent
complementary aspects of a transcultural approach, which considers
function, symbolic use, social styles of acting and doing (see Hodder
1990) and hence agency of objects as determined by context, rather than
simply focusing entirely on style and production. This can be illustrated
by a few brief examples, where particular highly-charged objects with
pan-Mediterranean meanings attached to them play important roles in
the negotiation and maintenance of identity.
Example 1: Stockhammer (2011b: 288289) has shown how the function
of Mycenaean kraters (used by Mycenaeans for mixing wine and water)
imported into late Bronze Age Canaan was either not well understood
or was not relevant to Canaanite social norms. This is indicated by the
absence of Mycenaean kylikes, used with the kraters by Mycenaeans
as part of a drinking set. Instead, Stockhammer views the Mycenaean
kraters in Canaan as appropriated foreign objects assigned with a new
6 Feldman (2006: 24, 205, n. 2) explicitly takes her understanding of the term from biology, perceiving it as a neutral
term and rejects the defnition used in postcolonial studies.
Fig. 2. Krater decorated with birds, triglyphs, spirals and Maltese crosses, early Iron Age I (Philistine Bichrome [Philistine
1]), Area E, Tell es-Saf/Gath, Israel, inv. no. 460037 (photograph copyright of the Tell es-Saf/Gath Archaeological
Project).
Fig. 3. Deep or dell-shaped bowl decorated with spirals, late Iron Age I (Philistine 3), Area A, Tell es-Saf/Gath, Israel, inv.
no. 530203 (illustration copyright of the Tell es-Saf/Gath Archaeological Project).
function of beer consumption,
while demonstrating the owners'
far flung connections and social
knowledge through processes of
display. In the Philistine era, kraters
(fig. 2), sometimes combining both
Aegean and Canaanite motifs, were
used with Aegean-style deep bowls
(fig. 3) as part of wine drinking
sets, thus becoming entangled in
the production of Philistine elite
identity through continuing Aegean
drinking practices (e.g. Maeir 2008).
The deep bowl began to replace
the stemmed kylix as the preferred
drinking vessel toward the end of
the Mycenaean era in Late Helladic
IIIB, and Hitchcock and Zukerman
(2011) have suggested that the introduction of this new drinking fashion
in the Mycenaean world emulated Canaanite drinking habits, while using
an Aegean form and familiar Mycenaean motifs. Thus, the use of the deep
bowl and krater in Philistia would have appealed to both migrant and
indigenous elements in the Philistine culture.
Example 2: After summarizing the various arguments for Aegean and
Levantine styles in two prominent Cypriot metal statuettes, the Horned
God and Ingot God (fig. 4) from Enkomi, Knapp (2012: 3840) argues
that they are stylistically hybrid products of Cypriot culture. Hitchcock
(in press) has argued for a similar outcome, but based on privileging
function rather than style, observing that the Cypriot statuettes were the
focus of ritual and cultic activity in contrast to Aegean bronze figurines,
which were small and always left as offerings. This conclusion was based
on analyzing the context of the much larger Cypriot statuettes, which
were placed in the holy-of-holies in their respective temples, in contrast
to the deposition of Aegean figurines as offerings in cave and peak
Fig. 4. Horned God (1.), Ingot God (2.), bronze, late twelfth
or early eleventh century BC, Temple of the Horned God and
Temple of the Ingot God, Enkomi, Cyprus (reproduced with
permission from Jennifer Webb)
sanctuaries. The function of the
Aegean figurines is furthermore
frequently suggested by their
gesturea fist to the head type
of salute that is also depicted
on a sealing showing a male
worshipping a deity (Hitchcock
1997). The gestures of the Horned
God, with the right arm extended
across the chest and the forearm
of the left arm extended outward
with the palm pointed down, and
Ingot God, with the right hand
holding a spear and the left hand
holding a shield, are not attested in the Aegean. The facial details of the
Horned God have been compared to Aegean ivories and an Aegean lead
figurine, while its helmet has been associated with those of Aegean and
Near Eastern warriors. Its kilt has been connected with kilts in both Aegean
and Anatolian representations. The style and accoutrements of the Ingot
God have been likened to the Smiting God figurines of the Levant, to
Sardinian Warrior figurines and to the depiction of soldiers on the Warrior
Vase from Mycenae (Hitchcock in press).
7
Because of this combination of
different cultural traits, the Horned God and Ingot God statuettes might
be seen as entangled objects, combining an intriguing variety of foreign
and local styles, albeit used according to local, Cypriot custom.
Example 3: Philistine-produced conical or anchor-shaped seals (fig. 5)
often have abstract stick figures on them which are rendered in a greater
Canaanite linear style that is also found on Cyprus at Maa-Palaeokastro
and Kition, where conoid stamp seals were discovered dating to the end of
LC IIC, about 1200 BC (Ben-Shlomo 2008: 278). Though stylistically distinct
from the rendering of Aegean seals, the Philistine practice of stamping and
using seals administratively may be more closely aligned with the Aegean
7 See Hitchcock (in press) for a more detailed overview of stylistic details of the Horned God and Ingot God together
with full bibliographic details.
Fig. 5. Conoid seal, stone, decorated with depictions of a human
and birds, Philistine, Iron Age I, Tomb Cave (Area T), Tell es-Saf/
Gath, Israel, inv. no. 990056 (illustration copyright of the Tell es-
Saf/Gath Archaeological Project).
practice of administrative seal use than with Cypriot practice, where seals
were used as amulets and evidence for their administrative use is minimal
(Reyes 2002; Webb 2002). As a result, Maeir et al. (2013) have suggested
that the Levantine production of Philistine seals by Canaanite or Cypriot
crafters became entangled in Aegean traditions of administrative seal
use. The use of a local and/or Cypriot-style object according to Aegean
practice might be explained by an absence of migrant seal carvers from
the Aegean following a decline in the seal carving tradition there in LH/
LM IIIA2B well before the end of the Bronze Age (Rehak and Younger
1998: 156, 170).
In addition, a conical anchor seal from Samaria renders a bull-leaping
scene in stick figure form that calls to mind Aegean bull-leaping scenes.
Bull-leaping scenes first occurred in the middle Bronze Age in northern
Syria, and went on to be appropriated by the Minoan and later Mycenaean
civilizations (Collon 1994; Hitchcock 1999). It is quite plausible to suggest
that the motif was re-introduced to the East by an Aegean patron and a
Canaanite seal carver.
Example 4: Small, four-horned altars are a common feature in later
Philistine culture as well as in Israelite culture, where they also assumed
monumental forms. Hitchcock (2002) has suggested that these were
influenced by Aegean horns of consecration, which were used as
architectural decoration marking liminal zones and were depicted on
altars. She suggests that Canaanite horned altars that were representations
of buildings decorated with horns might have in turn influenced Aegean
horns. Horned altars then re-entered Levantine (Philistine and Israelite)
cultures as a powerful and already well-known symbol entangled in a
broad but similar web of stylistic variations and relationships around the
Mediterranean.
A lime-plastered installation with earthen core and topped by four
rounded projections rising from its corners was recently discovered at
Ashkelon, in a small room adjacent to and opening off the entrance of a
larger structure dating to the twelfth century BC (Master and Aja 2011). The
Fig. 5. Conoid seal, stone, decorated with depictions of a human
and birds, Philistine, Iron Age I, Tomb Cave (Area T), Tell es-Saf/
Gath, Israel, inv. no. 990056 (illustration copyright of the Tell es-
Saf/Gath Archaeological Project).
installation is suggestive of horns of
consecration. Contextually, it finds
its closest parallels in Minoan Crete
where plaster horns of consecration
were found in a small screened
off room within the 'pillar crypt' of
Tylissos house C, accessed through a
doorway in the entry corridor (Gesell
1985: 136) and at later Tel Miqne-
Ekron where smaller horned altars
carved from stone were similarly
situated in an olive oil production
area (Gitin 1995: 6369). Briault (2007:
fig. 6, 254255) has shown that horns
of consecration gained their widest
distribution as a pottery motif in the
early Iron Age period in the Aegean.
They may therefore have found their way to the Levant as a pottery
motif and their construction as three-dimensional objects, rendered in a
variety of forms and media, may be the result of patrons providing varied
descriptions to the crafters who made them. In this way, the Ashkelon
installation may be the result of local production using the materials at
hand, namely earth and lime plaster, to create an installation that was
described in cultural traditions which were handed down generationally
and ultimately became modified through a process of 'Chinese whispers'
(cf. Briault 2007 for the use of this term).
8
A recently discovered two-horned altar with flat topped horns
was found in a destruction level at the Philistine site of Tell es-Safi/Gath
(fig. 6) dating to the second half of the ninth century BC (Maeir 2012b).
The altar was unworked on the back and on the rear part of its sides
indicating that it was intended to be viewed from the front. Although
8 A good historical parallel exists for the imperfect transmission of art and architectural design in Krautheimer's
(1942) famous study of the Holy Sepulchre, whereby inaccurate descriptions resulted in replicas that displayed very few
similarities either with the famous model or with each other. This study is discussed in detail in Hitchcock (2008).
Fig. 6. Horned Altar, stone, Philistine, Iron Age II, second
half of the ninth century BC, Area D, Tell es-Saf/Gath, Israel
(photograph copyright of the Tell es-Saf/Gath Archaeological
Project).
the area around the altar is still undergoing excavation and study, large
quantities of loomweights found nearby suggest the existence of a textile
production area. The association of horned altars with production or
'sacred economy' (Burdajewicz 1990: 58; Knapp 1986) is well known from
the olive oil production site at later Tel Miqne-Ekron (Philistia) and from
the earlier association of the horned altar at Myrtou-Pighades (Cyprus)
with metallurgical remains. Two-horned altars with flat topped horns
are common in Cyprus at Kouklia-Palaepaphos (fig. 7), Myrtou-Pighades
and Kition, where they were used on display altars and possibly as
architectural decoration (Hitchcock 2002; Webb 1999). They occur as early
as the thirteenth century at Myrtou-Pighades and continue to be used
well into the Iron Age. It is quite likely that they represent the Cypriot
appropriation and interpretation of an Aegean symbol, which later found
its way into Philistine culture through the amalgamation of a 'western
motif' with a pre-existing Levantine tradition of four-horned cultic objects
that already existed during the late Bronze Age (e.g. Margueron 2001: 236,
Fig. 6. Horned Altar, stone, Philistine, Iron Age II, second
half of the ninth century BC, Area D, Tell es-Saf/Gath, Israel
(photograph copyright of the Tell es-Saf/Gath Archaeological
Project).
Fig. 7. 'Horns of Consecration', stone, Late Cypriot IIC or IIIA, Sanctuary of Aphrodite, Kouklia-Palaepaphos, Cyprus (photograph by
Louise Hitchcock).
fig. 3; Weygand 2001: 27, figs 911; for the Iron Age Levant, see Gitin 2003).
As such, the Tell es-Safi/Gath horned altar provides an excellent example
of an entangled object.
Conclusion: Philistine Culture as Something Old and Something
New
Although events are difficult to disentangle on a large scale or with
precision, as identities were negotiated, merged and re-interpreted
against a background of social upheaval and widespread mobility
(compare Knapp 2008: 292; Sherratt 1992: 330), we have tried to show that
specific examples allow us glimpses of this process. Contextualization
and the analysis of use, style and production techniques make it possible
to determine how objects and symbols were integrated into society.
Like many other Mycenaean IIIC pottery-producing cultures of the
proto-historic Iron Age, the Philistine culture was less grandiose than
the great, centralized city-states of the late Bronze Age, such as Ugarit,
Knossos, Alassa-Palaeotaverna or Kition, and the Mycenaean citadels,
such as Tiryns and Mycenae. Yet Philistine culture was a product of the
internationalism of this age; an age that was defined more by connections
and interactions than by boundaries (Knapp 2008: 376). At the same
time, the Philistines were also something more than a purely Aegean,
Cypriot, Anatolian or Canaanite culture. The vibrancy and endurance of
Philistine culture, and the fascination it holds for archaeologists studying
the Mediterranean, lies rather in the plurality of its cultural, technological
and artistic remains, its traditions and its practices; what the Philistines
became is ultimately more interesting than the multiple 'wheres' from
which they originated.
Acknowledgements
Both authors would like to thank the participants of the Tell es-Saf/
Gath Archaeological Project, Brent Davis, Anthony Russell, Philipp
Stockhammer, Joseph Maran and Jenny Webb, as well as the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, fndings, conclusions or
recommendations expressed here do not necessarily refect those of the
people we have acknowledged. This research was partially funded by
grant to A. Maeir (with J. Maran) from the German-Israel Foundation for
Science and Research (GIF; Grant No. 1080132.4/2009) and to L. Hitchcock
from the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project No. DP1093713).
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74
A r c h a e o l o g i c a l R e v i e w f r o m C a m b r i d g e 2 8 . 1
Magdalena Naum
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
mn375@cam.ac.uk
Convivencia in a Borderland:
The Danish-Slavic Border in the Middle Ages
Introduction
B
orderlands are ambiguous landscapes. Anzalda (1987) describes them
as places of contradiction where two or more cultures edge each other
and the personal and cultural distance between them diminishes without
erasing the possibility of conflict and rupture. Anzalda (1987: 78) argues
that the clash of cultures in borderlands results in mental and emotional
perplexity and leads to the emergence of a new consciousness, which
she calls the 'New Mestizaje'. She argues that those living in-between
willingly or unwillinglyrecognize the authority of two conflicting sets
of norms. The immediate result of living in-between, so described, is the
experience of ambiguity and restlessness involving moments of clarity
and distance from one's culture, enabling one to think creatively both
about who one is and how to regard others (Anzalda 1987: preface, 78).
76 Convivencia in a Borderland: The Danish-Slavic Border in the Middle Ages
Anzalda's theorizing was influenced by her experience of growing up
on the Mexican-Texan border and the struggle of 'Chicanas' (Mexican-
American women) as women who live between Mexican and Anglo-
American culture, but her observations are helpful to understand the
intricate realities of other borderlands as well.
The complex character of borderlands is also highlighted in the
volumes on ancient and modern borders edited by Bartlett and Mackay
(1989), Power and Standen (1999), Abulafia and Berend (2002) and Zartman
(2010). They define borderlands as fluid, marginal places that exhibit
dynamic relations towards the centres of power, both internally and
externally. They observe that borderlands are inhabited by individuals
and groups that are distinct in their experiences and identity, and
these locations can be characterized as sites of creativity and marked
difference. These landscapes are also seen as places of manifold realities
where friendly cohabitation and dialogue can be easily disrupted by
tensions and open conflicts. These conditions create a type of life that is
considerably different from that in central areas. Borderlands may allow
greater freedom, entrepreneurship and creativity, but can also signify a
stricter control by authorities, the necessity of manoeuvring between
local knowledge and opposing ideologies, between local sentiments and
orders from the centre (Anzalda 1987; Berend 2002; Naum 2010; Power
and Standen 1999; Zartman 2010). In these complex landscapes one can
find evidence for many of the cultural processes that are described by
postcolonial scholarship, e.g. hybridity in the sphere of material culture,
the presence of multiple and seemingly contradicting identities, public
and hidden transcripts employed in the dealings with authorities, and
narratives of difference and racial/cultural prejudice employed in official
state propaganda.
Postcolonial theories, which in recent years have breached the
boundaries of modern imperialism and are now influencing research
on premodern cases of prejudice, inequality and 'othering', can play an
important role in re-examining the cultural geographies of borderlands
(Ashcroft et al. 2007: 117; Cohen 2000, 2006; Gosden 2004; Hahn 2001;
77 Magdalena Naum
Naum 2010, 2012). Postcolonial theories, with their stimulating way
of problematizing cultural processes in the interstices of different
ideologies, worldviews and cultures, provide a useful angle for looking
at and approaching the complexity of borderlands. The method of
deconstructive analysis embraced in postcolonial writing when applied
to written narratives and extended to the analysis of material culture
observed in border zones can help to expose the ambiguities of these
landscapes.
The complexity of borderlands makes it appropriate to regard them
as materializations of what Bhabha (2004) calls the 'third space'. Bhabha
defines this as a space of translation and construction of a political object
that is new, neither one nor the other. It is a space of constant dialogue
and remaking that emerges in colonial situations, a discursive field
illustrating that "the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial
unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated,
rehistoricized and read anew" (Bhabha 2004: 55). For Bhabha (2004: 56), the
third space is "the precondition for the articulation of cultural difference"
and it can serve to create the "instability which presages powerful cultural
changes". Those that occupy this in-between territory have a potential
to disrupt and question power claims and reveal the falseness and
instability of official ideology. Hybridity, which Bhabha (2004) describes
as an interstitial passage, as it were, the connective tissue between the
colonizer and the colonized, has the same potential to threaten the
singular voice of authority and contest categories of difference and purity
(cf. also Bakhtin 1981: 7576, 304305, 343370).
Some scholars, such as Stockhammer (2012: 46), argue that Bhabha's
concept of the third space and his understanding of hybridity "can hardly
go beyond the narrow realm of postcolonial studies and cannot be used
beyond any colonial or post-colonial context" because of the apparent
political dimension of these concepts. However, similar developments
of new worldviews, identities and practices in the context of sometimes
asymmetrical power relations and against the rhetoric of irreconcilable
difference voiced by the centres of power take place in the liminal
geographies of borderlands. Mixed material culture, entangled identities
and allegiances of people that inhabit these zones challenge the binary
oppositions of 'us' and 'them' separated by a border. They illustrate that
a complex cultural merger is possible, one that can thrive and endanger
ideologies built upon neat categorizations and narratives of difference.
Bhabha's idea of the third space is powerful and I see its strength as a
metaphor for describing the creative potential of borderland landscapes,
not only those created through colonial encroachment, but also those that
emerged in landscapes unmarked by colonial expansion. Borderlands,
colonial or not, just like the third space, are landscapes in-between where
negotiations take place and identities are reshaped and invented. They are
Fig. 1. Geography of the southwestern Baltic Sea rim with some of the medieval trading routes. Areas west of the river Warnow were
part of the Obodriti Confederation. Groups living east of the river were united in the Lutizi Confederation. Rani lived on the island
of Rugen. Map by the author.
79 Magdalena Naum
created through the discourses and dialogues of multiple voices, not only
those of the people that actually live in the border areas, but also those of
administrators and authorities located outside this zone. Bhabha's third
space is an intervention disrupting homogenizing tendencies. Liminal,
borderland conditions may be characterized in similar terms as at times
disruptive and tense landscapes whose inhabitants may have agendas of
their own, incompliant with official political goals, and whose decisions,
action and creative cultural solutions run counter to ideas of difference
voiced by authorities.
This article deals with one example of such an ambivalent, in-
between borderland. It focuses on the two southernmost Danish islands
of Lolland and Falster positioned in close proximity to Slavic territories
further south. By applying postcolonial concepts and by deconstructing
medieval narratives of the Danish-Slavic borderland, I will describe the
particular culture(s) and identities that developed among the islanders.
I will discuss in what sense this specific borderland can be seen as a
materialization of Bhabha's third space and as an example of Anzalda's
mestizaje consciousness.
Dissolute Slavs and Pious Danes: From Borderline to Borderland
To regard Lolland and Falster as a borderland is a relatively new thesis. For
a long time the landscape of the medieval western Baltic was conceived
as being rigidly divided: mainland areas, governed by different Slavic
rulers and Saxon dukes, were seen as clearly delimited from the mainly
insular realm of Denmark (fig. 1). The narrow bodies of water lying in
between these areas were perceived as natural barriers for day-to-
day interactions (cf. Andersen 1982; Grinder-Hansen 1983). This image
of geographical distance was strengthened by the general picture of
cultural difference and hostility painted in the Gesta Danorum, a major
source for the medieval history of Denmark written in the late twelfth
century by Saxo Grammaticus (198081). The almost constant state of
animosity and vast cultural divides between the Danes and their Slavic
neighbours, as highlighted in Saxo's magnum opus, were largely taken
Fig. 1. Geography of the southwestern Baltic Sea rim with some of the medieval trading routes. Areas west of the river Warnow were
part of the Obodriti Confederation. Groups living east of the river were united in the Lutizi Confederation. Rani lived on the island
of Rugen. Map by the author.
at face value by nineteenth and early twentieth century medievalists (cf.
Damgaard-Srensen 1991; Grinder-Hansen 2001; Steenstrup 1900). Only
after the Second World War, and particularly in the last thirty years, the
study of archaeological data and new historical analyses of medieval
texts have brought about a more nuanced understanding of Danish-
Slavic relations. The positive aspects of contacts such as trade, cultural
influences and dynastic intermarriages were underlined, and the sea was
recast as a connector rather than barrier (Andersen 1982; Duczko 2000;
Grinder-Hansen 1983; Hansen et al. 2004; Selch Jensen et al. 2000; Villads
Jensen 2002). With this new approach, the rigid national borders of Saxo's
narrative became permeable and cultural differences less apparent.
I argue that a careful study and deconstructive reading of the
surviving historical descriptions of the Slavic-Danish borderlands coupled
with a contextual analysis of material culture can push our understanding
of the everyday realities of these areas even further. The challenge is to
consider the meanings of the categories of 'border', 'borderland' and
'difference' and the way these categories are constructed depending
on the prevailing political circumstances and the observer. A critical
examination of some of the notions introduced by Saxo unveils Lolland
and Falster as complex borderlands rather than clear-cut limits of the
Danish realm.
Saxo's work had two major agendas. His first objective was to portray
Denmark as an ancient kingdom: a patria with a well-defined geographical
extent, language and custom, whose history, although occasionally
broken by civil wars, showed cultural continuity and whose people
shared an awareness of a common past, identity and sense of belonging.
His second objective was to justify the war against the Slavs launched by
King Valdemar I and Bishop Absalon (an event which was witnessed by
young Saxo) through pejorative description and 'othering' of Denmark's
southern neighbours. In his narrative the Danes were pictured as pious
Christians, innocent victims of the Slavic pirates' treachery. Slavs, on the
other hand, were seen as a pagan race, bloodthirsty and lower than wild
animals that needed to be tamed by Valdemar's army and subsequently
81 Magdalena Naum
by Christian missionaries (Grinder-Hansen 2001; Lind 2000; Lind et al. 2004;
Villads Jensen 2000). To exemplify the dissolute character of the Slavs, Saxo
describes the destruction caused by their raids on Denmark, and quotes
several instances of their corruptive influence. Inhabitants of Lolland and
Falster, two islands located at the limits of Danish territory, sandwiched
between the heart of the medieval Danish kingdom in Zealand and major
Slavic strongholds in Arkona, Starigard and Mecklenburg (fig. 1), figure
prominently in these stories of Slavic perfidy.
Testing Liminality: Lolland-Falster and Valdemar's War Against
the Slavs
Valdemar's War against the Slavs (the Rugians, Kissini and Circipini)
started with an attack on Rugen in 1159 AD, followed by a series of assaults
throughout the 1160s. The king mobilized a large army consisting of
soldiers recruited from various Danish provinces. Although Saxo praised
the bravery of the Danes, he particularly mentioned the hesitation of the
residents of Falster and Lolland to take up the sword. As a result, their
loyalty was questioned by Valdemar's inner circle, and their apparently
ambivalent attitude was loathed by contingents from other parts of the
kingdom (Saxo Grammaticus book 14: xxii). The negative attitude of the
islanders allegedly went beyond mere sluggishness on the battlefields.
They were accused of active disobedience and betrayal by discussing the
Danish attack plans with the Slavs, keeping spoils of war and captives
for the Slavs and providing intelligence about Valdemar's forces. Despite
the gravity of these accusations their lives were spared, but they were
henceforth kept in the dark regarding war plans: "the Lollikers and
Falstrings were ordered to join the fleet the last of all, lest having been
instructed long in advance, they should send over secret information of
the enterprise to the Slavs" (Saxo Grammaticus book 14: xxiii.2).
Saxo defends the islanders by arguing that the services they rendered
to the enemy were motivated by fear rather than love, and were dictated
by a need for self-preservation (Saxo Grammaticus book 14: xxii.2). He
blamed the Slavs for taking advantage of the geographical proximity of
the islands and the islanders' precarious situation to blackmail them into
collaborating and spying on their behalf.
The story of the collaboration between the people of Lolland-Falster
and their southern neighbours is not the only example of the supposed
corrupting influence of the Slavs. In the context of the early expeditions
to Rugen, Saxo introduces one Gnemer (or Gvemerus). Gnemer lived on
Falster, but judging from his name, his knowledge of the Slavic language
and his geographical acquaintance with parts of the southern Baltic Sea
coasts, he was probably an immigrant who had settled on the island.
Perhaps Gnemer's 'insider' knowledge coupled with his military skills
enabled him to obtain the position of ship commander in Valdemar's army.
Gnemer is described by Saxo twice. In 1159 AD, during the first assault on
Rugen organized by Valdemar, Gnemer offered the king his advice which
protected the army from potential disaster. Instead of directly attacking
the heavily defended coasts of Rugen, Gnemer indicated easy access areas
that were good for pillaging the neighbouring district of Bardo (Barth)
(Saxo Grammaticus book 14: xxiii.20). However, only a year later Gnemer's
actions are described as disappointingly treacherous. Saxo wrote that
in the wake of preparations to counter an expected attack by the Slavic
army, the Danish fleet gathered off Mn. Bishop Absalon, the right hand
of King Valdemar, selected two ships, one manned by Zealanders, the
other by a group of Falstrings, to quietly spy on the enemy's moves. When
Absalon left the troops, Gnemer decided to give a banquet to his crew
and by making them drunk he prevented them from completing their
task. He also provided information on the Danes' strength and position to
a Slavic spy, who seemed to have been a regular guest at his household
(Saxo Grammaticus book 14: xliv.9). Consequently, the Danish plan was
jeopardized by Gnemer and the Slavic navy which, once provided with
information on the numbers and location of the Danish troops, launched
an attack on Grnsund.
Undoubtedly, this story is quoted by Saxo to illustrate yet another
example of Slavic deception and dishonourable behaviour and their
seemingly evil and corrupting influence on the inhabitants of Lolland
83 Magdalena Naum
and Falster. However, Saxo's accounts might also be indicative of a
particular and real complexity of the borderland. The story of Gnemer
and his household, bilingual spies, translators residing on the islands and
a cast of other characters with strong connections on both sides of the
sea (which are mentioned in passing in his text) indicate that Saxo was
aware of the intricacies of this frontier region. Yet in his narrative he chose
to trivialize and downplay the history of mutual connections by turning
attention to the dangerous character of this neighbourhood, which fitted
his own political agenda. In doing so, perhaps without realizing it, he
produced interesting insights into the in-betweenness of Lolland and
Falster and acknowledged the existence of deep connections between
these territories and people across the Baltic Sea.
Saxo's stories can then be read quite differently from how
they were intended by the author. Rather than being illustrations
of the degenerative character of the Slavs, they are examples of the
complexities that arose from geographical proximity and a long
history of cohabitation and collaboration. They vividly illustrate the
contradictions and disruptive character of the third space of a borderland,
the indecisiveness and perplexity of mestizaje consciousness and the
uneasy choices that dwelling in the interstices sometimes demands.
These examples also highlight the troublesome political consequences
of in-betweenness for an idea of unity posited by the authorities. They
show the difficulties in understanding, acknowledging and articulating
the possibility of the existence and legitimacy of a middle category of
borderland, characterized by overlapping traditions, multiple identities
and characteristic ambivalence.
This particular stance of the islanders was a result of a long history of
contact and cohabitation. In order to contextualize Saxo's stories of non-
compliant, deviant Lollikers and Falstrings as borderland inhabitants and
to understand how this complex landscape evolved we must turn to the
centuries preceding the war.
Lolland-Falster in the Middle Ages: Emergence and Convivencia
in a Borderland
Interactions between the inhabitants of Lolland and Falster and the
Obodrites, Lutizi and Rani who lived on the southern coast of the Baltic
Sea can be traced back to at least a couple of centuries prior to Valdemar's
War (Etting 2000; Hansen et al. 2004; Lkkegaard Paulsen 2001; Naum
2012). The islands attracted Slavic immigrants since at least the early
eleventh century AD. This migration was caused by increasingly difficult
political and economic conditions in their homelands due to aggressive
Saxon expansionism and frequent internal strife among the Slavic ruling
class (Helmold book 1: 56, 84, 88, 89, book 2: 101; Lotter 1989; Turasiewicz
2004). Their settling on the islands is hinted at in historical sources and is
also reflected in the presence of Slavic place names and material culture
(Helmold book 2: 101; Housted 1994; Jrgensen 2001; Lkkegaard Paulsen
2001).
Slavic place names tend to concentrate along the islands' coastline,
suggesting that easy access to sea routes and maintenance of contact
with the old homelands might have been important considerations
for the newcomers (fig. 2). However, there is not enough historical and
archaeological evidence to establish whether immigrant communities
on the islands lived separately in ethnic enclaves. An example from the
village of Tilitze on Lolland, which, judging from its name, might have
been established by a certain Tilo and his kin who emigrated from the
southern coast of the Baltic Sea, indicates that Danes and Slavs could
have lived quite closely to one another. A commemorative runestone
dated to c. 1050 AD was discovered at the village which mentions four
local residents with Scandinavian names: Eskil, Sulke, Thora and Toke.
1
The convivencia on the islands resulted in borrowings, changes
and inventions in material culture. Slavic settlers introduced a new
pottery tradition, the so-called Baltic ware, which was stylistically and
technologically related to late Slavic pottery. Similarities ranged from
1 Tilitze or Tylitze was frst mentioned in the sources in 1327 AD, but the large size of the village and its early status
as the centre of a parish suggest that the settlement was already established in the eleventh century (Lisse 1989: 71).
85 Magdalena Naum
vessel decoration and a preference of certain vessel shapes to technological
parameters, such as the use of a turn-table (a predecessor of the potter's
wheel) and firing in a reducing atmosphere (Gebers 1980; Naum 2012;
Pedersen 1989). On Lolland and Falster, the production of Baltic ware
started sometime in the late tenth/early eleventh century and seems to
have continued at least until the early/mid-fourteenth century, outlasting
the production of late Slavic pots on the rapidly Germanized southern
coasts of the Baltic Sea by more than a century (Gebers 1980; Pedersen
1989; Ruchhft 2003). Slavic influences on local pottery production seem
to be relatively continuous. While there are sites on the islands that
Fig. 2. Settlements and sites with Slavic-sounding place names on Lolland and Falster and the location of the Fribrdre wharf. Map
by the author. Photographs courtesy of Roskilde Viking Ship Museum and Jan Skamby Madsen.
show clear evidence of potters copying stylistic solutions typical of early
eleventh century ceramics, there is also evidence of later influences, for
example, the occurrence of the so-called Ringaugen pots decorated with
circular stamps. This type of pottery seems to be exclusively related to
late twelfth century Obodrite pottery production.
The potters working on Lolland and Falster also developed unique
vessel shapes and types. The most interesting and apparent example
of such innovative hybrid creations are oil lamps. The ceramic oil lamps
produced on the island closely resemble the lids of so-called Bobzin
pots. Some of the covers seem to be turned into lamps simply by turning
them upside down. However, other examples indicate that potters
were improving their designs to meet the technical and technological
requirements of ceramic lamps, while at the same time they continued
to make traditional bowl-like vessels of the Bobzin type (Naum 2012).
2

These material adoptions and innovations combined with a continuous
receptiveness to external influences are a frequently noted feature of
borderlands.
The cultural and geographical proximity and in-between position of
the inhabitants of borderlands also means that they are often engrossed
and drawn (willingly or not) into political developments at their doorsteps.
The islands served as a place of refuge for Slavic political refugees, such
as members of the Obodrite ruling class related to the Danish royal family
who were ousted from their homeland due to their political views (Saxo
Grammaticus book 14: xxiv.2, xliii.5; Helmold book 1: 34).
The liminality and in-between position of the islands, apparent in their
geography, culture and the loyalties of their inhabitants, created unique
opportunities and invited subversive acts. Historical sources and recent
archaeological evidence suggests that islanders harboured Slavic pirates
that menaced the Baltic Sea and harried Danish coasts. Piracy in the Baltic
2 Pottery constitutes the overwhelming majority of excavated material from the rural sites on the islands. Conse-
quently, detecting the development of new forms and the merger of previously known ones is easier for ceramic vessels
than for other types of material culture.
87 Magdalena Naum
Sea, particularly the plundering expeditions of Slavs in Denmark, peaked
in the middle of the eleventh century and remained largely unchecked
as Danish rulers were caught up fighting civil wars. Medieval chroniclers,
like Saxo Grammaticus and Helmold von Bosau, repeatedly lamented the
destruction caused by pirates and name the fjords and hidden bays of
the southern Danish islands as the pirates' hiding places (Helmold book 1:
50, 55, 70, 84, book 2: 109; Saxo Grammaticus book 12: iv, book 14: v.1, vi, xv,
xliv). One such hide out might have been a recently excavated wharf on
the banks of the River Fribrdre in northeastern Falster (fig. 2; Naum 2012;
Skamby Madsen and Klassen 2010). The wharf, dendrochronologically
dated to 10501105 AD, was located in a protected site, along one of the
waterways of a fjord opening onto the Grnsund straita communication
channel between the southern Baltic and the Great Belt utilized by
merchants and military forces (Knytlinga saga chapters 120, 124, 126, 127;
Saxo Grammaticus book 14, book 15). The strategic location of Grnsund
and its natural geography made it a perfect location for launching pirate
attacks.
The remains of boats and tools recovered at the wharf suggest
that individuals working at the site dismantled boats and recycled parts
to mend their own ships (Skamby Madsen and Klassen 2010). Careful
technological studies of the broken hull parts and repaired sections
of ships indicate that while the majority of the dismantled ships were
constructed according to the Scandinavian tradition, the repairs were
more in accordance with Slavic shipbuilding practices (Indruszewski
1996, 2004; Klassen 2010: 192194). Thus, the site seems to have been used
by individuals familiar with Slavic boat construction. In this context it
is interesting to consider the name of the river on whose bank the site
is located. The main element in the name Fribrdre River most likely
originates from the Slavic term pri brode, meaning 'at a ford'. It is likely that
the river was named after a crossing-site located nearby that was used by
Slavic-language speakers.
It is difficult to determine if the site was used by the inhabitants of
Falster or if it was used by Slavic pirates on a seasonal basis. In any case,
by either passively acknowledging the choice of their island as a vantage
point for clandestine activities or by actively taking part in these raids, the
inhabitants of Falster made a curious decision (not that different from their
stance in the upcoming war). Siding with Slavic pirates in targeting other
territories within the kingdom shows a very different allegiance than one
would expect. This collaboration and special friendship between Lolland-
Falster and the areas to the south, undoubtedly resulting from geographic
proximity and family ties, can perhaps explain why the islands enjoyed
relative peace and protection from the plundering expeditions of the
pirates (Saxo Grammaticus book 14: xv.5).
This long history of cohabitation and collaboration led to the
emergence of sentiments and allegiances that can be categorized as a
form of mestizaje consciousness. In their acts and decisions, the medieval
residents of Lolland and Falster exhibited tolerance for ambivalence,
divergence and seeming inconsistency described by Gloria Anzalda as
common features of borderland mentalities. They "walked out of one
culture and into another, being in all cultures at the same time" and
shared a pluralistic outlook of the surrounding world, which incorporated
incompatible systems of logic, multiple voices and languages and the
histories of peoples who stood on antagonistic sides (Anzalda 1987:
7778).
Anzalda (1987: 3839) argued that the cultural and political
practice of the people in borderlands is characterized by their awareness
and acceptance of the plural self and guided by a particular type of
knowledge ('la facultad'), which is a dormant "sixth sense" and a "survival
tactic". One can recognize this knowledge being enacted in decisions to
become involved in clandestine activities and harbouring pirates. As a
survival strategy, this decision might have been a result of calculating
and recognizing contemporary power dynamics in the region, weighting
the likely benefits (protecting oneself against the potential threat of
pirate attacks and sharing the spoils) against the unlikely retribution of
weakened Danish kings.
89 Magdalena Naum
Another context in which these particular positions and unique
identities were revealed and tested was Valdemar's War against the
Slavs, described by Saxo Grammaticus. The individuals portrayed on the
pages of his chronicle, such as Gnemer, spies and informants working for
both sides (sometimes simultaneously) and men joining the army and
harbouring the spoils of the enemy, embody the difficult choices and
contradictions of borderland subjectivity. The unexpected decisions and
multiple and shifting allegiances exhibited by the islanders must have
caused bewilderment to outside observers. The collaboration between
the islanders and the Slavs questioned the very foundation of Danish
war propaganda, which was built around supposedly irreconcilable
differences between people, the righteousness of the Danes and the
bestiality of the Slavs. This perhaps helps to explain why Saxo chose to
disguise Danish-Slavic collaborative acts as forced, insincere cases of
courtesy, rather than viewing them against a long historic background of
migration, cohabitation and cultural exchange.
Conclusions
The landscape that developed in the medieval western Baltic formed a
complicated space. Its amalgamate character gave rise to unconformity
and unexpected decisions, novel forms of material culture and mind-sets,
and new consciousness and identities developed by its inhabitants. The
disarray and unpredictability of this (and other) borderlands as well as the
difficulties in dealing and making sense of them in the official narratives
likens them to colonial landscapes. The methods embraced in postcolonial
critique and the concepts developed in postcolonial scholarship help to
understand borderlands as a merging point, a geographical, political and
cultural third space positioned in between two centres, whose political
agenda at times denied even the possibility of its existence. Postcolonial
theories and methodology facilitate grasping the complexities of border
landscapes and reveal the uneasiness of the authorities over their
existence. The concepts introduced by postcolonial scholarship are useful
when examining complex processes in sociocultural interstices, following
the meeting, the coming together, the clash and coexistence of different
human groups and cultures in borderlands. They help to identify the
intricacies of cohabitation in these zones as well as interpret the terms
and outcomes of convivencia.
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94
Art History Division, School of Art, Bowling Green State University
slangin@bgsu.edu
Problematizing Typology and Discarding the
Colonialist Legacy: Approaches to Hybridity in the
Terracotta Figurines of Hellenistic Babylonia
Introduction
S
cholarly reconstructions of cross-cultural interaction between ancient
Greeks and Babylonians have traditionally been infuenced by more
recent histories of colonial tensions between East and West, particularly
by the empire building practices of several nineteenth- and twentieth-
century European nations (Alcock 1993; van Dommelen 1997; Gosden
2004: 1822; Sherwin-White 1987; Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 141142).
In the past few decades, postcolonial theories have been infuential in
reshaping such understandings of cross-cultural interaction (Langin-
Hooper 2007; Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993). However, removing the
colonialist biases of earlier scholars has in many cases resulted in an
interpretive void in which reconstructions of Hellenistic Babylonian
society are difcult to formulate. Terms like 'hybrid' and 'cross-cultural'
96 Problematizing Typology and Discarding the Colonialist Legacy
A r c h a e o l o g i c a l R e v i e w f r o m C a m b r i d g e 2 8 . 1 : 9 5 1 1 3
are frequently used, but often in imprecise ways and without addressing
whether they are the most appropriate ways to think about this complex
social milieu. I propose that one reason why progress on this front has
been so difcult is that, in spite of the changes wrought by postcolonial
advances, the fundamental tools, such as typology, used to study ancient
cultures continue to bear a legacy of colonialist thinking.
Although typologies have often been regarded as scientifc tools,
the categorization process necessary to create a typology is not devoid of
interpretive bias. Particularly problematic for archaeological typologies is
that they generally operate under an unspoken principle of universality,
in which ancient categories are assumed to overlap with modern ones.
Such assumptions became ingrained into the typological process
as will be seen for the Hellenistic Babylonian fgurinesbecause
scholarly typologies were created in the modern colonialist era, when
essentialized categories for grouping people (and objects) according to
easily identifable diferences were a part of the dominant western world
view. In this article, the underlying assumptions implicit in typologies
are problematized as a way to move beyond the colonialist past of the
discipline and create a new understanding of hybridity in Hellenistic
Babylonian terracotta fgurines. The methodology outlined eschews
typologies and the essentialized, hierarchical categories that they impose
upon objects in order to provide a more fexible analysis of the multiple
associations (such as similarities in shape, motif, size, material, and
manufacture) that exist between individual fgurines.
Two case studies are presented as illustration. In both cases, a
methodological approach based on entanglements reveals the need to
nuance our understanding of hybridity. These fgurines were more than
just hybrid; they were hybrid with a purpose, carefully crafted to cross
ethnic divides. Such examples of inclusive hybridity within the fgurines
from Hellenistic Babylonia indicate that ethnically based categories of
'Greek' and 'Babylonian' were not exclusionary social divisions. Rather,
terracotta fgurines were co-creators of a social reality in which ethnic and
97
cultural diference was smoothed over and made into a less operational
part of daily life.
Hybridity in Hellenistic Babylonia
The Hellenistic period in Babylonia (c. 330 BC51 AD)
1
began with the
conquests of Alexander the Great and the subsequent infux of Greeks into
the ancient Near East (Green 1990: 319; Sherwin-White 1987: 9; Walbank
1981: 46). Shifting power bases, changing governmental systems and
population migrations were not new to this region: during the preceding
fve hundred years, Babylonia had been ruled by Neo-Assyrians and
Achaemenid Persians as well as by native Babylonian dynasties. During
the course of these political transitions, Babylonians had incorporated
into their society populations from around the ancient Near East as well
as small groups of migrant Greeks (Haerinck 1997: 27; Sherwin-White and
Kuhrt 1993: 159). By the time of Alexander the Great's arrival, Babylon and
its surrounding cities were therefore already highly multicultural.
Nonetheless, the large-scale migration of Greeks and Macedonians
into Babylonia during the Hellenistic period is traditionally seen as a very
diferent (and more signifcant) process than the population shifts of
the preceding eras. While cross-cultural interaction is only one of many
avenues of inquiry into Babylonian society during the Neo-Assyrian or
Achaemenid Persian periods, it is the primary interest of many scholars
who study Hellenistic Babylonia (for a recent review of such trends
in scholarship, see Rossi 2011). There is a rich supply of evidence to
support such inquiries: the presence of Greek peoples in Babylon and
the surrounding cities is attested archaeologically by new buildings,
such as theatres and gymnasiums, as well as small-scale fnds such as
statues, pottery and coins (Hopkins 1972; Invernizzi 2007). Babylonian
communities were also still in existence; traditional Babylonian temples
were rebuilt and documents continued to be written in Akkadian on clay
1 The dates for the Hellenistic period are not entirely fxed. Here I have included not only the Seleucid era but also the
early Parthian period, during which time cultural forms derived from Greek tradition continued to be in use throughout
Babylonian society.
tablets (Colledge 1987; Downey 1988: 763; van der Spek 1987). Evidence
for the sustained existence of both Greek and Babylonian cultural groups
gave rise, in earlier scholarship, to theories of colonization and resistance
between these communities (see Green 1990: 316317; Rostovtzef 1941:
499504; Tarn 1951).
However, recent decades have brought the introduction of
postcolonial approaches to the study of Hellenistic Babylonia. Kuhrt and
Sherwin-White (1987, 1993) have been most infuential in pointing out
defciencies in earlier models of cultural interaction for the Hellenistic
East and in calling for more nuanced analyses of those processes. In
doing so, they and others have stressed the importance of "avoid[ing] the
reductionist tendencies inherent in the traditional overarching defnitions
of 'Hellenism' and 'Hellenisation'" (Petrie 2002: 86). In addition to
dismantling previous assumptions about enforced cultural adoption and
other colonialist ideas, postcolonial theorists and archaeologists working
within this conceptual framework have also increased recognition of the
existence of hybrid and cross-cultural objects in the material record (Rossi
2011; Westh-Hansen 2011).
Terracotta fgurines, one of the most popular forms of art used
in Hellenistic Babylonia, are among the object corpora to include
hybrid pieces. Greek and Babylonian coroplastic traditions were often
combined, reshaped and altered into new forms in the creation of a vast
diversity of uniquely Hellenistic Babylonian objects. As has previously
been argued, by both myself (Langin-Hooper 2007) and Westh-Hansen
(2011), the intense proliferation of hybrid fgurine forms in Hellenistic
Babylonia suggests that a sustained environment of cross-cultural
interaction existed across broad swathes of society. The recognition of
colonialist approaches in earlier scholarship on Hellenistic Babylonia and
the subsequent process of divesting the feld of this bias have opened up
avenues for new approaches to the objects of this period.
However, I propose that the limits of this process have, in some
ways, been reached, beyond which it is difcult to proceed without a
99
renewed introspection of scholarly practices and modes of analysis.
Specifcally, I no longer think it is enough to merely observe that many
Hellenistic Babylonian fgurines are hybridized. 'Hybrid' has been a useful
label to apply to mixed, multicultural objects as it gives such objects
and the people who used them a recognized place in archaeological
discourse. Yet it is also rife with reductive assumptions. A cross-cultural
hybrid implies the existence of two or more 'pure' cultures, as "essentially
distinct entities, each of which is internally homogenous and externally
bounded" (van Dommelen 1997: 308; also Feldman 2006: 5963), from
which the hybrid is created. The juxtaposition of hybrid against non-
hybrid has resulted in the term "becoming essentializing in exactly the
way in which its proponents sought to overcome" (Feldman 2006: 63; also
Thomas 2000).
In its reductive meaning, hybrid was applied to Hellenistic Babylonian
terracottas even by the early twentieth-century scholars who frst studied
them. Legrain (1930: 11) divided the fgurines of Hellenistic Nippur into
"pure Greek fgures" and more hybrid pieces with elements of "Greek
style". For the fgurines of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, van Ingen (1939: 8)
similarly documented separate Greek and Babylonian fgurine categories,
as well as "a merging of Greek and Oriental [into] a more hybrid style".
Studies on Hellenistic Babylonian fgurines conducted since the advent
of postcolonial theory have made greater use of the term hybridity
and have been more willing to recognize cross-cultural combinations.
However, in practical application, little has changed: 'hybrid' is often
simply incorporated as another category of objects within a typology
of fgurines that also includes Greek and Babylonian types (examples
include Invernizzi 1985; Karvonen-Kannas 1995). In these studies, what
constitutes hybridity is rarely articulatedan especially pressing point, as
few Greek-like fgurines of Hellenistic Babylonia have direct parallels with
objects from Hellenistic Greece (and so most Greek fgurines could also
potentially be described as hybrids). Assessment of a fgurine's hybridity
varies from scholar to scholar and is often based on modern judgments
of aesthetics and degrees of 'naturalism' in the object (for a discussion,
see Root forthcoming).
The productivity of such an approach is limited. To assign new
labels to fgurinescalling some of them hybrid instead of just Greek
or Babyloniandoes not contribute much towards interpreting how
fgurines were participants in ancient social worlds. Nor does it provide
much insight into Hellenistic Babylonian society, beyond simply
acknowledging that cross-cultural interactions took place. In order to
develop beyond the constraints of hybridity, I propose that a deeper
look should be taken at the underlying analytical structures into which
notions of hybridity are built.
Problematizing Typology and Utilizing 'Entanglement'
I suggest that the limitation of hybridity concepts derives, at least in
part, from the typological structure with which Hellenistic Babylonian
terracotta fgurines are usually ordered and from which hybridity
is deduced. The creation of ever more fnely divided and precisely
described typologies has often been viewed as a scientifc endeavour.
However, much about this categorization process is inherently subjective.
A typology is built on a series of nested assumptions: everyday categories
are natural and self-evident; the best way for scholars to study ancient
objects is to systematize these natural, everyday categories through the
naming of types and the creation of a typology; and these typological
schemas can be projected back into the past as if they were ahistorical
and therefore universal.
2

Each of these assumptions can be unpacked and shown to
be problematic. As described by Keane (2005: 188), all objects have
innumerable qualities (such as colour, shape, texture, fammability,
hardness, etc.) that are bundled together to compose the complete
materiality of the object. When a person groups objects into types,
(s)he privileges certain features of the object (which are considered
instrumental in deciding its type) and ignores (or considers irrelevant)
other features of the object. However, the non-type-determining features
2 A fuller discussion of the assumptions inherent in the typological process can be found in Langin-Hooper (2011:
4059).
101
remain bundled with the other attributes as part of the complete material
presence of the object. At another time, place or by another person, the
ignored qualities could be selected as relevant in defning a new purpose,
name and function for the same object. There are thus many overlapping
and competing ways of organizing 'things' into 'types' (Bowker and Star
1999: 23; Dupr 1993; Meskell 2004: 42).
Typologies make it difcult to conceptualize this multiplicity of
inter-object associations because, in order for a typology to be created,
scholars must choose to consistently privilege some object similarities
over others. Often this happens along lines familiar to the person creating
the typology, resulting in the application of current categories to ancient
objects. When we use categories such as 'standing nude female'
categories that we may feel comfortable with in our own livesand
apply these to ancient fgurines, we unwittingly retroject categories
onto the past as if they were universal. Typologies further reify current
culturally specifc categories by encouraging binary divisions (i.e. clothed
or naked, male or female) rather than allowing for fexibility and subtle
degrees of variation. Then, through the structural division of typologies
into categories and sub-categories, these assessments about fgurine
features are cemented into a hierarchical ranking of moreand less
important similarities.
The structure of typological organization fts well into analytical
approaches developed out of colonialist mindsets. Colonialism itself
relied on essentializing modes of thought, in which complex variability
was reduced to key lines of diference by which individuals, objects or
landscapes could be recognized and opposed between 'colonizer'
or 'colonized' (Gosden 2001: 242243, 257258). Through the power of
terminology and naming, the colonialist nations of the nineteenth- and
twentieth-century 'West' not only kept their colonies under control, but
actually created the 'East' as a cohesive unit to be dominated (Said 1978:
24, 6). In addition to dichotomies based on ethnicity, the colonialist
mindset particularly found expression in oppositional approaches to
gender identity (Conkey and Gero 1997; Nochlin 1988). Colonialism was, in
large part, the practice of enforcing essentialized divisions that ignored
social complexity.
Scholarship has since shed colonialist thinking at the higher
conceptual level through postcolonial approaches and other theoretical
advances. For instance, it is now commonly acknowledged that even
seemingly universal categories, such as gender, are culturally constructed
and continually renegotiated (Conkey and Gero 1997: 418; Pollock 1988:
18). Nevertheless essentialized categories live on in typological schema.
The utilization of seemingly universal classifcations, insistence on binary
divisions and hierarchical ranking of similarities and diferencesall of
these are intrinsic to the structure of typologies. They all also present
ways in which typologies maintain the legacy of both the culture-based
and gender-based separations that were hallmarks of colonialist thought.
Thus the core organizing principles underlying typology hinder our
understanding of the diverse and unessentialized associations between
ancient objects and people.
As one way forward, I propose to access inter-object associations
through a concept of object entanglement. The term entanglement
can be used to express the varying connections between fgurines:
some fgurines share stylistic similarities;
3
others share similar size,
weight or fragility; others, similar motifs. None of these inter-object
associations need be privileged over others as any of them might have
been signifcant to a particular ancient user at a particular moment of
human-object interaction. This analytical process assists in drawing out
the parallels between objects and allowing new connections to be made
beyond those most obviously apparent. These inter-object associations
have always existed in the fgurines, but can be easily overlooked by a
3 Note that entanglement is a concept that is currently used in the anthropological and archaeological literature, most
signifcantly by Hodder (2011, 2012), but also by scholars such as Gosden (2011) and, less explicitly (through material
engagement theory), Renfrew (2001). In these usages, entanglement usually refers to the mutual entrapment between
the human and object worlds, which come into being, shape and even depend upon each other. 'Entangled' is also used,
such as by Stockhammer (2012, this volume), as a substitute for hybrid in describing specifcally cross-cultural objects.
In my approach, I utilize the term entanglement to talk about the specifc associations between objects, highlighting
interconnection and similarity, as opposed to interdependence and functionality.
103
modern, Western scholar, who has been culturally conditioned to engage
with objects in ways that are specifc to our own time and place. Using
a concept of entanglements allows a variety of associations between
objects to be made, some along traditional typological lines and some
which difer considerably from the traditional approaches to these
objects.
A concept of entanglements provides a deliberately subtle and
fexible approach that is not intended to be all-encompassing, complete
comprehensiveness being impossible. It cannot lead to an account of all
associations between objects, nor does it approximate every way in which
an ancient viewer or user might approach and interact with a fgurine.
It remains open, so that the approaches and ideas of future researchers
who consider the materialas well as new evidence, for example
Hellenistic Babylonian fgurines discovered in future excavations
can be incorporated. This deliberate fexibility allows for multivocal
interpretations, which through their multitude have the potential to
approach ancient social realities.
Case Study of Multiple or Ambiguous Gender(s)
Two Hellenistic fgurines from the Babylonian city of Uruk, BM51-1-1-107 (fg.
1) and BM51-1-1-108 (fg. 2), display bodies with both a penis and breasts.
While such fgurines are uncommon, their existence suggests that there
were alternative ways of thinking about gender in Hellenistic Babylonia
besides the male/female binary dichotomy that is consistently reifed in
academia's typologies of these objects (from van Buren 1930 through to
Karvonen-Kannas 1995). Several features of BM51-1-1-107 and BM51-1-1-108
suggest female gender: the breasts, the elaborate headdresses of vertically
ridged curls, the jewellery, the position of the arms to support the breasts,
the narrow waist and the wide hips. All of these features closely entangle
these two fgurines with the visual appearances common to many female
fgurines. However, the presence of shared features only connects these
two objects with female fgurinesit does not make them female.
Substantive visual entanglements also link these two objects to fgurines
Fig. 1 (left). BM51-1-1-107. Terracotta fgurine from Uruk. Height: 17.7cm, width: 6.5cm. Trustees of the British Museum.
Fig. 2 (right). BM51-1-1-108. Terracotta fgurine from Uruk. Height: 17.5cm, width: 6.5cm. Trustees of the British Museum.
portraying male bodies. The depiction of a penis is the most obvious
link; indeed, the prominence given to the male genitalia suggests that
an actively male sex/gender is being asserted for these fgurines. The
roundedness of the arms and the position of the hands on the breast can
also be visually linked to depictions of male children (see e.g. van Ingen
1939: nos 691a, 800a; Karvonen-Kannas 1995: nos 214, 200; Ziegler 1962: fg.
105
339). Thus BM51-1-1-107 and BM51-1-1-108 can be seen to be entangled in
multiple ways along multi-gendered lines.

