Some remarks on ethnicity in medieval archaeology

Early Medieval Europe

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 159-185

  Curta, Florin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARCHAEOLOGY; CULTURAL IDENTITY; ETHNICITY; MEDIEVAL;

EID: 34047125449     PISSN: 09639462     EISSN: 14680254     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0254.2007.00202.x     Document Type: Article

References (96)

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2. Patrick J. Geary, 'Ethnic Identity as a Situational Construct in the Early Middle Ages', Mitteilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien 113 (1983), pp. 15-26
3. Patrick Amory, 'Names, Ethnic Identity, and Community in Fifth- and Sixth-Century Burgundy', Viator 25 (1994), pp. 1-34, at p. 5;
4. S. Klejn, 'Kossinna im Abstand von vierzig Jahren', Jahresschrift für mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte 58 (1974), pp. 7-55
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6. Heinrich Härke, 'Archaeologists and Migrations: A Problem of Attitude?', Current Anthropology 39 (1998), pp. 19-45
7. Hans-Peter Wotzka, 'Zum traditionellen Kulturbegriff in der prähistorischen Archäologie', Paideuma 39 (1993), pp. 25-44
8. C. Ronald, 'In Defense of Migration and Culture History Studies', Journal of Intermountain Archaeology 3 (1984), pp. 43-52
9. S. Klein, 'Regressive Purifizierung und exemplarische Betrachtung. Polemische Bemerkungen zur Integration der Archäologie mit der schriftlichen Geschichte und Sprachwissenschaft bei der ethnischen Deutung des Fundgutes', Ethnographisch-archäologische Zeitschrift 15 (1974), pp. 223-54
10. Sebastian Brather, 'Ethnische Identitäten als Konstrukte der frühgeschichtlichen Archäologie', Germania 78 (2000), pp. 139-77
11. Heinrich Härke, 'The Debate on Migration and Identity in Europe', Antiquity 78 (2004), pp. 453-6
12. Magdalena Maczyńska, 'Die Archäologie über die Anfänge der Slawen. Tagung in Kraków, 19.-21. November 2001', Ethnographisch-archäologische Zeitschrift 42 (2001), pp. 417-19
13. Paul M. Barford, 'Crisis in the Shadows: Recent Polish Polemic on the Origin of the Slavs', Slavia Antiqua 44 (2003), pp. 121-55
14. Guy Nicolas, 'Fait "ethnique" et usages du concept d'"ethnie"', Cahiers internationaux de sociologie 54 (1973), pp. 95-126
15. Anthony P. Cohen, 'Culture as Identity: An Anthropologist's View', New Literary History 24 (1993), pp. 195-209
16. Thomas Hylland Eriksen, 'The Cultural Contexts of Ethnic Differences', Man 26 (1991), pp. 127-44
17. Veit-Michael Bader, 'Ethnische Identität und ethnische Kultur. Grenzen des Konstruktivismus und der Manipulation', Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen 8 (1995), pp. 32-45
18. Brackette F. Williams, 'Of Straightening Combs, Sodium Hydroxide, and Potassium Hydroxide in Archaeological and Cultural-Anthropological Analyses of Ethnogenesis', American Antiquity 57 (1992), pp. 608-12
19. Richard Jenkins, 'Rethinking Ethnicity: Identity, Categorization and Power', Ethnic and Racial Studies 17 (1994), pp. 189-223
20. Cynthia K. Mahmood and Sharon L. Armstrong, 'Do Ethnic Groups Exist? A Cognitive Perspective on the Concept of Cultures', Ethnology 31 (1992), pp. 1-14
21. G. Carter Bentley, 'Ethnicity and Practice', Comparative Studies in Society and History 29 (1987), pp. 25-55
22. Roy Larick, 'Age Grading and Ethnicity in the Style of Loikop (Samburu) Spears', World Archaeology 18 (1986), pp. 269-83
23. Michelle Hegmon, 'Archaeological Research on Style', Annual Review of Anthropology 21 (1992), pp. 517-36
24. James R. Sackett, 'Style and Ethnicity in the Kalahari: A Reply to Wiessner', American Antiquity 50 (1985), pp. 154-9
25. Esther Pasztory, 'Identity and Difference: The Uses and Meanings of Ethnic Styles', Studies in the History of Art 27 (1989), pp. 15-38
26. Polly Wiessner, 'Style and Social Information in Kalahari San Projectile Points', American Antiquity 48 (1983), pp. 253-76
