The Archaeology of Ethnicity.
Constructing Identities in the Past and Present.
London and New York: Routledge.
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With this book, the author tries to reassess the way in which the past is reconstructed and interpreted on an archaeological background, defining the concept of ‘ethnicity’ within an archaeological framework.
After the introduction (chapter 1), chapter 2 discusses about the archaeological identification of peoples and cultures, with the Romanization as a study case.
Chapter 3 reflects about the classification of peoples in the human sciences, re–defining concepts as ‘taxonomy’ and ‘difference’, dealing with the emergence of ethnicity as a primary taxonomic category; the focus here is on the conceptualization of difference in the early to mid–twentieth century.
Chapter 4 presents ethnicity and its conceptual and theoretical terrain: conceptualization of ethnicity, primordial imperative and instrumental ethnicity are discussed, proposing an integrated theoretical approach.
Chapter 5 focuses on ‘multidimentional ethnicity’, presenting a practice theory of ethnicity and some historical models of ethnicity.
Chapter 6 crosses ethnicity and material culture, giving a theoretical basis for the interpretation of ethnicity in archaeology.
Chapter 7 displays a conclusion, presenting a comparative theory of ethnicity, reconsidering also the Romanization, adding in the end a comment about the role of archaeology on politics of identity.
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