The multi-gendered appearance of these fgurines is constructed
using aspects of both Greek and Babylonian fgurine traditions. The frontal
pose, holding of hands to the breasts, nudity and use of a single-mould
manufacturing technique all derive from Babylonian tradition, while the
plastically three-dimensional modelling, elaborate hairstyling and the
particularly hermaphroditic combination of sexual features (a primarily
female body with male penis) link more consistently to Greek tradition.
Thus, these fgurines embody aspects of both cultural identities. However,
this is not the traditional view of these objects, which are usually classifed
as exclusively female and Babylonian in identity. The gender issue is
particularly striking: even though male genitalia are clearly shownand
in spite of the fact that similar fgurines, in this pose and with a penis exist
in alabaster (Invernizzi 2008: 265)the penis is often unremarked upon
by fgurine scholars. For instance, Karvonen-Kannas (1995: 119) groups
BM51-1-1-107 and BM51-1-1-108 typologically as female without comment.
The choice to ignore the male genitalia in favour of a more conventional
sex determination highlights how the use of traditional typologies means
that scholars literally do not see the fgurines themselves.
This lack of sight and the subsequent enforcement of either male
or female categories onto these fgurines is signifcant. It has obscured
the ancient reality in which these relatively rare hermaphroditic fgurines
existed alongside the more numerous Hellenistic Babylonian fgurines
without clear gender markers, such as horse riders with amorphous
and non-gendered bodies (Langin-Hooper 2011: 8692). Taken together,
these fgurines suggest that the categories of gender often employed in
constructing typologies do not overlap well with the ancient Hellenistic
Babylonian understanding of gender identities. In other words, the legacy
of our discipline's colonialist past lives on in the way in which scholars
seeor don't seea penis.
Case Study of 'Heads' and 'Masks'
The second case study confronts the issue of cultural identity, which is of
substantial interest for most scholars who research Hellenistic Babylonia.
The fgurines M14556 (fg. 3) and T7142 (fg. 4) both depict a child-like
human head with a round, beardless face, bulging eyes and large facial
features. Most strikingly, they also share rectangular-shaped, open-
gaping mouths cut through the clayan uncommon feature in most
Hellenistic Babylonian fgurines, but one that is present in several heads
with child-like appearances. The fgurines that share this cut-out mouth,
such as M14556 and T7142, are usually separated into diferent typological
categories based on the presence of a back to the fgure's head: M14556
is modelled in the round (and so typed with the 'children's heads'), while
T7142 has only a face (thus typed with the 'masks'; van Ingen 1939: 300
308). However, using the approach of object entanglements, the feature
of the cut-out mouth can be addressed across typological lines. When
this feature is examined on its own, it appears that the cut-out mouth
appeals to both Greek and Babylonian traditions.

The cut-open mouths shared by M14556 and T7142 were likely
meaningful, both because they were rare among the fgurine corpus
generally and because they involved extra efort to make. Carving
a mouth into the clay after moulding adds an additional step to the
production process and cut marks still visible on some fgurine interiors
(such as on the inside of the neck of M14556) provide evidence of the
repeated small incisions necessary to precisely cut a rectangular hole. In
light of the obvious care given to incising these mouths, there must have
been some purpose to the featurebut what? The visual similarity to
Greek theatre masks, emphasized in van Ingen's typology, is undeniable.
Greek theatre and its accoutrements were popular subjects of art in a
variety of media across the Hellenistic world (Pollitt 2006: 47). Terracotta
maskssome of which had their "eyes and mouth cut out"were
also used as votive oferings at Greek sites from the sixth century BC
through the Hellenistic period (Uhlenbrock 1996: 582). Some Hellenistic
Babylonian terracotta fgurines, such as T7142, show close links with this
Greek tradition. However, many other mask-like fgurines do not share
107
the cut-open mouth. Typologies can therefore not only fail to document
some object entanglements, but can also exaggerate the strength
of other inter-object associations. Further complicating the exclusive
association of cut-open mouths with Greek theatrical tradition are the
fgurines, such as M14556, which share the cut-open mouth, but which
cannot be interpreted as masks due to the moulded back of the head and
original attachment to a body. Indeed, such head fgurines with cut-open
mouths seem to have been more common in Hellenistic Babylonia than
their mask counterparts (see van Ingen 1939: 290302)indicating that
the cut-open mouth requires additional elucidation.
One possible explanation for the non-mask associations of cut-open
mouths can be found in Babylonian cultural traditions. Rituals of 'mouth-
opening' (pit p) and 'mouth-washing' (ms p) were a crucial part of the
process of enlivening some statues, such as cult images or other statues
associated with deities (Walker and Dick 1999; Winter 1992). Tablets
Fig. 3 (left). M14556. Terracotta fgurine from Seleucia-on-the-Tigris. Height: 8.8cm, wdth: 5.7cm. Courtesy of the Kelsey
Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan.
Fig. 4 (right). T7142. Terracotta fgurine from Seleucia-on-the-Tigris. Height: 11cm. Photograph from the collection of the Kelsey
Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan.
containing the incantations of the ms p ritual from second century BC
Uruk attest to the continued knowledge and practice of mouth-opening
ceremonies in Hellenistic Babylonia (Mayer 1978: 458; Walker and Dick
1999: 67-68). In these rituals of animation, physical actions were taken
to open and wash the statue's mouthactions which might have been
procedurally and somatically (if not ritually) similar to the process of cutting
open the mouths of fgurines such as M14556 and T7142. This is not to say
that such rituals were necessarily being performed on terracotta fgurines
or that these fgurines directly represented ritual actions. However, the
cut-open mouths of fgurines such as M14556 and T7142regardless of
whether there was a back to the headwould visually resonate with the
Babylonian cultural interest in such practices and imagery.
Cut-open mouths thus seem to have been a fgurine feature which
could appeal to both Greek and Babylonian cultural traditions. A cross-
cultural connection is made through these fgurines, developed through
a shared use of the cut-open mouth and adapted to transcend the formal
diferences of attachment (or lack thereof) to a head and body. What was
accomplished through the creation of these fgurines was more than
just hybridity as a happenstance conglomeration of diferent cultural
features.
4
Rather, these fgurines seem to have been tailored to bridge
diferences and enhance similarities between Greek and Babylonian
traditions. By presenting visual features that could be used and considered
meaningful by members of both cultures, such fgurines provided a
material, embodied example of cross-cultural overlapwhich, in turn,
aided in opening up space in Hellenistic Babylonian society for further
multicultural entanglements to develop.
4 Although not approached in postcolonial terms and continuing to use traditional typological structures, Menegazzi
(2012) has recently made a similar argument. She, however, frames her discussion with emphasis on the appropriateness
or adoptability of Greek traditions into a Babylonian context: i.e. "Seleucian coroplasts made specifc choices, favour-
ing some Greek subjects which were likely to meet the local taste" (Menegazzi 2012: 157). My work proposes a more
reciprocal process, in which there was a selective use of mutually acceptable Greek and Babylonian traditions in creating
Hellenistic Babylonian fgurines.
109
Conclusion: Discarding the Colonialist Legacy
In search of a new perspective on hybridity, the essentialized categories
that are the continuing legacy of colonial discourse must be re-examined.
It is not enough to expand typologies beyond 'Greek' and 'Babylonian' to
include a 'hybrid' category in between. Rather, it should be acknowledged
that the categories themselves, in their reductive nature, blind us to the
rich reality of information in the Hellenistic Babylonian fgurine corpus.
The hybrid fgurines of Hellenistic Babylonia, when viewed through
an entanglement approach, appear to have been more than random
combinations of cross-cultural features. Instead, many fgurines were
hybrid with a purposecrafted with a particular sensitivity to both Greek
and Babylonian cultural concerns and capable of negotiating common
ground between both traditions. Through the reciprocal relationships
that humans hold with objectsespecially anthropomorphic objects,
such as terracotta fgurines (Bailey 2005: 38; Pollock 2003: 182)such
hybrid fgurines had the potential to act with agentive social force
as mutual co-creators of multicultural communities. This has broad
implications for our understanding of Hellenistic Babylonian society,
as it suggests thatcontrary to what is assumed in most traditional
academic approaches to this eraethnic or cultural diferences were, in
some cases, actively deconstructed rather than emphasized. Hellenistic
Babylonian society may thus have been organized along lines other than
ethnic opposition. Rather, other delineations of social diference, such
as age, status, occupation or regional/city afliation, may have taken
precedence. Such possibilities cannot be fully explored here; however,
they are the subject of my broader research into this richly multicultural
fgurine corpus. Although an understanding of hybridity will continue
to feature prominently in such work, I suggestbased on the evidence
presented in this articlethat the term 'hybrid' might best be applied not
as a label, but as a starting point for questions of purpose and agency.
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114
Stephan Palmi
Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago
palmie@uchicago.edu
Signal and Noise: Digging up the Dead in
Archaeology and Afro-Cuban Palo Monte
Introduction
L
et me resort to a bit of ethnographica to introduce the concerns of this
brief contribution. As Pedro Cosme Baos, the now-retired director of
the Museo Municipl Histrico de Regla
1
told me in 2003, Remigio Herrera,
one of the most important founding figures of Afro-Cuban religion, to
this day lies in an unmarked grave. Better known as Adechina, Herrera
was the last African-born babalao or priest of the if-oracle active in Cuba.
Today, he is widely credited with having instituted the ritual mechanisms
by which the cult of if has been transmitted to the present. According to
the civil records in Cosme's possession, Adechina died in 1905 of 'senile
1 A formerly industrial municipality on the eastern shore of the Bay of Havana where I have done feldwork since 1993.
116 Signal and Noise: Digging Up the Dead in Archaeology and Afro-Cuban Palo Monte
A r c h a e o l o g i c a l R e v i e w f r o m C a m b r i d g e 2 8 . 1 : 1 1 5 1 3 1
debility' at an unknown age and was interred in Regla's new cemetery
that had opened only five years before.
2

To be sure, the Cuban state has been careful to revaluate its African
'religious heritage' in the aftermath of the 1991 reforms, allowing, for
example, the institutionalization of an association of babalaos calling
themselves the Asociacin Cultural Yorub de Cuba and assigning them
a nicely renovated nineteenth-century building fronting the prominent
Parque de la Fraternidad Pan-Americana as their ofcial seat. In 1997, it
even granted the male esoteric sodality known as Abaku (which it once
actively persecuted) licence to set up a plaque near Regla's historical
embarcadero commemorating the foundation of Abaku's frst chapter
there in 1836. Yet the Museowhich, after all, is part and parcel of the
Cuban statehas not seen it ft to mark Adechina's grave, even though
Cosme claims he and his colleagues know its exact location.
The reason for this, or so I was told, was a preservationist one.
Since adherents of another set of Afro-Cuban ritual traditions, known
collectively as the reglas de congo, are given to disinterring remains of the
dead to install them in power-objects known as ngangas (cf. Kerestetzi
2011a, 2011b; Ochoa 2010; Palmi 2006), Cosme told me that no sooner
than Adechina's grave site would become publicly acknowledged, his
bones would be dug up and installed in a nganga-object. Didn't I know,
Cosme asked me, that Andres Petit, the nineteenth-century founder of
a particularly self-consciously 'syncretic' regla de congoLa Regla del
Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje (also known as Quimbisa)had commanded
his disciples to cut of his head after death and take it out of the country?
3

2 Having entered Cuba as a youthful slave, Adechina's birthdate is unrecorded. His baptismal record dating from 1833
gives only vague cues about his age.
3 The same is said about the famous babalao and palero Eulogio Rodriguez (Tata Gaitn), 18611944, whose corpse
was allegedly decapitated by his ahijados (junior members of his cult group) and buried separately from his properly
entombed body. If true, such gestures are by no means as bizarre as one might think. After all, Pullman made sure his
remains in Chicago's Graceland cemetery were covered with a concrete slab massive enough to keep relatives of the strik-
ers he had gunned down from posthumously taking their revenge on his remains. See Verdery (1999) on the 'political
lives' of the powerful dead in Socialist and Postsocialist Eastern Europe and Dosal (2001) on the production and career of
Ch Guevara's corpse.
117 Stephan Palmi
Of course, the irony in all of this is that had Adechina died while still
a slave (he gained his freedom well before emancipation fnally came to
Cuba in 1886), none of these worries might have arisen for Cosme and his
fellow state-employees at the Museo de Regla. Remigio Lucum (the slave
name recorded in Adechina's baptismal certifcate) would simply have
been interred in the old slave cemetery of Reglawhich was bulldozed
in the early years of the Revolution to make place for the construction of
a school (the architectural substance of which, as things go in Cuba, is
nowadays visibly crumbling). To be sure, graves are dug up at Regla's new
cemetery with fair regularity, and there is no question that gravediggers
and sextons conduct a brisk trade in human remains.
4
Hence, Cosme
and his successors at the Museo are wary of providing anyone with the
logistics to dig up this particular grave, so as to give Adechina, the old
African sage, a new lease of life in someone's nganga-power object.
Instead they want to keep his remains undisturbed to preserve the relics
of a 'culturally signifcant past' for a future nation whose citizens might
properly (i.e. rationally) honour it as a scarce and non-renewable resource
for the scholarly reconstruction and public consumption of Cuba's
historyinstead of harnessing Adechina's bones to mystical enterprises
born out of 'irrational' (or otherwise inappropriate) misconceptions
about the dead and their role in the life of the living. It is in this sense
that I take Cosme and his colleagues' dilemma to be aptly evocative of my
brief in this special issue: while not so much motivated by conventional
archaeological concerns for site preservation, their reticence to make
Adechina's grave publicly known speaks to a secular historicist ontology
very much at the core of modern archaeological praxis (Thomas 2004). By
the same token, however, it dramatically clashes with what I would like
to call the anti-archaeology practiced by initiates of the reglas de congo.
5

4 See Ochoa (2010: 161163) for anecdotal evidence for the scale of such operations in Regla's neighbouring munici-
pality of Guanabacoa.
5 While such practices might be conceptualized in keeping with defnitions of 'indigenous archaeologies' as practices
"in which the physical remains of 'the past' are reused and reinterpreted by later societies" (Haman 2002: 352; cf. Hami-
lakis 2008), as will become clear, my goal in this essay is a diferent one.
Why Archaeologists Dig Up Stuff
Let me momentarily postpone explaining what I mean by that and
instead briefy sketch what I take to be some of the core tenets of
archaeological historicism. As the great French Medievalist Bloch (1953:
55) pointed out, any form of historical knowledge is knowledge from
'tracks'the material signs "perceptible to the senses, which some
phenomenon inaccessible to the senses has left behind". In Oakeshott's
(1933) terminology, eforts at reading such signs are contingent upon
an organization of the phenomenology of the experienced world 'sub
specie preteritorum'. Viewed thus, symptoms of the past abound, awaiting
diagnostic interpretation. We are surrounded by confgurations of
matterwhether monuments or middens, piles of paper on my desk,
or the detritus of Afro-Cuban ritual (Wirtz 2009)that, once recognized
as such, can be read as indices of past events and processes, including
taphonomical ones. Still, a sign is only a sign if it is recognized as such. As
Collingwood (1994: 281) reminds us, "[q]uestion and evidence, in history,
are correlative". How exactly the surface of the contemporary world is
to be carved up in regards to what Danto (1965) might call candidates
for past-referring predicates is all but self-evident. Instead, this question
points towards what, in semiotic terms, we might call a metapragmatic
regimentation of indexicality characteristic of historicist, and this includes
archaeological, practices of knowledge production.
Since I cannot do justice to the epistemological issues involved
here (but see Palmi forthcoming for a fuller treatment), let me be bold
and say that they revolve around what Latour (1993) might call a project
of purifcation. We all ultimately live in a 'specious present', always
imperceivably slipping into the past while similarly sliding inexorably
onwards towards the future; we inhabit pluritemporal lifeworlds
that brim with the material residues of what Lucas (2004) aptly calls
"unconstituted pasts", ready-at hand as a 'Gestell' for our contemporary
pursuits, but unrecognized in their 'pastfulness'. Yet for both historians
and archaeologists, objectifying the 'past' by positing unbridgeable
distances in linear chronological time is unavoidable. Anachronism is
their boon and their baneboth in the sense of recognizing some extant
119 Stephan Palmi
object (a text, a coin, some unusual landscape feature) as 'stemming from
a (human) past' and in the sense of the non-negotiability of successive
temporal strata. No archive can be read in any other fashion, no material
'record' unearthed except on the basis of assumptions that drive deep
ontological wedges between carefully purifed points on a chronological
continuum. Once it comes to the willful or unintentional mixing up of times
and the things that are taken to index them, we might say, anachronism
is historicism'sand so 'modernist archaeology's' (sensu Thomas 2004)
Derridean supplement.
Still, and perhaps unavoidably (as Latour would perhaps predict), this
very programme churns out hybrid after hybrid. Not only is it clear that
the 'material record' of the past is not simply 'found', but methodically
'discovered'.
6
It is also clear that it is made (Abu El-Haj 2002; Dawdy 2006;
Gosden 2008; Lucas 2004; Shanks 1998, 2007):
7
laboriously carved out of
surrounding matter like an amplifed signal that arises over and above
what subsequently turns into ambient noisethe now opaque (rather
than now signifcant) detritus of past worlds. Yet contrary to prevailing
scholarly consensusindeed contrary to the rationale of most 'feld
sciences' (including my own discipline of sociocultural anthropology)it
is not that the world is inherently noisy and so in need of methodically
disciplined forms of pattern-recognition. It is that we actively produce
such noise by our disciplined searches for pattern: the hybrids of our
own eforts at arranging the furniture of the world so as to maximize
redundancy in Shannon's (1949) terms and thereby make some 'mute
6 Here I refer to the Mexican philosopher O'Gorman's (1961) important distinction between 'discoveries' and 'fnds'.
As O'Gorman argues, Columbus did not set out to discover a hitherto unknown continent; he embarked on his frst voyage
with the plan of discovering a westward sea-route to Asia. That he accidentally 'found' what we now know as the Ameri-
can continent in the process, subsequently set in motionor so O'Gorman arguesa centuries-long process of the
'Invention of America'. The upshot of this is that you can only 'discover' what is already knowable, in principle. 'Finds', in
contrast, have to be submitted to laborious intellectual processes, so as to become conceivable as (however serendipitous)
'discoveries'. 'Discovery', in this sense, is a quintessentially 'modern' pursuit, and O'Gorman may be right in booking the ef-
fects (though not the fact) of Columbus' voyages as a step away from a medieval world of marvels and towards a Baconian
conception of the subject of knowledge as 'homo faber', ever ready to put 'Nature' (or 'History') 'to the test' of discovery.
7 After a lengthy discussion of the general tendency to overdescribe and undertheorize stratigraphy and a spirited de-
fense of a view of stratigraphic sequence as an inherently social (rather than largely geoarchaeological), transtemporally
relational (rather than one-of depositional) phenomenon, McAnany and Hodder (2009), fnally step back and concede
that archaeologists themselves are to be counted among the stratigraphy-makers.
stones speak' as the old canard has itwhile 'silencing' (sensu Trouillot
1995) other such deposits, whether in the archive or in the ground.
8
What
shall we call the resulting artefacts other than the fetishes (or 'factishes' as
Latour [2010] would call them) on which our worldas we tend to know
itultimately rests?
But to say so, and leave it at that, is to do grave injustice to the 'fetish'
the original hybrid object of Western epistemologies, as they came to foist
themselves on certain constellations of matter and ideation emerging
in the cultural interstices created by nascent capitalistic practice on the
western coast of Africa in the context of the slave trade (Pietz 1985, 1987,
1988). And it is to do injustice to the nganga-objectsdistant cognates of
sixteenth-century Congolese 'feitissos'that are at the centre of my friend
Pedro Cosme's and his colleagues' worries about Adechina's physical
remains. For it isn't simply that one man's 'indigenous osteoarchaeology'
is another man's 'looting' or 'vandalism'.
9
As Cuban ethnographers such as
Cabrera (1983) had long shown, and others (Kerestetzi 2011a, 2011b; Ochoa
2010; Palmi 2006) have since made clear, what fashioning a nganga-object
involves is to blur, actively and methodically, a multiplicity of bright lines
by which contemporary Western ontologies (and epistemologies) divide
subjects and objects, agents and patients, matter and spirit, people and
things, life and death, present and past.
And Why Paleros Do So, Too
Here is what a practitioner of palo monte
10
(or any other regla de congo)
might do, should Adechina's gravesite become known to him or her:
having taken both mundane and spiritual precautionsbribing the
sexton, mystically fortifying oneselfa palero would sneak into the
cemetery under the cover of darkness, seek out a previously identifed
8 See McNeal (1991) for a beautifully evocative example of this moment in the case of the (long) history of the de-
structive 'purifcation' of one of the most famous archaeological sites.
9 Compare here for example Elia's (1997) programmatic assertions with Thoden van Velzen's (1996) nuanced ethno-
archaeological account.
10 One of the more wide-spread reglas de congo. The name derives from the sticks (palos) of wood used in the confec-
tion of nganga-objects.
121 Stephan Palmi
grave and proceed to ritually interrogate the dead by oracular (and
sometimes inspired) means. Proceeding from the rather Frazerian
assumption that the dead retain aspects of human personhood (such as
volition, communicative abilities, characteristics and capacities displayed
during life and so on) and are pegged to their skeletal remains, the palero
or palera will begin to outline the details of a trata (pact) to the muerto or
nfumbi (dead) in question. The goal is to 'fnd a muerto who wants to get
out of the grave' and make him or her 'a deal that he or she cannot refuse'.
Depending upon the degree to which local versions of Kardecian spiritism
infuence the paleros' thinking on such matters, he or she might propose
to help the muerto attain peace and light (Espirito Santo 2010; Kerestetzi
2011a: 9 n.15; Palmi 2002, 2006). But in essence the contract proposed is
of a non-revocable nature: if the muerto or nfumbi consents, the palero
will give him or her a new form of embodiment in a nganga-object (also
known as prenda, i.e. jewel or treasure) in exchange for services (trabajos)
rendered and remunerated by periodical sacrifces of blood and other
substances that will maintain the nganga's force and vitality and bind the
nfumbi in a cycle of reciprocal exchange.
Once consent is secured, the palero will extract skeletal remains from
the grave (ideally the cranium [kiyumba] and long bones, but even just a
pinch of dirt might sufce), carry them to his or her munanso (domestic
sanctum, often a simple shed attached to the house) and, with the help
of ritual assistants, proceed to methodically build up (montar) what, in
efect, constitutes a new life formthe ngangathat constitutes at
once a complex and transtemporally dynamic (i.e. growing) assemblage
of heterogeneous matter and a named, personifed and willful being,
capable of efecting change in the world and of engaging humans in, at
times dramatic, interaction.
Generally housed in metal cauldrons (calderos) often wrapped
tightly in heavy iron chains, ngangas or prendas have an appearance
that is visually arrestingindeed, striking across various sensory
modalities. Branches (palos) of dozens of diferent types of wood appear
to have been forcefully jammed into the compacted substances that
compose the cauldron's content: wax, blood, soil from a variety of social
locations (the cemetery, a hospital, a market, a police station or jail and
so forth), water from a river and the sea, aguardiente, cooking wine,
metal implements like knives, coins, keys, razor blades, padlocks, herbs,
the remains of various animals, sea shells, small amounts of quicksilver,
gold or gemstones, sachets containing pieces of paper and so forthall
crowned by the kiyumba (a human skull), surrounded by oferings of food
and tobacco and covered in the blood of repeated animal sacrifces.
11

Ngangas reek and rustleonce one gets close enough for their putrid
odour to overwhelm one's olfactory sensorium, insects that have been
feeding on their contents, will startle and scurry about in erratic ways.
As I have written elsewhere (Palmi 2006), at least from the perspective
of Euro-American commodity aesthetics and hygienic norms, ngangas
present the aspect of "pollution raised to the status of a method".
Yet while they seem to bristle with 'matter out of place', sensu
Douglas, ngangas possess internal coherence and their fulminant
materiality obeys a logic of its own: one that MacGafey (1990: 51), in his
work on western Central African minkisi-objects (to which Afro-Cuban
ngangas are historically related), aptly circumscribed by distinguishing
between metonymic elements that situate the nganga "by contiguity, in
a hierarchy of persons, extending from the original spirit to the ultimate
recipient of the efect of its action" and metaphorically organized
materials that analogically express and direct the nature of its powers.
These components act in synergetic concordance, so that while the
human remains will guarantee the 'inspired' naturewillfulness,
personality, agentive force, etc.of a nganga, the addition of for example
a dog's head, the skeleton of a bat or a desiccated scorpion or spider, will
channel such force by amplifying and directing the ways in which the
nfumbi or muerto will conduct its mystical errands (such as smelling out
its target, fying in the night or stinging and sucking the life out of the
victims of sorcerous attacks and counterattacks). Packets attached to the
outer surface of a nganga may contain further instructions concerning
11 See Cabrera (1983), Ochoa (2010) and especially Kerestetzi (2011a, 2011b) for details about the 'assembly' (mon-
taje) and the contents of nganga-objects.
123 Stephan Palmi
specifc 'works' (trabajos) that the nfumbi is to perform at the bidding of
the palero or his clients and the residue of the animal or other sacrifces
with which a nganga is remunerated for its services will gradually build
up and often overfow the cauldron itself, spilling out into veritable ritual
landscapes that can come to take up whole rooms. These have their own
depositional logics and histories, and they present a materially accreting
record of mystical interactions between the nfumbi and its human master.
The resulting tableaux morts may be said to exemplify 'cultural
biographies' (Gosden and Marshall 1999) of sortsheterogeneous things
and substances traveling along and sometimes across various social
pathways of valorization and appropriation (commodifcation, extraction
from nature, theft and so on) towards their subsumption in and by the
nganga. Yet the biography they come to document is neither just one
of 'things in social motion', nor one that merely chronicles the nganga's
owner and master's agency and mystical pursuits: it involves more than
one socially personifed agent, only one of whom (the palero) is a human
beingall the while that it scrambles Western common sense ontological
divisions, such as those between persons and things, life and death, past
and present. Among other things, this is so because while a new nganga
is (at least once) fed with his owner's blood, initiation into the cult of a
nganga (rayamiento, literally scarring) likewise involves rubbing some of
the nganga's contents into small wounds cut into the future palero's skin,
rendering the nganga and its owner the co-constitutive parts of a supra-
individual relation, not incidentally akin (or so I have argued previously,
Palmi 2006) to that between Hegel's lord and bondsman. What is more,
this relation ramifes outward by assimilating actors and entities on both
sides of the divide between the living and the dead: just as new initiates
literally become consubstantial with the nganga, so will a palero 'seed'
their new nganga-objects with parts of the contents of his own nganga
(which, in turn, had once been charged with elements derived from a pre-
existing nganga), thus constituting a pattern that cascades across time
and (social) space.
Not surprisingly, the resulting 'hybrid' (though from whose
perspective?) also melts down objectifable chronologies. While the
nfumbi is essentially 'from the past' (i.e. dead for an [ideally] specifable
time) the nganga is endowed with the personal characteristics that the
nfumbi once possessed when he or she was still a living human and will
display these when communicating through divination or possession
trance. Here, the coincidence of the verb 'montar' for both mounting
a nganga and being mounted by the nfumbi in possession trance is all
but accidental. Diferent from Latourean 'actants' like lactic bacteria or
high-speed trains or Ingold's (2000) emergent human-object worlds,
the nfumbi does not merely generate 'networks', 'entanglements' and
'afordances'. It has a will of his or her own, subordinate to that of the
palero to some extent, but prone to rebellion and so always potentially in
need of control and demanding of active confrontation over the course
of the paleros biological life-span. At the same time, it acts in the world
at large, being sent on mystical errands to actively interfere with the lives
and material circumstances of the palero and his or her mortal peers. In all
respects, it is most decidedly not a 'thing'.
Whose Gain, Whose Loss?
But then again, it is that too. Not being a palero, I have little choice other
than to approach these entities (for lack of a better word) as the 'notionally
awesome' and agentive, but otherwise smelly and rather scary material
execrescences of my palero-friends and acquaintances' ritual praxis:
the detritus and material indices, very much now in an archaeological
sense, of an alien world. From that point of viewand it is one echoed
in the ethnography of western Central Africa (cf. MacGafey 1986, 1990)
to where Afro-Cuban ngangas have been rather consistently traceda
nganga-object might be read as a grave and the process of its 'montaje'
as one of entombment: the deliberate and methodical burial of matter
(of human, animal or other origin) so as to secure a time-transcending
form of 'mystical' charge. But just as graves and chiefs are pretty much
interchangeable in western Central African ethnography, so are the
'deposits' constituted by nganga-objects hardly readable as tombs in any
125 Stephan Palmi
conventional archaeological sense. And this is as it should be. After all,
paleros decisively don't see themselves as 'depositing' stuf. They make
thingsand not just that. They bring beings into being.
Indeed, as Charles Wetli, the Chief Medical Examiner of Dade
County (the greater Miami metropolitan area) told me a long time ago,
taking nganga-objects (confscated by the police in the course of raids)
apart will yield little information beyond the government mandated
eforts at identifying the human remains contained in it, more or less
successful as such eforts may turn out (Palmi 2006). You will cut your
hands on the razor blades in the dried up muck they contain and you
may be able to trace the human remains (often to, in Wetli's opinion,
commercially available medical specimens). The rest remains a trivial
because ultimately unknowablehybrid. No signal, all noise. To be sure,
as Kerestetzi (2011a, 2011b) has shown, the process of 'montaje' follows a
taphonomic logic of sorts. Yet once assembled, not only is a nganga more
than the sum of its 'object parts'; both in a material and relational sense,
the life- (or death?) form constituted by it, is a vortex that sucks in entities
that ostensibly pertain to diferent ontological domains (matter, spirit,
subjects, objects, past, present, etc.) and fuses them into an irreducible
synthetic whole beyond diferentiation and analysis.
So to return to the story with which I opened this essay, were Cosme's
nightmare of Adechina's grave being dug up to come true, the nganga-
object that might result from such activity wouldonce forcefully
separated (e.g. through confscation) from its human complement,
the palero and his cult groupremain as historically meaningless as
any other thoroughly decontextualized container of now no longer
identifable human bones, animal carcasses, other organic matter and a
wild jumble of artefacts whose social and ritual biographies are beyond
reconstruction. The trata between the nfumbi that once was Adechina
and the palero who installed him in a nganga-object would forever be
broken. His kiyumba would revert to the status of the cranium of an
unknown elderly African male. Other than for typological reasons or to
document the violence that accompanied its collection (one thinks of the
endless iterations of Congolese minkisi objects merely labeled as 'fetiche'
in Belgium's Tervueren Museum), no museum would need to bother
exhibiting it.
12

Hence better dead (in an unmarked grave) than being 'fed' (i.e.
sacrifced to) by a palero, or so I imagine Cosme's reasoning might go,
when it comes to the remains of the likes of Adechina (though not a
Reglano himself, Cosme is a sensible man and deeply respectful of Afro-
Cuban ritual traditions). For what awesome powers could accrue from
the possession of Adechina's kiyumba or even some dirt from his grave
from a palero's perspective, that is! What amazing compounds of spirit
and matter (if these are even the right terms) might be 'mounted' if one
could only get access to his remains and apply the chamalongo (a form of
coconut-shell divination used in the reglas de congo) to ascertain what the
will of the nfumbi Adechina has become! And what loss, or so I imagine
Cosme to think, might accrue from this when it comes to the recovery,
under rational socialist conditions, of the history of the Cuban nation, its
subaltern classes, their African heritage and so forth? Ripped from the
grave, and so forever 'decontextualized', lost for the world of disciplined
historical reconstruction and re-entombedor given a new lease on
life, depending on perspectivein some palero's nganga-object, the
archaeological signifcance of Remigio Herrera's mortal remains would be
forever lost to a contemporary process of, yes, anachronistic hybridization.

Yet, by the same token, from a rather diferent perspective, Cosme's
and the Cuban nation'sloss might be conceivable as some palero's and
indeed Adechina's gain. Of course, one can only speculate on whether the
old African sage would want to be brought back to mundane existence
as a nfumbi sharing his life with and doing the bidding of a twenty-frst-
century palero. But who am I (or Cosme, for that matter) to say? With
Keane (2003) we might instead argue that what this case constitutes is
12 Needless to say, from the perspective of contemporary paleros, the 'meaninglessness' so produced has truly horrifc
signifcance: while nganga-objects are sometimes ritually disassembled, this only occurs when, upon the death of their
human owner, the nfumbi expresses the wish not to enter into a relation with another member of the cult group and
instead decides to be set free into obliteration.
127 Stephan Palmi
a rather dramatic, even violent clash between two semiotic ideologies
articulating within the same local economy of representation. This is why
I would suggest qualifying the practices of contemporary paleros not as a
form of 'alternative' or 'indigenous' mortuary archaeology (one that, from
the perspective of conventional archaeological historicism, lamentably
results in the disturbance of potential sites and so the destruction of its
future resources). Instead, it seems to me that a case could be made for
such practices to constitute modernist archaeology's mirror imagean
'anti-archaeology' of sorts.
A Sombre Symmetry
To revert to my earlier imagery, while conventional archaeological
excavations aim to methodically purify what its practitioners conceive of
as a target signal from a specifc past, by amplifying it over and above
the temporal pile-up of object noise that surrounds it, Afro-Cuban ritual
'incavations', if I may call them that, proceed no less methodically in
scrambling the frequencies of space and time upon which disciplined
historicist archaeological praxis depends. Both inevitably involve a
moment of creative destruction, but what is created and destroyed
in the process could not be more diferent. If modernist archaeology
may be said to have both historicized and opened up to metaphorical
appropriation the originally geological concept of stratifcation as an
analytic of 'depth' (the classic hermeneutics of suspicion), then burrowing
(or bulldozing, as the case may be) through surface depositsthat
a diferent research design might regard as no less valid evidence of
another past (Lucas 2004)is the price to pay for access to a target layer
(Thomas 2004; see Abu el-Haj 1998, 2002; Dawdy 2006; Hamilakis 2008
for pertinent examples). If the goal of Afro-Cuban paleros is to render
the powers of the dead accessible to the living, then destruction of the
archaeological record is the price to pay. If the careful extraction of bones
of the dead or artefacts from past life worlds is to render them evidence
of histories defned as signifcant under whatever present descriptions,
then theirhowever methodical and well-documenteddisarticulation
from their contemporary material context cannot be avoided. If the goal
is the re-articulationindeed animationof just such objects within
the growing, ever-emerging ritual landscapes that constitute the life-
worlds of present-day paleros, then the obliteration of archaeological
context cannot be avoided. If the aim of modernist archaeology was (and
often still is) to objectify the works of the dead as purifed monuments
to a bygone time, then paleros enliven and personify the mixtures they
fashion from dead people's bodily remains so as to perform works for the
living in the here and now.
This list of symmetrical contrasts could be extended. One's project of
purifcation is the other's nightmare of inappropriate mixture, one's signal
is the other's noise. And while we may be inclined to side with Cosme
and his task of preserving the non-renewable resources for the Cuban
nation's past and the recovery of its subaltern cultural history, we should
be careful to note one fnal irony to do with the timing of Adechina's
death: as noted above, had Adechina died while still a slave, his remains
would have been bulldozed along with the bones of hundred, if not
thousands of unknown others, when Regla's old slave cemetery made
way for revolutionary Cuba's future. And yet, by the same token: had he
not died when he did in early 1905 and had he not managed, during his
life, to build up a respectable reputation and network of social patrons,
chances are that he might have been swept up in the horrifc campaigns
against 'African wizardry' in the service of scientifc modernization that
shook Cuba between the fall of 1904 and the end of the second decade of
the twentieth century (Palmi 2002). Like other, less fortunate elderly male
practitioners of one or the other Afro-Cuban ritual tradition, he might
have been accused of killing (white) children for occult reasons, hastily
sentenced to death and garroted. His skull might then have been shipped
of to the University of Havana, where caliper-toting Cuban adepts of
Lombrosian criminal anthropology like Israel Castellanos would, for the
next decades, make science of the bodily remains of dead 'black wizards'
(Bronfman 2004; Palmi 2002).
129 Stephan Palmi
Tucked away in a small Museo de Medicina Legal in Havana's huge
Calixto Garca hospital complex, the skulls so 'collected' by the likes of
Castellanos are still on displaythe sad object-evidence of the wreckage
of a modernist project (Bronfman 2012; Pedroso 2002), a signal turned
pure moral noise. Though such an outcome seems highly unlikely under
present conditions and regardless of whatever Cosme's successors at the
Museo de Regla decide to do with Adechina's grave, perhaps someone
should bribe the night watchmen at Calixto Garca and let the paleros in.
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132
Cambridge Archaeological Unit, University of Cambridge; African Studies Centre, University of Oxford;
Florida State University (Valencia)
mb654@cam.ac.uk; timothy.clack@arch.ox.ac.uk
Hybridity at the Contact Zone: Ethnoarchaeological
Perspectives from the Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia
The point is that contact zones are where the action is, and current
interactions change interactions to follow.
(Haraway 2008: 219)
Introduction
I
n 2009 a programme of feldwork started within the lower Omo Valley in
southwest Ethiopia with an aim to ascertain the archaeological potential
for later prehistoric and proto-historic inhabitation across the region.
Previously, consensus that little or no evidence for such episodes was
ever likely to be identifed had fltered into broader policy that espoused
an image of the valley as a pristine wilderness and communities today
therein as comparatively recent interlopers upon an otherwise untouched
landscape (Brittain and Clack 2012a). Three seasons of survey and trial
134 Hybridity at the Contact Zone
excavation have considerably altered this image, with evidence now
emerging for rich and diverse occupation, perhaps not unbroken, from
the Middle Stone Age through to the present. In many respects this is
unsurprising; the early prehistory of the lower Omo Valley is recognised as
a longstanding cultural crossroads, as illustrated by UNESCO's description
of the valley upon its admission to the World Heritage List in 1980:
The Lower Valley of the Omo is unlike any other place
on Earth in that so many different types of people have
inhabited such a small area of land over many millennia. It
is believed that it was the crossroads of a wide assortment
of cultures where early humans of many different
ethnicities passed as they migrated to and from lands in
every direction (UNESCO 2012, emphasis added).
The web of trade and exchange routes, migration and displacement,
is most strikingly evident across the region with a visibly complex and
unstable interdependence between groups that currently inhabit the
valley (Wolde Gossa 2000: 19). There are nine distinct groups in the
lower Omo ValleyBodi, Chai, Dassanetch, Hamar, Kara, Kwegu, Mursi,
Nyangatom and Suriwhere six diferent languages are spoken derived
from Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan dialects. Such diversity within a
comparatively small region is unusual and research within this region
necessitates critical engagement with issues of ethnic grouping, the
character of cultural forms and the mobility of trans-group identity.
Primary engagement during the project has been with a group called
the Mursi in a localised area known as Dirikoro and Ulum Holi. However,
increasing engagement with the Mursi's northerly 'neighbours', the Bodi,
has gradually developed (fg. 1). Each with a population of approximately
8000, the Mursi and Bodi are pastoral groups with a long tradition of
exchange and reciprocation, violent confict and peaceful resolution and
a mutual cultural emphasis upon their cattle herds that bring both order
and meaning to their worlds. It would be difcult for their lives to be
more diferent from the authors' and there is an obvious cut between our
135 Marcus Brittain, Timothy Clack and Juan Salazar Bonet
respective worldviews, practices
of knowledge production and
perspectives of time and heritage.
The focus of the project has frmly
attempted to embrace these issues
as equally challenging, constrictive
and constructive, by acknowledging
that archaeological research does
not take place in isolation from the
spaces of engagement through
which multiple stakeholders and
worldviews are brought into contact
(Hamilakis 2011: 402). In so doing,
the archaeology of Mursiland's past
takes into account its present and is
further concerned with the impact
that archaeological dialogue
has upon Mursi engagements
with what we, at least, regard as
archaeological sites and narrative.
1

We contend that this allows for a
tripartite investigation into cultural
mixing whereby the example of a series of megalithic platforms acts as
a dynamic contact zone. This is not envisaged as geographically bound,
delimited space, but rather a temporal frontier that emerges through
practice and in which difering perspectives are brought together not
so much as an equal merger, but through a generative potency that is
centred upon materiality. We argue that notions of hybridity are valuable
to understanding this generative potency, but more so where emphasis is
centred within diversity rather than laid upon the respective diferences
of participants.
1 This takes into account that Mursi and Bodi notions of time and heritage difer considerably from traditional 'West-
ern' ideals (see also Turton and Ruggles 1978).
Fig. 1. Map showing the approximate current territories of
Bodi, Chai, Mursi and some other groups in the lower Omo
Valley.
Cultures, Clans and Ethnicity in the Lower Omo Valley
Anthropological research within a number of the groups throughout the
lower Omo Valley has largely confrmed the conception of cultures and
ethnic groups that has become accepted within archaeological discourse:
that these are historically particular, fuid and emergent not in isolation
but through multiple scales of interaction. As Abbink (2000: 3) points
out, this is not to say that categories of ethnic ties "have no meaning, or
are arbitrary bricolages of cultural material", but rather that they are "a
rich source of belonging" and display "a measure of internal cohesion"
while at the same time being equally "dynamic and changing". The
expression of these ties is varied, being mobile and emergent through
a capacity for repeatability that is historically contingent and confgured
through practice in a material environment (see Brittain in press). And
yet these often partial and entangled connections are rigidifed in
ofcial bureaucratic discourse through representations of bounded and
repetitive cultural forms, thereby essentializing group distinction (Abbink
and Unseth 1998: 110; Latour 1993: 78).
2

The reality for the lower Omo Valley is that material expressions of
cultural form exist in a world of movement and contact and, as Basu and
Coleman (2008: 313) explain, seemingly translate "from one geographical
location to another, even as it is transformed in the process". Consider
an example of Mursi ceremonial duelling contests (thagine) remarkable
for their elaborate dress and ceremony and violent skill of striking an
opponent with a wooden pole (donga). The donga (plural dongen) is
prepared from a 2m long coppiced branch with a carved tip generally
distinguishable from the duelling equipment of other Omo groups.
However, since the 1960s a number of changes in the form of this tip
have been noted from a generally smooth and slightly bulbous shape to
a more pronounced bulb traditionally favoured by the Chai group to the
west on the other side of the Omo River (fgs 2 and 3).
2 As Abbink (2000: 4) points out, neither the desire nor the ability for local groups to intermix has been aided by the
current state system and infux of globalising infuences, with serious instability across the region escalating over the past
30 years. Since the mid-1980s an infux of Kalashnikov automatic weapons has heightened division and imbalances of
power amongst groups (Turton 1993).
Such merging and blending is difcult to trace and often matched
with a heightened divergence in other cultural felds. Moreover, it is
consequential of membership and ties that are largely contingent upon
localised circumstances within an environment that is often fraught with
tension and uncertainty. Indeed the reality is complex, with the category
of Mursi identity, for example, comprising a collectivity of around a dozen
Fig. 2. Photograph of a Mursi duelling contest (thagine) taken in August 2010. Note the duelling weapons (dongen) and protective
and decorative duelling equipment (tumoga).
afliate clans (kabicho, singular
kabi) that do not necessarily
share common origins (Turton
1979) or allies (e.g. Fukui 1994).
Peoples' identifcation may not be
exclusively or primarily Mursi, for
receipt of Mursi identity denotes,
according to Turton (1994: 1718),
a shared collective action within a
territorial framework "rather than
a tradition of common origin".
3