27. Laima Vaitkunskiené, 'Moters ir vyro statusas žemdirbiu bendruomenéje V-VI amžiais', Lietuvos TSR Mokslu Akademijos darbai. A serija 1 (1985), pp. 74-85
28. S. Klein, 'To Separate a Centaur: On the Relationship of Archaeology and History in Soviet Tradition', Antiquity 67 (1993), pp. 339-48
29. Linda Patrik, 'Is There an Archaeological Record?', Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8 (1985), pp. 27-62
30. Michael Shanks, 'Style and the Design of a Perfume Jar from an Archaic Greek City State', Journal of European Archaeology 1 (1993), pp. 77-106
31. Robert C. Gregg, 'Making Religious and Ethnic Boundaries: Cases from the Ancient Golan Heights', Church History 69 (2000), pp. 519-57
32. J. Andrási, 'Avar kori varkocsszorítók', Archaeologiai Értesitö 123-124 (1996-97), pp. 85-123
33. András Páloczi-Horvath, 'Le costume coman au Moyen Age', Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 32 (1980), pp. 403-27
34. Randall H. McGuire, 'The Study of Ethnicity in Historical Archaeology', Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1 (1982), pp. 159-78
35. Andrew Gillett, 'Ethnogenesis: A Contested Model of Early Medieval Europe', History Compass 4 (2006), pp. 1-12
36. Ina-Maria Greverus, Kultur und Alltagswelt. Eine Einführung in Fragen der Kulturanthropologie (Munich, 1978).
37. Frank Siegmund, 'Alemannen und Franken. Archäologische Überlegungen zu ethnischen Strukturen in der zweiten Hälfte des 5. Jahrhunderts', in D. Geuenich (ed.), Die Franken und die Alemannen bis zur 'Schlacht bei Zülpich' (496/97) (Berlin and New York, 1998), pp. 558-80, at pp. 560-1 and 574.
38. Brather, Ethnische Interpretationen, p. 297.
39. Brather, Ethnische Interpretationen, p. 313: 'Ethnische Identität ist die komplexe Vorstellung gemeinsamer Kultur und gemeinsamer Abstammung und keine objektive Merkmalskombination' (original emphasis).
40. Brather, Ethnische Interpretationen, p. 108.
41. Sam Lucy, 'Ethnic and Cultural Identities', in M. Díaz-Andreu and S. Lucy (eds), The Archaeology of Identity: Approaches to Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity, and Religion (London and New York, 2005), pp. 86-109, at pp. 96-7.
42. Walter Pohl, 'Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity', in W. Pohl and H. Reimitz (eds), Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800 (Leiden, Boston and Cologne, 1998), pp. 17-69, here pp. 21-2.
43. For an archaeological example, see Harold Mytum, 'The Vikings and Ireland: Ethnicity, Identity, and Cultural Change', in J.H. Barrett (ed.), Contact, Continuity, and Collapse: The Norse Colonization of the North Atlantic (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 113-37.
44. Ian Hodder, Reading the Past: Current Approaches to Interpretation in Archaeology (Cambridge, 1986), p. 9.
45. Abner Cohen, Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns (London, 1969).
46. Ian Hodder, Symbols in Action: Ethnoarchaeological Studies of Material Culture (Cambridge, London and New York, 1982), pp. 27, 31, 35, 85, 187 and 205; Roy Larick 'Age Grading and Ethnicity in the Style of Loikop (Samburu) Spears' World Archaeology 18 (1986), pp. 269-83, and 'Warriors and Blacksmiths: Mediating Ethnicity in East African Spears', Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 10 (1991), pp. 299-331. Kathleen Deagan, Spanish St. Augustine: The Archaeology of a Colonial Creole Community (New York, 1983), pp. 99 and 271 offers similar conclusions. The sixteenth-century Spanish settlers of St Augustine (Florida) strove to create ethnic boundaries around their community by means of a unique Hispanic-American cultural tradition, itself the result of mestizaje, or Spanish-Indian intermarriage. Deagan found that elements of that cultural tradition that were linked to male activities and to public stages of social interaction (tablewares, items of clothing and personal adornments) tended to retain their Spanish appearance, while those cultural elements that were female-centred and focused on the household (internal home furnishings, household pottery) were often of Native American manufacture.
