The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory

What is it about?

The subject of Mediterranean prehistory is both vast and complex, which inevitably means that scholars tend to concentrate on a particular region or theme. Although it is true to some extent of this collection of essays, the contributors treat the Mediterranean as a single concept, an entity defined by its constituent parts, `tacking between specific cultural details and broader central issues'. The twelve essays cover the period from the Neolithic to the Iron Age and geographically range from Spain to the Levant, placing emphasis on issues of commonality, social interaction and geography. Contents include: Neolithic Mediterranean `trade' (J E Robb and R H Farr) ; The material expression of cult, ritual and feasting (E Blake) ; Archaeometallurgy in the Mediterranean (V Kassianidou and A B Knapp) ; Maritime commerce and geographies of mobility in the Late Bronze Age of the eastern Mediterranean (S W Manning and L Hulin) .

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Why is it important?

Contributors to this volume confront the notion of a ‘Mediterranean prehistory’ by negotiating between the Scylla of material cultural details and the Charybdis of current archaeological theory. By emphasising what characterises a particular area as ‘Mediterranean’ rather than focusing on its uniqueness, we gain new insights into peoples’ social identities, gender and rituals; their monuments, metallurgies and lithic technologies; their modes of commerce and patterns of rural and town settlement; their museums and cultural legacies. Individual authors seek to disentangle what links and distinguishes the prehistoric inhabitants of the Mediterranean, particularly with respect to their material and mental histories. In this introduction, we present some of the central debates — theoretical and empirical — in Mediterranean prehistoric archaeology, debates that unify this volume’s diversity and, we believe, justify our view of the Mediterranean as a coherent spatial, cultural and archaeological entity. At the outset, we present the historical background to Mediterranean prehistoric archaeology and provide a succinct definition and overview of ‘The Mediterranean’. In conclusion, we discuss briefly the notion of ‘The End of the Mediterranean’.