Mursi oral histories recount
successive waves of small bands,
perhaps of disparate clan sections,
crossing from the southern banks
of the Omo River approximately
two centuries ago and moving
northwards into the current Mursi
territories. Furthermore, these
Mursi oral traditions describe the forcible displacement of existing Bodi
inhabitants by these new settlers, pushing them northwards into what is
today Bodi territory (Turton 1988), although by contrast Bodi oral histories
refer to a premeditated exit on account of the poor quality of the grass
in comparison to lusher northerly grasslands (Brittain and Clack 2012a). In
any case the inference is that the sense of a collective Mursi identity was
formed at this time not through absorption of members of one ethnic
group into another, but in the collective action of the movement itself
and the development of shared practices that emerge in what Mursi refer
to as the common search for a 'cool place'. Under these terms, 'place' and
'identity' are intricately fused into the conception of what it is to be Mursi.
For example, the naming of and initiation into an age set (the principle
institutional framework of political authority) takes place at a location
chosen for its specifc properties, notably a tree that will grow and outlast
3 It is for this reason that Turton (1994: 19) defnes Mursi identity as political rather than ethnic.
Fig. 3. Bulbous tips found on modern wooden duelling weap-
ons (donga, pl. dongen).
Fig. 3. Bulbous tips found on modern wooden duelling weap-
ons (donga, pl. dongen).
the age set, thereby attaching a particular territorial and social tag to that
place (Turton 1994; Woodhead 1991). Place, mobility and materiality are
integral to Mursi identity, but like the Mursi themselves are constantly on
the move.
Terms of Engagement
Taken together the purposive collective actions of Mursi identity
mentioned in the previous section are reminiscent of Kopytof's (1987)
frontier perspective in which (specifcally African) societies are pulled
together and constructed out of the fragments of existing cultural units.
This 'African frontier' is a politically open space situated between distinctive
organized societies and may be colonized in response to multiple factors
including war, drought and famine. Internal to larger regions, the frontier
is a zone into which elements of the broader region are drawn together
into a new cultural form, thereby fusing distinctiveness with apparent
similarity of cultural practices. However, in Mursi lifewaysas well as that
of other lower Omo groupsthe frontier is not a particular point of arrival
from which engagement with other organised cultural or ethnic units
ensues, blends and produces new forms, but is by contrast the normative
condition through which it is possible for practice and identifcation to
unfold; the manifestation and maintenance of an identity that may be
considered to be Mursi is contingent upon a frontier that is constantly
mobile and an "ideal place of arrival" forever upon the horizon (Turton
2005: 267, original emphasis).
The relational character of Mursi identity along with the juxtaposition
of the importance to which Mursi associate a sense of place with the
mobility of the frontier presents an interesting challenge for questions
concerning engagement. The dynamic hybridity that Mursi interaction
induces, in partnership with the long-term maintenance of normative
values of what it is to be Mursi, is a fertile area for research, particularly
of temporality in the encounter with a past landscape through
archaeological excavation and survey in places that are very much explicit
in contemporary Mursi afairs.
Hybridity
It is important here to clarify the sources from which our understanding
of hybridity has received infuence, as there appear to be multifarious
defnitions that are at times conficting or, arguably, even detrimental to
the aims for which they have been formulated (Fahlander 2007: 19). As
an entry we have drawn from the works of Bhabha (1994), Clack (2011, in
press) and Latour (1993) and note that hybridity concerns multiple scales of
collective assemblies, whether this is a social group or a nation state, that
are composed of diverse and partial elements, and conceptually defned
in a practical and continuous process of entanglement. Importantly,
we understand this as an engagement that is materially constituted in
practical confgurations of bodies, human and non-human, terms of
which are always defned or negotiated in locally situated practices.
Dean and Leibsohn (2003: 5) query the use of the term hybridity
"as a way of acknowledging the mixed descendancy of certain objects
and practices" and articulate uncertainty as to the degree of awareness
of the accountability to particular political orientations registered within
its application. The context to which they refer is broadly European
expansionism and hybridity as "the marking of particular kinds of
diference" (Dean and Leibsohn 2003: 6). However, we would distinguish
from this our own perspective towards hybridity in the context of the
lower Omo Valley as a concern with the relationship of the past to the
present through a political lens that is not embedded within issues of
diference per se, but is instead concerned with the co-habitation and
co-evolution of diverse participants often through unequal relationships
within changing terms of engagement (see also Brittain and Overton 2013).
Co-habitation examines the means by which conceptual boundaries are
formed and subsequently bounded or breached and the means by which
novel categories emerge or are submerged under localized and unequal
conditions of knowledge and power. This does not aim towards a measure
of the distance between diferent positions, but rather the changing
degree of signifcance attached to qualities of otherness. Essentially, this
embraces recognition that potentially "non-harmonious agencies and
ways of livingare accountable both to their disparate inherited histories
and to their barely possible but absolutely necessary joint futures"
(Haraway 2003: 7). Reference to cultural forms as hybrid is problematic,
for it suggests the counter possibility that there exist authentic, non-
hybrid forms, representable through discursive expression, and thereby
accentuating distance in diferentiation. Hybrid is therefore not a term
that we employ. However, in the context of the contact zone hybridization
is a useful means of articulating the generative and dynamic potency of
terms of engagement as a process, on-going and transitory, entangled
and unequal.
Contact Zones
We consider these terms of engagement through the example of a cluster
of megalithic platforms frst identifed during archaeological survey in
2009 and subject to three seasons of investigation. The changing efect
that this research has had on the local Mursi community is situated against
interpretation of their past and present signifcance to documented oral
testimony of both Mursi and Bodi identities tagged across the landscape.
Importantly, the platforms are approached as contact zones which in this
context provides analytical media for the analysis of multiple expressions
of hybridization. In archaeology contact zones have been observed
since at least the frst quarter of the twentieth century, infuenced in
particular by perspectives emerging from geography concerning regions
of considerable cultural interaction at the periphery of either state or
topographic and ecological boundaries (Fleure 1917). In evolutionary
biology contact zone dynamics provide important information about
evolutionary processes, particularly hybridization of interacting lineages
(Harrison 1990; Kuchta 2007). Along with refections upon the social role
of museums as contact zones for diverse stakeholder worldviews (Cliford
1997: 188219), archaeology has only recently returned to the contact
zone (Morrissey 2004; Peers 1999). This has taken place most notably
through the infuence of Pratt's (1991, 2008) reworking of the contact
zone as a useful replacement for the frontier from within contexts of
imperial encounter. Here the contact zone represents any space "in which
peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with
each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions
of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable confict" (Pratt 2008: 8).
Furthermore, this "invokes the space and time where subjects previously
separated by geography and history are co-present, the point at which
their trajectories now intersect" (Pratt 2008: 8).
The principles of the contact zone have been espoused throughout
the research programme in the lower Omo Valley with an approach
advocating participation from Mursi and other 'stakeholders' (Brittain
and Clack 2012a). There are postcolonial roots in both notions of the
contact zone and of hybridity itself, although the principal motivation
in the context of the lower Omo Valley is essentially for a creative and
mutually informed outcome, and participatory archaeology, while not a
methodology in its own right, should be accountable to particular local
circumstances.
Benna Kulugto
Dirikoro is an area of the Mursi landscape renowned for its black soil,
imbued with properties of strength and cosmological reference. Similarly,
the white clay associated with Ulum Holi is aligned with properties
of healing and spiritual purity. Both are situated at the north tip of the
Arichukgirong, an elevated spur on the east side of the Dara range, a
spine of mountainous volcanic rock bisecting the otherwise fat grassy
plains of Mursiland. Dirikoro and Ulum Holi are set within the valley of
the Elma River, one of a number of intersecting perennial water sources
that fow from the range into the Omo River, and is an area seasonally
occupied for sorghum cultivation.
4
Intensive survey has identifed lithic
assemblages of the Middle to Late Stone Age, along with stone-built
architecture including circular platforms, stelae, cairns and enclosures.
The platforms have been the focus of further test excavation and are
unique to eastern Africa (Brittain and Clack 2012b; Clack and Brittain 2011).
4 Increasing state pressure on pastoralist mobility is transforming the seasonal cycle of the Mursi population as a
whole and Dirikoro inhabitants are currently uncertain as to the sustainability of long-term occupation in that area.
Named by local Mursi as benna
kulugto ('stone circle'), these
are clustered around the north
landfall of the Arichukgirong
either in pairs or as a larger
cluster, and currently total to
twenty-fve examples (fg. 4).
Benna kulugto range in size from
only 2m to a considerable 26m
in diameter and are comprised
of multiple concentric rings
of moderately sized rounded
and cylindrical stones that
are interrupted by a gully also
flled with a line of stones that
is consistently oriented to the
northwest from the centre of
the platforms irrespective of
their position in the landscape
(fg. 5). The stones themselves
are likely to have originated
from a number of sources,
but do not seem to have been obtained locally. Excavation has shown
that the centre of the platforms was a focus for deposition between
the stones, namely of lithic debitage and highly fragmented bone with
occasional articulated elements of cow feet. Burning is evident on some
of the bone. A single radiocarbon date has provided a baseline date of
the mid-eighteenth century AD which is broadly aligned with the oral
histories for population movement and climatic fuctuations, the latter
of which has also been illustrated in palaeoenvironmental analysis in the
region and shows change towards greater exposure in an increasingly
drier climate (Gil-Romera et al. 2012).
An important aspect to the project has been the on-going
documentation of the changing character of benna kulugto within Mursi
Fig. 4. Interpretive plan of the benna kulugto located around the
northerly tip of an elevated spur of the Arichukgirong.
oral traditions. In other words the means by which Mursi conceptualize
and make sense of these platforms in light of archaeological investigations
in which they are foregrounded is noted to be an issue of dialogue as
well as revealing elements of these landscape features that may not ft
comfortably within normative worldviews. During the frst season of
feldwork 16 of the platforms were identifed and exposed at Dirikoro,
thereby revealing their unusual architecture and variable size, at this
stage ranging between 2m and 12m in diameter. Lithic and bone deposits
were recovered, although primarily from platform Feature 3, which
was subjected to the most structured investigation. At this stage we
harboured the possibility that these could be elaborate burial markers;
however, Mursi interpretation was somewhat diferent, aligning these
unfamiliar forms within an established narrative. This recounted the
expulsion of a pre-existing Bodi population by Mursi settlers searching
'for a cool place' and explained the platforms as house foors designed
to elevate occupants from wet ground, with a gully providing additional
Fig. 5. Photograph of benna kulugto platform feature 3.
drainage should the waters seep through the dwelling roof cover. This
narrative simultaneously confrmed the presence of a structured pre-
Mursi settled community, an architectural tradition emerging from
a cooler and damper environment and the ultimate demise of that
community and their replacement by Mursi inhabitants, along with their
ultimate endurance. Lithic and bone debris was strategically overlooked.
In the second feld season another nine platforms were identifed,
cleaned and recorded (including two at Ulum Holi) and platform Feature
5 was subjected to detailed excavation sampling. Increasingly the burial
hypothesis was looking unlikely, with no sign of sub-platform features
and the stones clearly placed upon an older sealed and unmodifed land
surface. In the ten months separating the frst and second feldwork
programmes the Mursi interpretation of the platforms as houses had
solidifed into the oral historical narrative of Dirikoro. However, the fnding
of a platform substantially larger than any other at 26m diameter placed
considerable doubt on the now received view of these as house foors. It
was inconceivable to the Mursi that any dwelling could have been built
to this size, particularly with the local scrub wood resources. Instead an
alternative proposal was formed in which the benna kulugto were open-
air artifcially raised surfaces or 'sleeping platforms' protecting users from
the damp ground conditions.
These narrative manoeuvres illustrate changing terms of
engagement that enable local Mursi to comprehend the benna kulugto.
However, the terms of engagement are not simply grounds for an
interpretative exercise; instead this represents movement through a
temporal frontier in eforts to maintain attachment to the signifcance
of a particular place. For example, the specifc location of the benna
kulugto in Dirikoro is of particular importance to Mursi oral histories, with
a sacred ragai tree growing within the cluster of platforms. The shade
of ragai trees are used for public meetings and debate, initiations and
various ceremonial sacrifces of cattle, and are found across Mursiland,
but this particular ragai tree is considered to be the frst and is held with
notable esteem (see Clack and Brittain 2011). While at Ulum Holi two benna
kulugto were uncovered from within the vicinity of a Mursi burial ground
and adjacent to two Mursi stone enclosures utilised in elaborate cattle
healing ceremonies.
5
These practices and architectures, combined with
a distinctive and potent geology, are integral to Mursi place-making at
Dirikoro and Ulum Holi, but also clearly belong to a much deeper history.
It is therefore of notable signifcance that soil chemical analysis carried
out during intensive excavation of one of the platforms (platform Feature
5) has shown high phosphate signatures at both its centre and along its
gully that, with areas of burning around the outside of the platform in
addition to the treatment and deposition of bone, points strongly towards
practices of cattle sacrifce (Brittain and Clack 2012b), perhaps during an
episode of increased social pressure.
As mentioned earlier, it is perhaps of little surprise that Bodi oral
histories of Mursi migration difer to that of the Mursi. However, there is
a parallel signifcance that the Dirikoro region holds within each of these
accounts. Bodi state that the Ajit, one of the three authentic clans that
make up the proto-Mela from which the Bodi originated, resided within
these lands and today represent one of fve clans from which the ofce
of komorut ('priest') may be appointed (Fukui 1994: 3944). Importantly,
individual komorut are linked with their own stone platforms (kroch) used
within Bodi settlements for sacrifcial ceremonies. These difer markedly
with the benna kulugto with regards to form, but appear to resemble
these earlier structures in other ways. Responding to photographs of the
excavated benna kulugto, Bodi elders pronounced that contemporary
problems within Bodi society in part arise from improper ceremonial
procedure that is otherwise illustrated in the benna kulugto design and it
may be interesting to follow the emerging form of future kroch platforms.
In any case, the correspondence binding komorut, kroch and Dirikoro/
Ulum Holi provides additional layering to the generative potency of the
benna kulugto as a contact zone.
5 One of these ceremonies, named biolama, was witnessed by the authors in 2010.
Discussion
The entangled web of clan afliation, alliance and complex codes of
interaction in the lower Omo Valley establishes relatively open-ended
systems of identifcation through which dynamic blending of cultural
forms unfolds. Nonetheless, there are contact zones across which
particular repertoires of meaning are assembled into intelligible patterns,
notably of material arrangements such as dongen or the benna kulugto,
that are contingent upon historical circumstances but nonetheless lend
consistency to broader group identifcation. However, the task presented
to researchers working with these patterns is not a teasing out of hybrid
forms identifed as amalgamations of disparate cultural or contextual
traits. Instead we argue that in the lower Omo Valley hybridization is
the condition upon which diverse assemblies are brought together.
Hybridization presents a tension and constraint upon which considerable
labour and adjustment is expended and within these terms of engagement
it is remarkable that any consistent pattern of group identifcation is
maintained at all. The point here is that assemblies of bodies and materials
contain a powerful generative potency, the outcome of which may be
uncertain and requiring of considerable hermeneutic labour (Brittain in
press).
Benna kulugto serve as assembly points or contact zones, bringing
together materials and bodies, but also breaching a temporal frontier.
As contact zones these are neither fxed nor static; they are mobile as
photographic images or within oral narratives and vibrate and resonate
far beyond their physical station (e.g. Deleuze 1993: 8694). As a part of
the mobility of pastoral livelihoods the signifcance of benna kulugto
is shaped along with other people, places and things by the character
of their distinct journey; similarly, migratory passages are shaped by
their materiality and emplacement (Basu and Coleman 2008: 317). In the
lower Omo Valley these include the cyclicity of seasonal transhumance,
colonisation of an ideal frontier, trade pathways, inter-ethnic relations of
patronage, cattle raids and confict situations. These form the conditions
for assembly, for hybridization. And clearly as an archaeological object
for study the benna kulugto have facilitated dialogue and participation
within an interpretative process that will continue indefnitely.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Ethiopia's Authority for Research and
Conservation of Cultural Heritage and local communities for their
continued support. For assistance in the feld and with comprehension,
appreciation is also owed to Aleumeyehu Agonifr, Yalew Ayele, Lucie
Bufavand, Patrick Clack, Demerew Danye, Kate Fayers-Kerr, Jess Smith-
Lamkin, Olirege Rege and David Turton. Figures 1 and 3 are reproduced
with the permission of Mursi Online (http://mursi.org) and Tamas Regi
respectively. Project grants were received from the Christensen Fund,
San Francisco; the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,
Cambridge; the Fell Fund, Oxford; and the British Institute in Eastern
Africa, Nairobi.
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Diana D. Loren
Peabody Museum, Harvard University
dloren@fas.harvard.edu
Considering Mimicry and Hybridity in Early
Colonial New England: Health, Sin and the
Body "Behung with Beades"
Introduction
H
ybridity, as defined by Bhabha (2004), is a term and a concept that
pervades the theoretical landscape of archaeology, despite critiques
about the relevance and applicability of the term to ancient and colonial
communities (van Dommelen 2005, 2006; Fahlander 2007; Stahl 2010;
Tronchetti and van Dommelen 2005). Hybridity acknowledges social and
material exchange and transformations between different social groups
while simultaneously attending to issues of voice, power, identity and
ambivalence. When applied generally and broadly, hybridity provides
no further illumination of cultural change than previous theoretical
viewpoints such as assimilation. The more productive theories of
hybridity are those that problematize the term and seek to investigate
the nuances and details in the entanglement of people and objects in
152 Considering Mimicry and Hybridity in Early Colonial New England
specific historical contexts. It provides theoretical latitude to describe the
nuances of colonialism in space and time, moving past binary oppositions
of colonized and colonizer towards more subtle understandings of the
small differences of lived experiences of colonialism, changing social
identities and material transformations and innovations. Here, I suggest
that when hybrid processes are viewed through the lens of mimicry
and mockery, archaeologists gain better insights into the complexity of
colonial entanglements (see van Dommelen 2006; Fahlander 2007).
My interest in hybridity and mimicry intersects with my interest in
understanding changing understandings of bodily self and material
embodiments in New World colonial contexts (Loren 2001, 2007, 2009,
2010). The European colonization of the New World is known to have
brought a renewed sense of bodily awareness and, by extension,
health and well-being to Europeans and Native Americans. For English
Puritans in southern New England, dress and adornment materialized
one's relationship with God and bodily health and any deviation from
sartorial expectations compromised the Puritan soul. For example, in the
1622 Mourt's Relation, Edward Winslow described a missing Puritan boy
who was returned to them by the Wampanoag "behung with beades"
(Bradford 1963 [1622]: 71). Winslow and other English Puritans viewed such
attire as threatening to soul and health because it simultaneously signifed
belonging and not belonging: being neither Puritan nor Native American,
but ambiguous. Once colonized, Native Americans were to mimic
English in clothing, mannerisms and dress, but when misunderstood or
misinterpreted through material culture as a hybrid form, mimicry was
potentially dangerous to colonial hierarchies. Native New Englanders
both Christian and non-Christianunderstood clothing and adornment
diferently as honouring and healing both body and spirit.
To highlight these interstices of colonial understandings and
misunderstandings, I draw on Bhabha's (1994) conceptualizations of
hybridity and mimicry to interpret the material and textual record of
Puritanism and conversion in colonial New England (see also Crossland
2010; Ingold 2007; Loren 2010; Stahl 2010; White and Beaudry 2009). My
153 Diana D. Loren
focus is on seventeenth-century glass, shell and copper beads and how
they were integrated into bodily experience in colonial New England. In
this paper I explore how native New Englanders incorporated European-
manufactured glass beads into their lives and material understandings
of the colonial world and how the incorporation of beads, in sartorial
and bodily practice, were viewed and understood by English
Puritans who settled in New England. These material embodiments
resulted in a language of dress that was transformative, creative and
expressive of changing social identities as Puritan and Native American
conceptualizations of a properly-dressed, healthy body intersected.
Hybridity and Mimicry in the New World and the Expectation of
Dress
For Puritans in seventeenth-century New England, the moral soul
and physical body were inseparable (Godbeer 1992; St. George 1998).
Godliness, as manifested by the body, was the sign of election and the
body, with its material demands and metaphorical signifcance, became
the axis upon which all colonial activity and religious meaning turned
(Finch 2010: 29). Divine grace entered a person's soul through the physical
senses and inner grace motivated one's actions in the world. The body
was the site of confict between godliness and worldly desires. Outward
plainness indicated inward godliness. Sombre dress avoided the "wily
beguiles" of high fashion, which bespoke of a proud heart (Finch 2001:
108). Moreover, the boundaries between body and soul were permeable
and thus susceptible to the devil and temptation (Finch 2001, 2010).
Physical illness was linked to a soul's corruptions (Godbeer 1992). When
exposed to sin, both body and soul would sufer ill health. Spiritual state
meant nothing unless it was visibly manifested in dress, speech, sexual
activities and comportment (Finch 2010: 1). These fundamental beliefs
generated expectations and anxieties of what it meant to act and dress
as a true Puritan.
The goals of Puritan conversion in New England implied that Native
Americans and English alike associated the wearing of European clothes
with Christianity; one moved closer to being a Christian by dressing
as one (Calloway 1997: 7477). Daniel Gookin, Superintendent of the
Massachusetts Praying Towns (Puritan-established communities for
converted Native Americans) in the seventeenth century, articulated the
common view of Native American bodies as 'mirrors' refecting colonists'
views of themselves if they abandoned 'civilized' and 'moral' practice
(Finch 2001, 2010). Puritan visions of a properly converted Native American
included the adoption of English cultural, material and spiritual practices
and the abandonment of long-standing Native American practices, such
as wearing beads on exposed skin.
But embodying Puritan identity through English dress was not to
be a complete transformation; rather a Native American copy of Puritan
identity was always to be distinguished as diferent. As Bhabha (1994)
argues, there had to remain a diference between the colonizer and
the colonized's mimicked performance of him. The colonizer's desire,
therefore, was "for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of diference
that is almost the same, but not quite" (Bhabha 1994: 122, italics in original).
Perfect copies, even in Puritan-established Praying Towns, would simply
be too threatening to imperial hierarchy.
Bhabha's articulation of colonial mimicry and hybridity is relevant
to this discussion. Hybridity, as defned by Bhabha (1994), should not
be misunderstood as a simple fusion of new and old elements into a
crossbreed of ideology or practice, but rather as a continuous process
that acknowledges inequalities of power and subverts the narratives of
colonial power and dominant cultures (cf. Young 1995; Troncetti and van
Dommelen 2005: 193). Archaeologists have found theoretical grounding
in Bhabha's conceptualization of hybridity, providing a way to think
creatively about cultural interactions, counteract simplifed views of
colonization and embrace material and social constructs that do not
ft neatly into historical categories and archaeological typologies. Yet
Bhabha's conceptualization of hybridity and its application in archaeology
are not without critique. Several authors have noted that Bhabha
overlooks physical space and the intersection of space, things and bodies
155 Diana D. Loren
that are necessarily part of colonial discourses (van Dommelen 2006: 112;
Fahlander 2007). When hybridity is a general and amorphous concept,
rather than referring to specifc objects and bodies in space, it lapses into
the same essentialist framework it works to refute.
However, Bhabha's discussion of mimicry and by extension mockery,
may provide a more fruitful avenue for interpreting colonial materialities
(Fahlander 2007). At its broadest defnition, mimicry is the desire for the
colonized to adopteither forcefully or intentionallythe colonizer's
material and cultural habits and values. Bhabha (1994) describes mimicry
as discourse that (almost the same but not quite) is generated out of
ambivalence but is potentially subversive. When colonial discourse
encourages the colonial subject to 'mimic' the colonizer, the result
is never a simple reproduction of those traits. Rather, the result is a
blurred and therefore threatening copy of the colonizer. Mimicry is at
once resemblance and menace. The desire for the colonized to imitate
the colonizer also erodes and mocks colonial authority as it continually
suggests diferences in social and material colonial identities (Bhabha
1994: 123). It amplifes the ruptures and limitations of colonial authority and
oversightwhat can and is manipulatedas well as colonial anxieties
regarding boundaries of inclusion and exclusion.

My discussion of mimicry here aims to better understand the
materiality of colonial entanglements: how new goods were used and
embodied by colonial peoples and how social identities transformed
through these embodiments and materialities (see Crossland 2010;
Crossley 2001; Gosden 2005; Ingold 2007; Thomas 1991). As noted by Stahl
(2010: 157), it is not enough to say that colonial peoples merely assimilated
the unfamiliar to the familiar, but rather that new goods remake the
contexts of human actors and impact lived experience. Lived experience
is constituted with and through material culture and the residues of
those embodiments and lived experiences are found in texts, objects and
space (Crossland 2010; Fisher and Loren 2003; Gosden and Knowles 2001;
Joyce 2005; Miller 2005; Stahl 2010; White and Beaudry 2009). Material
engagements during periods of colonization carry the stamp of imperial
desires and imaginations of how colonized and colonizers were to live in
relation to the politics of inclusion and exclusion: sumptuary laws, imperial
rules and expectations. The lived experiences of colonial subjectshow
they lived or were forced to live in their material worlds and how material
worlds shaped peopleredrew the contours of colonialism (Gosden
2005). Thus, the diference lies in performance: the embodiment of
identity through the small things that comprise the material culture of
daily life.
Following this logic, a simple item such as a colonial glass bead can
be interpreted in a variety of ways. In the case of colonial New England,
glass beads were not for trade with the converted, as new Christians had
given up these fashions to conform to their faith by embracing sombre
dress. Nor were beads to be worn by the unconverted, against exposed
fesh. Rather, glass beads were meant to facilitate social interactions
that would, as Puritans hoped, lead Native Americans to salvation. What
was unexpected in these interactions was that the trade of material
goods would lead to a dangerous blurring of social distinctions where
objects were not used as they were intendedas baubles to promote
conversionbut rather used by Native Americans to embody new
identities (Kupperman 1997; Loren 2010; Thomas 1991). In southern New
England, the Wampanoag and other Native Americans wore glass beads
with copper and shell beads, as well as wampum (purple and white shell
beads used for ceremonies, money and adornment), to embody allegiance,
wealth, gender and status: to honour the living and the dead (Karklins
1992; Turgeon 2001, 2004). Glass beads were also worn to promote health
and cure sicknesses, an aspect of beads that was particularly important
in the seventeenth century as diseases were decimating Native American
communities (Turgeon 2004).
Mourt's Relation
Written by Puritan leader William Bradford between 1620 and 1621,
Mourt's Relation is a frsthand account of the landing of the Mayfower
and the settlement of Plymouth Colony and, in particular, Bradford's
157 Diana D. Loren
interactions with Massasoit, a Pokanoket chief in the Wampanoag Nation
(Bradford 1963 [1622]). Published in London in 1622 as a promotional tract,
the goal of the account was to paint the new Puritan settlement in the
most favourable light. The account reads as an ethnographic document,
providing rich detail on Wampanoag life and material culture. Despite
its optimistic goals, the overall tone of Mourt's Relation is cautious about
the physical and spiritual challenges of settling in New England. In
particular, the account reveals Puritan anxieties about interactions with
Wampanoag and other groups, the tenuous nature of amicable relations,
the need for treaties to cement alliances and the sinful allure of exposed
Native American bodies. One section of this short narrative recounts an
expedition seeking a lost boyten-year-old John Billingtonwho had
strayed from the settlement. The young boy was found among the Nauset,
a group neighbouring the Wampanoag, who although "ill disposed to the
English" returned John Billington to them. The account reads, "[t]here he
delivered us the boy, behung with beads, and made peace with us, we
bestowing a knife on him, and likewise on another that frst entertained
the boy and brought him thither" (Bradford 1963 [1622]: 71).
Beads were part of the material language of Puritans in their
interactions with Native Americans. In these communications, however,
beads were understood as an item of trade with and adornment for Native
American bodies, not the bodies of Puritans. Bradford (1963 [1622]: 29)
states as much in his discussion of an interaction with the Wampanoag:
"[s]o it is growing towards night, and the tide almost spent, we hasted
with our things down to the shallop, and got aboard that night, intending
to have brought some beads and other things to have left in the houses,
in sign of peace and that we meant to truck with them". That is, beads are
for a Native American 'them', not the Puritan 'us'.
This understanding of beads being used by Native American
adornment in life and death is also amplifed in the discussion of the
Puritan's discovery of a burial at Cape Cod (the famously referenced frst
'archaeological' excavation of a Native American burial in the New World):
[W]e came into the plain ground we found a place
like a graveThe skull had fine yellow hair still on itIt
was bound up in a sailor's canvas cassock, and a pair of
cloth breechesAbout the legs and other parts of it was
bound strings and bracelets of fine white beads; there
was also by it a little bow, about three quarters long, and
some other odd knacks (Bradford 1963 [1622]: 2728).
Bradford questioned the ethnicity of the individual, pondering
the occurrence of an individual with blond hair being buried with cloth
breeches as well as beads and other European-manufactured items. He
then suggested that the interred individual was either Native American or
"a Christian of some special note, which had died among them, and thus
they buried him to honor him" (Bradford 1963 [1622]: 28). Meaning, to be
dressed in this fashion, the individual was either Native American (possibly
a convert) or a European prepared for burial by a Native American. Native
Americans could adopt English dress through conversion to Puritanism,
but not in the piecemeal fashion described in Mourt's Relation.
The fear that this individual was a Puritan who chose to dress like
a Native American is not vocalized in this account. However, in other
accounts, Puritan leaders and missionaries fretted over the physical and
spiritual state of the colony: souls that would be lost when colonists
would 'turn native', as well as the interethnic relations that disrupted
ordered colonial hierarchies and threatened imperial loyalties (Lindman
and Tartar 2001; Loren 2007; Stoler 2009). In fact, some were horrifed to
realize that fashionable men and women from the Old World were, in the
New World, actually consuming indigenous cultures in their search for
the new and the exotic (see examples in Wood 1634; see also Kupperman
1997: 197). Bodily presentation indicated one's relationship with God and
by extension a healthy and devout body. Anything else would simply be
a mockery of Puritanism and its God.
159 Diana D. Loren
Beyond Trade: Beads in Life and Death
The majority of archaeologically recovered colonial beads have been
excavated from burial contexts. In my use of burial data I seek to consider
object biographies and how they intersect with human lives, recognizing
that the beads I discuss here were placed alongside loved ones by family
and community members in death. Glass beads from archaeological
contexts have been examined, defned, categorized and interpreted as
indicators of status, ethnicity, age, gender, ideology and identity (Ceci 1989;
Karklins 1992; Kidd and Kidd 1980; Malischke 2009; Nassaney 2008; Turgeon
2001, 2004). Despite decades of research, the defnition of glass beads as
a trade gooda material good that facilitated economic relationships
is a colonial category constructed by the English that still persists today.
Of course glass beads were traded, but it was their lives beyond that
moment of exchange that provides deeper insights into lived experience,
how they became part of the lives and dress of Native Americans and
their meaning and resonance for Native Americans and the English. The
embodiment of beads by colonial Native Americans represents an active
relationship between body and object in performances of mimicry and
mockery.
The village of Sowams (Burr's Hill site)
The Burr's Hill site, located in present-day Warren, Rhode Island, is believed
to be Sowams, a seventeenth century Wampanoag village under the rule of
Massasoit (fg. 1; Gibson 1980). Excavated in the early twentieth century, the
only comprehensive publication of the excavation was published several
decades later by the Haferefer Museum at Brown University (Gibson
1980). Forty-two Wampanoag individuals and numerous funerary objects
of Native American and European manufacture were excavated from the
site, including artefacts such as wool textile fragments, glass wine bottles,
European ceramics such as tin-glazed earthenware, bone combs and, of
course, beads. Most of the individuals were buried in fexed positions
covered by textiles or wood and recovered from multiple interments,
suggesting non-Christian burial practices were followed at the village
(Gibson 1980: 1315). The diversity of Native- and European-manufactured
objects found in excavations
is not unique to early colonial
New England sites. As Hodge
(2005: 66) notes, Native American
cemeteries in southeastern New
England are characterized by
unequal distributions of objects
of Native American and European
manufacture that suggest at
least a partial retention of other
traditional burial practices while
also indicating some shifts towards
hybrid material practice (see also
Nassaney 2004).
The kinds and combinations of beads recovered from the Wampanoag
burials at Sowans deserve further consideration with regard to notions of
hybridity and mimicry. Numerous beads were recovered from Burr's Hill:
Native American-manufactured shell and copper beads and wampum
(distinguished from shell beads in shape and colour), as well as numerous
colours and sizes of European-manufactured glass beads. At Burr's Hill, 16
burials (less than 50 per cent) contained beads (table 1). In nine of those
interments, individuals were buried with a combination of glass, shell
and copper beads. Six burials contained only shell beads, while only one
burial contained solely glass beads. Wampum, either in the form of single
beads or fragments of belts, was recovered only from burials that also
contained shell beads. Burials containing solely shell beads contained
few other objects of clothing and adornment. However, the burials with
glass beads contained a greater variety of Native-manufactured and
European-manufactured artefacts of clothing and adornment including
brass rings, wool cloth fragments (either from blankets or clothing) and
glass buttons.
Glass beads were intended by the Europeans to initiate an interaction
that would lead to conversion. Yet Native Americans embodied these
Fig. 1. Location of Sowams (Burr's Hill site) in present day Rhode
Island.
161 Diana D. Loren
Fig. 1. Location of Sowams (Burr's Hill site) in present day Rhode
Island.
Burial Shell Glass Copper Wampum Other
7 white beads blanket fragment
8
white beads
(discoidal and
tubular)
blue and yellow
round and tubular
3 rings, 2 bells
10
blue/white bead belt,
hundreds of blue
and white beads,
tubular oval round
3 glass buttons, 2
bells, 3 metal breast
ornaments, medallion
11
beads (discoidal
and tubular)
thousands of blue
white and mul-
ticolor beads
14
beads (discoidal
and tubular)
beads
16 white beads blue and white beads beads
belt
fragment
18 beads
blue, white, and
green beads
22
beads (discoidal
and tubular)
beads
25
blue and blue/white
spherical beads
beads
30 white beads wampum
32 beads
33 beads
35 white beads
wool blanket frag-
ment, hide clothing,
38 beads beads
beads
(about neck)
belt
fragment
numerous brass fnger
rings, sword, fne wool
cloth fragments
39
beads, beads in
pattern of belt,
beads matchlock gun
1870
excavation
shell
fnger rings, cloth
fragments
1913
excavation
beads black and white beads blanket fragments
Table 1. Beads from Burr's Hill, compiled from Gibson (1980).
same objects in ways not imagined by Puritans. When combined with
articles of European- and Native-manufactured clothing, glass beads
joined shell, copper and wampum as part of the Wampanoag colonial
wardrobe, rich with meaning rather than a haphazard collection of 'trade
goods'. Although poorly detailed in seventeenth-century historical and
pictorial sources, archaeological evidence suggests that Wampanoag
people living at Sowams under the guidance of Massasoit dressed and
cared for their community in specifc, meaningful ways indicative of
their lived experiences, in distinction to and perhaps in mockery of
expectations of English Puritans. Some wore only shell beads, embodying
their Wampanoag identity in the face of conversion eforts. Others wore a
more varied wardrobe that included glass, shell and copper beads along
with European clothing to embody community status and allegiance.
Beads placed with an individual in death honoured their lives and when
worn in life beads promoted health. Similar patterns of the incorporation
of glass beads with other articles of European- and Native American-
manufactured clothing and adornment have been recovered elsewhere
in New England. Even at Praying Towns where some individuals received
a Christian burial, others were interred as non-Christianized Native
American burials with wampum, beads and other material objects
(Calloway 1998: 76).
These practices of dress were confusing and threatening to Puritans.
For example, in Mary Rowlandson's 1682 autobiographical account of
her captivity during Metacom's Rebellion, she describes the dress of
Weetamoo, a female Wampanoag sachem, and Weetamoo's husband
Quanopen. As leaders within Wampanoag communities, both wore
English-style coats, linen shirts, white stockings and powdered wigs
along with numerous strands of wampum and body paint (Rowlandson
1828: 6364). For Rowlandson, Weetamoo's dress signifed sinful pride, a
trait that was intolerable to Puritan ideologies. Rowlandson's perspective
as the wife of a Puritan minister did not allow her to see beyond what
she considered to be a sloppy and haphazard wardrobe. From a Native
American perspective, however, the varied and diverse clothing and
adornment worn by Weetamoo and Quanopen embodied their status
163 Diana D. Loren
and power. Weetamoo, as a Wampanoag leader, and Quanopen, as a
warrior, were fghting to maintain and protect their communities and
traditions (Arnold 1997).
Conclusions
Manipulating dress not only confused Puritans whose idea of proper
clothing was infuenced by sumptuary laws and social protocol,
but brought about fear as the distinction between converted and
unconverted, ally or not, was more malleable than initially imagined.
It also brought about the anxiety that some English settlers might 'go
native', thus placing their body and soul in peril. To dress in such a way
was to mock and malign Puritan ideologies. Native uses of glass beads
were far from Puritan expectations, jeopardizing the wearer's health and
corrupting their soul, which is how young John Billington was viewed
when he was returned to the Plymouth colonists "behung with beades".
The knowledge that donning a certain kind of dress could afect
status and stance in distinct communities translated into a strategy of
social performance for many Native New Englanders. Wampanoag leader
Massasoit, well-versed in the language of English clothing, was aware of
how this dress was viewed and feared by English Puritans. The trade of
glass beads signalled alliance, the beginning of a relationship that, in the
minds of Puritans, would lead to Wampanoag conversion and Puritan
rule in southern New England. Yet, wearing glass beads on exposed skin
and in combination with other items of clothing and adornment in a
distinctively non-English fashion indicated a rejection and a mockery of
Puritan ideologies.
Massasoit never permitted the Pokanoket to convert or Sowams to
become a Praying Town (Kupperman 1997). This rejection followed an
interaction in 1622, when Puritan leader Edward Winslow presumably
cured Massasoit of what the Wampanoag considered a fatal disease
(Cohen 2009: 66). Sickness and bodily health were spiritually and
culturally meaningful for both English and Wampanoag. By curing
Massasoit, Winslow meant to demonstrate the superiority not only of
English medicine but also, because body and soul were so intimately tied,
of the superiority of the Puritan religion in maintaining bodily health. For
both communities, when one operated on the body, one operated on
the spirit.
Thus, the acceptance of glass beads as a gift of alliance and the
simultaneous rejection of religion and the embodiment of clothing,
which confused and at times mocked the English, resulted in an uneasy
relationship that would later culminate in armed conficts between Native
Americans and the English, such as Metacom's Rebellion, the 16751678
war led by Chief Metacom (son of Massasoit) of the Wampanoags (Lepore
1998). For the Wampanoag, the incorporation of glass beads into their
lives and their material understandings of the colonial world enabled
them to honour leaders, manoeuver interactions with the English and
maintain bodily and spiritual health.
Soon, the Wampanoag people from Sowams who were excavated
at the Burr's Hill site will be reburied along with the glass beads and
other items of clothing and adornment through which they embodied
understandings of health and spirit. In 1999 and 2000, several Federal
Register notices were published regarding the repatriation of human
remains and funerary objects from Sowans to Wampanoag tribes.
After several years of discussion, the Warren Town Council agreed in
August 2011 to support the tribe's plan to erect a monument and rebury
the individuals and funerary objects at the location from which they
were excavated in the early twentieth century (Martel 2011). Now, the
individuals and objects that had been dispersed in several New England
museums for approximately 100 years can return home, welcomed and
commemorated by their community.
165 Diana D. Loren
Acknowledgements
I extend heartfelt thanks to friends at the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head
and Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe for their support in writing this article.
I am also grateful for comments and support from Christina Hodge and
Patricia Capone, my colleagues at the Peabody Museum and collaborators
on archaeological investigations of the seventeenth century Harvard
Indian College. W. Paul van Pelt and several anonymous reviewers read
and commented on an earlier draft of this article, for which I am grateful.
Discussions with Matt Liebmann, Michael Nassaney and Stephen Silliman
have furthered my understandings of hybridity and creolization. I
appreciate their insight.
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Hendrik Van Gijseghem
Department of Anthropology, Universit de Montral
h.van.gijseghem@gmail.com
Our Children Might be Strangers: Frontier Migration
and the Meeting of Cultures across Generations
He turned and looked at the boy. Maybe he understood for the frst time
that to the boy he was himself an alien. A being from a planet that no
longer existed. The tales of which were suspect.
(McCarthy 2007: 228)
In truth, the children were more in this world than they the parents.
(Handlin 1979: 226)
Introduction: The Problem and the Promise
C
ertain changes in particular circumstances affect the transmission
of cultural practices from one generation to the next. These create
in hindsight the perception of seemingly sudden cultural transitions. In
this paper I wish to explore the intergenerational strain (or generation
170 Our Children Might be Strangers
gap) that often develops under the specific context of frontier migration
and its contribution to explanations of rapid social change in prehistory.
Various authors have addressed the disjunction that develops between
the migrant cohort and following generations in immigrant communities
(Alba 2005; Falicov 2005; Portes and Rumbaut 2001). The assumption
guiding this paper is simple: at its most basic level, the process of
migration incorporates important watershed moments, such as the initial
settlement of a new region, and these moments involve a limited number
of people. Let us call the adolescent and adult members of this group
the migrant generation. They carry with them practices, institutions and
behavioural norms that they learnt in another, pre-migration context. The
offspring of these people are not part of the migrant generation. They
form a distinct cohort, yet are inculturated by the migrant generation. Is it
possible that some of the elements according to which they are socialized
(gradually) lose relevance in the social environment that characterizes
the frontier? If so, what replaces these abandoned practices, behaviours
and institutions? Are new ones conjured out of thin air? Human practices
are on-going, day-to-day actions. Some practices are learnt early in life
and may remain unquestioned. Yet other practices are created or learnt
throughout an individual's lifetime in an attempt at 'getting better'
1
at
existing in a community of peers (Mathews and Izquierdo 2009). At all
times the latter lessons may conflict with the former and no context is
more conducive to this dissonance than that of frontier communities.
In this contribution I frst review social aspects of migration and
frontier colonization. I subsequently highlight relevant elements of
cultural transmission that are afected by the frontier process, building on
existing literature on second and third generation diasporas. I fnish by
providing an archaeological example from the Nasca region of southern
Peru, where the archaeological data are consistent with the processes
described here.
1 This, contextually, may mean a number of things, from meeting the perfect mate, raising a healthy family, gaining
infuence among peers, raising good crops, being a good hunter, being a good worshipper or simply somehow pursuing
a state that we today would call happiness. I refrain from assuming what conditions would lead to such an ideal, but I do
assume that they exist in all human communities.
171 Hendrik van Gijseghem
Archaeological Migrations and Frontiers
I use the term frontier in its original 'Turnerian' sense (Turner 1920), defned
amid some controversy to describe the western advance of Euro-American
settlers across the North American continent and the perceived impacts
of this 'frontier process' on American political institutions. While at its
inception this concept of the frontier was vague, the principles behind it
are not without utility for the archaeological study of migrations.
Frontiers are fantastic arenas for social change. The various defnitions
of a frontier highlight the relative absence of legitimate authority from
the perspective of the migrant and the dynamism and demographic
fuidity of frontiers (Kopytof 1987; Rodseth and Parker 2005). A frontier
is characterized by a relatively high proportion of land to people (Clark
and Herr 2003). Turner and others emphasized the selectivity of frontier
migration and settlement (Anthony 1990; Billington 1977; Burmeister 2000;
Hine 1980). Migrants, once established on the frontier, may contextually
choose to reproduce or shed many traditional institutions and practices
(i.e. the culture that they have learnt as infants) and reproduce, manipulate,
adapt and transform daily as adults:
The frontier as an institutional vacuum was a place where
the frontiersmen could literally construct a desirable
social order (Kopytoff 1987: 12).
Cradled by cycles of frontier territories' relative attractiveness
caused by climatic or subsistence changes, conquests or the rhythms of
group fssionsettlers turn space into place by occupying it and landscape
is produced by human involvement, naming of local geographies and
their incorporation in history and myths (Kopytof 1987).

I have elsewhere (Van Gijseghem 2006) described how a 'pioneer
efect' may reshufe the rules of authority acquisition and maintenance
by de facto granting a special kind of status to the initial migrants who get
to modify the social order of the newly settled lands (see also Kopytof
1987; R. Thompson 1994; S. Thompson 1973). This transformative nature
of frontiers echoes a classic distinction in the outcome of migration
elaborated decades ago between innovating and conservative
migrations (Petersen 1958, see also Burmeister 2000), hinging primarily
on the selectivity of migrations: to what extent is the migrant group
representative of the donor community in terms of status, authority, age,
class, gender or religious attitudes? A more restricted group, according
to Petersen (1958), is likely to produce a post-migration organization that
is innovative, while a more inclusive group is more likely to reproduce
commonly known practices and institutions (to literally import social
organizational principles). Notwithstanding the romantic notion that
frontiers flter in outcasts (Hine 1980: 255) and the disenfranchised,
although they may, a degree of selectivity is always involved in frontier
migration.
It has been suggested (Kopytof 1987) that pioneers, while they
held certain prerogatives to challenge traditional notions of status and
authority, also had an interest in attracting followers to develop their
demographic base for work, defense and reproduction:
Being the first settler in an area gave one a special kind of
seniorityit gave one the right to "show the place"to
those who came later (Kopytoff 1987: 22).
Still,
The dominant group's policy [has] to be subtle, fluid,
reversible, and ambiguousa judicious mixture of
appeasement and bullying, of assertion of relationships
and its denial, of powersharing and exclusion from power
(Kopytoff 1987: 53).
This results in a phenomenon that has already been abundantly
described: that a frontier, paradoxically to its transformative nature,
initially falls, culturally, into a "kind of immobility" (Hartz 1964: 3),
characterized by decreasing status diferences (Statski 1998; S. Thompson
1973). Most authors maintain that frontiers are by defnition conservative
(R. Thompson 1994: 226), that it is less of an additive process than an
extractive one, that frontier societies initially shed more superfuous
cultural baggage than they acquire new ones (S. Thompson 1973: 3). Hine
(1980: 252) attributes the frontier's permissiveness to the fact that its "more
fundamental temptation may have been toward philosophical anarchy".
Children of the Frontier: Frontier Development and Transmission
Biases
That the frontier may be conducive to culture change, albeit after a period
of conservatism, has been stated many times (Rodseth and Parker 2005; S.
Thompson 1973) and the implication is that passing generations develop
somewhat diferent attitudes toward tradition maintenance than the
immigrant generation. Handlin (1979), in his classic study of European
immigration in the United States, devotes an entire baroque chapter to
the topic of children and teenagers of immigrants and concludes that
they very often express resistance to traditional European practices,
beliefs and language (see Bernal and Knight 1993; Phinney 1990; Zhou
1997 for additional case studies).
Behavioural ecologists are among the few scholars to address
past socialization, enculturation or what they more precisely term the
various modes of cultural transmission. These research areas were largely
buoyed by the highly infuential work of Boyd and Richerson (1988),
who enunciated important principles that generated a large body of
subsequent research (e.g. Bentley and Shennan 2003; Henrich and Gil-
White 2001). According to them, behaviours, practices or 'cultural traits' are
transmitted vertically (from parent to ofspring), obliquely (from someone
else in the parent generation) or horizontally (between peers).
2
Moreover,
the mechanisms that regulate the transmission of these cultural traits are
subjected to diverse pressures and biases. These afect the authenticity
2 I have less interest in adhering very closely to the evolutionary analogies that inspired behavioural ecology than in
using the latter as infuences of my own (but if I did want to compare cultures to genotypes, what I am describing here
would be an analog of something like allopatric speciation if you added to it a measure of Lamarckian cultural creativity).
of the transmitted behaviour and determine which behaviours are more
likely to be transmitted and how.
One should distinguish in cultural transmission the stage in an
individual's life cycle in which behaviours and practices are likely to be
integrated: at infancy, childhood or adulthood (Clark and Worthington
1987; Cornwall 1988; Erickson 1992). For infants and children, among the
various biases that afect vertical transmission, perhaps the more useful
here is a concept introduced by Bisin and Verdier (2001a, 2001b), that of
'imperfect empathy', a form of socialization biased towards the parents'
own cultural traits. The result of this bias afects the ways in which cultural
traits are adopted, integrated and carried over into adulthood. This may
create dissonance in adults between the practices they learned and the
ones that would better beneft their adult social existence.
In horizontal transmission, primarily between young adults, the bias
most likely to afect frontier development is prestige-biased transmission
(Henrich 2001; Henrich and Gil-White 2001),
3
which takes place when
individuals adopt practices and behaviours that they perceive to be
associated with some measure of success. That these practices may
run counter to those proposed and encouraged by elders (who may
never have been subjected to these biases when they were acquiring
their own ideas of success) should be obvious to anyone who has ever
even seen a teenager. Still, it is the very fexibility of the frontier in
terms of development of new social behaviours and the modifcation
and manipulation of tradition for diverse ends that makes this process
particularly likely to have lasting consequences.
The generative nature of frontiers (the evocative 'philosophical
anarchy' alluded to in the previous section) allows behavioural
experimentation after the initial phase of conservatism (typically after one
or more generations on the frontier). Of these experiments, some may
gain popularity and some may die-out. Some still may live on as marginal.
3 This is among many other forms of biases that interact in socialization, including conformist biases, anti-conformist
biases (Henrich 2001) or even copying errors (Eerkens and Lipo 2005).
But if some gain popularity and provide infuence and reputation to the
agents that promote them, horizontal prestige-biased transmission may
become a runaway process (Boyd et al. 2011). Increasingly this becomes
conformist-biased transmission (Henrich and Boyd 1998), whether or not
the prestige associated with the behaviour is explicit, understood by all or
indeed, even if it fails to provide reputation and infuence to agents. Out
of this frontier heterodoxy, this behaviour may become unquestioned
except perhaps by a few elder holdouts and their adherents, for instance
an oldest child in a system primogeniture whose interest it is to reproduce
his/her parent's behaviours and practices for one more generationand
become a new orthodoxy.
According to Boyd and Richerson (1982: 328):
The distribution of behaviors that characterizes a human
population depends on the distribution of behaviors in
the same population during previous time periods.
Considering that migration is to some degree selective, the
distribution of behaviours on a frontier is necessarily restricted compared
to the overall donor population. As a result, both vertical and horizontal
transmission will be streamlined and options will initially be fewer
accounting for the frontier's "initial simplifcation" (Harris 1977) and
perceived backwardness (R. Thompson 1994: 230). It follows from this that
the relative weight of horizontal transmission of behaviours, especially
ones that are acquired as adults and subjected to prestige biases, is
increased in the behavioural repertoire of second and third generation
adults. This is because horizontal transmission is made between peer
non-migrant second and third generation individuals that increasingly
have culturally more in common with each other as adults, than they
do with the elder migrant generation. Some behaviours, such as ritual
performance, may be quickly transmitted horizontally among adults
because they beneft from a high degree of visibility and prestige
(Rossano 2012). In archaeological hindsight the spread of a new highly
visible behaviour would look like nothing short of revolutionary cultural
change.
The Genesis of Nasca Culture as a Frontier Phenomenon
The four southern most perennial rivers of the Nasca drainage system
(fg. 1) constitute the southern Nasca region (SNR). Comparatively, these
are hydrologically less productive and predictable than the rivers of
the northern area (ONERN 1971; Van Gijseghem 2007), less so than most
coastal rivers in fact. Although Archaic Period occupations have been
identifed (Isla 1990; Vaughn and Linares Grados 2006), the SNR was
sparsely populated or unpopulated until a large number of small villages
dating to the late Formative Period (table 1) become archaeologically
visible (Schreiber and Lancho Rojas 2003: 14; Van Gijseghem 2004, 2006).
These villages reveal material culture identical to that associated with the
Paracas culture defned further north in the Ica valley (Menzel et al. 1964)
Fig. 1. Map of the Nasca drainage system.
and in the northern Nasca region (Isla et al. 2003; Reindel 2009). The most
likely hypothesis that can account for this seemingly sudden appearance
of habitation settlements is that of migrating groups taking advantage of
an improving hydrological regime (Mchtle and Eitel 2013), settling from
the North into these formerly marginal and unproductive river valleys.
The villages they established share a number of characteristics. The
location choices show a marked preference for low, steep hills that could
be easily defended (the common presence of sling stones support the
idea of intervillage confict), the top of which is always cleared to create
a patio area around which the most elaborate houses are constructed
in a series of descending terraces (Van Gijseghem 2006; Van Gijseghem
and Vaughn 2008). Paracas ceramics were incised and painted with post-
fre resins and the main vehicle for iconography was textiles (Paul 1991b;
Peters 1997). Paracas status seems to have been conferred to elders, ritual
practitioners and warriors, who were often the same people (Paul 1991b;
Peters and Tomasto 2012; Van Gijseghem and Peters 2010).

