Comparative Perspectives on Past Colonisation, Maritime Interaction and Cultural Integration: (New Directions in Anthropological Archaeology)

This volume explores processes of colonisation and cultural integration from the end of the last Ice Age to the present from a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective.All kinds of human mobility, short-distance as well as long-distance movements, short-term and long-term interactions are potential triggers for change and also cultural integration. The colonisation of an area most clearly brings into focus what kind of social fabric encompassed the actual historical processes. Recent perspectives on the social and cultural embeddedness of exchange, and how objects facilitate constructions of identities and political legitimacy, serve to frame and explicate the role of material culture in such processes.The contributions to this volume shed light on various social aspects of movement, migration and colonisation among hunter-gatherers and Neolithic groups as well as in chiefdoms and state societies. Geographically, an area spanning from the Mediterranean to Central Europe and the North Sea Region, Greenland and Siberia is covered.Three social and historical processes - the social aspects of colonisation, cultural integration and maritime interaction - are particularly discussed as interrelated phenomena.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on Past Colonisation, Maritime Interaction and Cultural IntegrationHakon Glorstad, Zanette Tsigaridas Glorstad and Lene MelheimPart 1: Colonization1. The Development of Early Mesolithic Social Networks during the Settlement of Virgin Lands in the Eastern Baltic Sea Region - Interpreted through Comparison of Two Sites in Finland Aivar Kriiska, University of Tartu, Estonia, Tapani Rostedt and Timo Jussila, Microlith Ltd.2. The Sicilian World after the Punic Wars: The Greek Colony in a New Reality Roksana Chowaniec, University of Warsaw, Poland3. When the Romans Arrived in Sardinia. Three Case Studies: Cornus, Olbia and Nora Cristina Nervi4. Yakut Food Producers Colonising Areas Occupied by Evenk Hunter-gatherers: Fragments of a Process of Cultural Change Caused by MigrationOle Gron, University of Southern DenmarkPart 2: Maritime Interaction5. Past Mirrors: Thucydides, Sahlins and the Bronze and Viking Ages Zanette Tsigaridas Glorstad and Lene Melheim6. Nothing to Lose: Waterborne Raiding in Southern ScandinaviaChristian Horn, Christian-Albrechts University, Kiel, Germany7. Migration, Identity and Material Culture: Hanseatic Translocality in the Medieval Baltic SeaMagdalena Naum, Lund University, Sweden8. Pirates of the North Sea? The Viking Ship as Political SpaceNeil Price, University of Aberdeen9. Bronze Age Vikings? A Comparative Analysis of Deep Historical Structures and their DynamicsKristian Kristiansen, University of Gothenburg, SwedenPart 3: Cultural Integration10. Exploring New Territories - Expanding Frontiers: Bowmen and Prospectors on the Scandinavian Peninsula in the 3rd Millennium BCLene Melheim and Christopher Prescott, University of Oslo, Norway 11. Spreading Ideas - Late Bronze Age Face-urn Burials across Northern Europe and the Baltic SeaJutta Kneisel, Christian-Albrechts University, Kiel, Germany12. Long-term Cosmological Interconnectedness and Long-distance Trade: Cosmology and Comparative Advantage in the Bronze Age and BeyondMichael Rowlands, University College London, and Johan Ling, University of Gothenburg, Sweden13. In the Footsteps of the Vikings: Children and Cultural ChangeDawn Hadley, University of SheffieldConclusion: Thoughts of a Comparativist on Past Colonisation, Maritime Interaction and Cultural IntegrationMatthew Spriggs, Australian National University

About the Author :
Lene Melheim is Researcher in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Gothenburg.Hakon Glorstad is Professor in the Department of Heritage Management, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo.Zanette Tsigaridas Glorstad is a Researcher at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo.

Review :
"...The collected works represent a valuable and thought-provoking addition to the current corpus of comparative literature on this topic, providing a number of case studies that can be examined and discussed in wider contexts." --Ben Raffield, Uppsala University, Antiquity, February 2018