47. Hodder, Symbols, p. 104.
48. Peter W. Edburg, 'Latins and Greeks on Crusader Cyprus', in D. Abulafia and N. Berend (eds), Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 133-142, at p. 135.
49. For a review of the debate, see Michelle Hegmon, 'Archaeological Research on Style, Annual Review of Anthropology 21 (1992), pp. 517-36; H.M. Wobst, 'Style in Archaeology and Archaeologists in Style', in E. Chilton (ed.), Material Meanings: Critical Approaches to the Interpretation of Material Culture (Salt Lake City, 1999), pp. 118-32.
50. H.M. Wobst, 'Stylistic Behavior and Information Exchange', in C.E. Cleland (ed.), For the Director: Research Essays in Honor of James B. Griffin (Ann Arbor, 1977), pp. 317-42.
51. James R. Sackett, 'Style and Ethnicity in the Kalahari: A Reply to Wiessner' American Antiquity 50 (1985), pp. 154-9; 'Isochrestism and Style: A Clarification', Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5 (1986), pp. 266-77; and 'Style and Ethnicity in Archaeology: The Case for Isochrestism', in M.W. Conkey and C.A. Hastorf (eds), The Uses of Style in Archaeology (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 32-43. For similar views, see Natalie R. Franklin, 'Research with Style: A Case Study from Australian Rock Art', in S. Shennan (ed.), Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity (London, 1989), pp. 278-90, at p. 278; Esther Pasztory, 'Identity and Difference: The Uses and Meanings of Ethnic Styles' Studies in the History of Art 27 (1989), pp. 15-38, at p. 17.
52. Polly Wiessner, 'Style and Social Information in Kalahari San Projectile Points' American Antiquity 48 (1983), pp. 253-76 'Style or Isochrestic Variation? A Reply to Sackett', American Antiquity 50 (1985), pp. 160-6; and 'Is There a Unity to Style?', in Conkey and Hastorf (eds), Uses of Style, pp. 105-12.
53. Castle McLaughlin, 'Style as a Social Boundary Marker: A Plains Indian Example', in Auger et al. (eds), Ethnicity and Culture, pp. 55-66; Timothy Earle, 'Style and Iconography as Legitimation in Complex Chiefdoms', in Auger et al. (eds), Uses of Style, pp. 73-81; Ian Hodder, 'Style as Historical Quality', in Auger et al. (eds), Uses of Style, pp. 44-51.
54. What follows is a summary of a longer discussion to be found in Florin Curta, The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c.500-700 (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 197-203.
55. Joachim Werner, Die Langobarden in Pannonien. Beiträge zur Kenntnis der langobardischen Bodenfunde vor 568 (Munich, 1962), p. 116; Neil Christie, The Lombards: The Ancient Longobards (Oxford and Cambridge, 1995), p. 55. For the conflict between Lombards and Gepids, see Walter Pohl, 'Die Gepiden und die Gentes an der mittleren Donau nach dem Zerfall des Attillareiches', in H. Wolfram and F. Daim (eds), Die Völker an der mittleren und unteren Donau im fünften und sechsten Jahrhundert. Berichte des Symposions der Kommission für Frühmittelalterforschung, 24. bis 27. Oktober 1978, Stift Zwettl, Niederösterreich (Vienna, 1980), pp. 239-305; and 'Die Langobarden in Pannonien und Justinians Gotenkrieg', in D. Bialeková and J. Zábojník (eds), Ethnische und kulturelle Verhältnisse an der mittleren Donau vom 6. bis zum 11. Jahrhundert. Symposium Nitra 6. bis 10. November 1994 (Bratislava, 1996), pp. 27-36.
56. Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards I. 21.
57. Procopius of Caesarea, Wars VII.35.16 and 19.
58. For detailed descriptions of these types of fibulae, see Herbert Kühn, Die germanischen Bügelfibeln der Völkerwanderungszeit in Süddeutschland (Graz, 1974), pp. 996-1006, 1187-91, 1217-24, and 1239-48.