After the settlement several changes occurred in relatively quick
succession, culminating with the genesis of a 'new culture' known locally
as Early Nasca. Vibrant paints were developed to convey new religious
messages on ceramics, the geoglyph tradition (the 'Nasca Lines') was
Period South Coast Culture Approx. Calender Dates
Late Horizon Inka AD 14761532
Late Intermediate Period Tiza AD 10001476
Middle Horizon
Wari / Loro AD 7501000
Late Nasca AD 550750
Early Intermediate Period
Middle Nasca AD 450550
Early Nasca AD 1450
Early Horizon /
Formative Period
Proto-Nasca 100 BCAD 1
Paracas 800100 BC
Initial Period 1800800 BC
Archaic 90001800 BC
Table 1. South Coast chronology.
established and a religious centre of a size unprecedented in south coast
prehistory, Cahuachi (fg. 2), was founded. It became the seat of pilgrimages
in which people from all over the region gathered (Kantner and Vaughn
2012; Silverman 1993; Vaughn 2004, 2009). Settlements gradually moved
away from defensive locations onto smoother, fatter terrains close to
valley bottoms. Signs of Early Nasca status outside of Cahuachi are faint,
but appear to have been a factor of an individual's social proximity to the
ceremonial events taking place at Cahuachi, participation in those events
and ownership of colourful ceramics that bore the new iconography and
promoted the Cahuachi cult (Kantner and Vaughn 2012; Silverman 1993;
Vaughn 2004, 2009). This marks a shift from war and age-based status
to one associated with the attendance of shamanistic cults. All of these
are important innovations that were developed together as part of the
genesis of Nasca society and they occurred following a millennium of
the cultural continuity that characterizes Paracas (Menzel et al. 1964; Paul
1991a).
Fig. 2. Reconstruction of the Great Pyramid at Cahuachi (photograph by Hendrik van Gijseghem).
Bridging Paracas and Early Nasca is a cultural and temporal space
commonly referred to as Initial Nasca, characterized by distinctive ceramic
forms, called Nasca phase 1 (fg. 3) or proto-Nasca, which show substantial
diferentiation from either Paracas or Early Nasca. They testify to a period
of experimentation with fring atmospheres, surface fnish and a limited
variety of coloured slips and paints. Initial Nasca settlement patterns
suggest a substantial rise in population in the Nasca region (Schreiber
and Lancho Rojas 2003: 14; Van Gijseghem 2004, 2007).
I have often privately conceptualized Cahuachi as a Prehispanic Las
Vegas: a large, fashy, spontaneous desert boomtown built to mesmerize
pilgrims. The frst identifed phase of monumental construction occurred
in Initial Nasca (Orefci 1988, 1996; Orefci and Drusini 2003) and its resident
population may never have been more numerous than a few priests
Fig. 3. Comparison of Paracas (A) and Nasca 1 (B, C) ceramics.
and retainers. The location of Cahuachi may have much to do with its
popularity, as segments of populations appropriated and interpreted
the natural landscape, rendering it sacred and active. It sits across the
river from the arid plain where many of Nasca's geoglyphs are found.
More importantly, the stretch of river that it faces is the point where
water emerges from beneath the ground after having fowed for several
kilometers in underground aquifers. For a desert population evidently
concerned with water and fertilitythe main themes of the Cahuachi
cult and Nasca iconography (Silverman 1993; Proulx 2006)this location
certainly had considerable symbolic value.
Vaughn and Van Gijseghem (2006) have shown that at least a portion
of Nasca 1 fneware bowls came from the area around Cahuachi and
hypothesized that their manufacture and distribution were part of the
pilgrimages there, which foreshadows the Early Nasca pattern (Kantner
and Vaughn 2012; Vaughn 2004, 2009; Vaughn et al. 2006). Some of the
bowls do not ft into the Cahuachi compositional signature, suggesting
that this was not the only production pattern and that Cahuachi may have
been competing for popularity with other small-scale ceremonial centers,
each with its own group of priests or shamans. Whatever reputation the
people at Cahuachi had, the centre's growing importance, a quantum
leap in south coastal monumentality, suggests that they excelled at
something. We may surmise that what that was had something to do with
water and agricultural fertility. Some people may have started coming
back to their settlements carrying exquisitely made orange and black
ware items that testifed to their spiritual proximity to practitioners at
Cahuachi and to their participation in ecstatic events. After some time,
Early Nasca polychromes were developed and by then, as settlement
data suggest (see Schreiber and Lancho Rojas 2003; Vaughn 2004), most if
not all of the Nasca region's population participated in these festivals and
consequently owned the valuable ideological media that polychromes
represented (Vaughn 2009). By the Early Nasca period, participation in the
Cahuachi cult was paralleled by decreasing confict and longer lifespans
(Tomasto 2009).
As suggested previously, a southern Nasca frontier settled by Paracas
pioneers would have opened up opportunities for the elaboration of new
social forms. Initially, confict was common enough for sites to be made
easily defensible. Ritual spaces, consistently found at each of the dozens
of known sites, suggest that ceremonial life was primarily a community
afair (Van Gijseghem and Vaughn 2008). Increasingly, competition
between communities could have taken the form of confict, but also
of ritual infuence. Distinctive plazas unassociated with settlements and
dating to the late Formative period (Van Gijseghem 2006) suggest that
ritualized intercommunity gatherings may have become more and more
common. They are considered to be small-scale prototypes of the Nasca
lines, also widely believed to have structured the gathering of distinct
social groups (Lambers 2006).
The competing cults (Vaughn and Van Gijseghem 2006) in the frontier
permissiveness would have created an environment where increasingly
specialized practitioners interceding with supernatural forces vied for
popularity, reputation and prestige. Those at Cahuachi evidently obtained
signifcant success since no other site of that magnitude ever existed in
the region. While children were raised according to the Paracas tradition,
prestige-based horizontal transmission would have exerted pressure on
adults to participate in gatherings and ceremonies. The main payof of
those activities was to confer prestige onto the participants, displayed by
ownership of distinctive ceramic vessels that one could hardly mistake
for anything but a novelty: these were clearly not Paracas vessels. The
process accelerated as one of those cults became more successful
than any erstwhile known on the south coast. More and more people
engaged in these collective events, tracing geoglyphs, contributing in
platform construction, paying homage to Cahuachi's ritual specialists and
embracing their beliefs. This is also the time during which portions of the
community migrated and founded new Initial Nasca settlements closer
to the valley bottoms, stopped building the ubiquitous hilltop plazas and
no longer used Paracas ceramics, foreshadowing things to come.
4

4 It was long supposed that the cultural traits associated with Initial Nasca, chronologically, lay neatly between Para-
cas and Early Nasca, that it was a 'transitional' phase. Increasingly, scholars are accepting that they existed alongside the
It is easy, if a bit garnished, to imagine an elder Paracas patriarch
egging his ofspring to resist alliances with the ofspring of his traditional
foe, to forgo the next pilgrimage to the abode of the fancy new oracle
and its bizarre utterings, all the while bombastically blustering that those
ceramic vessels will not enter this house. Fiedel and Anthony (2003: 159)
refer to this as the 'tyranny of the elders' in societies in which authority
and prestige are a factor of seniority.
It is clear that the rise of Cahuachi reorganized the defnition of
prestige and ritual participation in the communities involved (Van
Gijseghem and Vaughn 2008) and modifed the transmission of prestige-
acquiring behaviours toward horizontality. Ritual participation and the
quest for prestige (e.g. Hayden 2001; Hildebrandt and McGuire 2012) are
decisions made by adults and less afected by vertical transmission from
parent to ofspring than by the pressure of peers, who develop their
own distinctive notions of prestige. Adult rituals, because they are public
signals, promote horizontal transmission and have the incremental efect
of trumping vertically-transmitted behaviours acquired during early life
(see Rossano 2012). In Nasca, prestige was accrued though new means
more readily adopted by the members of younger cohorts born on the
frontier than by their seniors, whose own foreign cultural background
was still present, even if it was at odds with the new practices. New public
signals were developed for a new audience. The process accelerated,
the new ways becoming ever more popular and infuential and the old
ways, the old culture, falling into disfavour, except for an increasingly
small proportion of vintage die-hards gradually losing infuence. It is little
surprise that Kantner and Vaughn (2012) analyze Cahuachi in terms of
costly signalling, a perspective that is consistent with the one presented
here, since one of the conditions leading to the emergence of pilgrimage
would be diferent religious traditions competing for adherents.
late phases of the Paracas culture and existed still as the Early Nasca cultural package was elaborated: that it overlaps and
straddles both as opposed to being a smooth transition (Orefci 1996; Peters 1997; Van Gijseghem and Peters 2010; Van
Gijseghem and Vaughn 2008; Vaughn and Van Gijseghem 2007).
All this is made possible by the frontier's general acceptance of
alternative, sometimes conficting models of social organization, prestige
acquisition and worship. It allows modifcations of cultural models,
minute or drastic, to suit new, immediate needs by self-interested people,
suddenly freed from the paralyzing efects of orthodoxy and tradition.
The most successful of these alternatives will attract followers, adherents
who may quickly become worshippers if their own aspirations are fulflled,
further enhancing the model's infuence.
Conclusions: Co-existing Cultures
In the frst century AD people in the southern Nasca region lived in a
state of heterodoxy that was created out of the frontier's tolerance for
alternative sociopolitical models. One of the consequences of heterodoxy
within a given sociohistorical context is the existence of conficting desires
to reproduce and maintain traditionthe conventional doxa and the
power embedded within itby some segments of society and aspiration
for self-realizationthe development and adoption of a new doxaby
others. In this paper I argued that these attitudes toward conservatism
and innovation diverged along the lines of age: junior cohorts being more
inclined to embrace en masse novel ideas about prestige and worship
that were developed on the frontier, with senior members being likely
to promote traditional practices according to which they were socialized.
The rapid adoption and spread of the cultural package we came to defne
as Early Nasca in a region that had for the most part been a marginal
backwater can be understood in those terms. Initial Nasca represents a
period of social (and material) experimentation and innovation occurring
alongside and within traditional Paracas society.
Literature on contemporaneous migrations and frontiers as
well as on cultural transmission and enculturation suggest that rapid
social change in frontier contexts is likely to involve some degree of
factionalism. I argue that this expression of distinct social aspirations
called for a primary axis membership to a specifc cohort of people born
on the frontier and sharing experiences as they came of age. This created
a context favouring prestige-biased horizontal transmission. According
to our current understanding of the frontier process, certain transmission
biases and prestige biases seem to be exacerbated in the fuid frontier
environment. Minimally, frontiers constitute a fertile terrain for these
biases to have enduring efects. Once the veneer of passing millennia
has settled upon them and obscured their fner details, they appear to
us, in hindsight, as episodes of rapid social change, the creation of new
cultures and ethnogenesis. And for a brief moment, they may present
us with twoor moreco-existing cultures, one that is approaching
a vanishing point, heralded by some but resisted by others who, along
their life-cycle, become involved in novel networks of mutual infuences
and fragile reputations, slowly eroding old institutions and erecting new
ones.
Acknowledgements
This paper was written while on tenure of a Standard Research Grant from
the SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada).
I graciously thank the editor and reviewers of the Archaeological Review
from Cambridge for their hard labour in putting this issue together.
I am also grateful to Verity Whalen who prepared the principal part of
the Nasca map in Figure 1 and who provided input through discussions
that took place during the genesis of the ideas expressed here. James
Davenport and Kasey Heiser also read and contributed comments on the
manuscript.
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Introduction
E
thnicity is a difficult concept to apply to living populations, due
in large part to the dynamic nature of a complex interplay of social
identities, including religion, nationality, status and biological descent.
Ethnicity is also situational and fluid, as aptly expressed in the Corona
beer advertisement that "on St. Patrick's Day everyone is Irish". It is also
a fairly new concept anthropologically, having evolved in the mid-
twentieth century out of a politicized rejection of the concept of 'race'.
As anthropologists recognized the greater importance of cultural
characteristics over purely biological traits, ethnicity came to encompass
a tapestry of social fibers.
Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary
mccafer@ucalgary.ca
Ethnogenesis and Hybridity in Proto-Historic
Nicaragua
192 Ethnogenesis and Hybridity in Proto-Historic Nicaragua
Anthropologists such as Barth (1969) and Cohen (1974) have
considered dual aspects of ethnicity, which here we will term 'subjective'
and 'objective' qualities. Subjective ethnicity represents internalized
concepts of self-identifcation, meaningful with only coincidental
correspondence to external expressions. For example, an indigenous
individual may maintain strong ideological ties to his/her community
despite having adopted the outward trappings of the dominant society.
Alternatively, objective ethnicity may be expressed through overt symbols
of dress, ornamentation or speech, among other traits. While these may
be useful for signalling in-group identity and for excluding 'others', they
can also express mixed messages with idiosyncratic meanings. For these
and other reasons, contemporary anthropologists are wary of ethnicity
as a concept, often considering it too convoluted to be practicable in an
analytical sense. Similarly, conservative archaeologists dismiss attempts
to recognize ethnicity in the past as utter folly.
One archaeologist who has devoted considerable attention
to the archaeology of ethnicity is Jones (1997), whose principal area of
interest is ancient Europe. Perhaps because of the intense nationalism of
the region, as well as the rich textual and artistic information available,
ethnicity is here more commonly discussed within an archaeological
framework. One important insight that can be gleaned from Jones's work
is the value of combining archaeological data with historical models as a
means of inferring potentially signifcant symbols of identity, including
ethnic identity. This conjunctive approachconjoining archaeology with
history and especially with art historyofers powerful potential for
overcoming some of the challenges of identifying etic qualities of past
ethnic groups using exclusively archaeological data.
This paper presents a related application of the conjunctive
approach to archaeological ethnicity, using a case study from late
Precontact Central America. Recent interpretations of the Mesoamerican
world system (Carmack and Salgado Gonzlez 2006; Smith and Berdan
2003) maintain that the southern frontier was located in the Greater
Nicoya region of Pacifc Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica. This
193 Geofrey G. McCaferty and Carrie L. Dennett
A r c h a e o l o g i c a l R e v i e w f r o m C a m b r i d g e 2 8 . 1 : 1 9 1 2 1 5 .
claim is based on ethnohistorical and linguistic evidence for Nahuat
and Oto-Manguean speakers in the region at the time of the Spanish
conquest in the early sixteenth century. These Mesoamerican groups
allegedly migrated into Central America beginning about 800 AD (fg.
1), when they at least partially displaced existing populations inferred
to have been related to the greater Chibchan linguistic family (although
this hypothesis has not been adequately tested). Specifcally, we will
discuss the archaeological evidence for integration of the new migrant
populations into autochthonous society and thus the creation of a 'new',
hybrid culture during the Sapo Period (8001250 AD).
Cultural Context
Chroniclers such as Oviedo (1976 [1540]), Torquemada (19751983 [1615])
and Motolina (1951 [1540]) recorded details of the indigenous cultures of
Pacifc Nicaragua, including the use of the Mexican pantheon, calendrical
system and ritual practices (Abel-Vidor 1981; Chapman 1974; Fowler
1989; Len-Portilla 1972). The majority of the information pertains to the
Nahuat-speaking Nicarao, whose king Nicaragua gave his name to the
major town of the region and ultimately to the entire nation. It is generally
Fig. 1. Map of migrations from central Mexico to Central America. Drawn by Larry Steinbrenner.
believed that the Oto-Manguean-speaking Chorotega represented an
earlier migration to the region and while they were not as thoroughly
documented by the earlier chroniclers, Chorotegan 'Mesoamerican-ness'
served to contrast them with autochthonous populations (probably
Chibchan-speakers). In sum, the assertion of Mesoamerican cultural
identity in late Precontact Nicaragua is strong, albeit with its foundation
in historical and linguistic sources.
In the twentieth century this historical evidence was augmented
through art historical studies by scholars such as Lothrop (1926), Stone
(1982) and Day (1994) who considered the strong 'Mixteca-Puebla' stylistic
elements on the polychrome pottery of the area (Nicholson 1982; Nicholson
and Quiones Keber 1994; see also McCaferty and Steinbrenner 2005a).
Prominent among these elements are images of feathered serpents, a
diagnostic trait of the Quetzalcoatl cult that spread across Mesoamerica
in the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic Periods (Ringle et al. 1998).
The combination of 'Mixteca-Puebla'-style polychrome pottery,
ethnohistoric elements suggesting central Mexican religious ideology
and the accounts claiming a Cholula origin for the Chorotega migrants to
Central America served to pique curiosity, directly leading to our research.
Having a long interest in the archaeology of ethnicity and the archaeology
of Cholula, McCaferty's decision to move south to Nicaragua seemed
like an ideal opportunity to study ethnogenesis. His previous research in
Cholula often considered the Classic to Postclassic transition, when Maya-
related peoples known as the Olmeca-Xicallanca supposedly migrated
into central Mexico (McCaferty 1989, 2001, 2007). Along with the arrival of
the Olmeca-Xicallanca came the introduction of polychrome ceramics in
early renditions of the 'Mixteca-Puebla' style and some of it is remarkably
similar to early polychromes from Pacifc Nicaragua (Day 1994; McCaferty
and Steinbrenner 2005a). Following on suggestive speculation by the
great Mexican ethnohistorian Jimnez Moreno (1942, 1966), migrations of
these 'enigmatic' Olmeca may have been responsible for both the Cholula
and Greater Nicoya migrations.
Chronology is a key issue in the ethnohistorical accounts of the
migrations 'out of Mexico'. According to Torquemada (19751983 [1615],1:
452), writing in the early seventeenth century, the migrations occurred "7 or
8 lifetimes of an old man" before his time. Some scholars, including Davies
(1977: 117), have suggested that the "lifetime of an old man" corresponded
to twice the 52 year calendar round or 104 years. Seven or eight of those
spans prior to Torquemada would put the migrations at between 750 and
850 AD. A more conservative estimate of a single calendar round would
put the migration at about 12001250 AD. Unfortunately, both of these
time periods correspond to dramatic periods of change in the Pacifc
Nicaraguan archaeological record: the frst at the transition between
the Bagaces and Sapo Periods, when Mesoamerican traits frst begin to
appear, and the second at the Sapo/Ometepe transition when, allegedly,
Nahuat-speaking Nicarao replaced the Chorotega in the Rivas region.
In contrast to the bordering regions of Mesoamerica and Andean
South America, Central America is poorly understood in archaeological
terms. Furthermore, due to political, economic and environmental factors,
Nicaragua has received very little scholarly attention and the majority of
recent archaeological focus has related to regional surveys (Niemel 2003;
Salgado Gonzlez 1996) and small-scale rescue projects (Espinoza Prez
et al. 1999; Lange 1996). Consequently, while the potential for studying
ethnic migrations and consequent processes of ethnogenesis is high,
fundamental culture historical questions (including well-developed
chronologies) are minimally developed and have inhibited more
theoretical interpretations.
Archaeological Investigations in Pacifc Nicaragua
Beginning in 2000, intensive archaeological investigations have been
conducted along the shore of Lake Nicaragua in order to evaluate
historical claims of Mesoamerican migration to the region. Important
regional centers of the Chorotega culture have been located at the
sites of Santa Isabel and Tepetate, along with a secondary site at El Rayo
(fg. 2; McCaferty 2010, 2011). All of these sites date to the Sapo Period
(8001250 AD), consistent with the historical arrival of the Oto-Manguean-
speaking migrants from central Mexico. The name 'Chorotega' is derived
from the 'Cholulteca' culture from the highland Mexico religious capital
of Cholula and the working hypothesis of the project was that cultural
models derived from Cholula would be useful for interpreting Pacifc
Nicaraguan material culture and, more broadly, ethnic identity strategies
of the migrant group.
Previous archaeological work in Pacifc Nicaragua consisted of
several settlement pattern surveys and small-scale salvage projects with
little problem-orientation. One notable exception was a 1960s project
Fig. 2. Map of Pacifc Nicaragua, showing location of archaeological sites. Drawn by Larry Steinbrenner.
conducted by Harvard archaeologists under the direction of Willey in the
Rivas region (Norweb 1964); this work was synthesized by Healy for his
PhD dissertation (1974) and the subsequent publication continues to form
the cornerstone of current interpretation (Healy 1980, 1988). Santa Isabel
was one of the major sites explored by Willey and from 2000 to 2005
archaeologists from the University of Calgary investigated the inner core
of the 300ha site, excavating at fve of the larger residential mounds. This
represents the most intensive archaeological study ever conducted in
Nicaragua and produced a wealth of information for evaluating domestic
practice and ethnicity at the paramount centre of the settlement hierarchy
(McCaferty 2008; McCaferty and McCaferty 2008, 2009; McCaferty et
al. 2007).
One of the frst of many surprising discoveries of the project was that
the ceramic chronology of the Postclassic Period was essentially wrong,
with so-called 'late' diagnostics actually beginning several hundred years
earlier (McCaferty and Steinbrenner 2005b). Based on 17 radiocarbon
dates from Santa Isabel we now know that what had originally been
recognized as Nahua Nicarao diagnostics were, in fact, introduced with
the arrival of the earlier Chorotega migrants. A reconsideration of all
absolute dates from Pacifc Nicaragua indicates that the fnal Ometepe
Period (12501525 AD) is almost completely unrepresented in controlled
excavations and thus the fnal phase of migration remains a mystery.
In 2008 investigators moved up the coast of Lake Nicaragua to
begin research at the site of Tepetate, the Precolumbian centre on the
northern edge of modern Granada associated with the Chorotega
capital of Xalteva (McCaferty 2010). Historical accounts indicated that
the original archaeological site featured mounded structures with
stone slabs covering the surfaces and arranged in possible plaza groups
(Salgado Gonzlez 1996). Unfortunately, modern development and
intensive looting have destroyed much of the archaeological zone. It was
possible to excavate one of the last remaining mounds and also expose
several multiple burials from an adjacent cemetery. Mound 1 was badly
disturbed to a depth of over 1m, but portions of a paving stone foor were
encountered, as was a slab-lined burial crypt (the contents of which had
been looted).
A recent road cut exposed a Precolumbian cemetery at the site of
El Rayo on the Asese peninsula south of Granada and in 2009 and 2010
the research team moved there to excavate at the cemetery, a multi-
component residential area and another cemetery associated with a
small shrine. An important piece of the chronological puzzle fell into
place due to deep stratigraphic testing, where a rapid and dramatic
change in the material culture occurred at about 800 AD, representing
the transition between the Bagaces (300800 AD) and Sapo Periods (fg.
Fig. 3. Deep excavation unit at El Rayo with stratifed Bagaces and Sapo Period levels.
3). The Bagaces pottery was predominantly a polished red ware known as
Tola Trichrome with variations including Chavez White-on-Red. Following
traditional culture historical inference it was most likely associated with
the native Chibchan culture. Within a stratigraphic span of only 20cm
the ceramic assemblage was transformed from one featuring almost
exclusively Bagaces diagnostics to one more typical of the Sapo Period
(fg. 4), with Papagayo polychromes and Sacasa utilitarian wares that are
generally associated with the Chorotega group. The precise dating of
this transition is confounded since three radiocarbon dates from below
and above the transition all have the exact same intercept at 780 AD.
Interestingly, immediately before this transition polychrome pottery with
north-central Honduran characteristics, notably the locally made Momta
polychrome, suggests infuences from the Ula Valley. This suggests that
the cultural changes characterized as Chorotega may have more Mayan
antecedents than Mexican. Furthermore, while the transition occurred
dramatically, trace elements of the Bagaces Period pottery continued
Fig. 4. Graph of frequencies of Bagaces and Sapo diagnostic ceramics from El Rayo.
to appear mixed with the predominant Papagayo polychrome types in
several subsequent levels, suggesting a degree of cultural continuity.
Excavations at Santa Isabel, Tepetate and El Rayo have contributed
to a re-evaluation of the culture history of Pacifc Nicaragua, especially
for the Sapo Period when, following historical traditions, Chorotega
migrants were the dominant ethnic group. No ethnohistorical accounts
discuss the autochthonous Bagaces Period inhabitants, but recent
speculation has suggested that these may have been part of the macro-
Chibchan culture that inhabited Central America from eastern Honduras
south into Colombia and Venezuela. The integration of the original
'Chibchan' occupants with the newly arrived 'Chorotega' is the focus of
our consideration of ethnogenesis and hybridity.
Chorotega Ethnicity
So who were the Chorotega? Ten years of intense investigation have
amassed a considerable body of data on the domestic practices of this
group (McCaferty 2008, 2011). Excavations at Santa Isabel, Tepetate and El
Rayo have exposed permanent residential structures made of stone and
wattle and daub, with foors of packed earth, fagstones and occasionally
a thin plaster. The regional centres of Santa Isabel and Tepetate measured
several hundred hectares in size with dozens of low mounds and probably
housed populations in the thousands. No evidence of urban planning
has been identifed, though extreme looting and modern development
at Tepetate have destroyed mounds that earlier scholars described as
having formed plazas and that featured fagstone facades. Based on
ethnohistorical accounts of small clusters of residences interspersed
between orchards, Steinbrenner (2010) has referred to the settlement
pattern as being one of dispersed 'garden cities'.
Outstanding preservation of faunal and botanical remains at Santa
Isabel and El Rayo provide an unprecedented source for inferring past
foodwaysdefned as the content, preparation and consumption of
foodand of particular interest is the near absence of domesticated
plants and animals. Fish comprised over half of the faunal remains, but
the meatier deer probably provided the majority of the meat protein in
the diet (Lopez-Forment 2007). Reptiles, birds, amphibians and freshwater
molluscs were also consumed, but no evidence of domesticated dog or
turkey has been identifed. Hundreds of carbonized seeds have been
recovered, almost exclusively representing wild species. Jocote, a small
fruit used to make a bitter wine, comprised over 70 per cent of the
macrobotanical remains. After both micro- and macrobotanical analyses
it can be stated defnitively that maize played no signifcant role in
the Chorotega diet during the Sapo Period. Instead, the presence of
thousands of possible grater blades at Santa Isabel suggests that manioc
may have been an important part of the diet there (Debert and Sherif
2007); curiously these small microliths are rare at Tepetate and El Rayo,
suggesting a signifcant diference in foodways between the southern
and northern parts of the study area.
Fig. 5. Polychrome pottery from Pacifc Nicaragua: (a) Papagayo: Casares variety; (b) Madeira: Las Marias variety; (c) Vallejo: Lazo
variety. Courtesy of Mi Museo, Granada.
Polychrome pottery appeared in a rainbow of colors in Papagayo,
Vallejo, Madeira, Pataky and Bramadero types that possibly indicate
diferent production centres and therefore complex exchange networks
(fg. 5; Steinbrenner 2010). Intensive compositional analysis of the pottery
is currently underway to help determine this aspect of the ancient
political economy (Dennett n.d.; McCaferty et al. 2007). As noted above,
these types can all be recognized in the Sapo Period, but detailed
analysis is in process to identify regional microchronologies that will be
more sensitive to cultural changes. Of particular importance to the theme
of Mesoamerican infuences is the presence of 'Mixteca-Puebla' symbolic
elements (McCaferty and Steinbrenner 2005a). Beautiful feathered
serpents appear on Vallejo polychromes, especially on the Mombacho
variety where the painted decoration is combined with fne-line incising.

The aesthetics of self-image, sometimes referred to as the 'body
beautiful', are another prominent form of identity that may refect
ethnicity, among other qualities (Reischer and Koo 2004). As Joyce (2005)
has pointed out, this can be recovered archaeologically through actual
body modifcation (for example, cranial or dental modifcation, etc.),
ornamentation and artistic representation. A wide range of ornamentation
has been recovered at Chorotega sites from Pacifc Nicaragua, including
beads, pendants and earspools (McCaferty and McCaferty 2009, 2011).
Unfortunately, these have not been securely linked with well-preserved
skeletal remains, so association with aged or sexed individuals is not
Fig. 6. Papagayo type fgurines. Drawn by Kristina Zamec and Sharisse McCaferty.
available. Some items, such as thin-walled, hollow earspools are found at
all three sites; size diferences may relate to age group or status. On the
other hand, several hundred reworked sherd pendants were recovered
at Santa Isabel while these were rare at the sites in the Granada region,
suggesting a distinction in ornamentation between the two sites.

Artistic representations of the 'body beautiful' are available on
monochrome and polychrome fgurines, which feature characteristics
of hairstyle, body paint or tattooing and clothing (fg. 6; McCaferty and
McCaferty 2009). These characteristics of personal aesthetics probably
relate more to gender, status or age grades than to overt ethnic identity.
The majority of the gendered fgurines appear to be female and may
relate to historical documentation that the Chorotega were largelyas
were the Nahua, Maribios and Chontales, to varying and lesser extents
ruled by women (Werner 2000: 104, 112). Alternatively, Wingfeld (2009)
has recently completed a PhD on the subject of female shamans from
the Greater Nicoya region, based on fgurines from these and earlier time
periods. She argued it is likely that political and spiritual authority was
confated in Chorotega society and that these fgurines may have played
a symbolic role in related ceremonies.
Mortuary patterns also distinguished the diferent communities. At
Santa Isabel, infants were buried in elongated 'shoe pots' (McCaferty
2008). Adults and adolescents were buried in fexed positions directly
in the earth. At Tepetate, however, adults were buried in and around
the 'shoe pots' and infant burials were not recognized. Two cemeteries
were excavated at El Rayo, possibly representing elite and isolated burial
grounds. 'Shoe pots' were again abundant, but human remains were
rarely inside of them but were instead scattered around the outside of
the urns.
Based on this extensive data set much is now known of Chorotega
lifeways. Several specifc lines of evidence can now be used to consider
ethnic identity and specifcally to evaluate 'Mexican' afliation. Foodways
have been found to be a very sensitive trait for expressing ethnicity. One
of the frst indicators we had about problems with our hypothesized
Mexican ethnicity was the lack of comales at Santa Isabel. Comales
are wide, shallow griddles typically used for heating tortillas and in
Postclassic contexts at Cholula they make up about 20 percent of all rim
sherds (McCaferty 2001). Lack of comales implies a lack of tortillasand
a severe blow to the concept of central Mexican ethnicity. Comales were
also absent at Tepetate and El Rayo. Of the several hundred carbonized
seeds, none were of maize, a hardy seed that preserves when most others
do not. Residue and phytolith analysis from fragments of manos (hand-
held grinding stones) and metates (slab mortars) recovered evidence
for the preparation of unidentifed fruits (possibly jocote), but no maize.
Ongoing phytolith analysis of organic soils from Santa Isabel is failing to
identify maize, even though maize is, again, a readily identifable species.
This lack of maize is a surprising development and strongly runs against
the presence of a Mexican identity. It also contrasts with the use of
maize, comales and tortillas in Early Historical Period Nicaragua. Perhaps
these were introduced by the Spanish and resettled groups from central
Mexico after conquest, but further research should address the history of
this important characteristic.
Religious ideology is another characteristic often diagnostic of
ethnic identity and the ethnohistorical accounts for Postclassic Nicaragua
Fig. 7. (a) Vessel supports representing Ehecatl wind god; (b) Representation of feathered serpent on Vallejo Polychrome potsherd.
Fig. 7. (a) Vessel supports representing Ehecatl wind god; (b) Representation of feathered serpent on Vallejo Polychrome potsherd.
emphasized Mexican gods and practices (Len-Portilla 1972). For
example, Oviedo (1976) noted the importance of the deities Quiateot
and Hecat, corresponding respectively to the Mexican rain god, Tlaloc,
and the wind god, Ehecatl. Aspects of both of these deities are found in
the archaeological assemblage. Particularly common are vessel supports
of the wind god on several types of polychrome pottery (fg. 7a). As
noted above, feathered serpents are also a prominent motif (fg. 7b) and
represent another facet of the Quetzalcoatl/Ehecatl complex. Based on
this iconographic content, it is evident that contact with central Mexican
religious ideology was established by at least 1000 AD and perhaps as
early as 800 AD.
Another prominent aspect of central Mexican religious practice,
however, is strangely absent in Pacifc Nicaragua during this time period.
Burning incense was a fundamental form of communication with the
supernatural and incense burners make up a signifcant component of
the Early Postclassic Period Cholula ceramic assemblage (McCaferty
2001). No obvious incense burners have been found from the Chorotega
Sapo Period, though admittedly other vessels could have been used
for the purpose. But specialized incense burners, particularly the long
handled sahumador type, are diagnostic of Mesoamerican religious
practice, especially as part of the spread of the Quetzalcoatl cult of the
Epiclassic and Early Postclassic (Ringle et al. 1998).
Ten years of archaeological investigations in Pacifc Nicaragua have
produced a plethora of information that simultaneously supports and
contrasts with expectations for a Mexican identity for the Chorotega.
While some superfcial elements, such as the adoption of Mexican deities,
correspond with afliation with the 'Mixteca-Puebla' religious complex,
other more basic elements, such as foodways, indicate more regionally
specifc cultural practices. This may also be seen in the variation among
mortuary practices in which all three sites use Sacasa Striated 'shoe
pots', but in diferent ways. This complex contradiction may well relate
to the subjective/objective distinction discussed in the introduction of
Fig. 8. Comparison of Bagaces and Sapo Period settlement patterns from Granada (after Salgado 1996).
this paper, in which overt symbols of ethnic identity contrast with more
internally meaningful persuasions.
Ethnogenesis and Hybridity in Pacifc Nicaragua
One challenge of archaeological interpretation involves the use of
synchronic artefacts for diachronic reconstructions, especially when
time periods are cumbersomely long. Is the confusion we are seeing
in this case study the result of dynamic changes as indigenous groups
increasingly adopted Mexican traits through a gradual process of contact
and acculturation? The rapid changes exhibited during the Bagaces to
Sapo transition at El Rayo can be considered consistent with population
replacement or indicative of an 'invading' ethnic group, yet the earlier
introduction of foreign, Honduran pottery types prior to the transition
and the continuity of some earlier pottery types may be interpreted as a
more gradual period of culture change.
To better understand the process of change, additional lines of
evidence are available. For example, settlement pattern studies by Salgado
Gonzlez (1996) and Niemel (2003) demonstrate a dramatic shift in site
location and population between the Bagaces and Sapo Periods both
in the Granada area, including Tepetate and El Rayo (fg. 8), and the Rivas
area (including Santa Isabel). The Rivas data in particular demonstrate
not only a population shift, but also a greater concentration at the Santa
Isabel site implying an increase in sociopolitical complexity. Settlement
pattern change is a strong indicator of population replacement, as old
sites were abandoned and new ones established. In this regard, however,
it was surprising to discover a Bagaces Period component beneath the
Sapo remains at El Rayo (not recognized during the settlement pattern
survey) and even at Santa Isabel there were some Bagaces ceramics and
fgurines found in the lowest excavation levels.
Deep excavations at El Rayo allowed a sampling of Bagaces Period
domestic remains and therefore provide a basis for comparison with later
Sapo Period material culture. As noted above, the transition between
the Bagaces and Sapo Periods is clearly indicated in the change from
burnished red-slipped wares to the polychromes painted over a whitish
slip. The white-slipped pottery features strong stylistic similarities with
pottery of the Mixteca-Puebla style from central Mexico and the Gulf
Coast. However, recent compositional analyses of pottery from El Rayo by
Dennett indicate that the same manufacturing areas and resources were
used by both Bagaces and Sapo Period potters. Additionally, similar
vessel forms were used in some of the Sapo Period ceramics, especially
seen in the Castillo Engraved type (fg. 9). This evidence suggests that
following a chane opratoire perspective there was not a clear break in
ceramic manufacture, but rather a distinct innovation in surface fnish
and decoration, perhaps more indicative of objective changes in ethnic
identity as opposed to more internalized subjective identity.
Figurines, a fairly abundant artefact class found in domestic contexts,
also represent a superfcial change in style between the two time periods.
Bagaces fgurines are generally solid representations of seated females
(fg. 10), fnished in the red slip typical of the Tola type. Sapo Period
fgurines again represent seated females, but are often hollow, mould-
made objects that are then painted to depict clothing and body paint.
The overarching theme of female representation indicates continuity
while the explicit way of characterizing these miniature fgures changes
with the larger ceramic tradition.
Fig. 9. Comparison of vessel forms of Bagaces and Sapo Period; (a) Tola Trichrome type composite silhouette bowl; (b) Castillo
Engraved type composite silhouette bowl. Courtesy of Mi Museo, Granada.
Fig. 9. Comparison of vessel forms of Bagaces and Sapo Period; (a) Tola Trichrome type composite silhouette bowl; (b) Castillo
Engraved type composite silhouette bowl. Courtesy of Mi Museo, Granada.
In considering other aspects of material culture between the two
phases of El Rayo occupation, earspools were found in both contexts
though there were more earspools made of fsh vertebrae in the Bagaces
levels while hollow ceramic earspools were introduced in the Sapo
Period. Both contexts feature ceramic net weights for fshing, but there
are innovative styles added to the assemblage in the Sapo Period.
Spindle whorls were also found in both phases, with bone whorls found
in the Bagaces Period levels and ceramic whorls in the later context. One
apparent innovation was in the use of obsidian in the form of prismatic
blades, which were not found in the earlier Bagaces deposits. Obsidian
would have been traded from Guatemala and prismatic blades are a
diagnostic tool type of ancient Mesoamerica.
A fnal comparison between the Bagaces and Sapo cultures is
found in burial practices. As noted above, the Sapo Period Chorotega
employed large burial urns, often of the Sacasa Striated 'shoe pot' form.
While the specifc details of how these were used varied between the sites
that have been investigated, the ovoid 'shoe pot' is ubiquitous at sites
Fig. 10. Comparison of Bagaces and Sapo Period female fgurines.
of this time period. Burials from the Bagaces Period are primary, direct
burials in either extended or fexed position. In locus 2, two adult burials
and an infant were found in association with residential debris and were
lacking in grave goods. At locus 1, however, beneath the Sapo Period urn
burials, several individuals in extended position were found in association
with Bagaces Period ceramics. One of these was found with three nearly
complete vessels and another was found with a mano grinding stone and
a spindle whorl. While it is tempting to identify this individual as female
based on the associated artefacts, the very poor condition of the skeletal
remains made the sexing of the skeleton impossible. It is interesting that
although the actual mortuary practices changed dramatically between
the Bagaces and Sapo Periods, the Sapo inhabitants nevertheless chose
to continue burying their dead in the same location as their predecessors.
In light of the information recovered from Bagaces and Sapo
contexts at El Rayo, we believe that there may have been more of a cultural
transformation rather than cultural replacement. Cultural practices
changed unquestionably, but as specifc behaviours changed others
remained the same and others still were introduced. Referring back to
the discussion of objective and subjective expressions of ethnicity from
the beginning of this essay, we argue that the more overt expressions of
ethnic identity developed fairly rapidly, probably through contact with
new groups employing a distinct symbolic vocabulary. Adoption of some
of these outward themes may have represented emulation of this foreign
group by residents of a hinterland community.
Based on the intensity of this research project and the quality of
the information that has been gathered, we feel compelled to proclaim
something profound about Chorotega ethnicity and the process of
ethnogenesis demonstrated in the transformation from Bagaces to Sapo
occupation. Perhaps the ambiguity caused by too much information
is the problemwe cannot agree with the simplistic afrmations of
Mexican identity that have characterized previous interpretations. On
the other hand, there are clear convergences. The 'Mixteca-Puebla'-style
feathered serpents are undoubtedly Mexican. Some of the Nicaraguan
polychrome pottery would be right at home on lab tables in Cholula and
they are probably tied into long-distance exchange networks linked to
the development of the Quetzalcoatl cult and the procurement of cacao
and other valuable commodities. Ultimately, the lack of maize agriculture
and incense burners suggest a more fundamental expression of cultural
practice and lead us to reject the idea that these new migrants into Pacifc
Nicaragua were ethnic refugees from central Mexico. Change did occur,
but those changes were negotiated by the autochthonous residents who
were able to adapt to new infuences and perhaps new neighbours, but
were nevertheless able to maintain fundamental cultural practices.
Acknowledgements
Funding for research in Pacifc Nicaragua has been provided by two
Standard Research Grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada. Permission to conduct the research was
granted by the Instituto Nicaraguense de Cultura. Additional logistical
support was provided by Mi Museo in Granada. Many colleagues from
Nicaragua and Costa Rica have provided important intellectual as well
as physical input towards these results, as have nearly 100 students
from Canada, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico and the United
States. The interpretations presented herein owe much to the many
stimulating conversations among project members, but ultimately are
the responsibility of the authors.
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216
Yigal Levin
The Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History, Bar-Ilan University
yigal.levin@biu.ac.il
Bi-Directional Forced Deportations in the Neo-
Assyrian Empire and the Origins of the Samaritans:
Colonialism and Hybridity
Introduction
T
he history, culture, religion and identity of the Samaritans have
fascinated Western scholars for centuries. For most people with a
Christian cultural background, the term 'Samaritan' immediately calls to
mind the 'Parable of the Good Samaritan' in Luke 10:2937. Samaritans
are also frequently mentioned in rabbinic sources and in the works of
Josephus and other authors of the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine
periods (roughly 300 BC600 AD). From these sources, it is clear that during
these periods the Samaritans were a major ethnic/religious group living
in the Land of Israel, alongside Jews, pagans and eventually Christians,
practising a religion that was in many ways very similar to the Judaism of
the time, but also often very diferent. The various Jewish sources indicate
218 Bi-Directional Forced Deportations in the Neo-Assyrian Empire
that they considered the Samaritans to be foreigners and enemies on one
hand, but respected their piety on the other.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of the
Samaritans as a distinct group during the four centuries of Assyrian,
Babylonian and Persian domination of the Land of Israel (c. 733333 BC).
1

It does so within the realm of identity studies and as a part of the broadly
defned discourse of postcolonial theory. Most modern studies of the
Samaritans defne them as an 'ethnic group'. However, the question of
just what comprises 'ethnicity' or 'ethnic identity' has long been open to
debate among sociologists and anthropologists and the extent to which
ethnicity can be defned through archaeological remains (i.e. material
culture) is often very problematic (cf. Becking 2012: 5354; Meskell 2001:
188190). Hodos (2010: 1013) has pointed out the problems inherent in any
defnition of 'ethnicity' versus 'race', both of which may difer if discussed
through emic (that is 'insider') or etic ('outsider') perspectives. For this
reason, this investigation must necessarily utilize all of the available
evidence: material and written. For the present purpose, an 'ethnic
group' is defned as a biologically self-perpetuating group that shares a
common culture (including some, but not necessarily all, of the following:
religion, language, literature, material culture) and at least an idea of a
common origin. Such a self-ascription of ethnicity must be accompanied
by a similar and consistent ethnic ascription by others for a clear ethnic
attribution (Barth 1969: 1011). The available evidence indicates that, by
the late fourth century BC, the Samaritans certainly met these criteria (for
a partial discussion cf. Becking 2012). What we wish to address in this paper
is the process by which they arrived at that pointtheir 'ethnogenesis'.
1 The Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian cultures each had a very long history and each went through several stages
throughout that history. The periods during which these cultures came into direct contact with the Land of Israel are
known as the Neo-Assyrian (934609 BC), Neo-Babylonian (609539 BC) and Achaemenid (539333 BC) periods re-
spectively. In biblically-related studies, 'Assyrian' and 'Neo-Assyrian', 'Babylonian' and 'Neo-Babylonian', 'Persian' and
'Achaemenid' are often used interchangeably.
219 Yigal Levin
Historical Context
Our point of departure is clear enough. In the early eighth century BC,
there was a kingdom called Israel, whose capital was the city of Samaria,
which at the time was one of the largest cities in the region. This kingdom,
at its height, controlled the central hills from about Bethel northward, the
coast from Jafa to the Carmel ridge, the hills of Galilee and at least parts
of Gilead. It included such urban centres as Shechem, Tirzah, Megiddo,
Beth-shean, Rehob, Hazor and Dan.
2
According to the biblical tradition,
the core population of this kingdom was made up of ten of the original
'twelve tribes of Israel', although the same tradition does not deny the
presence of 'foreign' inhabitants as well.
In epigraphic sources, the term 'Israel' appears for the frst time in the
victory stele of Merenptah from the late thirteenth century BC, apparently
referring to a tribal group living somewhere in the area (Rainey 2001). The
term next appears in the ninth century in the Mesha Inscription, in the
annals of Shalmaneser III and in the Tel Dan inscription (Lemaire 2007;
Younger 2007). From an archaeological perspective, 'Israelite' material
culture emerged in the central hills in Iron Age I (c. 1200950 BC) and spread
into the valleys and the Galilee in Iron Age II (c. 950720 BC), eventually
becoming the dominant material culture in that area as well (see also
Faust 2006; Levin 2007). From the Bible and from the scant epigraphic
material available, it is known that Hebrew was the main language of the
land and that YHWH was its chief, but not exclusive, deity. These features
were shared by Israel and by its southern neighbour Judah.
3

