Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity

`A timeless resource of informed discussion' - Antiquity`Presents a global perspective on an important issue facing archaeology today...the search for cultural identity in the past. It will be of particular value to archaeologists interested in the growth and migration of cultural groups and the interpretation of material culture as a medium of cultural expression ... this is an excellent collection of papers which is highly recommended.' - American Antiquity

• List of contributors Foreword Introduction: archaeolgical appraoches to cultural identity Objectivity, Interests and Cultural Difference in Archaeological Interpretation 1. Ethnic concepts in German prehistory: a case study on the relationship between cultural identity and archaelogical objectivity 2. The Vandals: myths and facts about a Germanic tribe of the first half of the 1st millennium AD 3. Theory, profession, and the political role of archaeolgy 4. An epistemological enquiry into some archaeological and historical interpretations of 17th century native American-European relations 5. Matters of fact and matters of interest 6. The role of `local knowledge' in archaeological interpretation Cultural Identity and its Material Expression in the Past and the Present 7. Material aspects of Limba, Yalunka and Kuranko ethnicity: archaeological research in northeastern Sierra-Leone 8. Multiculturalism in the eastern Andes 9. The property of symmetry and the concept of ethnic style 10. Patterns of learning, residence and descent among potters in Ticul, Yucatan, Mexico 11. Some ethnospecific features in central and eastern European archaeology during the early Middle Ages: the case of Avars and Hungarians 12. Ancient ethnic groups as represented on bronzes from Yunnan, China 13. The archaeology of the Yoruba: problems and possibilities 14. Ethnicity and traditions in Mesolithic mortuary practices of southern Scandinavia 15. Detecting political units in archaeology - an Iron Age example The Genesis, Maintenance and Disappearance of Ethnicity and Cultural Variation 17. Sociocultural and economic elements of the adaptation systems of the Argentine Toba: the Nacilamolek and Taksek cases of Formosa Province 18. Spatial heterogeneity in Fuego-Patagonia 19. Cultural and ethnic processes in prehistory as seen through the evidence of archaeology and related disciplines 20. Research with style: a case study from Australian rock art 21. Steppe traditions and cultural assimilation of a nomadic people: the Cumanians in Hungary in the 13th-14th century 22. An ethnic change or a socio-economic one? The 5th and 6th centuries Index