59. Herbert Kühn, Die germanischen Bügelfibeln der Völkerwanderungszeit in der Rheinprovinz (Graz, 1965), pp. 151-3; and Die germanischen Bügelfibeln der Völkerwanderungszeit in Süddeutschland, pp. 799-802. See also Alexander Koch, Bügelfibeln der Merowingerzeit im westlichen Frankenreich (Bonn, 1998), pp. 200-1.
60. Brather is therefore right in rejecting the idea that brooches per se can be an expression of ethnic identity. Equally to be rejected, however, is his interpretation of such dress accessories as 'the continued existence of older cultural traditions even under new political conditions' (Brather, 'Ethnic Identities', pp. 149-76, at p. 161).
61. Marie Louise Sørensen, 'The Construction of Gender through Appearance', in D. Walde and N.D. Willows (eds), The Archaeology of Gender: Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Conference of the Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary (Calgary, 1987), pp. 121-9, here p. 122. See also Marilyn Revell DeLong, The Way We Look: A Framework for Visual Analysis of Dress (Ames, 1987); Odile Blanc, 'Historiographie du vêtement: Un bilan', in Le vêtement. Histoire, archéologie et symbolique vestimentaires au Moyen Age (Paris, 1989), pp. 7-33. Brather does not believe that it is at all possible to detect ethnic differences in clothes because too many social identities can in fact be communicated simultaneously through dress (Brather, Ethnische Interpretationen, p. 411).
62. Cherri M. Pancake, 'Communicative Imagery in Guatemala Indian Dress', in M. Blum Schevill, J.C. Berlo and E.B. Dwyer (eds), Textile Traditions of Mesoamerica and the Andes: An Anthology (New York, 1991), pp. 45-62. See also Jean-Thierry Maertens, Dans la peau des autres: Essai d'anthropologie des inscriptions vestimentaires (Paris, 1978).
63. Thomas Wallerström, 'On Ethnicity as a Methodological Problem in Historical Archaeology', in H. Andersson, P. Carelli and L. Ersgård (eds), Visions of the Past: Trends and Traditions in Swedish Medieval Archaeology (Lund, 1997), pp. 299-352, at p. 303.
64. Bonnie Effros, 'Dressing Conservatively: Women's Brooches as Markers of Ethnic Identity?', in L. Brubaker and J.M.H. Smith (eds), Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300-900 (Cambridge and New York, 2004), pp. 165-84.
65. For the difficulties of 'reading' burial assemblages as a direct mirror of gender divisions in society, see Heinrich Härke, 'Die Darstellung von Geschlechtergrenzen im frühmittelalterlichen Grabritual: Normalität oder Problem?', in W. Pohl and H. Reimitz (eds), Grenze und Differenz im frühen Mittelalter (Vienna, 2000), pp. 180-96, at pp. 193-6.
66. Andris Caune, 'Die Gräbertypen und Bestattungssitten im Ostbaltikum in der Zeit vom 1. bis 13. Jahrhundert', in F. Horst and H. Keiling (eds), Bestattungswesen und Totenkult in ur- und frühgeschichtlicher Zeit (Berlin, 1991), pp. 257-74, at p. 263.
67. Most typical for this approach is Regina Volkaite-Kulikauskiene, Senoves lietuviu drabužiai ir ju papuosalai (I-XVI a.) (Vilnius, 1997).
68. The following is based on Laima Vaitkunskiené 'Moters ir vyro statusas žemdirbiu bendruomenéje V-VI amžiais', Lietuvos TSR Mokslu Akademijos darbai. A serija 1 (1985), pp. 74-85 'The Formation of a Warrior Elite during the Middle Iron Age in Lithuania', Archaeologia Baltica 1 (1995), pp. 94-106.
69. For the role of silver artefacts as markers of social status in early medieval cemeteries in Lithuania, see Laima Vaitkunskiene, Sidabras senoves Lietuvoje (Vilnius, 1981).
70. Whether or not she was sacrificed on the occasion of the man's death remains unclear. See Vaitkunskiene, 'The Formation of a Warrior Elite', p. 100.