The Galilee, Gilead and the northern valleys became provinces of
the Assyrian Empire after the campaigns of Tiglath-Pileser III in 734733
BC (Becking 1992: 120; Dever 2007; Na'aman 1993: 104106; Stern 2001:
67). Urban centres and villages in these areas were destroyed and their
population was reduced by well over 50 per cent (Gal 1992: 109 even indicates
over 75 per cent, at least in the lower Galilee). The remaining Levantine
2 For a recent archaeological and historical survey of the material see Finkelstein (2011).
3 Although there were most certainly diferences between the two kingdoms in certain aspects of material culture,
dialect (Rendsburg 1999) and in the ways in which YHWH was worshipped.
states, such as Judah,
Ammon, Moab, Edom,
the Phoenician and
Philistine cities and what
was left of the kingdom
of Israel, became Assyrian
vassals (fg. 1). King Hosea
of Israel rebelled against
Assyria in 723/2 BC,
apparently depending on
Egyptian aid, which never
materialized. Although
the precise chronology is
unclear, it would seem that
the siege of Samaria was
begun by Shalmaneser V
and completed by Sargon
II, who came to power in
722 BC.
4
Samaria under Assyrian and Persian Administration
Within the Bible, the siege and fall of Samaria is recounted in 2 Kings 17.
Fittingly, most of the chapter is devoted to theological issues: the 'reasons'
for the fall of Samaria (unfaithfulness to YHWH and his laws, verses 723)
and the partial 'conversion' to Yahwism of the newcomers (verses 2541).
Framing these two sections are the 'bare bones' of the events: the reign
of Hosea, his rebellion and arrest, the siege and conquest of Samaria by
"the king of Assyria", the exile of the Israelites and the importation of
foreigners and their settling in "the towns of Samaria" (17:16, 24; repeated
briefy in 18:911). The annals of Sargon II also tell of his conquering the
city and exiling 27.290 of its inhabitants.
5
It should be noted that neither
4 For a more complete discussion, see Becking (1992), Na'aman (1993: 106108), Park (2012), Tadmor (1958), Tappy
(2007), Tetley (2002), Younger (1999) and references therein.
5 Another text puts the number at 27.280 (see Becking 1992: 2533).
Fig. 1. Samaria and surrounding areas.
221 Yigal Levin
the biblical account nor the Assyrian sources actually mention the
destruction of the city of Samaria or the other major towns of the region.
The archaeological record seems to concur, at least in the case of Samaria.
Despite claims made by Kenyon (1942: 108) to the contrary, the Assyrian
takeover of Samaria actually seems to have been accomplished with very
little physical damage to the city itself (Tappy 2001: 562563, 2007: 266
276). This would have signifcant repercussions on the future of the area
and its people.
But what was that future? From the extant sources, it is obvious that
shortly after its conquest the former kingdom of Israel was incorporated
into the Assyrian imperial administration as a province, with the city
of Samaria as its capital. In some of his inscriptions Sargon II still calls
this province Bt-umri ('House of Omri'), the old term for the Israelite
kingdom, while in others he uses
URU
Samerina, 'the city of Samaria' (Tappy
2001: 564), but eventually Samerina won out. 'Israel' and the 'House of
Omri' were gone, at least as political units. As in the Bible, the region
came to be known by the name of its chief city. Eventually, provincial
governors bearing the titles of bl-piati or aknu were appointed, as
well as district and city governors (rb alani; azannu; see Zertal 2003:
381382 and references therein). While we do have some knowledge of
the way in which the Assyrians managed their western provinces (see
Eph'al 2010), we do not have any specifc information about the province
of Samerina during the following years. Samaria presumably remained a
province under the short interval of Egyptian rule (609605 BC) and kept
this status under the Neo-Babylonians (605539 BC). Unfortunately, we
have practically no documentation available for these periods and the
contemporary archaeological record shows very little change as well
(Zertal 2003: 404406; but see Tavger 2012).
The picture changes dramatically under Persian rule. Beginning
with the late sixth century BC, the number of sources that relate to the
province of Samarianow called by its Aramaic name amrayn medinta
expands exponentially. In the biblical books of Ezra-Nehemiah, Samaria
is mentioned by name three times, twice in Ezra 4:10 and 17 and once in
Nehemiah 3:34, there as the home of "Sanballat the Horonite", Nehemiah's
enemy. Though the text of Ezra-Nehemiah never actually says that
Sanballat was 'governor' of Samaria, we know this from Josephus. In his
version of the 'schism' between Samaritans and Jews, Josephus tells us
that Manasseh, son of the Jerusalem high priest, married Nicaso, daughter
of Sanballat "who had been sent to Samaria as satrap by Darius that last
king, and was of the Cuthean race from whom the Samaritans also are
descended" (Antiquities 11.302303; Marcus 1958: 460461). Additionally,
multiple epigraphic sources have come to light since the early twentieth
century: the Elephantine documents (Porten 2003: 452453), the Wadi
Daliyeh bullae (seal impressions) and papyri (also known as the 'Samaria
Papyri'; Cross 1963; Duek 2007: 562) and hundreds of additional bullae,
coins and other material. All these show that amrayn medinta was indeed
an important administrative unit during the Persian Period and that its
capital was at amrayn qiryta/byrta ('Samaria the city/fortress'see Cross
1985: 11*; Leith 2000; Tavger 2012). It has even been possible to reconstruct
a list of the governors of amrayn medinta from the 'original' Sanballat
in the mid-ffth century BC down to the Macedonian conquest of 333 BC
(Duek 2007: 508548, 2012a, 2012b; Eshel 2007).
However, what most concerns us is the question of Samaria's
population and its self-identifcation. As mentioned above, 2 Kings 17:6
claims that "the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the
Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor
River and in the towns of the Medes". Verse 24 then tells us that "the
king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath
and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the
Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns". The narrative
then goes on to tell of the new settlers' partial 'conversion' to Yahwism.
It is precisely these statements that have largely shaped later Jewish,
Christian and modern historical perceptions of the Samaritans' identity.
6

6 For rabbinic attitudes towards Kuthim/Samaritans see Hjelm (2000: 104115) and more recently Friedheim (2010)
and Lavee (2010). See also Knoppers's (2012) recent comparison of Samaritan and Jewish traditions.
223 Yigal Levin
Yet the past several decades have seen a growing awareness of the
one-sidedness of the biblical account, even if it does present us with
'historical' information. This awareness has been stimulated at least
in part by the infuence of postmodernist and postcolonial trends in
historical studies (for a summary see Kim 2005: 7487). One side of this
awareness is the realization that the Bible only tells part of the story.
While the biblical account makes the exile of the people of Samaria and
their replacement by others seem like a single 'population swap', both
inscriptional and archaeological evidence indicate that it was in fact a
gradual process, the bulk of which took place late during the reign of
Sargon II, more specifcally between 716708 BC (Na'aman and Zadok
1988, 2000; Tappy 2001: 574). As Younger (2004: 278280) already pointed
out, 2 Kings 17:24 is in any case a partial summary, since it does not include
the Arabs, whom Sargon himself claims to have settled in Samerina, and,
of course, it ignores the Persians, Erechites and Elamites, who according
to Ezra 4:2, 910, were brought to Samaria in the reigns of Esarhaddon
and "Osnappar" (presumably Assurbanipal). Thus, it would seem that the
existing sources only mention some of the deportations that actually
occurred.
Knoppers (2004, 2006) analyzed what he saw as two diametrically
opposed positions on the problem of these two-way deportations. On
one hand was what he called the 'maximalist' position, which claimed that
the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom was so devastating, its
repopulation so widespread, that even if one is to assume that a certain
percentage of the people did remain, the cumulative damage was so great
as to "buttress their claim for fundamental discontinuity" between Iron Age
Israel and what came after (Knoppers 2004: 157). Among the proponents
of the 'maximalist' position, Knoppers inter alia counts Tadmor, Oded,
Mazar, E. Stern, Na'aman and Zadok, Gal, Younger and Eph'al (Knoppers
2004: 153158 and the many references therein). The opposing 'minimalist'
case, exemplifed by Coggins (1975) and by Schur (1992), claims that only
a small number of urban elite were actually deported, to be replaced by
a small group of imported urbanites. These scholars point to the various
biblical passages, mostly in the Prophets and Chronicles, which consider a
wider 'Israel' to still exist after 720 BC and claim that while the government
of the province may have been comprised of foreigners, the Yahwistic
population remained basically untouched (Knoppers 2004: 158160).
Knoppers's own position, which he presents as a via media, is that while
there can be no doubt about the large numbers of people deported by
the Assyrians, it can be demonstrated that in Samaria, unlike in Galilee,
the Assyrians neither destroyed the urban infrastructure nor depleted
the population. Knoppers cites archaeological data based on excavations
and surveys conducted up to the beginning of the present century, which
show that while there is evidence of some destruction, there was also both
a large measure of continuity of settlement and, eventually, of population
growth. He emphasizes that while we do at least have the number of
people that Sargon claimed to have exiled, we have no idea how many
people he and his successors brought into the province. In Knoppers's
view, the remainder of a signifcant Israelite population, together with
the importation of a fairly small number of foreigners, gave rise to the
Yahwistic nature of the Persian Period Samaritans. While agreeing in
general with Knoppers's assessment, we believe that we can take his
arguments at least one step further by re-examining both material and
written evidence in light of recent identity theory.
In a recent summary of the application of postcolonial theory in
archaeology, van Dommelen and Rowlands (2012) have emphasized that
while 'classic' postcolonial studies have tended to focus on text and to
disregard material culture, archaeology must deal with goods and with
their contexts. They and others (such as Faust and Lev-Tov 2011; Lucy 2005;
Maeir et al. 2013) have stressed the function of material culture in defning
identity. However, in this study we wish to examine both material and
written evidence in our attempt to defne processes through which the
Samaritans became an 'ethnic group'.
'Natives' and 'Foreigners': Archaeological and Textual Evidence
Even before the partial publication of the results of the Manasseh
Hill Country Survey, Zertal (1989) reported fnding what he called
225 Yigal Levin
'wedge-shaped decorated
bowls' in sites dating to the
seventh century BC, mostly
in the eastern valleys of the
Samarian hills. He identifed
these bowls as being
Mesopotamian in style and
thus connected them to the
deportees brought into the
area by the Assyrians. He
also mentioned that such
vessels had been found
in the early excavations at
Samaria itself, although
the excavators there
had not recognized
their signifcance.
7
In his
summary of what he calls
the Iron Age III (722535 BC)
in the province of Samaria,
Zertal also emphasized the
basic continuity in material
culture from the late Iron
Age into the following periods. Specifcally Mesopotamian-style material
culture, according to Zertal, was limited to a small group of what he
defnes as administrative and military complexes. Zertal (2003: 387395)
listed altogether fve such complexes, mostly in the less-populated
eastern part of the region. It is exactly in this area, in which Zertal found
both the largest percentage of site abandonment and the majority of the
'wedge-shaped decorated bowls' and of 'Mesopotamian' architecture
(fg. 2). Based on this, Zertal concluded that the deportees, whom the
7 Campbell (2002: 276295) reports that Stratum VII dating to the late eighth century BC at Shechem shows wide-
spread destruction, while Stratum VI dating to the seventh century BC was rebuilt by people who used Mesopotamian-
style pottery. Also, at Tell el-Far'ah (North), presumably the biblical Tirzah, the transition from period VIId to VIIe was
accompanied by the appearance of 'Assyrian' pottery (Chambon 1984: 12).
Fig. 2. Samaria survey area with sites with Mesopotamian pottery and
architecture.
Assyrians brought into the province, were settled separately from the
remaining Israelites. In his estimate, this situation continued throughout
the short period of Neo-Babylonian rule as well.
On the whole, there is very little archaeological evidence for
the presence of the various deportees, such as Babylonians, Cuthites
and Hamathites, in Israel. At frst glance this may be surprising as one
would expect deported artisans to produce local versions of their own
native material culture, as did the Aegean settlers in the early Iron Age.
However, in a situation where small groups, predominantly consisting of
urban elites, were forcibly deported by a powerful empire and settled in
heterogeneous settings, they were apparently quick to emulate the ruling
power's material culture. This can perhaps be best explained when we
consider that the deportees often remained a part of the Assyrian ruling
apparatus. It is therefore possible that they linked their 'new' identity to
the imperial culture in an attempt to regain/maintain their former status
and win a share of the proceeds of the empire. This matches what we
know of other situations as well: our evidence for the various groups that
were scattered throughout the Assyrian Empire is mostly onomastic,
consisting of 'ethnic' names found in documents in various places in the
empire. The same is true of Judahite exiles in Babylon in the sixth century
BC. We do not fnd Judahite material culture, but we do fnd Judahite
names in documents (Oded 2000). A similar situation was observed by
Voskos and Knapp (2008) in early Iron Age Cyprus, in which the Aegean
migrants in Cyprus did not preserve their various material cultures.
When turning to the Persian Period, Zertal (1999: 75*80*) frst
emphasizes the large measure of continuity in both material culture and
settlement patterns from the late Iron Age through the Neo-Babylonian
into the Persian Period. He then cites the changes that did take place,
especially the rise in the number of new sites and their concentration
in the vicinity of Samaria and of the Dothan Valley,
8
with the gradual
8 The tell of Dothan itself was abandoned during the Persian Period, only to be resettled in the Hellenistic Period
(Master et al. 2005: 138).
227 Yigal Levin
abandonment of the eastern areas and the region of Shechem.
9
Zertal
specifcally attributes this increase in population, at least in the western
and northern parts of the region, to two factors: economic prosperity
due to the region's situation near the main routes leading to and
along the coast and to the wide-scale immigration, beginning with
the Assyrian deportees and continuing with others, who were drawn
to the economic opportunities and to the 'cosmopolitan character' of
the region's inhabitants (Zertal 1999: 84*). He also cites the existence of
Mesopotamian, Phoenician, Ammonite, Edomite and other names in the
various documents found in order to reconstruct a very mixed population,
with a base made up of both Israelites and Assyrian deportees (Zertal
1999: 83*84*).
As recognized by many scholars, the biblical record for the population
of Samaria in this period is rather ambiguous. On the one hand, not only
does 2 Kings 17 claim that the people of Samaria were deported and
replaced by foreigners, but the area seems to all but disappear from the
book's purview from this time on. This is also refected in Ezra 4:2, 910,
in which the inhabitants of Samaria are said to be 'foreigners' who were
brought in by Esarhaddon and 'Osnappar'. On the other hand, there are
references to remnant Israelites still living in the land, most famous of
which is Jeremiah 41:5, according to which, sometime after the destruction
of Jerusalem, "eighty men arrived from Shechem and Shiloh and Samaria,
with their beards shaved and their clothes torn and their bodies gashed,
bringing grain oferings and incense to present at the temple of the Lord".
Despite the obvious ideological signifcance of this pericope, quite a few
scholars have understood it as indicating that even as late as 586 BC there
were still loyal Yahwists in the cities of Samaria. Even within Kings, the
story of Josiah's reforms extending to Bethel and to "the cities of Samaria"
(2 Kings 23:1520) seems to suggest that there was some remaining
Israelite population there (see also Cogan 2004).
9 After a short period of commercial prosperity, it was in fact all but abandoned by the early ffth century BC and only
resettled in the Hellenistic Period (see Campbell 2002: 299309; Wright 1965: 166167; also emphasized by Tavger 2012:
7278).
The Chronicler, writing in the late Persian or early Hellenistic Period,
seems to assume that at least some of the people of Samaria were
indeed native Israelites. The Chronicler makes no specifc mention of
the importation of foreigners into Samaria. In his account of Hezekiah's
reign, messengers go "to the land of Ephraim and Manasseh and as far as
Zebulun" (2 Chron. 30:10) to invite the people to celebrate the Passover.
The same is true of Josiah: he purifed "the towns of Manasseh and
Ephraim and Simeon and Naphtali" (2 Chron. 34:6). In both 34:21 and 35:18,
the Chronicler emphasizes that Josiah's Passover was attended by "those
remaining in Israel" (Japhet 1997: 325334).
That a signifcant portion of both the population and the leadership
of late Persian-Period Samaria was Yahwistic is attested by many sources:
the predominance of Yahwistic names in the Wadi Daliyeh documents
(Cross 2006: 86 counted 44 'Israelite or Hebrew' names to 25 'non-Hebrew'
names and pointed out that some of the bearers of the latter may be
'Israelites' as well),
10
in Samarian bullae and coins (for which see Duek
2007: 495506; Eshel 1997) and in the Elephantine letters addressed to
Delaiah and Shelemiah, sons of Sanballat, governor of Samaria, who, in
addition to their Yahwistic names, were apparently considered to be close
enough to the Elephantine Jews' Yahwistic faith to be asked for political
and fnancial support for the celebration of the Passover ritual. Beyond
this, there are multiple attestations in Jewish literature to the 'Samaritans'
professing to a form of Yahwism, which the Jerusalem leadership saw as
a threat: the stories in Ezra-Nehemiah, Josephus' version of the 'schism'
being caused by internal rivalry within the high-priestly family, the
various versions in Josephus and then in rabbinic writings of the Jews' and
Samaritans' meetings with Alexander, various views of the Samaritans in
later Jewish and Christian writings (Hjelm 2000: 104182) and of course
the very need to create the story of 2 Kings 17:2441 (Knoppers 2007; Rsel
2009). On the other hand, as we have seen, the biblical account of two-
way deportations to and from Samaria rests on very solid ground. Besides
10 These fgures are similar to those cited by Zadok (1998: 784) for all of the sources giving names for Samaria in the
ffth and fourth centuries BC: 5054.42 per cent Israelites, 10.86 per cent "Common Western Semitic" (some of whom
may have been Israelites as well), 15.2 per cent Aramaic and Akkadian and about 18 per cent others.
229 Yigal Levin
the general Assyrian policy of mass deportation (Oded 1979), Sargon II
actually boasts of deporting over 27.000 people from Samaria and we do
have evidence of Israelites living in the cities of Assyria in the following
generations (Oded 2000). Sargon also writes of bringing foreigners into
Samaria and Zertal (1989) has identifed what would seem to be material
evidence of these deportees in the form of Mesopotamian-type pottery
and architecture. The evidence, then, seems to point both ways: on one
hand to a certain measure of cultural and ethnic continuity, on the other
to real large scale deportations, both of Israelites from Samaria and of
foreigners into Samaria. What was the relationship between these two
groups and how did it develop?
Forced Deportations in the Colonial Policies of the Neo-Assyrian
Empire
The policies of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and their infuence on the
populations and economies of conquered and subjugated countries have
been studied in depth (for example Eph'al 2010; Faust 2011; Oded 1979),
but rarely from an explicitly postcolonial perspective. In her study of
colonization and its efects in the Iron Age Mediterranean world, Hodos
(2006: 1322) showed that modern and postmodernist defnitions of
colonialism such as those of Loomba, Said, Spivak and Bhabha are mostly
responses to post-Renaissance and modern empires and the power they
exerted over the peoples that they colonized. This type of postcolonial
discourse has been applied to the Roman Empire, but Hodos doubts if
it can be used to study cultural change in Iron Age empires. According
to Hodos, the Iron Age empires were still in a process of ethnogenesis
themselves, making the binary terminology employed to describe
population groups in postcolonial theory (e.g. 'colonists' vs. 'indigenous',
'native' or 'local' people) rather artifcial. In her view, we should instead
be focusing on the ways in which 'natives' and 'colonizers' infuenced
each other in order to establish 'new' cultural formations. Hodos also
critiques the three-tier defnition of colonial relations proposed by
Gosden (2004: 2433)'terra nullius', 'middle ground' and 'shared cultural
milieu'as being too rigid to describe the various situations that existed
between Greeks, Phoenicians and the 'natives' in the various places
where they settled. She also criticizes the terms 'hybridity', 'creolization'
and 'acculturation' as providing descriptions of the efects of colonization
on the local population rather than providing meaningful insights into
the processes of ethnogenesis and cultural change. She emphasizes the
gradual formation of ethnicity as a fuid expression of identity. Hitchcock
(2011: 272274) similarly denounces both 'creolization' and 'hybridity'
for being too rigid when applied to the LB/IA eastern Mediterranean,
preferring such terms as 'transculturalism' and 'polylogues'. However,
despite such reservations, I do believe that creolization and hybridization
may be useful in understanding the reality that developed in Samaria
under the Assyrian Empire and its successors. Gosden (2004: 63) also
provides a useful framework in describing the Mediterranean world as
"a melting pot" and in emphasizing the Neo-Assyrian Empire as one that
was concerned with the accumulation of wealth (Gosden 2004: 64).
In his study of the use of mass deportations as a policy in the Neo-
Assyrian Empire at large, Oded (1979) made the following points: mass
deportations were employed by many Assyrian kings, but they became
a basic tool of policy under Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II and Sennacherib,
with Sargon perfecting the two-way method. The deportations were
carried out both as punishment of rebellious vassal-kingdoms and
provinces, but also as a preventive measure in order to weaken centres
of resistance (Oded 1979: 4145). In most cases in which the deportees are
characterized in the inscriptions, they are described as either members of
the royal families and royal courts of the conquered lands or as soldiers.
In some cases they are listed as craftsmen while in only two cases they
are listed as slaves (Oded 1979: 1922). Deportees were often conscripted
into the army and, in fact, we know of entire units that were composed
of deportees (Oded 1979: 4854). Others served as scribes, craftsmen
and labourers (Oded 1979: 5458). Most were brought to the major cities
of Assyria, but many to conquered lands as well (Oded 1979: 2732),
where they were used to populate under-populated areas and to work
the land (Oded 1979: 5974). They were often deported as families and
communities, enabling them to function as such in their new lands (Oded
231 Yigal Levin
1979: 2425). Finally, they tended to be loyal to the empire (Oded 1979: 46
48). In other words, by taking the priests, scribes, administrators, military
men and craftsmen from a conquered country, dispersing them in other
conquered lands and replacing them with people with similar skills from
other regions, the Assyrians metaphorically killed two birds with one
stone. The leadership of a rebellious or potentially rebellious province was
deported, leaving the local population with no royal family or priesthood
around which to rally and no military apparatus to fght with. Craftsmen,
scribes and soldiers all became part of the Assyrian military, bureaucracy
and economy, as individuals adapted to the new circumstances and
gradually seized the opportunities available to improve their lot and that
of their families. On the other hand, such individuals brought together in
a conquered province could provide just the sort of 'upper class' through
which the Assyrians could ensure the continued functioning of that
province as a revenue-earning economy, with a leadership that, bereft
as it was of local ties, would have no reason to rebel and every reason to
remain loyal.
This is exactly the type of process that we see happening in Assyrian-
ruled Samerina. The Assyrians, mostly under Sargon II, deported the
royal family, court, scribes, priests, craftsmen, military, some of the
village farmers and anyone else who could either be considered a threat
to the stability of the new province or of use to the empire in other
areas. As noted, there is epigraphic evidence of the dispersion of these
Israelites over a wide area in the empire. In their place, the Assyrians, in
a process that seems to have taken several decades, brought in similar
functionaries from other parts of the empire. These were settled both
in the provincial capital and, as shown by Zertal (1989), in military and
administrative complexes, mostly in the eastern parts of the province.
However, as happened in other conquered lands, a large portion of the
local population, mostly villagers and the urban poor, were left behind to
work the land and to produce revenue. The two groups do not appear to
have signifcantly intermixed. While we have no specifc documentation,
we can certainly assume that the 'locals' considered the deportees to be
part of the foreign conquering regime, brought in to take their lands and
their produce, while the new administrators had little in common with
the local villagers.
However, as emphasized by Gosden (2001: 242249) in his critique
of 'classic' postcolonial theory (as formulated by Said, Spivak, Bhabha
and others), the reality is always that colonizers and 'natives' can never
remain fully separated. They must always infuence each other. Following
Foucault, Gosden (2001: 243) wrote, "all participants in a colonial culture
bring something of their own to the culture, all have agency and power
to shape their world". One sphere in which the two sides seem to have
infuenced each other is the cultic one. The story of the 'partial conversion'
recounted in 2 Kings 17:2541, if indeed based on fact, would refect just
the sort of 'acclimatization' that one would expect of Iron-Age deportees:
to adopt worship of the local deity in addition to those worshipped in
their own lands. All this while the 'natives' continued to worship their god,
YHWH, in whatever form they were accustomed to, yet also adapting to
the new reality. The fact is that by the Persian Period, many, if not most of
the people of Samaria were worshipping YHWH, albeit in a way of which
the Judahite writers of the Bible did not approve.
As mentioned above, we have no specifc knowledge of events in
Samaria during the late seventh and early sixth centuries. If the biblical
accounts are to be taken as historical, it would seem that the 'Josianic
reform' made some headway into Samaria, but this is debated and in any
case would have been limited to the 'native' elements. Since we do not
know of any Samarian rebellions against the Neo-Babylonians or against
the Persians, these foreign entities would have presumably left Samaria's
provincial government as they found it. However, the descendants
of the 'importees' gradually no longer enjoyed a special status. By the
beginning of Persian rule in 538 BC, almost two centuries, fve to eight
generations, had passed since their arrival. Their political and economic
situation would have changed. The 'locals' would in the meanwhile
have produced their own leadership, some would have improved their
economic status, some would have acquired the skills of government. For
a while, there might still have been animosity between the two groups.
233 Yigal Levin
The descendents of the 'importees' might have tried to hold on to their
privileged status. If Ezra 4 is to be considered historical, even as late as the
reigns of Darius I and Artaxerxes I there were still people in Samaria, who
claimed to be the descendants of those 'importees', now also claiming
to be loyal Yahwists. By the time of Nehemiah and Ezra and certainly by
the time of Alexander, no such claims were to be heard. The people of
Samaria and their leadership were Yahwists born and bred.
In their discussion of the processes which took place on Cyprus
with the arrival of Aegean migrants during the Late Bronze/Iron Age
transition, Voskos and Knapp (2008: 677678) assumed that the migrants,
coming from a society that had recently been fragmented, would not
have preserved whatever shared identities they carried beyond "two or
three generations of intermarriage, of living in their new world". Cypriot
material culture in the twelfth century BC shows continuity both from the
previous period and the new Aegean elements. By the eleventh century
BC, this 'hybridization' crystallized into what they call "fairly homogonous
material and technological traditions that blend elements of local,
Levantine and Aegean ancestry", with "no sign of a division between
intrusive and local populations. Certainly, the newcomers did not arrive
as conquering colonists. There are no separate enclaves or other markers
of distinction" Hodos (2009: 228235) has shown that Greek and
Phoenician colonists throughout the Mediterranean often shared many
characteristics, eventually forging a sort of 'koine' culture, which she
stops short of calling 'hybrid'. This is exactly the process which we see
happening in post-Assyrian Samaria. In his study of the names appearing
in documents of all types from Persian Period Samaria, Zadok (1998: 781
785) showed that about 65 per cent of those names were 'Israelite' (mostly
including the Yahwistic theophoric element) with another 15.2 per cent
"Aramaic, Akkadian and Aramaic-Akkadian...conceivably descendants of
Babylonian [sic, actually meaning Assyrian] deportees, an elite that has
been eventually assimilated with the indigenous Israelites".
In 332 BC the people of amrayn qiryta rebelled against Alexander,
burning alive the Macedonian governor Andromachus. In retaliation,
Alexander razed the city and repopulated it with Greek-speaking veterans
of his own army, making Samaria, as they called it, one of the frst 'Greek'
cities of the new Hellenistic east (Pummer 2012; Rolfe 1962: 239241). The
'natives' of Samaria were now excluded from their chief city and began to
settle in the area of Shechem. This would be the beginning of a new age
of colonization, one that would re-defne the identities of all the peoples
of the region.
Conclusion
The application of 'classic' postcolonial theory to the archaeology of the
ancient world in general and of the ancient Near East in particular, has
turned out to be rather problematic, because of both the nature of the
ancient sources and the huge cultural, political and economic diferences
between that world and the modern world to which postcolonialism is
a reaction. Despite this difculty, we have found that some postcolonial
models, such as hybridity, can be useful in describing cultural processes
in the ancient world. In the specifc case of late Iron Age Samaria, we have
seen that both written and material evidence points towards a process
of hybridization that was facilitated by imperial rule. The Neo-Assyrian
policy of bi-directional deportations led to the exile of much of the
ruling urban population from what had been the Kingdom of Israel and
their replacement by 'others', brought from other conquered lands of
the Assyrian Empire. These 'others' remained part of the Assyrian ruling
apparatus and mimicked Assyrian material culture, but as soon as the
Assyrian Empire toppled and was replaced by a new regime (frst Egypt,
then Babylon and fnally Persia) the 'others' began to acculturate, discarding
their former 'colonial' identity and adopting that of the 'natives' around
them. This process of hybridization brought about the ethnogenesis of
the YHWH-worshipping population that we call Samaritans and whose
culture continued to develop into the Hellenistic Period. Future study
will undoubtedly improve our understanding of these processes in other
235 Yigal Levin
parts of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian Empires, allowing further
integration of postcolonial models into the study of the ancient Near East.
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Introduction
C
lassical archaeology has long adopted models from other disciplines
or parallel discourses, for example history, literature, anthropology
and others, and found ways to apply them to the antique past. In this
paper, I would like to take up two models that have recently been
adapted from other discourses and used to study ancient archaic
Mediterranean colonialism, particularly in Sicily and southern Italy. The
first is the model of a colonial 'middle ground' (Malkin 1998), adopted
from work on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century AD North America
(White 1991). Although the middle ground paradigm has recently been
critiqued by scholars who work on the period it was originally devised
to address (Bohaker 2006; Deloria 2006; Desbarats 2006; Rushforth 2006),
it is at the same time widely cited by archaeologists working on contact
Carla M. Antonaccio
Department of Classical Studies, Duke University
canton@duke.edu
Networking the Middle Ground?
The Greek Diaspora, Tenth to Fifth Century BC
242 Networking the Middle Ground?
zones between cultures. The second model is network theory, originating
in computer sciences, and widely employed in inter alia social science,
economics, biology and brain science. In archaeology, network theory
has generated a number of conferences and working groups (cf. infra).
Whereas the notion of a middle ground has become familiar enough to
be casually mentioned in recent work on Greek overseas settlements, the
impact of network theory is still unfolding.
In a recent book, Malkin (2011) wraps up a great deal of his own work
on the history of the Mediterranean and also tries to enfold the middle
ground into an early Greek network that he credits with the emergence of
Greek civilization itself. These moves represent the kind of adaptive reuse
at which Classics is adept (cf. the adoption of structuralism, postcolonial
studies and many more). One question is whether classicists can creatively
and constructively contribute to the discourses with which they engage,
rather than simply consume the approaches formulated for and in other
times and places.
The Original Middle Ground
In the original study by White (1991), the middle ground is a specifc
place and also a time, though in recent usage it has become more of a
metaphor. White formulated his model to account for cultural change in
the North American Upper Midwest in the late seventeenth, eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries AD. He studied in exquisite detail the
interaction between French and Native Americans against a backdrop
of massive change and intense struggle and dislocation among both
indigenous groups and Europeans. Terrible violence between native
groups marked this world and the diversity of the indigenous groups
that interacted with each other was as much part of the picture as the
Europeans' cultural impact. It is important to emphasize that violence and
intense competition for advantage, position and wealth was very much
integral to the North American case. The middle ground was the space
in which misunderstandings and distortions between indigenous groups
and Europeans gave rise to new meanings and new practices, which in
243 Carla M. Antonaccio
turn produced comprehension and provided means of accommodation.
Furthermore, in the Upper Midwest the middle ground emerged on two
levelsthat of daily life and of ritual (diplomatic) contextsand it came
about because the use of force could not accomplish the ends of either
party (native or newcomer).
The Middle Ground of the Archaic Greek Colonial Period
As applied to the Archaic Greek colonial period, the model of the middle
ground escapes the polarities of Greek and barbarian, of colonizer and
colonized. It suggests that especially for the early Archaic Period (eighth
and seventh century BC) a model of interaction on a basis of near
equality is more appropriate than one of violence and confict. A politico-
military equilibrium allowed for an early non-confrontational encounter
between various Greek and native populations. In Malkin's (2002) middle
ground paradigm, indigenous groups in colonial contexts adopted Greek
practices or cultural products, but they also adapted them; selected
Greek ritual practices, objects and discourses melded into existing
cultures and provided a feld of interaction, especially among elites
(Malkin 2002, elaborated in Malkin 1998: passim). The shared practices
of hospitable commensality, which the Greeks knew as part of xenia
ritualized and heritable guest-host friendship, sealed with feasting and
gift-givingand the practices of the symposion, were cultural institutions
that lent themselves to this. In a less material form, the extension and
expansion of heroic genealogies provided structures through which this
accommodation was enacted and may be detected in the iconographic
and written record of Mediterranean antiquity.
This Mediterranean middle ground is one of mediation, which
produced mutual comprehension. Heroes, especially the nostoi
those returning from the Trojan Warand heroic genealogies, readily
accommodated non-Greeks and could be adapted by Western Greeks
and non-Greeks alike. In this view, the Greek epic hero Odysseus was the
most important mediating figure in colonial and precolonial encounters
between voyaging, trading and colonizing Greeks and the non-Greeks
they encountered in the western Mediterranean. Malkin focuses on the
coast of Campania in southern Italy as an example of a geographical,
cultural and political middle ground for the Greek-Italian encounters
that began with Greek voyages westward as early as the tenth century
BC.
1
It was the Euboian Greeks in the bay of Naples and at Pithekoussai
(modern Ischia) who staged the introduction of Odysseus among the
Etruscans. The Euboian origins of the Etruscan alphabet and the Etruscan
presence at Pithekoussai and Kyme lead Malkin to suggest that, perhaps
through gift-exchange at elite symposia involving Greeks and Etruscans,
the Etruscans became familiar with the hero. Malkin suggests that other
heroes provided additional mediating functions. Diomedes, for example,
in the Adriatic might have served to referee the less structured encounters
of individual traders and trading partners, before being repurposed by
South Italian Greek communities in their own internecine conflicts of the
Archaic Period.
Due to its apparent goodness of fit, the model of the middle ground
has gained currency in recent discourse on ancient Greek colonization.
The middle ground model subverts the earlier adoption of the binaries
of structuralist thought and has much in common with postcolonial
theory's concept of the 'third space', which is both a physical location
and a metaphorical place of creativity and innovation (Bhabha 2004). This
third space gives rise to culturaland humanhybridity; new formations
that are neither colonizer nor colonized, but something new. I have
commented on this phenomenon in the Greek West and suggested that
hybridity characterizes both Greek colonies and postcontact indigenous
societies (Antonaccio 2003). These, however, do not meld completely
or form a unified new world. Hybridity characterizes both colonies and
indigenes, but in different and parallel ways. Importantly, in the end,
neither the new native societies nor the Greek West would last very long;
this instability is also noted by White (1991) in the Pays d'en Haut or Upper
Country of North America.
1 In his recent book (Malkin 2011), the West of Sicily becomes a middle ground. Though Malkin again emphasizes
accommodation between indigenous inhabitants and Greeksthrough the myth of Herakles/Melqarthe explicitly
acknowledges the middle ground's feature of misreading.
Misunderstandings and the Infrastructure Required to Create
New Understandings
It must be admitted, then, that the middle ground might describe eighth
or seventh century BC Campania, but is not as good at accounting for
the entire phenomenon of Greek colonization, which extended into
the ffth century in this part of the Mediterranean. White (2006) himself
has addressed the reception of his book in a recent essay in which he
stresses that misunderstandings are the key feature of his middle ground
(cf. also Giangiulo 2010). Very particular conditions created the middle
ground in the Upper Country of colonial North America. In addressing the
impact of his work, White (2006: 10) notes that while the dynamics of the
middle ground may have frequently arisen in other times and places, "the
construction of a historical space in which the process becomes the basis
of relations between distinct peoples is probably less commonthere
are instances where the process can be evident, but the space may fail
to emerge. The space depended on the creation of an infrastructure that
could support and expand the process" and this required both a balance
of power and a mutual need.
The Mediterraneanized middle ground model emphasizes the
agency and self-determination of indigenes, rescuing them from pure
victimhood and emphasizing the transformative and productive nature
of colonial encounters in Greek antiquity. So much so that in the ancient
Mediterranean, the original middle ground model has become a kind of
demilitarized zone within which native and colonial groups find 'common
ground' by means of a set of elite frameworks that allow for mutual
comprehension, cooperation and advantage. Violence and misreading
are less apparent as the model is deployed in the Greek case, although
these cannot be said never to manifest. The questions for us, then, relate
to the interactions of indigenes with each other; whether we have the
dynamicsthe processesof the middle ground; and if the place, with
its infrastructure and its time is indeed Campania. A further question is
whether the mutual comprehension advocated by Malkin and others
appears out of the misreading and misunderstanding emphasized by
White. If the middle ground is a useful concept with which to think about
early Greek colonization, more attention may need to be devoted to
incomprehension, divergent aims, internal struggles of both colonizers
and colonized and the ultimate failure of the middle ground, something
that White also emphasized. At the same time, perhaps the model may be
adapted to the Mediterranean in antiquity in ways that White might not
envision, thereby contributing to its power and to its utility.
As will be obvious, the data we have for this place and time does
not begin to approach what was available to White, who could draw on
extensive archives that encompass individual personal stories in detail,
as well as much of the verbal discourse that accompanied the diplomatic
and ultimately economic encounters that unfolded in the North American
case. White could reconstruct the details of trade and exchange in ways
that we cannot, especially with regard to the movements of people and
the specific roles they could playsexually, as slaves, as middlemen,
as well as peers in a hierarchy that was based on a mythic genealogical
relationship (cf. infra).
White's reconstruction of an infrastructure that supported the
middle ground is enabled by this detail. An example of one part of trade,
the trade in furs, illustrates some of the workings of the middle ground in
North America. White (1991: 94) notes that "goods changed hands virtually
every time Frenchmen and Algonquians struggled to unite against
common enemies or met to resolve the murders between them; or asked
for aid in surviving hunger, disease, droughts, and blizzards or made love
or married". The particular place of the trade in furs, a top-ranked sphere
of exchange, he notes "is merely an arbitrary selection from a fuller and
quite coherent spectrum of exchange that was embedded in particular
social relations. The fur trade was a constantly changing compromise, a
conduit, between two local models of the exchangethe French and the
Algonquian" (White 1991: 94). At the same time, this trade was part of a
world market that extended across the Atlantic.
In the early Mediterranean, we cannot speak of markets in the same
way nor of a system of exchange so widely connected. Plus a change,
though, perhaps we can try to identify some other commodity or medium
that may have operated in a similar fashion in the ancient Mediterranean
(wine would seem a prime candidate). For the moment, however, we can
recognize that in North America the fur trade could not be separated from
relationships of political and military alliance. Moreover, the native values
underlying the trade did not put profit at its center, but the relationships
among the transactors. European goods became the highest level of
prestige gifts among native transactors, often fitting into pre-existing
networks of meaning and furthermore creating new relationships
among native groups. For the Mediterranean, examining such values
and relationships needs much more work to more fully understand the
ancient case.
Structuring Relationships Through Kinship
The structuring of relations between the colonial French and their Indian
trading partners as those of fathers to children is an interesting parallel for
the use of kinship relations in Italy in the form of the acceptance of Odysseus
or Diomedes by native groups as fctive ancestors. It is remarkable that
the concepts of kinship pertain in both situations; intermarriage solidifed
these relationships, making putative kin into actual kin. But it raises the
question of whether the fgure of the epic nostos was understood in the
same way by all parties in the Mediterranean milieu. For the Greeks, a
prime function of epic is to preserve, celebrate and transmit a hero's
kleos, his immortal renown; the occasion of epic recitation in the tenth
or ninth century BC is not certain, but it was presumably connected with
funerals and ancestor cultswhich were local eventsand perhaps in
commemorative events thereafterfeasts, in particular (cf. Carter 1995,
1997). It is possible that the going-forth of the Euboians and other groups
pushed this practice beyond local homeland communities to new ones,
as has been suggested for some funerary practices in Campania (Demand
2012: 248).
In so-called heroic or heroizing burials, the value of Greek objects is
sometimes juxtaposed not only with local ones, but also with Phoenician
objects, which must bring into the picture the role of this trading and
colonizing group as wellanother factor that needs to be considered.
The important thing is how Greek objects are drawn into local systems
of exchange, value, meaning and relationship. These burials in Italy
take on some of the trappings of Euboian Greek practice, transforming
old homeland purposes and practices and engaging local elites in its
discourse, but the local elites are not engaging with Greeks as their only
interlocutors. At the same time, the acceptance of a figure like Odysseus
suggests how this system may have been deployed outside the Greek
world in which it originated. Odysseus's glory is found in his survival,
rather than his heroic death, and his function as a progenitor and activities
as a sexual partner are celebrated. The Greek warrior Diomedes, on the
other hand, may have fit local circumstances better when he became
established in the Adriatic where native communities claimed him as
a heroic founder. It is therefore true not only that non-Greek peoples
heroized, rather than simply Hellenized, but also that one function of
this heroizing was to emphasize relationships and hierarchies as much
as to articulate prestige through participation in a 'heroic lifestyle' or to
mediate interactions on a level of elite equality.
A Homeland Middle Ground: Italian Metalwork in Panhellenic
Sanctuaries
That Greek objects were incorporated into non-Greek systems of value in
the Mediterranean is much less controversial a proposition now than ten
or twenty years ago. But at the same time, we should pay attention to the
ways in which non-Greek objects, the traces of dynamics that cannot be
described in the detail we have for North America, are deployed in Greek
contexts as well. If we pay further attention to the reciprocal effects of
the middle ground, we may also glimpse the violence that is such an
important element of the middle ground model. This entails a turn to
the 'panhellenic' sanctuaries of the Greek homeland and in particular
to Delphi and Olympia. It has long been noted that the use by colonial
Greeks of Olympia and similar sanctuaries allowed them to establish
their own identities on a regional and even global stage, sidestepping
their mother cities (Morgan 1993: 20). The absence of a shared sanctuary
in the West meant that the colonies interacted with each other outside
colonial and oft-disputed territories. I have already suggested elsewhere
that western Greeks were not exclusively Hellenic and did not develop
a pan-Sicilian or Italian sanctuary because of the regionally prominent
sanctuaries that already existed within their horizons (Antonaccio 2007).
We should remember, too, that Olympia and Delphi were possibly easier
to access for Italians than for Greeks in far-flung communities over land
and sea.
As early as the ninth century BC, Italian metalwork already appeared
at Olympia. Italian jewellery can be explained though trade or precolonial
contacts or as dedications by Greeks or Italian visitors. Armour from
southern Italy and Etruria was dedicated as early as 800 BC at Olympia,
Delphi and to a lesser degree at Isthmia. In the first half of the eighth
century BC huge spearheads from mid-peninsular Italy were also
dedicated, some of them having been deliberately broken (Antonaccio
2007). These weapons may be accounted for in several ways. When
acquired through trade and dedicated by individual Greeks, they could
have been personal and occasional dedications in much the same way
as foreign jewellery may have been. Or they could have been dedicated
by individuals or communities as booty, possibly a titheand if so, they
bear witness to early conflicts between Greeks and Italians. But we should
also consider the possibility that they were the dedications of Italians,
individually or in groups.
In her early work on panhellenic sanctuaries, Morgan (1993) originally
viewed the dedication of weaponry linked to warfare as a communal
enterprise, rather than a token of individual victory. She also considered
the possibility that dedications of weapons may have undermined any
emphasis on individual achievements in war because they were handed
over to the gods. She suggested that local sanctuaries were better
suited to display personal or captured weapons by individuals. Thus, a
personal motivation may have pertained at Isthmia, which was still a local
sanctuary in the eighth century BC. Indeed, Morgan has documented
instances of individual dedications at that sanctuary, though the group
dedication of spoils becomes much more frequent beginning in the sixth
century BC. Early dedications of arms and armour at Olympia and Delphi,
though, might have been the actions of members of non-local elites that
chose a place outside their own communities to enact the gesture and
where they participated in a particular system of meaning among elite
peers. If so, we can understand these dedications as Greek spoils of war:
Italian shields are not exotic trade items, but the traces of violent conflict
between Greeks and Etruscans. In that case, the Sicilian spearhead from
Isthmia could be a trophy from early Corinthian colonial violencee.g.
the founding of its colony, Syracuse. Another option, however, is that
Italians themselves dedicated the early Italian metal votives, including
weapons, from conflicts among local groups. If this is the case, then the
earliest dedications of arms and armour (together with the metal objects
of jewellery that are imported) might be the dedications of Italians as
individuals, extending the middle ground to Greece itself and suggesting
the reciprocal effects of these encounters. Greek sanctuaries may have
become a place to project Italian power and the weapons hint at the
possibility of intergroup conflict among indigenous parties that White's
model would call for.
White (2006: 9) himself says that his original study "is about the
virtues of misreading" and that this extends to misreadings of his work. He
suggests that "such misreadings can be fruitful in their own right" (White
2006: 9). So, whether or not we can fully deploy the details of White's model
in their entirety in this very different time and place, our engagement with
his model has indeed been fruitful. In proposing non-Greek actors and
their motivations for adopting heroic figures and dedicatory behaviour,
we can perhaps see something of the desire on the part of transactors to
deploy congruent, even if mistaken, customs or strategies that would be
accepted by everyone. At the same time, reinstating the less harmonious
realities of the ancient Mediterranean is important and the dedications
at Delphi and Olympia help us do that. Moreover, the possibility that the
middle ground is not just a place (or places) in colonial territory, but in the
so-called homeland, revises the model in important ways that contribute
to the discourse about such encounters more broadly.
2
Networking the Middle Ground
We turn now to network theory. In Classical Archaeology the introduction
of network theory was foreshadowed by the systems theory that
Renfrew (1972) used to explain the emergence of civilization in the third
millennium BC Cycladic Islands through the interaction of and feedback
between different variables to produce a complex system without
centralized control (cf. Barrett and Halstead 2004). Another related
framework is the 'connectivity' of the Mediterranean over a huge span of
time (three millennia), which linked its extremely varied and fragmented
microregions (Horden and Purcell 2000).
3
Once again, it is Malkin (2011,
prefigured by his work in the preceding decade) who has reached
outside the parameters of Mediterranean history and archaeology and
latched onto a potentially groundbreaking approach to understand the
causes and consequences of the particular kind of human interactions
that constitute Greek colonization.
Malkin's orientation is that of a historian, which conditions both how
he applies network theory and the data that he uses. His turn to network
thinking is paralleled by that of the prehistorian Knappett (2005, 2011),
who applies similar approaches to the archaeology of the Aegean Bronze
Age (cf. Antonaccio 2010). Malkin uses network thinking to decentralize
the very notion of Greece and of a Greek identity that is dispersed from
a homeland: there is no center and networks are what bring Hellenicity
in toto and its diversity into being. This can take the form of 'back-ripples'
in which a colony and its founding community co-create shared identity.
The networks are multiple, multicultural and multi-ethnic and ideas of
center and periphery are wholly rejected in this work. Indeed, the network
2 Malkin (2011) elaborates the original notion of middle ground into multiples, including Sicily, and many other places
in the Mediterranean.
3 This work, in turn, extends and revises that of the French Annales school of history epitomized by Braudel (cf. the
classic paper by Trevor-Roper 1972).
is specifically a 'small world': a system where nodes are not neighbouring,
but distance is transcended because nodes can be reached by means of a
small number of steps. 'Weak ties', rather than strong, are what enable the
collapse of distance and of cultural or ethnic difference.
There is another issue to draw attention to in Malkin's approach
and that is his attempt to reconcile his earlier middle ground model with
network thinking. Malkin, now working with multiple middle grounds,
sees them forming in coastal areas and functioning as 'edges' to the
network. In this sense middle grounds are, as in their original formulation
by White, specific places rather than a kind of metaphor or model. They
are contingent and particular to only some colonial regions in this wider
study, functioning as 'clusters' within local networks organized around
hubs of which Syracuse is one. Links connect these local hubs to wider
Mediterranean networks (Malkin 2011: 215). Of course if middle grounds
are coastal and only appear in colonial territories, then the suggestion
that interstate sanctuaries in 'Greek' territory could be middle grounds
is unacceptable. But in most of this work, what is stressed is the way
in which networks work against distance and create links in surprising
ways. Panhellenic sanctuaries, characterized by Morgan (1993) as regional
in origin, may themselves be nodes that become hubs involving very
disparate linksdespite their locations.
Malkin (2011: 16) adopts network theory as "descriptive and heuristic".
Knappett (2005, 2011), being an archaeologist, is especially interested in
how human beings interact not only with each other, but with things
and how things interact with other things as well. He, too, takes up the
small network model and weak ties to argue for the importance of the
relationship between a network's structure and a network's function. But
Knappett proceeds very differently from Malkin because he grounds his
study on networks of objects and people and builds up his picture from
detailed data for production, distribution and consumption of objects
during the second millennium BC in the southern part of the Aegean,
focusing in particular on Crete. Malkin (2011: 222223), on the other hand,
speculates on 'actors and connectors', including mobile individuals
such as artisans, religious specialists, poets and aristocrats and suggests
how the ships that carried them would also have carried material and
cultural flows, but does not himself tackle any kind of analysis of these
material flows. It is the lack of detailed data that makes Malkin's approach
suggestive, but as a result it has been criticized as not actually being a
network analysis (Ruffini 2012).
Conclusion
It remains for archaeologists working with the immense amounts of
material data that exist from excavations and other types of investigations
to bring network analysis more fully to bear on early Greece (we do still
refer to this place and its culture). Malkin has opened the way to more
fully explore the very rich sociological and anthropological applications
of networks. The agency of individual actorsthemselves considered
nodesand the ties between them can be explored by the powerful
modeling of the network in all its forms. Different kinds of networks,
moreover, may account for ways in which human beings and things are
constituted in relationships. Thus, while networks are by nature without
a center, origin or root, the specificities of nodes before they are in
relationships, once linked in networks, are also translated in the encounter.
Such relationships and encounters may create middle grounds, but there
are other possibilities. Indeed, the constant forming and reforming of
links results in change; so do the ways in which transportation is itself
creative through translationaspects of Actor-Network Theory (cf.
Knappett 2011: 3335).
Recovering agency for things is key to this kind of network analysis.
Indeed, things (and individuals) are not only related in networks, but in
'meshworks', groups of objects that humans are so involved with that
they have a collective agency. Knappett (2011: 213) concludes, "[i]f we are
to understand our networked/meshworked pasts, presents, and futures,
we need to realize our deep entanglement, the significance of different
kinds of links as well nodes, and the trans-scale nature of human-non-
human interactions".
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank audiences in Rome at the AIAC 2008 (where a version
of this paper was frst presented) and in Bloomington, Indiana, in fall 2012.
My gratitude also goes out to the students in my graduate seminar, spring
2012, and graduate reading group, fall 2012.
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256
Introduction
S
ince the beginning of modern archaeology the question "why
do cultures change?" has loomed large in theoretical attempts to
understand the changing nature of cultural concepts and material
culture. Such change is often seen as a result of external influences
and the way in which these are to be theorized forms the theme of
much current research. Several paradigmatic changes in archaeological
theory (cf. Trigger 1989: 148205) have led to a more integrated approach
towards the great problems of material objects as witnesses of past
human activities and human engagement with nature. In view of current
globalisation processes it seems impossible that 'outside influences' leave
any culture at any time untouched by multiple overlaps and contacts.
Yet in archaeology descriptions and identifications of such influences
Bettina Bader
Institut fr gyptologie, University of Vienna
bettina.bader@univie.ac.at
Cultural Mixing in Egyptian Archaeology:
The 'Hyksos' as a Case Study
258 Cultural Mixing in Egyptian Archaeology
frequently remain rather diffuse and tentative. Consequently, it is often
difficult to assess concepts describing the outcome of cultural contact and
'cultural mixing' (and therefore inevitably change) in the archaeological
record. (Archaeological) cultures probably also changed on their own
accord. However, opinions as to how much change is to be considered
'inherent' are rarely, if at all, voiced (cf. Van Gijseghem, this volume).
While often little is known why (or why not)
1
outside influences
cultural or otherwere accepted and absorbed in antiquity, results of
such a process can be traced in the archaeological record even without
the aid of historical sources. Yet in ahistorical circumstances any emic
comprehension of such finds is absent, meaning that the 'appropriation'
of a different culture can in these cases only be analyzed from an etic
perspective, which changes as time and theoretical paradigms wear
on. The presence of textual and pictorial sources, as is the case with the
ancient Egyptian culture, allows for a more emically informed approach,
but these sources are similarly subject to etic interpretations that change
over time. Nonetheless, Egyptian archaeology has a major interpretative
advantage compared to prehistoric archaeology due to its varied source
material. For example, without Egyptian pictorial sources it would have
been much more difficult to connect Middle Bronze Age objects, such as
certain weapons, to the Syro-Palestinian cultural sphere (cf. infra).
Since the 1970s archaeologists have increasingly utilized various
concepts with a focus on cultural contact and cultural mixing in order
to provide a theoretical background for what they find in the earth and
explain it. Several concepts derived from biology, linguistics and social
anthropology (e.g. hybridity, creolization, syncretism and mestizaje) were
adopted and further developed, especially in postcolonial contexts, in
order to complement or replace older theoretical approaches such as
acculturation and its processes (Redfield et al. 1936). In defining such
phenomena, some of these concepts were variously amalgamated or
1 There are cases in which outside infuences were not adopted (cf. for colonial environments Thomas 1991: 12). In
non-historical archaeology such rejections remain invisible, but nevertheless it seems likely that they should have oc-
curred more frequently than actual acceptance.
259 Bettina Bader
used synonymously, often to explain each other.
2
While this has led to
much scholarly confusion and the arbitrary and detached use of such
terminology, general discourse has sought to sharpen each concept with
its own features and epistemological histories (Cohen and Toninato 2010;
Stewart 1999, 2011; Stockhammer 2012; Weikppel 2005), albeit rarely with
special regard for archaeology (notable exceptions are Clack, in press;
Stockhammer 2012: 4358). Other concepts too numerous to be discussed
here include mtissage, rhizome and networks of contact (Antonaccio
2010: 4546 with references).
The presence of 'racial mixes' in a biological/genetic sense is also
often connected to the theme of cultural mixing, not least because
several of the concepts used by anthropologists and archaeologists, such
as hybridity, originated in biology. The detection of such 'mixes' remains
problematic for various reasons (e.g. Armelagos et al. 2003; Buzon 2011).
Although a discussion of 'racial mixtures' always involves dangers such
as racism (e.g. Thomas 1996: 9; Veit 1989), a discourse on its possibilities
and limitations may prevent misuse and discredit of such research.
Comparative isotope analyses may yield evidence to discern where
people grew up in contrast to where their bodies were found and inform
where and how individuals spent their lives (Buzon et al. 2007).
Material culture, on the other hand, will not show if the person(s)
using it belonged to a 'racial mixture' because its usage is due to a variety
of (social) reasons that may lead to the deployment of objects mixed
in style, shape and function. Thus, for example, multiple identities of a
person might be the reason for finding various objects with a different
cultural background together. Identities, also ethnic identity (Jones 1997),
are social, fluid constructs and it depends on the social environment which
particular identity is stressed in certain situations.
3
The use of a variety
of identities avoids binary oppositions such as Egyptian/non-Egyptian,
male/female or indigenous/immigrant that otherwise seem inevitable,
2 For example, Deagan (1973: 63) speaks of the process of mestizaje and uses acculturation as a synonym. Cf. also the
use of syncretism in Wade (2005: 256) and Voss (2008: 871). This phenomenon is discussed in detail by Stewart (1999).
3 Cf. Schneider (2010) for a discussion of Egyptian ethnicity with references.
leading to a theoretical cul-de-sac. Concepts using multiple categories
may represent a way forward (Daim 1998; MacSweeney 2009; Pohl 2010).
Several concepts of cultural mixing have been applied to
archaeological situations. Their suitability and applicability will now be
briefly reviewed with regard to ancient Egypt.
Mestizaje
The concept of mestizaje initially represented a multi-ethnic social
structure (incorporating 'white', indigenous and African populations),
which originated in the Spanish colonial intervention in the Americas
before the development of nation states. However, mestizaje changed
repeatedly and radically and soon included social, cultural and biological
aspects. Finally an ideology was developed to create nation states in
South America, which excluded some cultural elements in order to
"make people more equal" and actively build a new political identity that
everyone could share (de la Cadena 2005: 259284). The physical presence
of several ethnic groups within society, who were initially phenotypically
distinguished, was elevated and integrated into a theoretical concept to
create an all-enveloping idea of sameness.
4
The fact existed before the
concept. Modern investigations of mestizaje mostly rely on interviews to
study its social implications for modern culture.
5

