Archaeology has long dealt with issues of identity, and especially with ethnicity, with modern approaches emphasising dynamic and fluid social construction. The archaeology of the Iron Age in particular has engendered much debate on the topic of ethnicity, fuelled by the first availability of written sources alongside the archaeological evidence which has led many researchers to associate the features they excavate with populations named by Greek or Latin writers. Some archaeological traditions have had their entire structure built around notions of ethnicity, around the relationships existing between large groups of people conceived together as forming unitary ethnic units. On the other hand, partly influenced by anthropological studies, other scholars have written forcefully against Iron Age ethnic constructions, such as the Celts.

The 24 contributions to this volume focus on the south east Europe, where the Iron Age has, until recently, been populated with numerous ethnic groups with which specific material culture forms have been associated. The first section is devoted to the core geographical area of south east Europe: Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia, as well as Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The following three sections allow comparison with regions further to the west and the south west with contributions on central and western Europe, the British Isles and the Italian peninsula. The volume concludes with four papers which provide more synthetic statements that cut across geographical boundaries, the final contributions bringing together some of the key themes of the volume.

The wide array of approaches to identity presented here reflects the continuing debate on how to integrate material culture, protohistoric evidence (largely classical authors looking in on first millennium BC societies) and the impact of recent nationalistic agendas.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Contributors
• Chapter 1: Tribute to John Alexander
• Chapter 2: Introduction: the Challenge of Iron Age Identity
• Perspectives from South East Europe
  • Chapter 3: The Coexistence and Interference of the Late Iron Age Transylvanian Communities
  • Chapter 4: Identities of the Early Iron Age in North Eastern Slovenia
  • Chapter 5: Royal Bodies, Invisible Victims: Gender in the Funerary Record of Late Iron Age and Early Hellenistic Thrace
  • Chapter 6: Mediterranean Wine and Dacian Conviviality. Ancient and Modern Myths and Archaeological Evidence
  • Chapter 7: Sarmizegetusa Regia – the Identity of a Royal Site?
  • Chapter 8: The Ethnic Construction of Early Iron Age Burials in Transylvania. Scythians, Agathyrsi or Thracians?
  • Chapter 9: Negotiating Identities at the Edge of the Roman Empire
  • Chapter 10: Tracing Ethnicity Backwards: the Case of the ‘Central Balkan Tribes’
  • Chapter 11: The Quest for Group Identity in Late Iron Age Romania. Statistical Reconstruction of Groups based on Funerary Evidence
  • Chapter 12: Changing Identities of the Iron Age Communities of Southern Pannonia
  • Chapter 13: Indigenous and Colonist Communities in the Eastern Carpathian Basin at the Beginning of the Late Iron Age. The Genesis of an Eastern Celtic World
  • Chapter 14: Ancient Thrace between the East and the West
  • Chapter 15: ‘Hellenisation’ and Ethnicity in the Continental Balkan Iron Age
• Perspectives from the West
  • Chapter 16: Central Places and the Construction of Collective Identities in the Middle Rhine-Moselle Region
  • Chapter 17: Fingerprinting Iron Age Communities in South-West Germany and an Integrative Theory of Culture
  • Chapter 18: Iron Age Identities in Central Europe: Some Initial Approaches
• Perspectives from the Far West
  • Chapter 19: Negotiating Identity on the Edge of Empire
  • Chapter 20: Personal Adornment in Iron Age Britain. The Case of the Missing Glass Beads
• Perspectives from the South West
  • Chapter 21: Spoiling for a Fight: Using Spear Typologies to Identify Aspects of Warrior Identity and Fighting Style in Iron Age South Italy
  • Chapter 22: Communal vs. Individual: the Role of Identity in the Burials of Peucetia
  • Chapter 23: A View from the South (West). Identity in Tyrrhenian Central Italy
• Synthesis
  • Chapter 24: Identity, Integration, Power Relations and the Study of the European Iron Age: Implications from Serbia
  • Chapter 25: The Celts: More Myths and Inventions
  • Chapter 26: Material Culture and Identity. The Problem of Identifying Celts, Germans and Romans in Late Iron Age Europe
  • Chapter 27: Fingerprinting the European Iron Age. Historical, Cultural and Intellectual Perspectives on Identity and Ethnicity
• Bibliography