71. Paul Graves-Brown, 'All Things Bright and Beautiful? Species, Ethnicity, and Cultural Dynamics,' in Graves-Brown, S. Jones and C. Gamble (eds), Cultural Identity and Archaeology, pp. 81-95, at pp. 90-1.
72. Brather, Ethnische Interpretationen, pp. 337 and 369.
73. Brather, Ethnische Interpretationen, pp. 570 and 577.
74. Its most elegant refutation remains John Moreland, Archaeology and Text (London, 2001).
75. Lev S. Klein 'To Separate a Centaur: On the Relationship of Archaeology and History in Soviet Tradition' Antiquity 67 (1993), pp. 339-48, at p. 341.
76. Linda Patrik 'Is There an Archaeological Record?', Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8 (1985), pp. 27-62, at p. 33.
77. For index fossils in archaeology, see Trigger, History, p. 96.
78. Formulated in 1785 by the Scottish philosopher James Hutton (1726-97), the uniformitarian principle states that 'the present is the key to the past'. When applied to geological processes, this means that the creation of all ancient geological features may be attributed to the same physical mechanisms that are seen in the present. See Dennis R. Dean, James Hutton and the History of Geology (Ithaca, 1992).
79. Patrik, 'Is There an Archaeological Record?', pp. 35-55.
80. Patrik, 'Is There an Archaeological Record?', p. 37.
81. Hodder, Reading the Past, p. 153.
82. Thegan, Vita Hludovici IV.
83. Fredegar, IV.68.
84. Michael Shanks 'Style and the Design of a Perfume Jar from an Archaic Greek City State', Journal of European Archaeology 1 (1993), pp. 77-106 (reprinted in R.W. Preucel and I. Hodder (eds), Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: A Reader (Malden and Oxford, 1996), pp. 364-493, at pp. 368 and 373-4).
85. Bonnie Effros, Caring for the Body and Soul: Burial and the Afterlife in the Merovingian World (University Park, 2002).
86. Robert C. Gregg, 'Making Religious and Ethnic Boundaries: Cases from the Ancient Golan Heights', Church History 69 (2000), pp. 519-57, at p. 556.
87. Hoyt S. Alverson, 'The Roots of Time: A Comment on Utilitarian and Primordial Sentiments in Ethnic Identification', in R.L. Hall (ed.), Ethnic Autonomy - Comparative Dynamics: The Americas, Europe and the Developing World (New York, Oxford and Toronto, 1979), pp. 13-7, at p. 15.
88. J. Andrási, 'Avar kori varkocsszorítók', Archaeologiai Értesitö 123-124 (1996-97), pp. 85-123. See also Eric Breuer, Byzanz an der Donau. Eine Einführung in Chronologie und Fundmaterial zur Archäologie im Frühmittelalter im mittleren Donauraum (Tettnang, 2005), p. 58.
89. András Páloczi-Horvath, 'Le costume coman au Moyen Age', Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 32 (1980), pp. 403-27. See also Nora Berend, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims, and 'Pagans' in Medieval Hungary, c.1000-c.1300 (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 250 and 261-2.
90. Petre Diaconu, Les Coumans au Bas-Danube aux XIe-XIIe siècles (Bucharest, 1978); Victor Spinei, The Great Migrations in the East and South East of Europe from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Century (Cluj-Napoca, 2003), pp. 217-40.
91. Randall H. McGuire, 'The Study of Ethnicity in Historical Archaeology', Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1 (1982), pp. 159-78, at p. 172.
92. Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change 950-1350 (Princeton, 1993), p. 198.
93. Kieran Denis O'Conor, The Archaeology of Medieval Rural Settlement in Ireland (Dublin, 1998), pp. 97-101.
94. O'Conor, Archaeology, pp. 74 and 102.
95. Andrew Gillett, 'Ethnogenesis: A Contested Model of Early Medieval Europe', History Compass 4 (2006), pp. 1-12, at p. 3.
96. Marc Bloch, Apologie pour l'histoire ou métier d'historien (Paris, 1974), p. 26: 'les poisons, aujourd'hui plus dangereux, de la routine érudite et de l'empirisme déguisé en sens commun'.