The distinction of neighbouring populations by phenotypes such as
Nubians and Asiatics
6
is paralleled in Egyptian art and represents an early
use
7
of such an approach (Smith 2003: 219). The Egyptians do not seem to
have stressed the 'purity' of these groups, but rather emphasized their
'difference' to the Egyptians as perceived by the Egyptians themselves
(cf. Stewart 2011). Deagan (1973: passim) first connected historically known
4 This is why biological issues with 'mixed races' are invariably included in discussions of mestizaje.
5 Wade (2005: 254256) extends the concept considerably, but not to material culture. Cf. also Stewart (1999: 4748).
6 The term 'Asiatic' stems from the Egyptian hieroglyphic term Aamu, signifying inhabitants from Asia Minor rather
than Asians in the modern sense.
7 According to de Wit (2011:187208), the Narmer Palette shows the concept on an inner-Egyptian scale of 'southern-
ers' against 'northerners' at the beginning of Egyptian history.
261 Bettina Bader
mestizo households with archaeological remains and assigned the
concomitant material culture either to 'Spanish' or 'mestizo' culture. These
binary categories and some assignations were criticized accordingly
(Voss 2008: passim). Possible applications of this concept are difficult to
find within Egyptian archaeology.
Hybridity
The concept of hybridity originated in biology/genetics to signify the
frequently infertile result of cross-breeding of two different plant or
animal species (Stockhammer 2012: 4647; Weikppel 2005: 317319).
Bhabha (1994) developed the influential cultural-political model of
'cultural hybridity', which is a seminal reference in postcolonial studies.
Thomas (1991: 105) defined hybridization with regard to material culture
as "a thing being 'a cross between' other types". Recently a volume by
Stockhammer (2012) appeared approaching the multifaceted issue of
hybridization from various angles. Stockhammer proposed to abolish
previous terminology and instead argued for the use of the depoliticized
term 'entanglement'. He also drew attention to the important distinction
between the appropriation of objects, social practices and meanings
and materially 'entangled objects' (Stockhammer 2012: 4851, this issue).
The subjectivity of 'classifiying' entanglement and its ensuing ambiguity
was criticized by Jung (2009: 82). Stockhammer (2012: 54) rejected Jung's
criticism with the argument that the continuity in the development
of material entanglement precludes the desired clear criteria for the
'classification' of such a process. While there is no problem to accept such
an on-going continuity in development, the concept ceases to be useful
in archaeology if the entanglement cannot be sufficiently visualized and
explained by means of reproducible criteria.
The terms hybridization and hybrid are used in Egyptian archaeology
(e.g. Bietak, 2010b: 170) to signify the blending of previously (relatively)
isolated cultures that settled in each other's proximity. These terms are
increasingly used as a relatively neutral synonym for 'mixed' (Stewart 2011:
50; Voskos and Knapp 2008: 661).
Syncretism
Syncretism denotes a fusion of two different ideas, concepts or cultural
traits to form a third one. In comparison the result of hybridity remains
more open and may enclose multiple influences or 'inputs' to form non-
uniform outcomes (Weikppel 2005: 330335). It seems that hybridity
allows more possibilities of cultural and scholarly interpretation than just
one. In Egyptian religion the syncretism of different gods has a specialized
(neutral) meaning (cf. Schenkel 1977).
Creolization
The concept of creolization is used to refer "to processes of cultural and
linguistic mixing, which arise from the entanglement of different cultures
in the same indigenous spaceprimarily in the context of slavery,
colonization and plantation societies" (Hall 2010: 28). Asymmetrical power
relations are crucial in this concept as well as mutual influences that result
in something 'new' (Hall 2010: 28). Hannerz (1987: 552) attempted to transfer
the creolization concept from the Caribbean to other contexts all over
the world: "creole cultures like creole languages are those which draw
in some way on two or more historical sources, often originally widely
different. They have had some time to develop and to integrate, and to
become elaborate and pervasive". This suggestion was followed by some
scholars who saw it as an alternative explanatory model to acculturation
theories (cf. Palmi 2006 for a critical review). Cohen and Toninato (2010:
4) describe creolization as the "outcome of cultural, religious, linguistic,
economic, political and textual interactions" between colonials, creoles
born in the new place of foreign parents, indigenous people and imported
labourers. Some of these elements seem to be present in the Egyptian
case study (see infra).
Additional concepts
Other terms used to describe the appearance of 'mixed' material culture are
'appropriation' and 'cultural translation' (Stockhammer 2012: 46) to include
human agency. Objects combining traits from more than one culture
263 Bettina Bader
have also been termed
'transculturated hybrid'
(Antonaccio 2010: 41) and
this is by no means the full
range of terminology (cf.
Stockhammer 2012: 46).
Evidence of cultural
mixing at Tell el-Dab
c
a/
Avaris
To illustrate the archaeo-
logical appearance of
cultural mixing in ancient
Egypt, the following sec-
tion discusses the develop-
ment of material culture at
Tell el-Dab
c
a/Avaris (fig. 1.;
Bietak 1996) from the be-
ginning of the 12th Dynasty
(c. 1973 BC) to the end of
the Second Intermediate
Period (c. 1540 BC).
8
Historical Setting
During the Middle Kingdom (late EleventhThirteenth Dynasty) Egypt
had been unified under a strong centralized state, but towards the mid-
Thirteenth Dynasty the country rapidly destabilised, at least partly, as a
result of a quick and chaotic succession of kings. In the ensuing Second
Intermediate Period (later ThirteenthSeventeenth Dynasty) Egypt seems
to have been divided into several smaller 'kingdoms', each of which was
ruled by its own independent ruler (cf. Ryholt 1997, but note that his views
8 Dates are according to Kitchen (2000: 49).
Fig. 1. Map of Egypt (redrawn by the author from Malek and Baines 1980) with
inset site map of Tell el-Dab
c
a (adapted from Bietak 2002: fg. 1).
are not undisputed). One of these 'kingdoms' developed in the eastern
Nile Delta, where according to historiography a people from the East,
the so-called Hyksos,
9
invaded and settled (cf. Wilkinson 2010: 188). The
historical narrative based on Manetho (an Egyptian historian and priest
who lived in the 3rd century BC) relates that Egypt was violently attacked
and conquered:
Tutimaeus
10
[a presumed king of the Thirteenth Dynasty].
In his reign, for what cause I know not, a blast from God
smote us; and unexpectedly, from regions of the East,
invaders of obscure race marched in confidence of
victory against our land. By main force they easily seized
it without striking a blow; and having overpowered the
rulers of the land, they then burned our cities ruthlessly,
razed to the ground the temples of the gods, and treated
all the natives with a cruel hostility, massacring some and
leading into slavery the wives and children of others
(Wadell 1956: 79).
Archaeological Research at Avaris and the Initial Settlement of
the Site
In contrast, long-term archaeological research at the Hyksos power base
and later capital city Avaris did not uncover any traces of large scale
violent attacks. Instead, archaeologists encountered a long series of layers
demonstrating a continuous settlement of people from the beginning of
the Twelfth Dynasty onwards until the Late Period. Initially these people
seem to have had an entirely Egyptian cultural background (Czerny 1999),
but in consecutive layers non-Egyptian traits such as equid burials and
certain forms of temple architecture appear. Ultimately, the inhabitants
of the site developed a material culture that included elements of both
9 The term Hyksos literally means 'rulers of foreign lands'. The designation has often been mistaken for an ethnic term,
but it is purely literary in nature (van Seters 1966: 35).
10 According to Schneider (1998: 157159) this does not necessarily refect a real king's name but may signify a relic
of an introductory phrase.
265 Bettina Bader
Egyptian and Syro-Palestinian origin which was quite different from
that of the rest of Egypt (Aston 2004; Bietak 1996). The transition to the
New Kingdom at Avaris hitherto remains unmarked by an archaeological
destruction layer that might be connected to the historiographic account
of the siege of Avaris in the Kamose stelae (Habachi 1972).
11

The evidence for studying cultural mixing at Avaris is extremely
varied and consists of settlement layout patterns, the architecture of
tombs, private houses, temples and palaces, a large number of object
categories with cultural roots either in Egypt (e.g. scarabs, stone vessels,
beads, amulets, mirrors and pottery) or in the Syro-Palestinian Middle
Bronze Age culture (e.g. weapons, toggle pins and pottery) and ritual acts
with either Egyptian (e.g. construction of offering pits) or Syro-Palestinian
cultural backgrounds (e.g. donkey burials and the offering of acorns). There
are also features that cannot be paralleled elsewhere, such as the short-
lived custom of burying females just outside chamber tombs (cf. Bietak
1989). However, it has to be kept in mind that these features developed
over time and did not appear all at once and in every archaeological level.
One major drawback of the research at Avaris is that comparable data
from contemporary settlements in Egypt and Syria-Palestine are often
extremely scarce. For example, there are not many comparable private
house plans for loosely grouped compounds dating to Middle Bronze
Age IIA in either Syria-Palestine (cf. Herzog 1997: 97163) or Egypt. As a
result it is sometimes impossible to confidently determine the origins of
particular cultural traits.
In the early Middle Kingdom a typically Egyptian orthogonal
settlement with small, uniform housing units existed at Avaris. The
material culture of the site did not differ from that of other contemporary
Egyptian sites and no significant external influences seem to have been
present (Czerny 1999). The contemporary cemetery has not yet been
identified. In the mid-Twelfth Dynasty, an Egyptian temple (Bietak and
Dorner 1998) and orthogonal settlement (Czerny 2010) were built at
11 In these stelae Kamose relates his strategy to overcome the Hyksos ruler and gives an account of his (probably
propagandistic) victory, although he did not defeat the Hyksos entirely at this point.
nearby Ezbet Rushdi. Preliminary observations suggest that the bulk of the
material culture at Ezbet Rushdi is Egyptian in style with some imported
material from Syria-Palestine that was probably acquired through trade
(Czerny 1998). Again the contemporary cemetery has not yet been
located. Possible external cultural influences that might have been visible
only in the burial customs of these earlier inhabitants therefore cannot be
entirely ruled out at present.
Evidence for Cultural Change during the Late Twelfth Dynasty
During the late Twelfth Dynastya period for which contemporary
tombs have been archaeologically identifiedthe cultural picture at
Avaris starts to change and some (but importantly not all) burials at the
site begin to deviate from burial customs known from elsewhere in Egypt.
During the Middle Kingdom Egyptians often buried their dead in wooden
coffins in an extended position, either supine or on the side, while the
graves were furnished with Egyptian grave goods such as pottery, shabtis,
stone vessels, scarabs, beads and a variety of amulets (Ikram and Dodson
1998). In certain cases the body was mummified and wrapped in linen
strips. However, at Avaris elements of a markedly non-Egyptian character
appeared in tombs within two stratigraphic levels, including the presence
of donkey burials and the inclusion of Syro-Palestinian weapons (Philip
2006), toggle pins and imported pottery as grave goods (fig. 2). Such
finds often appear in combination with Egyptian artefacts (fig. 3), which
in certain cases were inscribed for persons of probable Syro-Palestinian
descent. For example, fig. 3b represents an Egyptian scarab bearing the
name Aamu, 'the Asiatic', written in hieroglyphic script. Other culturally
'mixed' objects include an Egyptian-style statue of an Asiatic dignitary
(Bietak 1996: fig. 17; Schiestl 2009). The inclusion of a throw stick, a certain
type of cloak and a mushroom-like hair style marks the owner of the
statue as an Asiatic as seen through Egyptian eyes. The statue follows the
Egyptian canon of art in terms of attitude and posture. It remains unclear
whether this individual was free to commission a statue in a different
style than this Egyptian one with generic markers of his supposed Asiatic
origin. Whether the statue represents a gesture of accepting Egyptian
267 Bettina Bader
culture with regard to the proper Egyptian reference to his origin, the
active adoption of an Egyptian identity or if it was the only way to obtain
a funerary statue of himself similarly remains unknown.
Egyptian and Syro-Palestinian style objects also occur together in
Egyptian-style tombs that were laid out within the settlement (cf. Bader
2011b). The practice of burying dead adults in settlements is not attested
Fig. 2. a) Tomb with equid burial from Phase F at Tell el-Dab
c
a; b) socketed axe with narrow blade from Phase F; c) ribbed dagger
from Phase F; d) toggle pin from Phase E/2-1. After Bietak (1991). Images reprinted with permission.
Fig. 3. a) Stone vessels from Phase F; b) scarab from Phase F; c) beads and amulets from Phase F; d) Taweret amulet from Phase F.
After Bietak (1991). Images reprinted with permission.
269 Bettina Bader
Fig. 3. a) Stone vessels from Phase F; b) scarab from Phase F; c) beads and amulets from Phase F; d) Taweret amulet from Phase F.
After Bietak (1991). Images reprinted with permission.
in the Nile Valley and may be due to Syro-Palestinian cultural influences.
On the other hand, it may also represent an otherwise undocumented
Delta practice that developed due to topographical differences between
the Delta and the Nile valley (cf. Schiestl 2004: 239240).
Some Syro-Palestinian objects found at Tell el-Dab
c
a (mostly
weapons) feature in Egyptian representations of Aamu or 'Asiatics'. The
most famous example stems from the tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni
Hasan and depicts nomadic traders (Bietak 1996: 1416; Bietak 2007: fig.
29.3), highlighting the existence of economic contacts between Egypt
and Syria-Palestine (fig. 4). The northeastern Delta may very well be
considered a 'liminal space' where Egyptians and Syro-Palestinians met
and interacted from prehistory (cf. Bietak 2007). Egyptian sources provide
some insights into why groups of Asiatics were present in the Nile Delta
and Nile Valley. Evidently, a number of Asiatics provided services in at
least one harbour or on sea-going ships to and from the Levant, as shown
on an Old Kingdom relief from the pyramid complex of Sahure (cf. Bietak
2007: fig. 29.1) at Abusir close to Memphis, while others were taken into
Fig. 4. Asiatic nomadic traders depicted in the tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan. After Lepsius ( 18491859: pl. 133).
Egypt as prisoners of war, as stated in the following text dating to the
reign of Amenemhet II (19111876 BC):
Tribute from Asia: the children of the ruler come with
bent head from Asia and they bring with them silver...
Asiatics (Aamu)1002Return of the army from Juaj
and Jasj with list of booty:number of captives, who
were brought from these foreign lands: Asiatics1554
(Altenmller and Moussa 1975: 10, 12; translated from
German by the author).
Egyptian papyri from the late Middle Kingdom settlement of Kahun in
the northern Nile Valley further show that some Asiactics were employed
in Egypt as doorkeepers, attendants, dancers and singersboth male
and femaleperhaps for cultic purposes (Luft 1993). However, it remains
unclear whether Asiatics were engaged in similar professions at Avaris
in the late Middle Kingdom and whether they were there by their own
decision or as forced labourers (or both).
Although many of the burials at Avaris show Syro-Palestinian
practices and contain Syro-Palestinian objects in the pre-Hyksos phases
(Bietak 1991; Forstner-Mller 2008; Schiestl 2009), there are very few traits
that signify a Syro-Palestinian influence in the architecture or the lay-out
of the contemporary settlement. There is a singlereconstructed
Syro-Palestinian middle-room house in area F/I dating to the late Twelfth
Dynasty (Bietak 1996: figs 89), while in some areas, in Thirteenth Dynasty
and later levels, rooms were added to houses for burials (so-called
'Houses of the Dead'; Bietak 1996: 4954). The house architecture of the
early Thirteenth Dynasty in area A/II (cf. Bader 2011b) and later also shows
a predominance of supposedly Egyptian house types (Bietak 2010a with
references) in a non-orthogonal layout. This non-orthogonal layout
contrasts with other, rigidly rectilinear Egyptian settlements such as Kahun
(Petrie 1891). However, it is important to bear in mind that most of the
hitherto excavated settlement sites in Egypt represent planned, state-run
establishments that were intended for the maintenance of mortuary cults
271 Bettina Bader
(e.g. Dahshur, Kahun) or quarrying expeditions (e.g. Qasr es-Sagha). Other
Egyptian settlements may very well have had non-orthogonal layouts,
but have rarely been excavated as they are located below thick deposits
of Nile alluvium and/or later occupation. Due to the scant preservation of
the houses at Tell el-Dab
c
awhich are mostly reduced to a few courses
of mudbrickonly their ground plan can be analyzed. As a result it is not
possible to study potentially 'different' influences in house architecture or
building materials. The use of unworked kurkar stones commonly used in
Syria-Palestine was presumably at any rate not possible in the stoneless
Delta (cf. Voss 2008: 870871).
The pottery production at Avaris shows a very specific development
from the early Thirteenth to the beginning of the Fifteenth Dynasty in that
previously imported Syro-Palestinian pottery vessels were closely copied
using local pottery fabrics, suggesting first-hand expert technological
knowledge. The local copiesincluding dishes with internal rims and
pattern burnishing, carinated bowls, pattern burnished jars, a variety of
juglets and some types of cooking pot (Aston 2004/2: 91179, 194197;
Bader 2011a)can only be distinguished by fabric analysis (Nordstrm
and Bourriau 1993). Over time these Tell el-Dab
c
a vessel types developed
quite detached from the pottery traditions of Syria-Palestine (Aston
2004, Bader 2009). A similar phenomenon took place at Tell el-Maskhuta,
another site dating to the Hyksos period in the eastern Delta (Redmount
1995). Scarabs showing Syro-Palestinian influencessuch as certain plant
motifs (a specific branch) or pseudo-inscriptionswere now also locally
produced at Avaris and were no longer imported from Syria-Palestine
(Mlinar 2004: 114).
Turning to sacred architecture a number of temples and chapels
were constructed in Area A/II, some with Egyptian and some with Syro-
Palestinian ground plans from the mid-Thirteenth Dynasty onwards
(fig. 5). The Egyptian-style chapels contain the customary tripartite cella
(chapels I and V), while Temple III, the largest of the religious buildings
in the area, is a broad room temple that has direct parallels in the Near
East. Unfortunately the temple inventories were not intact anymore
(Bietak 2009). These edifices were surrounded by cemeteries. The spatial
proximity of these temples and chapels, which were influenced by two
different cultural backgrounds and belief systems, hints at syncretism as
it does not seem as if there was a spatial clustering of tombs with Egyptian
cultural characteristics around the chapels with an Egyptian ground plan.
At this time, it becomes very difficult to make a clear ascription of single
tombs to specific cultural spheres, although some tombs still only contain
objects that derive from the Egyptian cultural sphere, for example kohl
pots and amulets (Bietak 1991; Forstner-Mller 2008). The recent discovery
of the Hyksos palace resembling Near Eastern models in combination
with Egyptian offering pits (Mller 2008) demonstrates the mixed cultural
flavour of this period (Bietak 2010a: 2021).
Fig. 5. Plan of area A/II at Tell el-Dab
c
a in Phase E/3. Image reprinted with permission, after Bietak (2010a).
273 Bettina Bader
Fig. 5. Plan of area A/II at Tell el-Dab
c
a in Phase E/3. Image reprinted with permission, after Bietak (2010a).
Archaeological Objects Resulting From Cultural Mixing in the
Hyksos Period (Fifteenth Dynasty)
From stratigraphic phase E/2 onwards (i.e. the beginning of the Fifteenth
Dynasty, c. 1650 BC) a whole range of pottery with a mixture of Egyptian and
Syro-Palestinian traits appears relatively suddenly in a long stratigraphic
sequence (Aston 2004/2: 211322), in contrast to Memphis for example
(Bader 2009; Bourriau, personal communication). It is often quite clear
where single traits of the pottery originated, but some were seemingly
developed at the site and do not occur in significant numbers outside
the eastern Delta (Bader 2009: 306307, type 37b; Redmount 1995; Seiler
2005). The local character of the pottery repertoire remains visible until
it becomes more uniform again in the New Kingdom (more specifically
during the reign of Thutmosis III; cf. Aston 2003). This latter development
may have to do with increasing state control over the pottery industry
or the advent of a new generation of potters all over Egypt who were
responsible for subtle innovations.
Similarly the manufacture of scarabs shows local features with some
affinities to Syria-Palestine and others to Egypt (Bietak et al. 2001). At the
beginning of the Fifteenth Dynasty some new scarab types were first
imported into Avaris from Syria-Palestine and shortly thereafter imitated
by local seal cutters (Mlinar 2004: 122).
The scant inscriptional evidence from the site leaves no doubt about
the regular use of the Egyptian language in the official records of this
period (Bietak 1996: 6567). Unfortunately, it is impossible to reconstruct
the vernacular at the site, which might have provided clues about the
potential mixture of languages, because even if nothing material travels
with an immigrant, his or her language does (cf. Weikppel 2005).
The Interpretation of Cultural Mixing at Avaris: General
Problems
Despite the relative wealth of information for the existence of a
'mixed' Hyksos culture in Avaris, the interpretation of transculturation
phenomena at the site is not entirely without problems. Most importantly,
there often is insufficient contemporary data from both Egypt and Syria-
Palestine, including demographic data, to study population movements
in the region. Another major problem concerning material culture in
archaeology is the definition of similarities and differences in artefacts
and how to measure these. When do two artefacts, for example ceramic
vessels, show sufficient similarity to be assigned to the same type?
Classifications of shape, fabric, surface treatment and decoration are
necessarily subjective and have a direct bearing on the identification
of mixtures in material culture (cf. Langin-Hooper, this volume). In rigid
typologies the 'mixture' may even disappear (Jung 2009: 82). Clearly, a
common language of definition needs to be established in order to
provide a suitable description of mixing phenomena in the material
record. Inadequate definitions of terms such as local 'copy' or 'imitation'
lead to confusion when a non-local influence is suspected either in terms
of shape, decoration, function or something else (e.g. Stockhammer 2012:
55; cf. also Jung 2009: 80). Severe problems also arise when the presence
of such artefacts is taken to signify the presence of a non-local group
of people, resulting in overly simplistic associations between 'pots and
people', a thorough discussion of which exceeds the scope of this paper.
12
In order to get a proper overview of the evidence, detailed publications
of objects and their comparisons are essential. The exactness and extent
of the 'copied' or 'imitated' traits should also be stressed. Pottery is here
taken as an example. How similar is the copy or imitation to the original
vessel in terms of shape, decoration, texture of fabric, surface treatment
and manufacturing technique? Is only one of these traits vaguely similar
or are all of them exactly the same? What is the archaeological context
of the vessel? What is the archaeological context of the suspected
prototype? Are there any trading or other external contacts of any sort?
Many of these questions frequently remain unanswered and the evidence
therefore loses much of its explanatory force. The demand for analysis
of single components was aptly expressed before: "[e]ach allusion to
12 Cf. Laemmel (2009) for a critical view and Redmount (1995) for a positive stance on such associations.
275 Bettina Bader
mixture necessarily makes reference to the original components of the
mixture" (Wade 2005: 245). Stockhammer (2011: 5455) rightfully stressed
the importance of the context of an object in order to determine
whether it is in its 'normal environment' or if it is found under exceptional
circumstances that require a separate explanation. Notwithstanding,
finds are often discussed in isolation without a thorough description of
their contexts.
The presence of locally produced pottery exactly imitating Middle
Bronze Age pottery shapes, both in terms of manufacturing technique
and the use of fabric with similar properties, at Tell el-Dab
c
a led to the
interpretation that the producers of these vessels were immigrants from
Syria-Palestine, following their own potting tradition (whether they were
potters where they came from or not remains unclear). Should these
imitations have been less exact, such an interpretation could not have
been put forward. However, one vital implication that needs to be tested
is that only lifelong training in a trade would lead to the quality of the
final products found at Tell el-Dab
c
a, so that local potters who learnt the
technology later in life would have produced technologically inferior
vessels.
The visibility of cultural behaviour also seems to depend on numbers.
One individual is less likely to show up in the ancient archaeological
record, except perhaps in graves, than larger groups of people with a
different cultural background from their surrounding environment (cf.
Brather 2004: 240). A larger group entering a new territory together does
not even need to be homogeneous to attain a group identity of some
sort (Jones 1997). Ancient Egyptian accounts from Kahun attest to the
presence of a considerable number of Asiatics at that site, but they do
not appear prominently at all in the archaeological record. However, it is
important to bear two things in mind here. First, some of the inhabitants
of the town were buried at Harageh (Engelbach 1923) and the burial
customs of the resident Astiatics seem not to stand out there like at Tell
el-Dab
c
a (cf. Kemp and Merrillees 1980: 2357). Second, compared to
the overall number of Egyptians living in Kahun, the number of Asiatic
residents must have been quite small. This may be one reason why only
a single torque archaeologically attests to the presence of Asiatics at the
site (Petrie 1891: pl. XIII:19). Asymmetrical power relations may also have
played a role in the archaeological invisibility of Asiatics at Kahun. The fact
that the settlement was excavated in the last decade of the nineteenth
century may have further exacerbated the visibility deficiencies in the
material record, which impedes direct comparisons to archaeological
data from Tell el-Dab
c
a.
Conclusions
The appearance of a material culture at Avaris that radically differed
from the rest of Egypt,
13
but had close parallels to the Middle Bronze Age
culture from Syria-Palestine, has led to an interpretation of immigration,
acculturation and the subsequent autochthonous development of a
distinctive Delta culture (e.g. Bietak 1996). Due to the dynamic nature and
complex interplay of social phenomenasuch as religionat the site,
ethnicity is a difficult concept to apply at Avaris. Indeed, in archaeology it
is often extremely problematic, if not impossible, to assign ethnic labels
to ancient people (Brather 2004; Schneider 2010) and the inhabitants of
Avaris are certainly no exception in this respect. Making a distinction
according to the binary categories 'Egyptian' and 'Syro-Palestinian' in
Avaris during the Hyksos period seems futile, even though Egyptian texts
and representations prove that the Egyptiansat least on an ideological
leveldistinguished themselves phenotypically from Syro-Palestinians
and others (cf. Smith 2003). Interestingly, the Hyksos period was regarded
in retrospect as a time of lawlessness, 'sin' and turmoil.
14

