SESSION 1

IDENTIFYING IDENTITY IN THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD

​

Material culture often serves as a medium for defining and signifying personal and social identities. Objects and spaces are a product of intra-personal and communal relationships. Their meanings are defined and transformed contextually within these relationships and their relations with other aspects of material culture. The material culture remains we study have attributed meanings that we attempt to reveal. Obsidian, flint, mollusc shells, pots, for instance, all carry different layers of meanings that were defined and transformed throughout their life-courses. Spaces were often shaped by preferences and necessities stemming from socio-cultural norms. Daily and periodic activities in these spaces, on the other hand, were conducted within these culture-specific norms and thus construct and re-construct the roles and identities attributed to individuals within a given socio-cultural setting. In this case, not only reflecting them, material culture can construct and transform identities. Human remains constitute another group of data through which the roles and identities of individuals could be revealed. A holistic approach to bioarchaeological data, grave goods, and different burial customs, allow detecting similarities and differences in subsistence patterns, role groups, kinship relations, and how identities were manifested through material culture. In this session, papers dealing with various approaches and methodologies, data groups, and analytical methods in identifying identity in the archaeological record are welcome.