A remarkable 'Egyptianness' prevails at Avaris, but at the same time
there are manifold cultural elements of a markedly un-Egyptian character.
In general, there seems to have been an interesting contrast between the
realms of the living and the realms of the dead. Ritual life appeared to be
13 Perhaps at Elephantine in the southern extreme of the country similar features are observable in connection with
Nubian material culture (cf. Rzeuska forthcoming).
14 See for example the inscription of queen Hatshepsut (c. 14781457 BCE) in Speos Artemidos (Sethe 1906: 386).
277 Bettina Bader
dominated by Syro-Palestinian customs in terms of temple size, although
smaller Egyptian temples/chapels existed as well. The creation of offering
pits, on the other hand, seems to have been a typically Egyptian practice
(Mller 2008). Elite buildings such as the palace in area F/II dating to the
Hyksos period demonstrate that at least the elite had an affinity to the
Near East where the prototypes for the palace's architecture are to be
found (Bietak and Forstner-Mller 2008). A good example demonstrating
cultural mixture is the royal titulary of one of the Hyksos kings as it used
both the regular Egyptian titles and the designation hekau chasut, 'ruler
of the foreign lands' (Schneider 1998: 3549). Whether the non-royal
inhabitants of Avaris in the Hyksos period considered themselves as
Egyptians and thus had their own 'ethnic identity' must remain unclear.
The burial customs in the Hyksos period continue to show traits
of both the Egyptian and Syro-Palestinian cultures, although they are
much more intricately mixed than before. Tomb construction, offering
pits, the practice of burying infants in houses
15
and some object types
(e.g. scarabs, amulets, stone vessels) are of obvious Egyptian derivation.
The position of most bodies, the burial of equids, burying children in
transport amphorae and particular objects (e.g. weapon types, toggle
pins) can be traced to Syria-Palestine. Scarabs and pottery in particular
became so 'entangled' that within the object only details can be assigned
to one or the other culture and exact parallels do not occur in either
of them. Hall's statement "[a] fusion of cultural elements drawn from
all originating cultures, but resulting in a configuration in which these
elements, though never equal, can no longer be disregarded or restored
to their original forms, since they no longer exist in a 'pure' state but
have been permanently translated" (Hall 2010: 29) in connection with the
creolization debate seems very applicable to the situation at Avaris in the
Hyksos period, but similar statements have been made in discussions
of hybridization (e.g. Voskos and Knapp 2008: 678). This touches
upon an important point. While some elements of the cultural mix or
15 Attested for settlements in Egypt proper e.g. at Kahun (Petrie 1890: 24) and Abydos (Baines and Lacovara 2002:
14).
'entanglement'
16
may suggest a creolization process at Avaris (see infra),
it is extremely difficult to delineate its difference from 'hybridization' in
the wider sense. If these concepts continue to be used in archaeology
as mere synonyms, the confusion created by their employment probably
exceeds any benefits that may be gained from their use (Pappa, this
volume). In the current case, the benefit of using either the concept of
creolization or hybridity is that it better describes the material outcome of
cultural contact at Avaris, resulting from immigration and the subsequent
acculturation, adaptation and development of a 'new' material culture.
'Hybrid' is often used in such a context but commonly without the
necessary reflection and definition of the concept. The attempt to use
new, unencumbered terminology for the products of cultural contacts,
cultural mixing and its outcomes is therefore very welcome. 'Relational'
and 'material entanglement' (Antonaccio 2010: 39; Stockhammer 2012)
appeals and may result in a useful epistemological concept after it has
been critically tested in various archaeological contexts and case studies.
For Avaris, a comprehensive material entanglement on many levels and
across several object classes can be proposed. However, it seems prudent
to follow a cautious approach with regard to the larger hybridization/
creolization debate due to the often patchy background knowledge of
the circumstances under which entanglements developed (cf. Jung 2009:
8182).
While the discussion in this forum is understood as the beginning
of a comparative debate, it is unclear if singular phenomena or objects,
such as described by Stockhammer (2012: 5456), fit into the same
conceptual template as the more widely observable and comprehensive
transculturation phenomena found at Avaris. Liminal spaces such as the
Delta indeed seem the most likely arena for processes of cultural mixing,
but whether any of the discussed concepts can be applied to other
situations, where there are not two (or more) cultures living together in
close proximity for a prolonged period of time, exchanging certain very
localized and selected traits within their material cultures, must be further
16 Also used by Hall (2010).
279 Bettina Bader
discussed. Examples warranting further enquiry and perhaps different
conceptual frameworks may be Egyptian and Palestinian variants of
Cypriote and Mycenean vessels, which may have been produced to
satisfy a growing market demand based on changing socio-economic
circumstances.
Longer chronological developments and multiple context types
seem to favour visibility in the archaeological record (Brather 2004;
Voss 2008: 862864). For example, the mixed nature of some of the
material culture in Avaris during the Hyksos period would have not been
recognized in a one-phase settlement without burials.
17
Power dynamics
are likewise relevant for the situation at Avaris in a diachronic view. While
from the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty to about the early to mid-
Thirteenth Dynasty the site represents periphery rather than core, the
situation reverses in the Fifteenth Dynasty when central Egyptian power is
lost. It is interesting and speaks against the application of the creolization
concept that the advent of the noticeably 'fused' material culture at the
beginning of the Fifteenth Dynasty coincides with a 'core' situation in the
northeastern Delta (cf. Bader 2009).
Some elements described in the creolization debate may very well
fit the archaeological evidence from Avaris (cf. Bader forthcoming),
such as the spatial proximity of two different cultural groups, possibly
combined with an initial asymmetrical power balance (as implied by
the inscription mentioning prisoners of war and lists with servants)
resembling a 'colonial' encounter, social stratification and the creation
of new cultural traits. Against the application of the creolization concept
one can cite that cohabitation did not occur on neutral grounds and it
remains uncertain if forced settlement actually led to exploitation. For a
while the power balance tipped in favour of the Hyksos before the New
Kingdom pharaohs reinstated Egyptian rule, but not without absorbing
some Asiatic influences, for example in military technology (Bietak 2010b:
164171).
17 Cf. e.g. the situation in the settlement of the early to mid-Thirteenth Dynasty in area A/II (Bader 2011b).
General discourse in archaeology needs to sharpen and differentiate
these concepts before significant progress can be made. Both creolization
and hybridization have racist overtones for some scholars and others
reject hybridization as unsuitable due to its biological past (Cohen and
Toninato 2010). Entanglement seems to be in regular use by those trying
to describe phenomena of cultural mixing and thus may indeed be the
way forward as proposed by Stockhammer (2012). A further distinction
between singular instances of entangled items and a recurring 'industry'
of materially entangled items found over and over again could be added
to such a proposal. Furthermore, for the sake of clarity, the exact imitation
of objects in other than the original raw materials should be distinguished
from products that result from the creative blending of several cultural
sources.
Acknowledgements
Research for this article was undertaken while holding an Elise Richter
Fellowship of the Austrian Science Fund grant number V147G21 at
the University of Vienna. The author would like to thank G. Moers for a
discussion on the changing interpretation on Egyptian textual sources
in general, as well as C. Knoblauch, M. Mller and W.P. van Pelt for
commenting on earlier versions of this paper.
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Introduction
T
hat eating is a cultural affair is well understood, as is the fact that food
preferences and dislikes are so strongly held that when cultures come
in contact, they are often at first repulsed by the diets of the strangers
they encounter (Bryant et al. 2003: 5859). Food, identity and cultural
values are so closely intertwined that it is not uncommon for members
of one group to characterize or even to stereotype another on the basis
of an element of their dietfrogs, insects, beans, etc.perceived as
unusual, inedible or lowly (Bryant et al. 2003: 93, 100).
Colonizers, conquerors and travelling merchants often brought with
them the essentials of their home diet and experimented with elements
of new cuisines reluctantly. Throughout their empire in the Americas, the
Mary C. Beaudry
Department of Archaeology, Boston University
beaudry@bu.edu
Mixing Food, Mixing Cultures:
Archaeological Perspectives
288 Mixing Food, Mixing Culture: Archaeological Perspectives
Spanish strove to find ways of growing olives for their fruit and for their
oil, wheat both for making bread and communion wafers and grapes for
wine for communion and more general consumption (Crosby 1972). Yet in
some instances the adoption of New World food products by Europeans
did not strip such foodstuffs of their association with aspects of indigenous
identity. In late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Guatemala,
for instance, chocolate served as a beverage was central to indigenous
women's ritual power. Suspicion among Spanish and indigenous men
that women regularly doctored chocolate to serve as a vehicle for sexual
witchcraft fostered conflict and mutual antagonism (Few 2005).
The strong link between food and identity (cf. Scholliers 2001; Twiss
2007) means that people's dietary habits are closely linked to survival and
well-being under circumstances that remove them from their homelands
and familiar surroundings. Ship captains involved in the Atlantic slave
trade between West Africa and the Americas found that feeding their
human cargo foods to which they were accustomed proved more salutary
than forcing upon them the diet consumed by European sailors (Hall 1991:
163167; Opie 2008: 14). Cravings for favoured foodstuffs and longing for
return to the homeland feature intensely as elements of homesickness,
a malady common among both emigrants and colonists (cf. Matt 2007;
Naum 2013). Yet food also played a vital role in cultural mixing and the
creation of intercultural variability in contact situations that afforded
prolonged transcultural interaction.
Here I discuss the archaeological evidence of two processes in
which food plays an important role in cultural mixing, incorporation and
creolization. My case studies are drawn from the New World, focusing
on the Inca incorporation of groups into their empire through feasting
and provisioning (cf. Hayden and Villeneuve 2011) and the emergence of
creole cuisine in colonial New Orleans, Louisiana. I place these alongside a
case study from the Old World of Jewish resistance to the Roman cultural
conquest of Palestine through a refusal to adopt a specific Roman dish
until the food and the pots used to prepare it could be redefined as local
and therefore as culturally acceptable.
289 Mary C. Beaudry
Commensal Politics: Incorporation Through Feasting
Bray's 2003 volume, The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in
Early States and Empires, offers a range of case studies on the subject of
commensal politics (cf. Dietler 1996: 88), almost all of which involve the
elaborate use of food in quests for status, often involving 'fighting with
food' (Hendon 2003; Wiessner and Schiefenhvel 1996). Bray (2003: 94)
notes that full consideration of the role of food in imperial statecraft
could come about only after archaeologists began to interpret ceramics
as culinary tools, instead of focusing on pots stylistically as chronological
clues or as symbolic proxies for status and/or ethnicity. Another critical
development has been the emergence of an archaeology of food
technologies that acknowledges the role of the human body and the
senses in the consumption of meals as well as "the social significance and
meaning of food production, processing, and especially consumption"
(Hamilakis 1999: 39).
Bray's interpretation of classic polychrome vessels associated with
the imperial Inca state is based upon converging lines of evidence from
archaeology and from ethnohistorical accounts about foodways in the
sixteenth-century Andean highlands. Diets of both indigenous peoples
and the Inca shared common elementsmaize, potatoes, quinoa, beans,
red pepper, salt and to a lesser extent, meat, along with wild foodstuffs,
especially greens and medicinal herbs and, for those who lived near
bodies of water, fish, which was eaten both fresh and in dried form
(Bray 2003: 97101; cf. also Krgel 2011: 1937). Maize was given pride of
place in Inca high cuisine while other starchy foods were deemed low-
status foods. Hence maize was singled out as most appropriate for elite
consumption. Such distinctions, along with control over access to food,
are foundational in differentiated cuisines in state-level societies (Goody
1982).
The greatest degree of differentiation between indigenous and
Inca ways of eating, however, was in the types of pottery vessels used
for serving food and beverages and the sorts of social events in which
they were used. While domestic utilitarian vessels were ubiquitous and
vital to everyday food storage, preparation and serving, Inca imperial
pottery was more highly elaborated in terms of vessels for serving and
consuming foods. Bray (2003: 121) notes that "this emphasis highlights
the significance of commensal events in the eyes of the state and the
contribution of the vessels themselves to the materialization of the idea
of an Inca haute cuisine".
Inca pottery also had a geopolitical impact, because imperial vessels
played a role in the Inca's ability to expand their empire. A comprehensive
analysis of the archaeological evidence of the distribution of Inca pottery
throughout the extent of the Inca Empire shows an uneven distribution
of the serving subassemblage of Inca vessel forms. A limited suite of
vessels was found with regularity at sites on the provincial 'edges' of the
empire. Bray (2003: 125) interprets this distribution as reflecting the role of
a core of three vessel forms; large bottle-like pots (arbalo) used to store
and transport the maize-based Andean beer (chicha), pedestal cooking
pots and shallow plates constituted the core suite of Inca vessels for elite
repasts, which involved drinking chicha and eating meat and cooked
maize kernels or maize-based stews.
Despite the overwhelming similarities in Andean diet overall and in
the types of pottery vessels used in food storage, preparation and serving,
there are strong distinctions between Inca state pottery and indigenous
pottery:
The decision to encode such difference in culinary
equipment is probably not accidental. The relationship
between the rulers and the people who served them was
to an important extent both mediated and materialized
through the presentation of food and drink within the
context of ritual commensality. In traditional Andean
society, cooking and the production of chicha, both
for everyday consumption and for offeringswas the
primary responsibility of women (Bray 2003: 131132).
291 Mary C. Beaudry
Thus, the products of women's labourlocal indigenous women who
had been specially 'chosen' and imprisoned to work for the state
underpinned the imperial project; in bestowing already valued products,
rendered more special because they were made by these 'chosen' women,
"the Inca obligated and ritually subordinated state subjects through the
complex web of social relations engendered by the gift" (Bray 2003: 132).
Bray (2003: 133) makes it clear that warfare and conquest were highly
important in the expansion of the Inca Empire, but the "female-controlled
domains of cooking, serving, and feasting" were also critical. The process
of expansion mobilized gender systems and gendered objects as part of
the imperial process and the Inca employed traditional Andean gender
ideologies in constructing their empire. This made it possible to expand
into new territories by mixing domestic and political realms and blending
the principles, behaviours and ideologies of the domestic sphere with
those of the public and political realm. Incorporation of provincial
territories through elite feasting, provisioning those who laboured for
the state, and manipulation of traditional ideology around gender and
gender roles thus made it possible in some instances for the Inca to
expand their territorial control using food and drink rather than weaponry
and warfare.
Colonialism and Creole Cuisine in Eighteenth-Century New
Orleans
The emergence of creole cuisines, part of the larger process of creolization,
provides clear examples of the role of food in cultural mixing. Dawdy's
(2000, 2008, 2010; Scott and Dawdy 2011) archaeological and historical
research has traced the roots of the emergence of creole New Orleans,
Louisiana. Dawdy (2008: 11) attributes creole New Orleans' emergence as
a cultural and culinary phenomenon by the early eighteenth century to
three factors: the confluence of Enlightenment philosophy invoked in
founding and engineering the French colony; cultural creolization arising
from a diverse population of Native Americans, Africans, Canadians,
Europeans and people from the Caribbean; and what she terms "rogue
colonialismthe influence of those individuals on the ground who
pushed colonial frontiers in their own self-interest" (Dawdy 2008: 11).
Creolization here developed in three phases that produced distinctive
material traces: "transplantation, closely linked to the French colonial
periods (17181769); ethnic acculturation, associated with the Spanish
colonial period (17691803); and hybridization, associated with the
antebellum American period (18031861)" (Dawdy 2000: 107, 111). During
the initial phase, colonists attempted to replicate foodways from the
home country and discover which of their familiar crops and foodstuffs
would thrive and which would not. The second generation of settlers
were native creoles (cf. Dawdy 2000: 108) who began to adapt to and take
advantage of New World products, developing a distinctive culture born,
in part, out of practical necessity (Scott and Dawdy 2011: 99).
Ethnic acculturation brought about the development of new, colonial
materials and traditions that combined Old and New World notions,
invented traditions and increasingly well-defined economic and ethnic
categories. Creole culture in New Orleans was, it seems likely, largely
forged in middle- and upper-class households whose economic standing
gave them access to the foodstuffs that became closely associated with
what it meant to be 'creole' (Scott and Dawdy 2011: 99). Narrative accounts
reveal "an obsession with food, taste, and preparation techniques for
different native products" while archaeological evidence illuminates
ways in which the daily diet was "procured through self-provisioning"
(Dawdy 2010: 391392). Faunal remains from nearly all contexts in early
colonial New Orleans reveal a strong preference for wild game (rabbit,
swamp rabbit, ducks, turkey, passenger pigeon, turtles) and fish. This
is noteworthy because meat from domestic cattle, sheep and pigs was
readily available in the marketspercentages of wild game found on
lower Louisiana sites in the town and those in the country do not differ;
it seems that wild species were equally available in the town's markets,
possibly through trade with Native Americans (Scott and Dawdy 2011: 101,
105).
293 Mary C. Beaudry
As diverse groups of people mingled in early New Orleans, so did
elements of their diets. In addition to native wild game, colonists and
creoles adopted "the Native American triad of maize, squash, and beans,
with the addition of rice (likely imported with the help of knowledgeable
west Africans) and perhaps European peas" (Dawdy 2010: 393). They
enjoyed maize prepared in many ways, including as beer, brandy, Indian
corn stew and cornbread, though the most common dish was made with
rice, milk, beans, meat and fish. The beans were likely the common bean
native to the Americas, Phaseolus vulgaris, which has been recovered in
archaeological deposits in New Orleans and other French colonial sites.
Colonial bread was made by African women who pounded soaked corn
kernels in mortars using pestles, sifted the flour using baskets made
by local Native American women and mixed it with cooked rice before
baking it; wheat bread was not widely available except among the
wealthy. Dawdy (2010: 394) remarks that "the colonial bread of Louisiana
thus reflected another type of food triad: the grains of Africa, America,
and Europe".
Beyond grains, native plants such as blackberries, raspberries,
melons, grapes (wild Concord variety) and squash were incorporated into
the creole diet. At times local Native Americans offered to French officials
native dishes the French considered bizarre (e.g. bear paws, beaver
tail, dog), but diplomacy required that guests accepted and consumed
whatever their hosts served them. Reciprocal hospitality was "a catalyst
for the exchange of food ideas and the rapid adoption of new items"
(Dawdy 2010: 395). Some wild plants, especially herbs such as chamomile,
chervil, tarragon, watercress and bay laurel were readily recognized by
French colonists and quickly adopted for seasoning sauces and ragouts
and for use in medicinal preparations.
New to Europeans were peppers and tomatoes, the former native
to South America and the Caribbean but brought to New Orleans by
West Africans, probably by enslaved cooks. The contributions of Africans,
in particular African cooks, tended to be overlooked by observers who
recorded the sorts of food they ate in New Orleans, largely because
"gustatory experiences of 'wild' foods represented a metonymical
consumption of new lands while the deterritorialized African had no
inherent tie to colonial consumption other than through labor" (Dawdy
2010: 396).
Colonists and creoles found themselves subject to the same sorts of
seasonal variation in diet that Native Americans had always experienced,
such that the summer menu differed dramatically from the winter one.
The heat of the summers made it difficult to enjoy fresh meat, but dried
and salted meats were used; fresh fish, however, was abundant at this
time. Catfish and redfish, turtles and shellfish (e.g. deep-fried clams) were
often eaten in fricassees or bouillabaisses and in late summer, oysters and
crawfish (described by one observer as "des ecrevices magnifiques") were
consumed with enthusiasm (Dawdy 2010: 399).
The archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence from French
colonial sites in the Americas reveals that French colonists were more
receptive to culinary experimentation and cross-fertilization than British
colonists, seemingly an outgrowth of their greater receptivity to cultural
mixing of other sorts (Dawdy 2010: 401; Scott and Dawdy 2011: 114). Dawdy
(2010: 408) notes that the French way of responding to the world is by
cooking it, that different cultural responses to 'foreign food' underscores
the fact that "it is difficult to disentangle political disposition from sensory
experience" and that "different colonial cultures will produce different
bodily logics". French colonists and creoles prided themselves on "the
ability to transform [native] ingredients through French preparation
methods into something not only palatable but enjoyable"; creole food
first and foremost appealed to the senses and the openness to using a
wide variety of local resources resulted from "choices guided by sensual
values" (Dawdy 2010: 402). As creole chef Babette de Rozieres (2007: 7)
puts it, "[w]hen enjoying Creole cuisine, your sense of smell functions
at full speed and your tastebuds are constantly stimulated. Its tastes
can surprise but they can never disappoint. It awakens the senses and
never leaves you indifferent. Its aromas are seductive". Preparations
such as pts, sauces, breads, fricasses and bouillabaisses turned 'wild'
295 Mary C. Beaudry
foodstuffs into colonial ones and demonstrated that Europeans had the
power "to transform America into something civilized and consumable"
(Dawdy 2010: 401); the development of creole cuisine was never about
'going native' but was a fundamental colonial practice (Dawdy 2010: 410).
Resistance
The case of Jewish life in Palestine in the first century BC presents an
interesting example of resistance to cultural mixing through food. Berlin's
(2005) study of the archaeological evidence from sites throughout the
region likely to have been inhabited by Jews indicates strong conformity
in material expressions of religion at the household level at rural sites. In
Jerusalem, however, the wealthy had adopted decorated table vessels,
Italian-style cooking pans and foreign modes of dining. The overall
population was "strongly unified in religious practices but sharply divided
by cultural ethic" (Berlin 2005: 420).
The archaeological record, supplemented by textual evidence,
reveals widespread regional developments showing Jewish identity
through locally made products, in particular pottery and stone vessels
and the workshops for their production that were developed throughout
the region. Berlin (2005: 425) sees these developments as permitting
what she refers to as 'household Judaism' and she also notes the
standardization of pottery jars used to distribute and store Jewish-made
wine and olive oil at the same time that presses and production sites for
wine and oil sprang up throughout the region. Simultaneously, there was
a rise in production of stone vessels that copied imported glazed and
silver vessels. Particularly noteworthy are small stone dishes for service
and display (Berlin 2005: 433). Such vessels were:
recognizably local, made of the land itself, andmost
obvious and importantof a material that was religiously
privileged. Stone vessels would have communicated
ethnic pride and attentiveness to Judaism. Their
appearance demonstrated conspicuous religious
solidarity (Berlin 2005: 433).
The strong evidence for a systematic replacement of imported vessels
with locally produced ones led Berlin to explore 'ethnic' cuisines as
indicated by types of cooking vessels. There were three types of cooking
vessels: cooking pots, stew pots and casseroles, and pans, each suitable
for different preparations and each characteristic of a different regional
cuisine (Berlin 2005: 437). Cooking pots were likely used mostly for soups
and bean dishes; stew pots and casseroles for stewing or braising larger
pieces of food than could be accommodated by cooking pots; and pans,
with their low, straight walls, were used for composed dishes "whose
ingredients need to bake together" (Berlin 2005: 438439). Each of these
types of vessels has a regional origin and is most common to that region.
Cooking pots are found on sites throughout the Near East and the southern
Levant from the sixth through the early first centuries BC, coinciding with
textual references that focus on recipes for soups and bean dishes. Stew
pots and casseroles are common in Greece and on eastern Mediterranean
island and coastal sites from the later fifth century BC onward, at the same
time that Greek cooking manuals often refer to "hearty preparations of
stewed meat, fish, or large vegetables such as cabbage" (Berlin 2005: 439).
Pans appear in Italy and Roman colonial sites in Europe and the western
Mediterranean from the fourth through to the first centuries BC and are
rare in the East. They are associated with a dish called a patina, roughly
equivalent to a quiche or frittata. Hence each type of vessel can be linked
to a particular 'ethnic' cuisine (Berlin 2005: 439).
Jewish households in Palestine possessed large numbers of cooking
pots from the late first century BC and stew pots and casseroles began
to appear in the third and second centuries BC in Phoenician coastal
sites and in the early to mid-first century in lower Galilee and Baulantitis,
eventually comprising about one-third of kitchen pottery assemblages.
But in Jerusalem and Judea, stew pots and casseroles were rare until the
end of the first century AD, at which time Jerusalem potters began to
produce them; these were copies of Italian bronze casseroles, but the
297 Mary C. Beaudry
locally produced vessels were widely adopted at this time (Berlin 2005:
439440).
Pans were a different story. They were accepted in limited quantities
in many parts of the Mediterranean region, but initially only by the
wealthy in Jerusalem and Judea. However, they do not appear in the rural
settlements there or in ordinary household assemblages (Berlin 2005:
441). Berlin (2005: 442) concludes that "pans were used for Roman cuisines
and understood as a vehicle of Roman culture". There was a good deal of
variation in dining arrangements among Jews in first-century Palestine,
but for the most part an identity formed around "behaviors and attitudes
held in common" (Berlin 2005: 468), centering around religious beliefs and
practices. The absence of pans from rural Judean settlements suggests
that "most Jews were uninterested in preparing the sorts of 'Roman'
recipes these vessels allowed" (Berlin 2005: 441). Thus the metonymical
relationship between pans and the prepared dishes they were intended to
hold means that in resisting Roman conquest (and religious persecution),
Jews throughout Palestine rejected both the foodstuff and the vessel
necessary for its preparation.
Closing Comments
Food, because it is so strongly associated with cultural identity, can be
seen as both a catalyst for cultural mixing and as a flashpoint for resistance
against cultural imperialism. Archaeologists have abundant sources of
evidence for the processes involved in cultural mixing through food, the
most prevalent being pottery, animal bones, plant remains and textual
evidence. There are other ways of learning about people's adoption of
new types of food, including stable isotope analysis (cf. Richards et al.
1998). However, such analyses of dietary change seldom make it possible
to attribute change in diet to cultural mixing (versus, for instance, moving
to a new locale with different resources, adopting imported foodstuffs
without coming in contact with the cultures that produced them).
Successful studies of the role of food in imperial politics, creolization and
even in symbolic resistance require large data sets that span fairly long
chronological periods and come from many sites, as was true of the three
case studies presented here. Also of import in such studies is a recognition
of the significance of food technologies (i.e. perceiving of pots as culinary
tools) and of the bodily experiences around food preparation and dining.
Adopting new foods is both a cultural and a physical act, involving the
senses as much as it involves politics, religion and social positioning.
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300
Introduction
O
ver the past four decades, studies of cultural process have migrated
the marginsfrom the cannon, the West, the metropole and the
human, to diasporic literatures, imperial encounters and the material and
conceptual interfaces between humans, animals, objects and landscapes.
Dismissed by some observers as a passing fad, studies of marginal places,
peoples and ideas have achieved staying power in the humanities and
social sciences through contributions to core areas of research, as well as
critical insights into the categories we use to carve up the world (such as
'culture', 'society', 'politics', 'history', 'humanity'). Historical anthropologists'
studies of biopower in colonial and postcolonial contexts, for example,
have demonstrated how key elements of European statecraft, racial and
sexual identities and selfhood emerged at the edges of empire rather
Department of Anthropology, University of Vermont
parkervan@gmail.com
302 Hybridity, Creolization, Mestizaje: A Comment
than in government offices and salons in western Europe (Cohn and Dirks
1988; Cooper and Stoler 1997; Duncan 2007; Hansen and Stepputat 2009;
Kaplan 1995; Stoler 1995; Young 1995). The examination of legal regimes in
colonial societies has shown how state institutions gain traction through
local participation and even resistance to legal norms (Benton 2001, 2010;
Ho 2004; Stern 1982). Scholarship on 'third genders' has made us rethink
the nature of gender and sexuality (Butler 1999; Herdt 1994; Prine 2000;
Roscoe 1998). And the study of human-animal relations (Franklin 1999;
Haraway 2007; Manning and Serpell 2002) and human-thing relations
(Alberti and Bray 2009; Gell 1998; Knappett 2002; Knappett and Malafouris
2008; Latour 2005; Viveiros De Castro 2004; Webmoor and Witmore 2008;
Witmore 2007; see also Palmi, this volume) has led scholars, including a
good number of archaeologists, to re-imagine the social, the human and
the material, if not seek to abandon these categories altogether.
Archaeological studies of cultural mixture have also made their living
at the marginsin examinations of how new forms of material culture
and social identity emerge through political expansion and migration.
As the distribution of articles in this collection reflects, European colonial
contexts in the Americas, Australasia and Africa (Card in press; Given 2004;
Gosden 2004; Harrison 2002; Liebmann 2008; Loren 2008; Murray 2004;
Stein 2005; Voss 2008; Voss and Casella 2012) and Bronze Age, Iron Age and
Classical Period interaction in the Mediterranean (Antonaccio 2003; Dietler
2010; van Dommelen 1997; Hitchcock 2011; Knapp and van Dommelen
2010; Lyons and Papadopoulos 2002; Malkin 2002; Stockhammer 2012)
have been hotbeds of experimentation with models that describe and
explain processes of cultural change in marginal places.
In this brief review essay, I would like to highlight how the papers
that comprise this volume frame the archaeological study of cultural
mixture, focusing on different treatments of a keyword that appears over
three hundred times within it'hybrid'/'hybridity'/'hybridization'. While
a pair of recent volumes (Card in press; Stockhammer 2012) have brought
together critical studies of cultural hybridity in archaeology and have
offered fruitful new approaches to the study of cultural process, there has
303 Parker VanValkenburgh
been surprisingly little discussion among archaeologists of distinctions
between two very different approaches carried out under the sign of the
word 'hybrid: 1) that first articulated by Bakhtin (1981) and expanded in
the work of Bhabha (1985; 1994), Garca Canclini (1989) and other scholars
of postcolonial literature and Latin American cultural studies; and 2) the
definition advanced by Latour (1993). After attempting to clarify different
uses of the term, I will suggest here that an appreciation of both of these
conceptsBakhtinian and Latourian hybridityis vital to making sense
of how new forms of material culture are produced in colonial contexts
and also to understand, as Palmi (this volume) suggests, the nature of
archaeological interpretation.
As Loren (this volume) argues (see also Liebmann in press), the
Bakhtinian definition of hybridity can be useful to archaeologists for
exploring the tensions, ambiguities and violence of cultural production
and interpretationqualities that, while particularly visible in colonial
contexts, are arguably latent within all cultural discourse. In this vision,
what Bakhtin (1981) calls hybridization is not strange, but merely one type
of expression that emerges at the intersections of power, practice and
speech under certain discursive conditions. Hybridity can be subversive,
as Bhabha (1985; 1994) suggests, but it is not inherently so, and it may serve
as a vehicle of dominant political interests. Moreover, it is best understood
as a complement to other patterns of discourse, including purification
and reification (Latour 1993; Luckacs 1971; compare Stockhammer, this
volume). While moderns may have raised purification to the status of
an ethos, founding our identity on the distinctness of our time from the
eras that preceded it, purification was also a common element of cultural
discourse in previous ages. Far from being fundamentally 'Western'
or 'colonial', purification may operate as a central trope of cultural
resistance, particularly where hybrid discourses have been monopolized
by dominant interests (Canessa 2000; Hale 1999; Mitchell 1997).
Keywords
In seeking to foster a diverse exchange and take stock of varying
approaches to cultural mixture in archaeology, the editor of this
volume issued a call for papers that encouraged experimentation with
terminology, rather than focusing on a single conceptual framework. Three
wordshybridity, creolization, and mestizajefigured prominently in
the call for papers, but the word hybridity commands a lion's share of the
attention in the collection assembled here.
1
Only Beaudry, drawing on the
rich literature on cultural mixture in the historical archaeology of colonial
North America (including her own work on the subject), employs the
term creolization extensively; and only Naum, who builds on Anzaldua's
(1987) scholarship on borderlands, employs the concept of mestizaje.
Several authors introduce related terms 'middle ground' (Antonaccio),
'contact zone' (Brittain et al.), 'frontier' (Van Gijseghem), 'transculturation'
(Hitchcock and Meier)whose meanings hover between geographic
and conceptual spaces and raise fascinating questions about the
geopolitical conditions under which certain types of cultural discourse
emerge. Finally, 'entanglement', used 115 times in the volume and offered
by Langin-Hooper, Hitchcock and Maeir, and Stockhammer as an explicit
replacement for hybridity, seems to be emerging as a new keyword for
defining cultural mixture in archaeology.
The small space available here does not allow me to do justice to the
complexities of these perspectives or the rich ways in which the authors
employ them. But I believe several consistent differences are captured
in how the contributors treat the word hybridity, which occurs in all but
one paper in the collection (Van Gijseghem), and which elicits emotions
ranging from tempered enthusiasm (Loren) to impassioned frustration
(Pappa). For each author, the hybrid is something emerging from
'problematic' conjunctures of things and ideas. However, each envisions
these problems differentlyas being concerned primarily with one of
three phenomena: epistemology, discourse or ontology.
1 The word 'hybrid' and its derivations ('hybridity', 'hybridization') appear 295 times in the case studies. In comparison,
'creole' and 'creolization' occur 63 times, while 'mestizo' and 'mestizaje' appear 17 times.
Three Approaches to Hybridity
Derived from the Latin root hybrida, the progeny between a wild
boar and a sow, the English word hybrid acquired broad usage in the
mid-nineteenth century, when it referred to the offspring of wild and
domesticated animals, plants and/or people (see mid-nineteenth-century
peak usage in fig. 1) (Warren 1884). In the early and mid-twentieth century,
scientists and engineers began to apply the term to describe the mixing of
phenomena such as magmas, electron orbitals and computing methods.
The explosion of 'hybrid' technologies and projects since the mid-1980s,
encompassing examples such as cars with both internal combustion
engines and electric motors and university courses that employ both
web-based and classroom instruction, reflects further growth in what we
might call the vernacular definition of hybridity.
A plurality of the contributions to this volume begin with a vernacular
definition of hybridity and view problems associated with the term as
being primarily epistemological. Here, hybrids are objects, structures or
representations that encompass characteristics of multiple cultural types
and are iconic of interaction between two or more cultural groups. For
several authors (Bader, Levin, MacCafferty and Dennett) understanding
cultural mixture entails taking the hybrid apart, seeking out its source
components and trying to understand the processes by which they were
recombined. In turn, these contributions focus on sociopolitical factors
Fig. 1. Google ngram of three keywords ('hybridity', 'creolization' and 'mestizaje') used in this volume's call for papers, showing the
percentage of books in the Google Books English corpus that contain them by calendar year from 18202004 (http://books.google.
com/ngrams).
shaping the contexts of interactionfor example, forced resettlement
(Levin), migration (MacCafferty and Dennett) and status systems tied to
cultural memory (Bader).
Several authors take issue with vernacular definitions of hybridity
on epistemological grounds, suggesting that what we call hybrid objects
are merely the chaff left over from our imperfect typologies and that the
hybrid reinforces the essentialism of the cultural components that make
it up or stand outside it (cf. Langin-Hooper, Pappa, Palmi, Stockhammer,
this volume; cf. also Dean and Leibsohn 2003). The epistemological
quandaries posed by hybridity might be overcome by either adopting
more flexible typologies (Langin-Hooper) or by breaking down cultural
mixture into stages (Stockhammer's 'relational entanglement' and
'material entanglement') that focus our attention away from typology
towards cultural process. Understanding culture in marginal places
requires that we focus attention on how change is articulated in
specific practices, such as feasting (Hitchcock and Meier, Stockhammer)
and ceramic production (Van Gijseghem), rather than only on broad,
sociopolitical contexts of interaction.

In the way that Beaudry's, Loren's and Naum's contributions to this
volume employ the term, hybridity is a conceptual tool that highlights the
effects of bringing together different types of significance in the same
moments of practice. Here, hybridity is a discursive concept that is useful
for archaeologists because it emphasizes the symbolic ambiguities and
conflicts that emerge in intercultural interaction (cf. Liebmann in press)a
process that Voloshinov (1986) called the struggle over the meaning of
the sign. Indeed, this alternative approach to hybridity has its roots in
the work of Voloshinov's colleague Bakhtin (1981: 304), who defined the
'hybrid construction' as "an utterance that belongs, by its grammatical
(syntactic) and compositional markers, to a single speaker, but that
actually contains mixed within it two utterances, two speech manners,
two styles, two 'languages', two semantic and axiological belief systems".
For Bakhtin, what is critical about the hybrid utterance is not its 'mixture'
of voices, but rather the dialogical relationship that emerges between
them once they are brought together. Accordingly, the hybridity of an
utterance can take on distinct functions. In Charles Dickens's (18551857)
novel Little Dorrit, for example, the author merges stratified utterances to
create parody, placing the authoritative voice of the narrator alongside
both "epic, 'Homeric'" descriptions and the "everyday language of banal
society gossip" to poke fun at an inept bureaucrat (Bakhtin 1981: 306).

Bhabha's (1985, 1994) approach to cultural hybridity describes how
parody emerging from 'mixed' cultural products can serve subversive
ends, estranging the authority of dominant cultural discourse by
allowing "denied" knowledges to impinge upon it (Bhabha 1985: 156).
In their contributions to this volume Stockhammer and Pappa helpfully
distinguish between typological and Bakhtinian definitions of hybridity
(cf. also Ackermann 2012; Card in press; Liebmann in press), but dismiss
the latter as too 'political' for archaeological usage. In contrast, Loren
(this volume) finds the political potential of Bhaktinian hybridity its
most useful characteristic, allowing archaeologists to consider how the
appearance of European artefacts within native burials in colonial New
England may signal not native acceptance of dominant cultural norms,
but the mockery of European conventions.
Yet while Bhabha's replotting of hybridity emphasizes its subversive
qualities, Bakhtin's definition does not see the hybrid utterance as
inherently subversive. Indeed, colonial histories are replete with
examples of how hybrid products and performances are incorporated
into dominant discourses. In sixteenth-century Peru, for example, clergy
drew on both Christian and Inka references to choreograph native dances
(haylli taki) performed among Indian nobles. Citing Panofsky (1972),
Estenssoro (2003: 152153) suggests that, rather than being evidence of
native mockery of Christian beliefs, the hybrid is here founded on the
'principle of disjunction'. The purpose of bringing together the pagan
and the Christian in the taki is not to preserve the old meaning of pagan
symbols, but rather to stimulate the Indian noble audience to carry
out an interpretatio Christiana, an exegesis that discovers the hidden
Christian meaning in a pagan sign and thereby shows the audience that
native Christianity is possible (Durston 2007: 6364). Here, the hybrid
remains structurally ambiguous, but is inserted in a discourse where its
performative function is to stimulate the audience to resolve its ambiguity
and accept the religion of the colonizer.
The contributions by Palmi and Brittain et al. to this volume make
use of a third sense of the term hybrid, developed in the work of Latour
(1993). For Latour, what hybrids transgress are not types or discourses
but ontologiesthat is, our understandings of the nature of being.
Modernity's chief characteristic is its 'purification' of nature and culture
into separate ontological entities, despite overwhelming evidence of the
interpenetration of the natural and the cultural in hybrid phenomena as
distinct as gun violence and global warming. Previous archaeological
applications of Latour's concept of the hybrid have focused on rethinking
divisions between nature and culture, mind and body, and human,
object and animal in the name of developing 'symmetrical' (Olsen 2007;
Shanks 2007; Webmoor 2007; Webmoor and Witmore 2008; Witmore
2007) or 'animated' (Alberti and Bray 2009; Alberti and Marshall 2009)
archaeologies.

Instead, both Brittain et al. and Palmi take aim at archaeology's
purification of 'past' from 'present' (Dawdy 2010; Lucas 2005; Thomas
2004). For Brittain et al., benna kulugto (stone circles) in the Omo valley of
Ethiopia become 'contact zones' that bundle past, present, archaeologist
and native together in a hybrid community of practice and interpretation.
For Palmi (this volume: 120), the nganga objects created by Afro-
Cuban practitioners of reglas de congo are hybrids whose fashioning
"blur[s] actively and methodically, a multiplicity of bright lines by which
contemporary Western ontologies (and epistemologies) divide subjects
and objects, agents and patients, matter and spirit, people and things,
life and death, present and past". Yet ngangas are of interest not so
much because they are strange, but because they provide a mirror for
archaeological practice, whose construction of knowledge similarly
recombines past and present according to its own particular rules.
As it is employed here, the Latourian concept of hybridity is
characteristic of an even broader range of phenomena than that
described by the vernacular and Bakhtinian definitions. For Latour,
hybridity is an inevitable product of situated practice, rather than a
product of typological recombination or cultural discourse particular to
marginal places. The disjunctions that we witness in cultural contact, such
as the distinction between how paleros and archaeologists treat human
remains, umask the process of purification that is inherent in both forms
of practice. But we don't need to examine contexts of such overt cultural
mixture to see that all knowledge is hybrid. The hybrid appears just as
clearly in the modern laboratory.
Contra Latour, then, it may be useful to see purification not as a
strictly modern, Western phenomenon. Paleros are also purifying agents,
reconfiguring an improper world of archaeological hybrids that have
been yanked out of horizontal time by secular historicist ontologies and
rebinding past and present in a nganga. The Inkas, whose wak'as confound
many of the divisions of Western ontologies (cf. Bray 2009), purified past
from present in imperial narratives that emphasized order and hierarchy
under their rule and disorder and chaos in preceding eras (MacCormack
1984: 124). In each case, purification renders different effects depending
on the discursive context in which it is performed.

To sum up, three concepts of hybridityvernacular, Bakhtinian,
and Latourianare employed within this collection of articles. Rather
than being merely semantic in their distinctions, these approaches
substantially configure the ways in which the authors view the problems
posed by cultural mixture. The vernacular definition encourages us
to delve into typologies and investigate the order by which different
cultural components are recombined; the Bakhtinian approach urges us
to think about the dialogical tensions that emerge out of different cultural
expressions and their readings; and the Latourian definition emphasizes
both the clash of ontologies that may emerge in intercultural discourse
and the hybridity of contemporary archaeological practice.
Untangling Entanglement
In his contribution to this volume, Stockhammer laments the confusion
that has emerged out of differing approaches to hybridity in archaeological
theorywhat we might quite accurately call the hybridity (in a Bakhtinian
sense) of the hybrid. Because the vernacular use of the term is yoked to its
origins in biology and Bhabha's version is "purely political", Stockhammer
(this volume: 1516) suggests we are better off describing cultural mixture
by using a new word, 'entanglement'. If its increasing appearance in
titles and abstracts from the last ten annual meetings of the Society for
American Archaeology (fig. 2) is any indication, entanglement is gathering
steam as a keyword in archaeological scholarship. However, in the process
the term has also acquired a variety of meanings. As employed by Thomas
(1991) and Dietler (1998, 2010) (cf. Loren, this volume), entanglement is a
methodological substitute for the word 'interaction' that underscores the
multidirectionality of relationships between people, places and things.
Whereas interaction suggests that entities remain fundamentally the
same even in contact, entanglement draws attention to the traces that
Fig. 2. Appearances of keywords in abstracts and/or titles from the programme of the Society for American Archaeology Annual
Meetings, 20042013.
encounters leave behind and the enduring networks formed through
circulation, exchange and other transactions. Hodder (2011a, 2011b, 2012)
further develops this methodology and explores its potential to serve as
the basis of a new paradigm in archaeology, emphasizing the indivisibility
of the social and the material and the path dependencies that emerge in
social-material trajectories. In contrast, Stockhammer's use of the term is
more specialized, referring to stages of incorporation in the treatment of
'foreign' objects.
For archaeologists whose interest in hybridity is primarily typological,
the distinction between 'relational' and 'material' entanglement may
prove to be a useful way to break down processes of stylistic and
functional change in artefacts and it encourages a vital focus on cultural
transformation rather than reifying its products. However, it seems
clear that redefining an emergent keyword may lead to the same kind
of terminological confusion that the author finds problematic about
hybridity. Moreover, while entanglement (as the term is used by Bader,
Langin-Hooper, Hitchcock and Maeir and Stockhammer) may provide
a more precise framework for examining typological change than the
vernacular definition of hybridity, it lacks the emphasis on "issues of voice,
power, identity and ambivalence" (Loren, this volume: 151) and ontology
that have made Bakhtinian and Latourian concepts of hybridity highly
productive concepts for archaeologists.
Returning to Discourse
As the conceptual diversity of this volume suggests, archaeological
studies of cultural mixture have built liberally on perspectives from
literary theory, cultural studies, sociolinguistics, science studies, cultural
history and socio-cultural anthropology. In the process, archaeologists
conducting research on the complexities of cultural discourse in 'marginal'
places have assembled one of the more vibrant networks of theoretical
exchange in our field and have begun to make strong impacts on general
theories of cultural process in archaeology.
Fig. 2. Appearances of keywords in abstracts and/or titles from the programme of the Society for American Archaeology Annual
Meetings, 20042013.
In that spirit, I would like to draw attention to one element missing
from our discussionnamely, a more explicit theorization of the role
that hybridizing discourses,
2
such as creolization and mestizaje, play in
the constitution of the social, the material and the archaeological. In my
opinion, the vernacular approach to hybridity, which rests on a distinction
between emic and etic categories, fails to consider how competing
visions of reality and political struggles may be subsumed under the
category of the emic. 'Culture' is not data loaded onto a social hard drive
but an evolving set of discourses that emerges as a product of competing
subject positions (Gramsci 1971; Lukacs 1971). Accordingly, there is no
such thing as a monolithic 'native' perspective. Understanding cultural
process in the past requires an appreciation of how subjects, landscapes
and artefacts are shaped through different normative representations of
the world, which incorporate different typologies and accents, as well as
distinct ontologies and semiotic ideologies (Keane 2003).
The changing shapes of creolization and mestizaje between the
sixteenth and twentieth centuries provide excellent illustrations of how
archaeology's objects of study emerge through semiotic struggle, rather
than simply 'standing in' for singular meanings. While both words have
been employed elsewhere as labels for paradigms explaining pan-
historical regularities in cultural mixture, they are also highly specific
discourses that regimented cultural production and social identities in
the Americas in the wake of European colonization (de la Cadena 2000;
2005; Palmi 2006). In sixteenth-century Spanish America, the word criollo
3

emerged to describe people of Spanish descent born in the Americas,
whereas mestizo referred to individuals of mixed Spanish and native
parentage. However, as numerous authors have shown (e.g. Burns 2007;
Carrera 2003; de La Cadena 2005; Rappaport 2009), these labels lacked
2 I use the word discourse here in its Foucaultian sense, to refer to "ways of constituting knowledge, together with
the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and relations between
them" (Weedon 1987: 505).
3 In this section, I discuss creolization entirely from the perspective of Spanish American colonies. In the eighteenth-
century Caribbean, 'creole' was increasingly applied to describe people of mixed and/or African ancestry. Sociolinguists
then incorporated the term and employed it to describe stable, 'natural' languages arising in the way of pidginization
(Hock and Joseph 1996: 437441)
racial connotations until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rather,
they acquired salience as fiscal and legal categories that facilitated imperial
administration and gave shape to colonial society. In the central Andes,
originales (members of native corporate communities) held land and were
required to pay tribute to the Spanish state, while mestizos were free of
tributary obligations and frequently made their livings as muleteers and
traders (Harris 1995; Wightman 1990). Mestizo status ultimately had little
to do with blood, though; it required performance and it was possible
for individuals to pass in and out of that status throughout the course of
their lives. To avoid taxation, numerous people of 'indigenous' parentage
appear to have sought to prove that they were of mixed descent and
some mothers claimed that their children were illegitimate in order for
them to gain mestizo status (Harris 1995: 358359).
However, from their inception these social categories were policed
and regulated by a Spanish imperial administration that sought to both
extract labour and maintain order in its subject populations. In the
process, administrators regimented how their subjects expressed their
identities through material culture. For example, the 1567 ordinances of
Gregorio Gonzlez de Cuenca denied native leaders access to horses and
forbid Indians from wearing silk, playing cards, wearing their hair long
and eating certain types of foods (Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 1975). To
protect originarios from the vices and ambitions of mestizos and people
of African descent, Cuenca outlawed the latter from cohabiting with
originarios in native towns. While the chief force behind these laws was
an imperial paternalism that sought to instil polica (urban politeness and
order) in native subjects and sustain their bodies for state labour, they also
created enduring associations between certain types of material culture,
spaces and identities. Fascinatingly, the political regulation of dress
appears to have had Prehispanic precedents as the Inkas are attributed
with having required ethnic groups to maintain their 'national' costumes
after incorporation into Tawantinsuyu, the Inka Empire (Cobo 1979: 196).
During the era of the eighteenth-century Bourbon Reforms, when
Spanish monarchs attempted to drive a wedge into the 'colonial consensus'
that had emerged between native, mestizo and criollo communities and
increase tax revenues to pay off war debts, the state again attempted
to redefine social typologies (Lynch 1992). Criollos were removed from
positions of authority and mestizos and Indians were taxed at higher rates.
Casta paintingscollections of up to sixteen individual images depicting
the results of racial mixture between Indians and Spaniards, Spaniards
and Blacks, Blacks and Indians, mestizos and mulatosprovided a visual
complement to the empire's attempt to control miscegenation in Peru
and New Spain (fig. 3; Carrera 2003; Katzew 2005; Loren 2007). Some
fluidity in cultural identity was preserved, but the boundaries of legal
categories became increasingly rigid.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the categories of criollo
and mestizo were reshaped. In the run up to the wars of revolution against
Spain, growing awareness of the uniqueness of the criollo in contrast to
Fig. 3. "Mestizo con India Producen Chola" (Mestizo with Indian [woman] together produce a chola), from the series of casta paintings
commissioned by Peruvian Viceroy Manuel Amat y Junyet (17611776). Courtesy of the Spanish National Museum of Anthropology.
the Iberian played a strong role in forging of new American solidarities
(Brading 1991). At the same time, while indigenous and mestizo were in
theory included in the new republics that emerged from those revolutions,
both continued to be economically marginalized. In the early twentieth
century, a group of intellectuals collectively known as indigenistas recast
mestizaje as a unified programme for redefining national identities (e.g.
Gamio 1960). While indigenista discourse highlighted the 'mixed' qualities
of mestizaje, they also ensconced it as the dominant racial ideology and
once again marginalized indigenous participation in national projects
(Stutzman 1981).
In each of these eras, hybridizing discourses incorporated material
culture, dress and built environments to perform and regulate identities.
Biological and cultural mixture were never inherently subversive. Rather,
they acquired different meanings within evolving political contexts as
distinct interest groups competed to define them. The material remains
that we study from such contexts are thus not indices of 'organic' or 'emic'
types so much as artefacts shaped by discourses. As Loren (this volume:
155) argues, they carry "the stamp of imperial desires and imaginations"
brought together with competing visions deriving from different subject
positions. The distinction between the 'etic' and the 'emic' collapses
when we see material culture as being constantly subject to redefinition
through hybridization, reification, purification and normalization.
Conclusion
Here, I have attempted to clarify some of the ways in which this diverse
collection of studies approach cultural process in archaeology and add
to the discussion of cultural mixture. I have sought to underscore how
both the Bakhtinian and Latourian concepts of hybridity are highly
productive approaches for exploring cultural process and understanding
archaeological interpretation. Rather than by silencing competing
definitions or by one-to-one replacement of contested words, our
discussions of these vital subjects and the contributions that we make
to interdisciplinary scholarship through their study will continue to
Fig. 3. "Mestizo con India Producen Chola" (Mestizo with Indian [woman] together produce a chola), from the series of casta paintings
commissioned by Peruvian Viceroy Manuel Amat y Junyet (17611776). Courtesy of the Spanish National Museum of Anthropology.
benefit from our efforts to clearly define our sources while engaging in
vigorous exchange. Language is arguably the most important tool in the
archaeologist's kit; yet like the trowel, or the shovel of a palero, it conceals
as it reveals, enshrouding the archaeological as it makes it visible. Building
an expanding vocabulary for describing and explaining cultural process
requires us to be just as clear about what our words obscure as what they
make concrete.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank W. Paul van Pelt for the invitation to contribute to this
volume and comments on a draft of this paper, as well as Jeb Card, Carrie
Brezine and Matthew Liebmann for advanced copies of written work. Any
errors contained herein are my own.
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The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual
and Religion
Edited by Timothy Insoll
2011. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Hbk. 1134 pp.149 B/w illus.
ISBN13: 978-0-19-923244-4
Reviewed by Pamela J. Cross
Division of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford
T
his volume is part of the Oxford Handbook series, which has published
over 100 titles covering a diversity of subjects. The aim of the series is
to "bring together the world's leading scholars to write review essays that
evaluate the current thinking on a field or topic, and make an original
Book Reviews
Edited by Penny Jones
324 Book Reviews
argument about the future direction of the debate" (Oxford Handbooks
2013). This volume certainly brings together some prestigious scholarsit
boasts over 60 authors, the majority of whom are professors or readers in
archaeology from the UK or USAbut it does not adequately meet the
series' requirement for essays evaluating current thinking in the field.
This is a diverse collection of 66 articles arranged into six sections:
'Elements and Expression', 'Prehistoric European Ritual and Religion',
'Religion and Ritual in World Prehistory', 'Religion and Cult of the Old
World', 'Archaeology of World Religions' and 'Archaeology of Indigenous
and New Religions'. The main audience is likely to be university students of
archaeology, anthropology and religion. Given its size and price (110.00),
however, it will probably be purchased by university libraries rather than
individuals.
The editor was faced with the very challenging task of wrestling a
study of a vast, complex, highly debated subject area, involving a large
number of authors, into a single reference. This given, perhaps it is not
surprising that the result has some problems. One of the main challenges
for this volume is the definition of terms, particularly vital in this subject
and not adequately addressed by the editor. Many key terms such as
'ritual', 'religion', 'sacrifice' and 'cult' are discussed, to varying degrees, by
individual authors, but they are often interpreted very differently and
sometimes contradictorily. It would have been helpful to have introduced
this volume with a discussion about the various definitions of, and issues
around, some of these key terms. This issue arises, as well, with the
section headings. For example, what is the difference between Section
III's 'Religion and Cult of the Old World' and the two previous sections on
prehistoric 'Ritual and Religion'? It is also unclear as to what is meant by
phrases 'World Religions', 'Indigenous Religions' and 'New Religions' used
in the titles of Sections V and VI.
The other main area which lets this volume down is the sectional
organization. The sections are a mix of topics which encompass religious
and anthropological themes, theoretical and methodological themes,
325 Edited by Penny Jones
and geographical, chronological and cultural themes. Within the sections
themselves there is no consistent internal organization, though some
follow a chronological or loose geographical order. A more coherent
overall and sectional organization, perhaps based around typical themes
such as ritual expressions around landscape, water, the underground, rites
of passage and human-animal relationships, would have been beneficial.
Each of the sections would benefit from a short introduction explaining
the organization and aims of that section, such as in the Oxford Handbook
of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Hamerow et al. 2011). As it stands, the vague
organization detracts significantly from the usefulness of this book as a
general reference.
Conversely, the individual articles generally have an excellent
structure: title (theme), introduction, pertinent topics/research areas,
conclusion/future study, suggested reading and references. The
suggested readings and references are often excellent and particularly
useful. The articles range between 10 and 20 pages, with the majority
around 15 pages. Given the broad themes tackled, this short length
makes it difficult to meet the Oxford Handbook series' aim to provide
articles evaluating the current thinking in the subfield discussed without
writing such high-level summaries as to have limited use. Thankfully,
most authors employ much tighter foci than implied by their titles, which
allows for some depth in the discussions. The next section of this article
will examine the individual sections of the book and some of the research
presented.
Sections
I. Elements and Expression
Section I, by far the largest with 20 articles, is organized by generally
typical themes explored in anthropology and archaeology, with the
addition of some articles dealing more with theory and method. The
title of this section presumably refers to the various elements of religion
and ritual and how they are expressed culturally and archaeologically.
326 Book Reviews
These elements include themes such as ritual related to life passages,
social identity, celebrations and warfare, and how they are expressed
through the 'Landscape' (Haaland and Haaland), 'Monumentality' (Scarre),
'Feasting and Fasting' (Dietler), 'Sacrifice' (Insoll) and other practices
One of the key areas of research within ritual and religion is the
investigation of the expressions and meanings of sacrifice. Insoll provides
the general article on this topic and devotes some discussion to the
conflicting definitions and overlaps between such terms as 'ritual', 'votive
offering' and 'sacrifice', and the difficulties in discerning religious intention
versus practical intentions in archaeological deposits. He concludes that
religious sacrifice may involve objects and plants as well as animals, but
must include an element of destruction. He also emphasizes a need to
investigate depositional patterns and utilize an interdisciplinary approach
to assign meaning to observed practices.
This section also includes a discussion on 'Myth and Folklore' (Gazin-
Schwartz), which is one of the better articles for providing clear definitions
of some of the core ideas discussed. It also addresses an important source
for interpreting social meaning from archaeological remains, which
appears to be currently out of fashion and under-utilized.
Overall, the elements and expressions addressed in this section
are the core areas investigated in the archaeology of ritual and religion.
These subjects are discussed generally here, using a variety of examples.
In the later sections many of these elements and expressions are central
points of discussion presented within particular cultural, temporal and
geographical contexts. This underlines their pivotal importance to this
area of study and suggests that these themes may present the best foci
for further research.
II. Prehistoric European Ritual and Religion
This six article section is arranged chronologically from the Palaeolithic
through to the Bronze Age. However, it is with this section that issues
around organization of the volume and the need for clear sets of
definitions become obvious. Parts of the articles in this section (and those
from the rest of the volume) overlap with themes addressed generally in
the first section. The thematic organization varies between chronological
and geographical expressions of ritual, and this becomes troublesome.
This is exacerbated by the use of 'chronological' periods based on tool-
technologies to define the boundaries of each article, as the spans
(beginning and ending) of these cultural periods vary significantly in
different geographical and/or cultural contexts.
The first article, on the Early Palaeolithic (Pettit), discusses issues
of evolutionary human development and the bases affecting the
development of religious belief. These bases are given as "social,
economic, intellectual, and emotional" (page 329). Pettit then goes on
to define religion as "shared belief in supernatural agencies" and ritual
as "habitual manifestations of religious beliefs which may leave material
remains" (pages 329330). This is an interesting discussion, but perhaps
not really about the state of current research on Palaeolithic religion
in archaeology. Rather, it would fit well within a section on theory and
method.
The following article on the Upper Palaeolithic (Bahn) is more of an
overview article, concentrating on the state of research regarding one
aspect of the archaeology of ritual (deposits and iconography in caves) in
this time period. The remaining articles in this section discuss themes such
as landscape, structures, funerary practices and iconographic symbols
within their chosen prehistoric periods, along with some discussion of
interpretational debates about religion within archaeology.
III. Religion and Ritual in World Prehistory
This is a twin to the previous section, covering the same general
chronological period for the non-European world. The first six articles
cover broad geographic areas (Sub-Saharan Africa, China, Japan,
Southeast Asia, Australasia), while the last nine are set in the Americas and
328 Book Reviews
are organized by cultural groups (Maya, Aztec, Inca, Moche, Pueblo) or
geographic areas (Caribbean and the North American Northeast, Eastern
Woodlands and Pacific Northwest).
Some interesting discussions which can be used to explore similar
rituals in different cultures are presented in this section. In particular,
Carlson's article on Pacific Northwest cultures considers aspects of
spirit (including ancestor) quests, helpers, illnesses and human-animal
interactions, and some of the associated physical culture and imagery.
Nickel's article on 'The Prehistory of Religion in China' notes that divination
was probably intimately involved in written language development and
he also discusses many of the same ritual concerns addressed by Carlson.
Similar attention is paid to these same types of rituals in a number of the
articles discussed in Section V.
IV. Religion and Cult of the Old World
Section IV is arranged primarily geographically and appears to be largely
focused on early Mediterranean-oriented cultures. It would have been
useful to know what the perceived differences are between the 'religion
and ritual' groupings of Section II and III, and 'Religion and Cult' groupings
presented here. It may be that this section is intended to explore an
area which represents a nexus of European, Asian and African cultures.
The articles here discuss religious expressions in Greece, Egypt, Malta,
Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatoli, and in the Aegean, Levant, Etruscan and
Roman cultures. However, the section then concludes with three articles
discussing early (pre-Christian) religion in the Norse and Germanic
traditions, England and the Northeast Baltic. Again, while these are all
interesting articles, the grouping is somewhat confusing.
V. Archaeology of World Religions
This section is apparently organized around currently established
religions, though exactly what is meant by 'world' is unclear. If 'world'
refers to religions spread throughout the world, than some of the
articles in Section VI should be included here. Perhaps it refers to what
are considered the current top five world religions? Four articles look at
Judeo-Christian-Muslim traditions, while two others overview Hinduism
and Buddhism.
The Archaeology of Hinduism (Sugandhi and Morrison) is a well-
written overview and a good starting place for interested newcomers.
This article is recommended to researchers considering different ways of
viewing the development of religion in Europe, perhaps one less focused
on assignments such as Pagan and Christian. The articles in this section
are, again, tackling huge subject areas, for example, attempting to cover
the archaeology of Christianity in 12 pages. This format forces the authors
to write very broad summaries and recommend other texts. However,
some authors also manage to include commentary on such issues as
correlating literature and physical remains, and the role of religion in
cultural identity.
VI. Archaeology of Indigenous and New Religions
The last section is an eclectic mix of articles oriented around 'indigenous'
religions and some of their modern incarnations. What exactly an
'indigenous' religion is or how it differs from a 'world' religion is never
addressed. However, this categorization seems to suggest a certain
modern cultural prejudice. Is there some sort of different coherency
attributable to Christianity or Buddhism which is not afforded to
'indigenous' religions? Surely consistent expressions of ancestor worship
are at least as world-spread as expressions of Islam or Hinduism.
The two articles on modern expressions of Eurasian and American
'paganism' again show the field-wide problems with definitions. The
application and usage of the term 'pagan' in archaeology, history and
popular culture is confusing and often inappropriate, but not addressed.
Rather, these two articles touch on some of the issues around the
development of 'neo-pagan' religious groups and their interaction with
archaeology, particularly regarding public use of historic monuments and
330 Book Reviews
issues around the study of human skeletal material and reburial. These
two articles would perhaps better fit within a section on theory, methods
and public issues affecting archaeology, but are presumably included
here because of the neo-pagan bases of so-called indigenous religions.
Conclusions
This volume attempts to cover an immense subject area, and it is a
massive volume, but the vague organization makes it seem somewhat like
a collection of conference presentations rather than a focused overview
of the research area. To actually act as a reference handbook, it would
have been better to organize the volume around particular themes with
an introductory section. The introductory section should cover terms
and definitions, a general discussion about changes in research aims
and articles on theory and method. The main sections could have been
organized by recognized themes of expression of ritual and religion
such as those explored in Section I. These thematic sections could be
subdivided by geographic areas, then, possibly, by chronological period.
This type of organization would be much more useful for understanding
comparative practices and differences due to culture. In addition, the
articles fail to include much coverage of the newer techniques of genetics,
stable isotopes and other scientific applications being employed in
archaeology today. Overall, while there are some very interesting and
useful individual articles, the rather unfocused presentation means this
volume is disappointing and has missed an excellent opportunity to
provide either a good reference or a good framework for research in this
field.
References
Oxford Handbooks 2013. Oxford Handbooks Online: Scholarly Research Reviews. Website:
http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com, accessed 4 March 2013.
Hamerow, H., Hinton, D.A. and Crawford, S. (eds) 2011. The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-
Saxon Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The Idea of Order: The Circular Archetype in
Prehistoric Europe
By Richard Bradley
2012. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Hbk. 242 pp. 74 B/w illus.
ISBN: 978-0-19-960809-6
Reviewed by John Manley
Hon. Research Fellow, Sussex Archaeological Society
R
ichard Bradley explores some fundamental questions in this book.
Essentially, he asks why the circular built formwhether in terms of
round domestic buildings or round public architecture such as burial
moundsgained such popularity and longevity in western and southern
Europe, especially from the later Neolithic period to its final flourish in
Early Medieval Ireland? Why did some people live in circular buildings
when others preferred rectangular ones? Why did those who lived in
rectangular buildings still construct circular burial mounds? What is the
significance of circular Roman temples or round buildings in Roman
Britain? Finally, why did people who lived in round houses decorate
artefacts with linear designsand conversely why were curvilinear
designs favoured by people living in rectangular buildings?
In exploring the importance of the 'circular archetype' in search of
answers, Bradley draws on both his extensive knowledge of prehistoric
Europe and the work of social anthropologists who have commented on
the importance of circular and rectangular domestic architecture. The
archaeological data that are presented are copious and wide-ranging
and the author appreciates that they are often suggestive rather than
conclusive of interpretive insights. However, the cumulative arguments
do indicate that there was something about the circular form that was
particularly tenacious and significant, albeit for some communities more
than others.
332 Book Reviews
At the outset, the author sets out the unproblematic observation
that round domestic architecture dominated the British Isles after an
initial appearance of rectangular buildings in the Early Neolithic. Counter-
posing different interpretations of the built form by archaeologists and
anthropologists, he discusses examples of functionalist and structuralist
explanations as applied to buildings. Functionalists emphasize the
flexibility of rectangular structures in that they can be relatively easily
extended as a household grows, while structuralists might point out that
rectangular buildings can provide a 'high-status' end, or be easily aligned
to significant features in the landscape. Structuralists might also argue
that circular buildings mirror the cosmos, and that they are sometimes
associated with locations that offer expansive or 360 degree views, so
that the house form replicates the perceived world outside. Rectangular,
linear structures might be more 'at home' in forested environments, where
physical motion is along straight paths and where views are restricted.
Conversely, functionalists could suggest that round buildings are more
easily dismantled, moved or transported than others. Bradley presents
these contrasting perspectives as examples of different explanatory
approaches rather than offering any critique of them.
Bradley draws on the anthropological evidence again to seek
interpretations for his recognition that curvilinear decoration on
pottery and metalwork is common when the dominant house form is
rectangular, and, conversely, that linear decorative motifs occur more
frequently among round house dwellers. Bradley presents examples from
among the Nuba (Sudan) and Nankani (northern Ghana) that suggest
linear decoration might be associated with men, while round houses
and curvilinear decoration can be associated with women. The author,
however, is careful not to suggest any simplistic or single ethnographic
analogy for the complexity and variability of the archaeological evidence.
Perhaps one of the central tenets of Bradley's thesis is that, even
amongst communities where the circular form of domestic architecture
was replaced by the rectangular, the circular archetype, because of
its enduring meaning, was retained in other monument types, such as
tombs. At first it appears that circular megalithic tombs were directly
linked to circular domestic architecture, for instance at Los Millares
in southern Spain and in the Boyne Valley in Ireland. However, there
was a diverse interplay between the forms of domestic and funerary
architecture and ultimately, as in northern Europe, round passage graves
were constructed even in areas where rectangular domestic architecture
had been adopted. In the British Isles, where timber and stone circles
were particularly common, Bradley suggests that the unshaped
monoliths, none being explicitly anthropomorphic, may have played
down the distinctions between different individuals, in favour of the
ideal of community, perhaps symbolized by the circle. He also argues that
the timber circles of southern Britain may well have been modelled on
circular domestic architecture.
Bradley cites a number of instances and regions that demonstrate
the endurance of the circular form in the later prehistoric period. One
example is the monumentalizing of circular structures, as evidenced
by the stone nuraghi of Sardinia, the torri of Corsica and the talayots of
the Balearics. In Sardinia and Corsica especially, these towers share the
same circular plan of contemporary houses. Bradley also notes a range
of monuments from the later Iron Age and Roman periods where there
is a combination of circular and rectangular forms. Circular temples have
a restricted distribution in the Roman provinces and are found mainly
in England and northern and central France. These commonly take the
form of massive circular towers surrounded by a rectangular enclosure
or temenos. The opposite juxtaposition has been demonstrated at
the Belgian site of Ursel-Rozenstraat. Here, a Bronze Age circular burial
mound was enclosed by a square-ditched enclosure in the Late Iron Age.
Yet more interplays of the circular and rectangular are noted from
Sweden, where circular stone ringforts enclose rectangular buildings,
and from Iron Age Sicily, where circular temples become more common
as circular domestic structures begin to disappear. In Roman Britain,
recent research suggests that traditional circular houses were much more
numerous than previously imagined, as the examples from Silchester
334 Book Reviews
and Piercebridge show. The last stronghold of the circular archetype was
Ireland, where circular raths or ringforts dominated the Early Medieval
landscape.
The geographical scope and chronological range of this book,
covering a multitude of different communities and societies, means that
there can be no singular and enduring explanation for the survival of
the circular archetype. It must have meant different things to different
people at different times. This is a problem acknowledged by the author.
It results in a book whose novel arguments are on the whole persuasive,
yet fail to be definitive. Perhaps the least compelling section in the book is
that which deals with correlations between different types of decoration
and built form. This reviewer was left noting the observed correlation
but wondering how widespread it really was, both ethnographically
and archaeologically, and how open it is to differing interpretations. The
anthropological interpretations hint at links between circular domestic
space and a particular view of the surrounding environment or cosmos,
or the potential of symbolic polarities of circular and linear decorative
motifs, but difficulties remain in how far and how firmly these can be
applied to the archaeological record.
The author asks at the end of the book: how would travellers who
lived in a settlement of rectangular buildings have reacted to hosts in
round houses within a circular hillfortand vice versa? Just how different
were their views on life? Richard Bradley has provided us with another
thoughtful and stimulating book, which will certainly influence our
appreciation of the probably contrasting meanings of circular and
rectangular houses and worlds in the prehistoric and early historic
periods.
The Funeral Kit: Mortuary Practices in the
Archaeological Record
By Jill L. Baker
2012. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press
Hbk. 229 pp.
ISBN13: 978-1598746716
Reviewed by Van Pigtain
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge
W
ithin mortuary archaeology, emphasis has traditionally been placed
on examining differences to discern the sex, age, vocation, status
and ethnicity of burials in order to differentiate them from other culturally-
affiliated interments. In this book, this approach is critically examined
and an alternative method is introduced, which focuses on recognising
and interpreting commonalities. In essence, similar features are used to
deduce cultural and societal ties, world-views, and religious and afterlife
beliefs. Owing to the importance placed upon proper interment and
the ongoing care of the deceased, recurring patterns in burials can
provide insight into the cultural mindset of past societies. Baker dubs this
approach 'the funeral kit'.
Baker states that it is easy for researchers not to consider the most
obvious features of burials when they are viewed as defining or default
characteristics of a culture or period. In The Funeral Kit, she argues that
repeated features such as ceramic assemblages, apotropaic items and
grave architecture are collectively the identifying traits of a culture within
burial contexts, yet are seldom considered holistically. This results in an
incomplete view of the organization of a culture and its view of both life
and afterlife. Therefore, by considering features which predictably recur,
a better understanding of the ceremonial aspects of a culture can be
achieved. This is crucial in understanding societal cohesion in ancient
culturesreligion and ritual were intrinsic to daily life, and analysis of
goods and placement within tombs can reveal unifying trends.
336 Book Reviews
Initially, Baker provides an overview of the field of mortuary
archaeology, its terminology and the traditional view of examining
differences between burials. She also introduces relevant background
information for Bronze Age Canaan, which The Funeral Kit uses as its
model culture and discusses its funerary ceremony. Additionally, the
concepts of rite, ritual and ceremony are introduced, as well as how they
pertain to the funeral kit theory. Importantly, ongoing post-burial events
are critical when applying Baker's theory: for example, the feeding of
the dead, where food is left as a post-funerary mortuary activity, leaves
ceramics in the graves which are considered part of the funeral kit.
Baker describes how grave goods can be generally divided into
three categories'personal', 'status' and 'essential'. It is from recurring
items within the 'essential' category that the funeral kit is comprised.
The remaining categories encompass items that serve to delineate social
groups, such as gender or profession, and those which further refine the
identity of a particular member of society.
Baker based the funeral kit theory on the Middle Bronze Age IILate
Bronze Age tomb complex from Ashkelon, Bronze Age Canaan. In this
complex, the predictable presence of scarabs, toggle pins, particular
ceramic vessel types and their position in the grave allowed Baker to
realize that each individual was buried according to established rite,
ritual and ceremony, and that standardised mortuary practice was due
to firmly-established societal customs. Moreover, items left with the dead
provided insight into Canaanite afterlife beliefs, such as the belief that
the deceased must be provided with sustenance and apotropaic charms.
The toggle pins indicated the need to dress the deceased for the afterlife.
Having established the model funeral kit for Bronze Age Canaan
using the Ashkelon site, Baker applies the theory to contemporaneous
Canaanite burials. She determines that the funerary characteristics which
recurred regularly were indicative of long-standing, widespread tradition.
Moreover, the homogeneity of the ceramic assemblages from Canaanite
graves suggests the ceramics functioned collectively as a unitthe
tableware and storage containers which held the interred individual's
share of the funerary banquet and provisions for ongoing care.
Baker discovered when comparing intrasite components of the
Canaanite funeral kit that uniformity was typical, yet that there were
regional variations in ceramic typologies. These variations were, however,
stylistic, and vessel function remained consistent. Additionally, increasing
ceramic quantities through time indicated greater importance being
placed on funerary banquets or post-burial food deposition. Even as
the total number of ceramic items increased, the categories of vessel
remained fairly unchanged.
The inception, evolution, and termination of the Bronze Age
Canaanite funeral kit is an expression of changing afterlife beliefs and the
position of the deceased within them. Baker stresses that the belief in
what happens after death is what determines the essential equipment
(the funeral kit), as the items included in the grave were requisite for the
afterlife. Changes in afterlife beliefs are reflected in the kit, with previous
inclusions changing stylistically or being replaced. In Canaan, the focus
was initially on kinship and collective ancestors, later shifting to an
individualistic focus as the sociopolitical structure became centralised
and religious belief became monotheistic under the Persians. Eventually
it was supplanted by a different kit during the Roman era.
A crucial question in whether an archaeological theory is sufficiently
developed is whether it can be applied broadly and utilized in cross-
cultural studies. Baker states that in order for the funeral kit theory to be
applied to any society, a tailored funeral kit model should be developed
for each culture. Despite the need for culture-specific models, the key
is applying the theory uniformly, in order to identify and examine what
defines and binds the culture via ceremony and ritual. The funeral kit
theory thus provides a framework in which archaeologists can more
thoroughly investigate funerary practice.
338 Book Reviews
Baker selected the following cultures to test the funeral kit theory
Pre- and Early Dynastic Egypt, the Etruscans and early Cyprus. Given the
chronological and geographic proximity of these cultures to Bronze Age
Canaan, it may be justified to suspect that Baker's theory has not been
subjected to a sufficiently broad test of its ability to be applied across
cultures. She mentions that she attempted to apply the theory to the
Norse and Moche, but aborted the trials when she realized that without
detailed knowledge of the culture and archaeology of the relevant
societies, her ability to accurately identify the repetitive burial features
necessary to apply the funeral kit theory would be lacking. Baker does,
however, invite other archaeologists to apply and test her theory on their
cultures of expertise.
Despite the similarity of the cultures Baker used to test her theory,
she realized that cross-discipline comparison is complicated, and admits
that the survey presented in The Funeral Kit is an oversimplification
of each culture. Baker focused on the items comprising each funeral
kit, permitting the identification and comparison of shared patterns.
Numerous similarities were uncovered between these cultures: a lengthy
chronological development of funerary practice, well-established burial
rites, belief in the afterlife, grave goods expressing personal and status
traits, and most importantly, goods considered vital in the transition to
and survival in the afterlife.
Baker determined in this cross-cultural test of her theory that
cultural similarities arose independently in funerary practice, and that
her success in utilizing the theory to discover similarity in funerary rite,
ritual, ceremony, and views of the afterlife in the test cultures indicated
her theory could work further afield. However, she stressed that culturally
specific models need to be developed for each society.
The information presented in the book is accessible to anyone
with a background in archaeology, although perhaps not to the general
public. Baker's target audience, however, is likely to be limited to relevant
specialists. Baker can be commended for drawing attention to an
unfortunately overlooked yet obvious aspect of funerary archaeology
as researchers become increasingly focused, such a reminder to view the
broader picture is valuable. I feel the main weakness of The Funeral Kit is
the limited range of contexts used when testing the theory's cross-cultural
applicability. Regardless, considering the amount of grey literature that
never becomes available, Baker printing and inviting testing of her theory
is appreciated.
The presentation of the book is well thought out and organized
and it reminds us to remember to include the oft-overlooked, culturally-
defining characteristics of burials in our analyses. It also provides a
methodology permitting inter-researcher and cross-cultural comparisons
of these characteristics. For a broader archaeological audience, it serves
additionally as an introduction to funerary archaeology.
There were, however, two aspects which I originally considered
unbefitting: the inclusion of an obviously plastic skeleton on the
cover and a fanciful coffee shop culture conjured to demonstrate why
particular grave goods provide evidence of belief and cultural behaviour.
After further consideration, these seemed less whimsical than they
initially had. Considering the sensitivity surrounding human remains, an
obviously artificial skeleton may have been a wise choice. Also, a coffee
shop culture provided an easily accessible example of items and their
uses, simultaneously being free from reader-based bias or background
knowledge that using an actual culture might have introduced. Otherwise,
my criticism of the book is minorI feel it could have been more succinct
and would have been better supported by including more diverse case
studies undertaken by other researchers applying the funeral kit theory.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in mortuary
archaeology. Overall, The Funeral Kit succeeds in reminding us as
archaeologists to remember the obvious in funerary researchnot
to neglect to include in analysis those burial features which may be
considered cultural defaults. These are the very characteristics which
identify an inhumation as belonging to a specific culture, and may be the
340 Book Reviews
same ones passed over in favour of traits that can be used to separate a
particular burial from the unifying bonds of its society, without giving due
consideration to how those bonds linked and maintained the interred in
life through that society's practices and beliefs. This tendency to neglect
such hallmark traits in burials can be tempered by applying the methods
outlined in The Funeral Kit.
The Ten Thousand Year Fever: Rethinking Human
and Wild-Primate Malaria
By Loretta A. Cormier
Pbk. 239 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-59874-483-5
Reviewed by Leonie Raijmakers
Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of
Oxford
M
alaria is a debilitating and sometimes fatal disease, widespread
across much of the developing world. Though it kills around a
million people per year, until ten years ago researchers working on
malaria were frustrated by a lack of funding. This has been turned
around by major monetary input, initially from private sources such as
the Bill Gates foundation, and, as most people working in science know,
research generally goes where the money is. In January 2013, inserting
the word 'malaria' into an academic search engine generated over 250
publications for this month alone. As a result, we are steadily increasing
our knowledge of malaria and the mosquito vectors that help spread the
disease. Nonetheless, much of the broader picture, including malaria's
human-associated past, remains unclear.
Loretta Cormier has made a significant effort to harness a large
portion of the knowledge currently available on the wild-primate and
human past of malaria into her book, The Ten Thousand Year Fever:
Rethinking Human and Wild-Primate Malaria. In an attempt to elucidate the
history of human malaria, Cormier looks at an array of what is known of
malaria's origins, human-primate evolution, cross-infection, past human
migrations, host-switching in primate diseases and more. The book brings
together information from many disciplines. It is a helpful reference work
for those people with a developing interest in the combined fields of social
sciences and biology, as it touches on a range of ideas from both areas
342 Book Reviews
and contains references to numerous useful papers. In addition, in this
book, the author attempts to put forward two specific views: firstly, that
primate malaria should not be divided into human versus wild-primate
malaria, and secondly that current human activities might induce a new
malaria epidemic. Although neither of these claims are novel, the book
gives a generally useful overview of the published literature on primate
malaria history.
Malaria parasites are known to infect all classes of terrestrial
vertebrates. The different species of malaria parasite are class specific, and
regularly linked to specific species within a class (Hayakawa et al. 2008).
Within the primate malarias, four are generally recognised as human
malarias: Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. malariae and P. ovale. Humans
are acknowledged as the conventional hosts of these parasites and are
easily and commonly infected by them. A small number of wild-primate
(monkeys and apes) malarias can infect humans, yet these infections are
infrequent and normally do not have severe consequences, with one
currently known exception (Singh et al. 2004).
Cormier brings the known instances of cross-infection as arguments
against categorising primate malarias into human versus wild-primate
strains. This is the first of the two main points of the book. Besides the
ability of some malaria parasites to cross-infect primate species, Cormier
uses a second strand of evidence to argue that human and wild-primate
malarias should be joined under the more general header of 'primate
malaria'. This is the strong similarity between the human strain P. vivax
and the New World monkey strain P. simium. The author states "[] P. vivax
and P. simium actually represent a single species of plasmodium, but it is
designated as "vivax" when occurring in humans and as "simium" when
occurring in New World monkeys" (page 75). Literature on the subject
agrees that the two are closely related, but there are most definitely
differences, which Cormier fails to acknowledge. These differences
include variation in amino-acid sequences in the DNA as an adaptation to
the immune system of the specific host (Lim et al. 2005). This difference is
important, as it demonstrates a marked targeting of humans versus wild-
primates by malarias, instead of primate host generalisation.
The second main argument of the book is that current human
activities heighten the chances of a malaria pandemic occurring in the
future. In fact, the title of the book refers to the greatest example of how
human activities increased malaria proliferation and transmission in
the past. It is believed that around ten thousand years ago agricultural
activities by humans in Africa created clearings in the forest. These open
spaces facilitated the propagation of the mosquito vector Anopheles
gambiae, which carries P. falciparum malaria. This resulted in a significant
increase in P. falciparum malaria and possibly strengthened its preference
for the human host. Such a development of a new, highly adapted and not
uncommonly fatal species of human malaria is something we would wish
to avoid today. Yet the author believes that our current activities might be
catering for a similar catastrophe in this age, likely associated with the rise
of a new variety of human malaria originating from a monkey to human
host-switch.
Cormier draws parallels between the clearing of forests then and the
clearing of forests now. She relies on researchers who have hypothesised
that the current clearing of forests in many tropical areas has led to an
increase in malaria prevalence. This is mostly due to agricultural practices
that cater for mosquitoes through increased availability of stagnant
water. An example of this is flooded rice-paddies, which facilitate the
survival of water-borne mosquito larvae (Klinkenberg 2003), and Cormier
mentions several additional studies. However, it should be borne in mind
that not all agricultural and urban areas foster mosquitoes. Indeed, there
are studies that show forest clearance leads instead to lower availability
of mosquito breeding grounds and a general decrease in malaria. There
are also studies that have demonstrated malaria prevalence to be highest
within forested areas (Obsomer et al. 2007). This nuance is missing in
Cormier's book, which occasionally tends towards sensationalism about
the risks of forest clearance instead.
344 Book Reviews
Aside from the imbalance of the information given, the ideas in
this part of the book dealing with human cultural development and its
influence on malaria hint at interesting topics for numerous disciplines,
including archaeology. Studying past human actions in conjunction with
human pathological history can provide an understanding of how humans
influence their own evolution through changing their environment. In
particular, certain agricultural practices can modify human surroundings
in ways that further disease. In the past, such changes have even
potentially influenced the course of history. For instance, Wilkinson (1994)
has argued that swidden agriculture, an activity that creates open spaces
and allows people to move into forested areas, may have been the main
cause of the downfall of lowland Mayan civilisation because it led to an
increase of mosquitoes and yellow fever. Understanding how human
actions in the past influenced the spread of disease could help us to avoid
or at least respond more adequately to disease outbreaks in the future.
However, amongst Cormier's forays into different disciplines she does
not develop this topic much beyond the bare bones of the expansion of
human malaria ten thousand years ago. This is a missed opportunity to
draw on examples from the past.
In short, this book is a brave attempt to synthesize an extremely
diverse array of topics, continuing on a trend of interdisciplinary work
across the social sciences and biology. Sadly, the variable style of writing
makes it hard to say if it targets a scientific or more general audience. For
the former it lacks balance and depth of argument, for the latter it misses
lightness in style and clarity. Likely in an attempt to cater for a general
audience, Cormier has tried to make it more accessible by adding some
interesting anecdotes. For example, the chapter on the ethics of cross-
infection research in human prisoners in the U.S.A makes an interesting
read. However, it adds no real value to the general argument whilst taking
up as much space as more important chapters. Overall, the book would
have benefited greatly from focusing on a clear direction of investigation
and cutting out some of the side-roads. A stronger grasp on a smaller
part of the subject is all it needed, and this would have produced a
more balanced book that still retained its wide and interesting array of
interdisciplinary topics.
References
Hayakawa, T., Culleton, R., Otani, H., Horii, T. and Tanabe, K. 2008. Big bang in the evolution
of extant malaria parasites. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25(10): 22332239.
Klinkenberg, E., Takken, W., Huibers, F. and Tour, Y. 2003. The phenology of malaria
mosquitoes in irrigated rice felds in Mali. Acta Tropica 85(1): 7182.
Lim, C.S., Tazi, L. and Ayala, F.J. 2005. Plasmodium vivax: recent world expansion and
genetic identity to Plasmodium simium. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences 102(43): 1552315528.
Obsomer, V., Defourny, P. and Coosemans, M. 2007. The Anopheles dirus complex: spatial
distribution and environmental drivers. Malaria Journal 6(1): 26.
Singh, B., Sung, L.K., Matusop, A., Radhakrishnan, A., Shamsul, S.S.G., Cox-Singh, J.,
Thomas, A. and Conway, D.J. 2004. A large focus of naturally acquired Plasmodium
knowlesi infections in human beings. Lancet 363: 10171024.
Wilkinson, R.L. 1994. Yellow fever: Ecology, epidemiology, and role in the collapse of the
Classic lowland Maya civilization. Medical Anthropology 16(14): 269294.
346 Book Reviews
Human Adaptation in the Asian Palaeolithic:
Hominin Dispersal and Behaviour during the Late
Quaternary
By Ryan J. Rabett
2012. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Hbk. 372 pp. 73 B/w illus.
ISBN: 978-1-107-01829-7
Reviewed by Patrick J. Roberts
Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford
T
his book arrives at a crucial juncture in our understanding of what
it means to be human. Up until the turn of the millennium, the
archaeological consensus held that a package of 'modern human'
behaviours (including symbolic representation, ornamentation,
technological and subsistence innovation) appeared c. 40,000 years
ago, during the first sustained colonization of Europe by anatomically
modern humans (Mellars 2005). In the last decade, the discovery of
similarly 'modern' behavioural attributes in Asia and Africa has stimulated
the search for behavioural modernity on a broader geographical scale.
The resulting evidence has pushed back its genesis in Africa towards
the biological emergence of our species c. 200.000 years ago (McBrearty
and Brooks 2000). While this research has made previous Eurocentric
perspectives on behavioural development redundant, it has generally
led to renewed impetus in the search for 'first arrivals' of symbolic
representation and technological development in order to define new
core regions of human 'modernity' (McBrearty 2007).
Rabett's book could have followed this trendsimply adding new
regional evidence for the dispersal of 'modern' characteristics beyond
Africa, focusing on evidence from Asia and, in particular, Southeast
Asia. Indeed, Rabett's own experience of this region has allowed him to
express detailed technological, faunal and ecological evidence for the
colonization and adaptation of Homo sapiens to the diverse environments
of Mainland and Island Southeast Asia during the Upper Palaeolithic.
This information has not previously been easily accessible to a Western
audience. However, Rabett's most significant, and hopefully most lasting,
contribution is his argument (outlined in Chapter One, 'The Journey
East') that modern human behaviour was never 'attained' but has been
continuously emergent, relative to the environmental, climatic and social
context, being expressed particularly impressively during the colonization
of new landscapes (page 7). As a result, this book encourages the move
away from the search for the earliest 'behavioural modernity' towards
contextual understandings of human emergence and adaptation.
In order to develop these arguments, Rabett splits the book into
two sections. The first provides a discussion of the evidence for hominin
colonization and adaptation at its broadest scale. Chapter Two, 'The
Pleistocene Planet', outlines the basic features of the Earth's climatic
system during this important period of hominin evolution. The author
emphasizes different scales of change, ranging from broader Milankovitch
cycles to more frequent Dansgaard-Oeschger events. This discussion is
crucial for placing Rabett's arguments about human behaviour within a
climatic context. However, although the author discusses ice and marine
core records in some detail, he does not discuss the key issues of dating,
resolution and proxy understanding that jeopardize climatic correlations
of any period (Plunkett et al. 2013). These issues are pertinent when
attempting to make comparisons between climate and the archaeological
record, and track supposedly 'global' changes into regional environments.
Given that the author's argument strongly rests on the ability to correlate
human adaptation and colonization to changing environmental and
climatic conditions, the absence of such critical discussion is unfortunate.
Chapter Three, 'Hominin Dispersal beyond Africa during the Lower
and Middle Pleistocene', summarizes the current evidence on the initial
spread of early hominins from Africa into western and eastern Eurasia.
The author provides detailed region-by-region accounts of the evidence,
firstly for the Lower Pleistocene (2.580.775 Ma) and then for the Middle
Pleistocene (775.000125.000 BP). Rabett should be commended for
348 Book Reviews
his thorough referencing of the most up-to-date debates in hominin
genetics, evolution and dispersal timings. For both periods, Rabett also
includes sub-sections that outline environmental and climatic conditions,
which allow him to relate the climatic data to archaeological narratives.
Although his suggestions are limited to the broad impacts of Marine
Isotope Stages and volcanic eruptions, the nature of the evidence and
dating errors at this time depth and geographical range make further
resolution difficult. Importantly, however, the "regional variations in
early hominin adaptation and technology" (page 66) emphasized here
act as an important precedent to Rabett's following and more detailed
consideration of Homo sapiens.
Indeed Chapter Four, 'Regional Trajectories in Modern Human
Behaviour', takes on this theme of regional adaptation for our own
species by outlining each of the principle components of the behavioural
package displayed by modern humans in the European Middle to
Upper Palaeolithic record. These features, including blade-based
lithic technology, new lithic tool types, non-lithic technological and
representative media, mobility, population density and changes in
subsistence, are then compared to distinct African and Asian sequences
of modern human behavioural change. Chapter Five, 'The Initial Upper
Pleistocene Dispersal of Homo sapiens Out of Africa', describes the genetic
and archaeological evidence for the Southern Route Hypothesis that is
generally considered to be the most likely model for human movement
beyond Africa. Here, more precise climatic records and chronologies allow
Rabett to frame the archaeological evidence for Homo sapiens' expansion
within a context of increasingly unstable climatic conditions and
palaeoenvironmental change. Although Rabett's appraisal is thorough,
recent research is beginning to suggest more complex patterns of human
population movement and environmental change than those described
in this section (Boivin et al. 2013).
Rabett's ongoing emphasis on independent behavioural
development in different regions and within different climatic contexts
frames the second half of the book. This section turns more particularly to
the author's own regional archaeological expertise. Chapter Six, 'Climate,
Dispersal and Technological Change during the Last Termination and Early
Holocene in Southeast Asia', focuses on a specific time period in order to
match climatic and archaeological records at the same resolution and thus
compare rapid climatic, environmental and behavioural changes. Rabett
provides an exhaustive review of bone, lithic and shell technologies
from across Island Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, Malaysia
and Thailand, which makes this exciting evidence for the plethora of
early human adaptation in these tropical areas accessible to a Western
readership. However, given that this chapter aims to bring the Southeast
Asian archaeological record alongside climatic records for the region,
there is insufficient detailed discussion of the climatic systems in this area
of the world. Furthermore, the different available proxy records are not
compared or critiqued, but accepted as a firm basis for archaeological
interpretation.
Chapter Seven, 'Tropical Subsistence Strategies at the End of the
Last Glacial', provides detailed faunal records from three sites within the
Niah Caves of Borneo and the sites of Trng An and Hang Boi in Vietnam.
Faunal exploitation and settlement patterns are tracked across the
Pleistocene-Holocene transition at these five sites to assess patterning
in early foraging strategies. This level of detail allows Rabett to analyse
different adaptive strategies in the context of the immediate ecological
environments of the sites, with both environmental and human records
accessible. While a number of photographs (taken by the author himself)
and highly detailed faunal data tables complement this chapter, as well
as the rest of the book, colour pictures of the sites discussed in detail in
Chapter Seven might have been a nice touch.
Rabett's structure, argument and excellent command of the
evidence from this little-researched region are compelling throughout.
In Chapter Eight, 'Ex Levis Terra' ('Out of the Unstable Earth'), the structure
comes to its conclusion, with the broader correlations between hominin
expansion and climatic change combining with evidence for changing
subsistence strategies at specific sites during periods of climatic instability.
350 Book Reviews
Rabett returns to the argument that 'modern human behaviour' was
never 'attained' and never 'arrived', rather it has, and always will be,
continuously emergent. To emphasize this point, the author uses the
example of human colonization of new landscapes and environments
(which he splits into periods of transference, diversification, innovation
and divergence) to demonstrate that early modern human behaviour
is part of an evolutionary continuum. Here Rabett forcefully argues
that the same tendencies of social and material continuity, change and
experimentation can be seen amongst hominin expansions out of Africa
across the course of the Pleistocene, the expansion of Neolithic farmers
from the Near East into Europe and space exploration in the modern
world.
The book's style and presentation ensures that its audience is by no
means limited to specialists in the Upper Palaeolithic of Asia and should
be read by anyone with an interest in the origins of our species and, more
particularly, the propensity of Homo sapiens to adapt to a plethora of
global environments. Rabett's treatment of the climatic information is not
always critical or robust enough to support specific hypotheses of human-
climate interaction. However, I would argue that this absence earmarks
a significant opportunity for the analysis of environmental proxies on a
number of different scales in Southeast Asia, and in Asia more broadly.
Although climatic correlation is difficult, future work can hope to provide
a firmer contextual basis for interpreting emergent archaeological
features during the expansion of Homo sapiens within and beyond Africa.
Indeed, although the book is entitled Human Adaptation in the Asian
Palaeolithic, Rabett rightly notes that there is much more detailed work to
be done in understanding the relationships between humans and their
changing environment across this vast continent. This said, Rabett has
provided refreshing, well-written impetus to cease looking for the event
of 'modern human behaviour'. Instead we are encouraged to appreciate
that it is the ability of our species to respond contextually to high-tempo
climatic and environmental change that makes us human, and offers us
hope for the future on this 'unstable Earth'.
References
Boivin, N., Fuller, D.Q., Dennell, R., Allaby, R. and Petraglia, D. 2013. Human dispersal across
diverse environments of Asia during the Upper Pleistocene. Quaternary
International. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2013.01.008.
McBrearty, S. 2007. Down with the Revolution. In Mellars, P., Stringer, S., Bar-Yosef, O. and
Boyle, K. (eds), Rethinking the Human Revolution: New Behavioural and Biological
Perspectives on the Origins and Dispersal of Modern Humans. Cambridge: McDonald
Institute Monographs, 133151.
McBrearty, S. and Brooks, A.S. 2000. The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of
the origins of modern human behaviour. Journal of Human Evolution 39: 453463.
Mellars, P. 2005. The impossible coincidence. A single-species model of the origins of
modern human behaviour in Europe. Evolutionary Anthropology 14: 1227.
Plunkett, G., McDermott, C., Swindles, G.T. and Brown, D.M. 2013. Environmental
indiference? A critique of environmentally deterministic theories of peatland
archaeological site construction in Ireland. Quaternary Science Reviews 61: 1731.
352 Book Reviews
Ethnozooarchaeology: The Present and Past of
Human-Animal Relationships
By Umberto Albarella and Angela Trentacoste
2011. Oxford: Oxbow Books
Hbk. 174pp. B/w illus.
ISBN: 978-1-84217-997-0
Reviewed by Jane Sanford
T
his volume provides, as the title suggests, a variety of
ethnoarchaeological investigations of human-animal relationships
from a wide geographical area. As stated in the introduction by Albarella
this edited volume did not emerge from an intellectual vacuum but
rather demonstrates a continuation of the present integration of
zooarchaeology within archaeological inquiry. The ethnoarchaeological
studies contained in this volume provide analogies to assist in the
archaeological interpretation of faunal remainsin keeping with such
previous studies as Binford (1978, 1981) and Hudson (1993). These studies
continue recent trends in zooarchaeology that bring faunal analysis
into areas of interpretation beyond that of the palaeoeconomy and
palaeoenvironment.
It is explicitly stated by Albarella in this volume that
ethnozooarchaeology indicates that the 'ecological/economic' and
'socio-cultural' dichotomy of zooarchaeological interpretation is baseless
as human-animal relationships are as varied as human behaviour. This
statement provides a clear indication of the theoretical approach to the
volume, which straddles the viewpoints of both processual and post-
processual archaeological theory in zooarchaeology through the valuable
observation that human and animal interactions can be economic,
environmental, social, ritualistic or all of the above simultaneously.
The articles in this volume are divided into four sections: 'Introduction
and Methods'; 'Fishing, Hunting and Foraging'; 'Food Preparation
and Consumption'; and 'Husbandry and Herding'. The introductory
section contains an overview by Albarella discussing the concept of
ethnozooarchaeology, followed by a study on dog-assisted hunting
practices in the Central African Republic (Lupo), an analysis of age and
sex preferences for draught cattle in modern and historical societies
(Johannsen), a study on the utilization of animal dung (Moreno-Garcia
and Pimenta) and a discussion on subjective and cultural organization of
animals in the Polish Neolithic (Marciniak).
'Fishing, Hunting and Foraging' contains five articles, including
three on fishing technology, consumption and taxonomic distributions
in Oceania (Hudson), Scotland (Cern-Carrasco) and Fiji (Jones). The
additional two articles consider the changes, or lack thereof, in patterns
of vertebrate hunting through time in Mexico (Corona-M and Vsquez)
and the arboreal-focused blowpipe hunting assemblages of the Mani
in southern Thailand (Hongo and Auetrakulvit). The shortest section,
'Food Preparation and Consumption', considers butchery marks with
commercial and household processing of fish in Pakistan (Belcher) and
of the Mahas, Sudan (Arnold and Lyons). The final section, 'Husbandry
and Herding', follows social and religious practices of camelid pastoralism
in the Andes (Dransart), rates and reasons of calf mortality among the
Maasai (Ryan and Kunoni), and two detailed studies of pig herding
practices in Mediterranean Europe (Albarella, Manconi and Trentacoste;
Halstead and Isaakidou).
Given the open-ended nature of these studies, there is considerable
overlap in subject matter between these papers. This aids in the flow of the
volume and additionally accentuates the breadth of zooarchaeological
questions to be both asked of and addressed by ethnoarchaeology.
While not all of the articles included in this volume tie directly into the
archaeological interpretation of faunal materials, all articles provide
useful examples of avenues of zooarchaeological research that benefit
from targeted and detailed ethnoarchaeological research.
354 Book Reviews
The broad topical and geographical range of articles allows for
only a few examples of the diversity of human-animal relations in each
subject area. However, taken together these studies make a subtle but
critical point to the reader: humans vary, as do human cultures, and as
do human-animal interactions. Thus, the universal and uncritical super-
imposition of even these carefully conducted studies onto archaeological
interpretations is methodologically ill-advised given the variety of human
interactions in both the past and present.
Of particular note in this volume are four articles related to fishing
and icthyoarchaeological analyses, which collectively provide detailed
examples of the ways in which fishing location, technology, butchery and
analysis at the household scale can influence (or not) the composition
and cut-mark locations of a fish bone assemblage. It is the variety of these
articles, both in geographical location and subject matter, that illuminates
the breadth of human fishing and fish-processing behaviour that must be
considered in fish bone analysis.
Taken together, the five articles on cattle, pigs and dung provide a
critical spectrum of both modern and historical variation in cattle rearing
and usage practices, scales and techniques of pig herd management
outside of the Pacific and critical observations of the wide variation in
the age at castration of these animals. These articles serve as a subtle but
persistent caution against the uncritical application of modern analogues
to past herding or fishing strategies, as such strategies are shown here to
be diverse and flexible depending on the human groups involved and
their (sometimes rapidly) changing needs and desires.
Specific mention must also be made of the study by Lupo. The study
provides a good analysis of the actual benefits of dogs in various types
of hunts as well as the training and treatment of dogs. The initial premise
of the study is to test theories regarding the use of dogs as hunting aids,
although the dogs studied are of a much smaller size than early domestic
dogs. This point is however mitigated by (a) the use of this article as an
initial example of dog hunting utility; and (b) the fact that the smaller size
of the dogs used in this study correlates well with the small size of the
vast majority of animals hunted. The observations from the study are well
linked to potential archaeological data in the observation that the majority
of dogs die away from camp and thus are seldom buried. This provides a
good ethnozooarchaeological observation that directly relates to actual
archaeological interpretation (i.e. lack of dog bones or burials in a site
does not per se preclude the extensive use of dogs in hunting activities).
Lupo also suggests examining dog remains for evidence of nutritional
stress as a proxy indicator of resource stress in the human population, as
dogsin this studywere not habitually fed by the human group.
Despite the recent publication of this volume, a brief search unearthed
just over a dozen articles citing these studies (not including self-citations)
and several additional articles thatemployed ethnozooarchaeological
techniques without the specific use of the term. The papers given here
both illustrate and critique the current trend in zooarchaeology to more
holistically address human-animal interactions in the pastto the benefit
of both the volume and the reader. This volume is highly recommended
for anyone with an interest in faunal analysis and/or human-animal
interactions.
References
Binford, L. 1978. Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. New York: Academic Press.
Binford, L. 1981. Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths. New York: Academic Press.
Hudson, J. (ed.). 1993. From Bones to Behaviour: Ethnoarchaeological and Experimental
Contributions to the Interpretation of Faunal Remains (Occasional Paper No. 21,
Carbondale Center for Archaeological Investigations). Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University.
356 Book Reviews
Archaeological Theory in Practice
By Patricia Urban and Edward Schortman
Pbk. 344 pp. 37 B/w illus.
ISBN: 987-1-59874-629-7
Reviewed by Valeria Riedemann L.
Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford
I
n Archaeological Theory in Practice, Urban and Schortman analyse
the fundamental concepts of archaeological theory, highlighting the
relationship between theory and its application in archaeological research.
At first sight, my initial question was: what makes this book different from
other studies in archaeological theory? The authors provide their answer
in the Preface. Here, they state there is an inaccurate distinction in the
field between archaeological thought and practice, which theyunlike
other authorsattempt to make explicit.
In the first part of the book (Chapters One to Four), the authors
present the role of theory in archaeological research. In Chapter
One the authors describe the role world-views play in modelling our
understandings of reality. They provide a description of scientific models
of perceiving, describing and explaining material while pointing out that
scientific theories work at multiple levels of generalization and abstraction
(high, middle and low-level theories). Chapter Two discusses the nature
of theories within the social sciences in general, and in archaeology in
particular. Special attention is paid to the relationship between theory
and data, specifically how variables are defined and hypotheses tested
under non-laboratory conditions. They acknowledge that the difficulty
of finding consensus in archaeology is due to the very nature of the
phenomenon archaeologists study, namely human behaviour in all its
complexity. The chapter ends with an extended discussion of the value
of theory as a research tool.
'Dimensions of Theory in Archaeology' (Chapter Three) reviews
the ways archaeologists model their high-level theories based on the
answers to three different questions. These relate to views of causation
(materialism, symbolic, political); free will (structural determinism, agency);
and the applicability of general behavioural principles (generalizing or
particularizing approaches). In Chapter Four the authors discuss how
the choices from each query combine into coherent theories organized
around different schools of thought. In this regard, this chapter provides
an insight into four archaeological schools of thought developed over
the past century: Culture-historical archaeology, Processual archaeology,
Marxist archaeology and Interpretivist (or Postprocessual) archaeology.
Urban and Schortman describe the basic premises of the four schools
and relate them to one another. They also highlight their similarities and
differences in reference to aspects of causation, agency and the possibility
of making general statements about human behaviour. Furthermore, they
indicate the association of these schools with three major movements in
social theory (Romanticism, Modernism and Post-modernism) in order to
show how archaeological theory is usually linked to broader traditions of
intellectual discourse.
In the second part of the book (Chapters Five to Nine) the authors
exemplify the different uses of theory through three case studies. These
are designed to illustrate how researchers from different archaeological
schools of thought have approached the study of persistent problems
that challenge archaeologists' capacity to explain the past.
The first case study, 'Taking on the State in Southern Mesopotamia'
(Chapter Five), is devoted to understanding the rise of social complexity in
this region between 5000 and 2000 BC. Although the authors acknowledge
they do not provide an exhaustive discussion of the different approaches
to this topic, they discuss specific theories because these provide effective
examples of methods applied to archaeological practice. For this case
study and each of the following, they consider firstly the particular form
taken by theories; secondly, the methods used to gather data; and thirdly,
how those findings were viewed in relation to the central issues of culture,
358 Book Reviews
history and the significance of material remains. Particularly interesting is
their account of Susan Pollock's Interpretivist approach to the study of
power and gender in Mesopotamia during this period.
The second case study (Chapter Six) analyses the cultural and social
significance of Stonehenge in Late Neolithic Britain (30001700 BC)
as well as its importance in more recent times. Unlike in the previous
case study, Marxist approaches are not considered, so as to make room
for a discussion of Stonehenge's place in debates that involve non-
archaeologists. The authors discuss the Interpretivist approach that aims
to place Stonehenge in its ancient landscape, as well as describe the role
it plays today. This includes identity issues and, for example, the religious
symbolism of the site for the Neo-Druids. The chapter concludes by
highlighting the polysemous quality of Stonehenge, a site with different
meanings to different people.
The final case study is part of the authors' own long-term research
in the Naco Valley in northwestern Honduras, discussed in considerable
length (Chapters Seven to Nine). Each of these chapters describes the
theories guiding their work during specific field seasons. Chapter Seven
explains how the Culture-historical and Processualist perspectives used
during the late Seventies suggested a marginal position of the area with
respect to lowland Maya developments, a vision that changes in Chapter
Eight. Here Urban and Schortman discuss how the views adopted in the
previous chapter moved towards a more Marxist approach on ancient
political economies, especially processes of political centralization
after the 1988 excavations. Prestige Goods Theory, another Marxist-
inspired theory, appeared in the process, thus helping to predict the
existence of large-scale workshops at La Sierra. Moving forward, Chapter
Nine discusses the adoption of Practice Theory and how it allowed an
understanding of the following historical period in ways that Prestige
Goods Theory was not able to do.
Finally, Chapter Ten summarizes the main arguments made in the
book, and invites the student to take part in theory-making. In this chapter,
the authors succeed in demonstrating that archaeological theory is not a
static phenomenon, and in emphasizing the role archaeologists can play
in providing a complete and unbiased account of the past.
Overall, theoretical aspects are clearly presented and discussed
at good length in the first part of the book. The discussion of the case
studies, however, is unbalanced. The second case study ('Multiple Views
of Stonehenge'), for example, is particularly short and while it provides
a considerable amount of information, it lacks deeper analysis of the
theoretical perspectives involved. Perhaps this case study could have
been omitted to make more room for the case study on Mesopotamia
where similar deficiencies in depth occur. Here, they discuss a considerable
number of theories to illustrate their points, yet the discussion for each is
rather brief and leaves the reader with many questions. The last case study,
however, succeeds in everything the previous ones do not: it provides
a very interesting discussion of the Naco Valley and shows effectively
how different theories were required at different times to interpret the
archaeological record.
To guide readers throughout this book, the authors provide
references for further reading at the end of each chapter, together with
a brief description of each reference and a glossary of key terms at the
end. In addition, a sufficient number of tables, figures and sidebars
complement the text when information is needed. Apart from the fact
that they address the reader using the form 'you' (but let us not forget
the book is directed at undergraduates), the book is clearly written and
well-organised. Advanced readers may wish to skip the first part of the
book and concentrate on the third case study, which is discussed in more
reasonable length and detail. All in all, Archaeological Theory in Practice
is a user-friendly guide, suitable for teaching and a good introduction to
anyone interested in the topic.
360 Book Reviews
Ancient Egyptian Technology and Innovation:
Transformations in Pharaonic Material Culture
By Ian Shaw
2012. London: Bristol Classical Press
214 pp. 43 B/w illus. 6 Tables.
ISBN: 978-0-7156-3118-8
Reviewed by Kimberley Watt
T
his book addresses the issue of technological change in ancient Egypt
by exploring how technology affected its inhabitants' lives, society
and economy through time. Shaw states that the aim of this book is to
"bring together the basic evidence for many different aspects of change
and evolution in Egyptian technology" (page vii). It creates a base from
which to push forward current discussions about technologies, which are
transforming the clich that Egypt was a monolithic society, reluctant to
change.
The evidence in this book clearly demonstrates that the Egyptians
did not limit themselves to previously known and accepted technologies.
They exploited new materials and learnt new techniques when they
deemed it necessary or profitable. They also welcomed technologies
imported from elsewhere. This occurred throughout their history, from
the Predynastic Period to Roman times.
Ancient Egyptian Technologies and Innovation not only presents clear
evidence for technological change, but highlights critical issues about
the social and technical processes involved in technological innovation
and improvement. Each chapter focuses on specific technologies and
presents the evolution of the skills and processes involved. This provides
a starting point for discussions of the reasons for these innovations and, if
possible, their broader social implications.
The ten chapters of this book present technological innovations
in ancient Egypt using physical, visual and textual evidence, and draw
accurate parallels from the rest of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern
world. In the first chapter, Shaw starts with an examination of the
relationship between science and technology. Here, he questions the
validity of applying modern conceptions to earlier periods, through
a case study of the issues encountered when attempting to translate
Egyptian mathematics into modern theorems, and through a study
of the engineering underlying Egyptian architecture. Shaw further
demonstrates the need to detach our modern conceptions by illustrating
the difficulty of understanding 'medical' texts and identifying equivalent
modern diagnoses, and by highlighting the close links that existed
between Egyptian medicine and magic.
In Chapter Five, Shaw explores the tension between innovation and
conservatism in Egyptian society through a study of the development
of stone-working technologies. The design of architecture was closely
associated with traditions and sacredness and innovations were always
given a traditional coating to fit them in the conservative discourse. The
concomitance between conservationism and innovation in Egyptian
society is also addressed through examples from the mummification
process and medicine.
In Chapters Six and Seven, Shaw examines innovations through
the importation of materials and new models of technology. He draws
on numerous examples, from chariotry, composite bows and glass
production, through to the integration of iron technology in the late first
millennium. In Chapters Five and Eight, the social and political implications
of technologies are examined via sections on the relationship between
elites and craftsmanship, and on military knowledge and strategies. At
the end of the book, three appendices are included, which briefly present
astronomy and the measurements of space and time in ancient Egypt.
The strength of this book resides in the use of the latest Egyptological
discoveries and research, with numerous examples illustrating the issues
362 Book Reviews
and arguments discussed. In addition to Egyptian examples, a broader
perspective is offered by looking at ideas from medicine in the Greek
world and weaponry technologies from the Hittite world.
In terms of the less successful aspects of the book, Shaw's use of
terminology can be questioned. Even though the difficulties of dealing
with 'innovation' are explained in the introduction, Shaw does not define
its meaning, nor the differences between innovation and evolution, or
alteration and transformation processes. As these concepts are quite
similar, clarification would have been welcome.
Another shortfall is that the topics surveyed are limited to those
commonly studied in Egyptology. The book continues the traditional
emphasis on stone production, mummification and war technologies,
whereas developments in mud brick techniques and building elements
are not considered. Transformations in Egyptian faience's colours or
changes in the composition of plaster throughout time are interesting
innovations too, but these subjects are not discussed. While a selection
of topics examined within the scope of this book had to be made, an
introduction to the broader range of topics being considered by current
research would have been welcomed.
Undeniably, this book appears as a follow-up to the masterpiece
Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technologies by Nicholson and Shaw (2000)
and there are numerous references to it in the current book. However,
by presenting the most recent finds and discoveries and renewing the
information available on these technologies, this book represents a
valuable new addition to the literature on technologies in ancient Egypt.
Too often in Egyptology material culture is set aside from political,
economic and social studies. This clich is rightfully challenged, as
Shaw clearly demonstrates that technologies and their evolution were
embedded in Egyptian society. Even though there are some minor flaws,
this attempt to create a general framework for technological innovation
is excellent and opens up new angles for future research.
References
Dobres, M.A. 2000. Technology and Social Agency. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kemp, B.J. 2006. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization. London/New York: Routledge.
Nicholson, P.T. and Shaw, I. (eds) 2000. Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology.
Forthcoming Issues
Archaeological Review from Cambridge 28.2
Humans and Animals
November 2013
Edited by Kathryn J. Boulden and Sarah Musselwhite
T
he relationship between humans and animals has long been a prin-
cipal topic of archaeological enquiry, with questions of domestica-
tion, diet and ritual forming the basis of discussion of the development
of 'civilized' society. Archaeological discussions have drawn on both hard
and social sciences in exploration of the relationship between humans
and animals beyond subsistence and there is a growing appreciation of
the diverse roles that animals have played in human history. However,
there has been neglect of considering how people interact with the full
diversity of animals with which they inhabit an environment. The heavy
focus on how humans have exploited animals for their own purposes has
resulted in relatively fewer studies that investigate the symbiotic nature
of many human-animal interactions and the social role of animals in daily
life. This issue explores these alternative perspectives, underlining the
diversity of animal and human relationships in archaeological contexts.
365
Archaeological Review from Cambridge 29.1
Social Network Perspectives in Archaeology
April 2014
Edited by Sarah Evans and Kathrin Felder
T
he concept of the 'social network' is becoming an increasingly
popular topic of discussion, both in modern society and academic
research. Within archaeology, the exploration of past social interactions
via relationships present in the material record forms a principal topic. A
growing number of archaeological studies are applying network analysis
in order to address the nature of human interconnectedness, mechanisms
of knowledge and meaning transmission and the role of objects in
social relationships. Archaeology's contemporary entanglement with
social networks is further emphasized by the great effect modern social
network media have on academic practice by enabling an enhanced
communication within and between the academic and public domain.
Issue 29.1 explores and addresses the unique challenges that
materiality, the spatial and temporal scales, and the fragmentary nature
of the archaeological record pose on envisaging human interaction in
the past. Covering a wide temporal and geographical range from the
Palaeolithic to the Modern Day, the contributions to this issue provide
a rich cross-section of enquiry into the theoretical underpinnings and
specific methodological requirements of archaeological applications
of network analysis. The case studies presented promote an increased
integration of the rich analytical toolbox available to archaeological
research with existing network approaches from other disciplines, and
reflect on archaeology's own changing networking practices. Together
they highlight the significant and unique contribution archaeology is
able to make to the growing field of social network analysis.
366
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Available Back Issues
The following back issues can be ordered. For the order form and up-to-
date prices please see our website:
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1.2 General Issue
2.1 Archaeology and the Public
8.2 Writing Archaeology
9.2 Afective Archaeology
11.2 Digging for a Laugh
12.1 General Perspectives
12.2 The Hierarchy of Being Human
14.1 History and Archaeology
14.2 An Archaeological Assortment
15.1 The Archaeology of Perception and the Senses
15.2 Disability and Archaeology
16 Contending with Bones
17.2 Early Medieval Religion
20.2 Issues of Food and Drink
21.1 Technologies: Changing Matters; Changing Minds?
21.2 Embodied Identities
22.1 The Materiality of Burial Practices
22.2 The Disturbing Past
23.1 Archaeological Histories
23.2 Movement, Mobility and Migrations
24.1 Invention and Reinvention
24.2 Beyond Determinism
25.1 Violence and Conflict in the Material Record
25.2 Boundaries and Archaeology
26.1 Archaeology and Economic Crises
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