In the first millennium BC, communities in Italy underwent crucial
transformations which scholars have often subsumed under the heading of
'state formation', namely increased social stratification, the
centralization of political power and, in some cases, urbanization. Most
research has tended to approach the phenomenon of state formation and
social change in relation to specific territorial dynamics of growth and
expansion, changing modes of exploitation of food and other resources
over time, and the adoption of selected socio-ritual practices by the
ruling élites in order to construct and negotiate authority. In
contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to the question
of how these key developments resonated across the broader social
transect, and how social groups other than ruling élites both promoted
these changes and experienced their effects.
The chief aim of this collection of 14 papers is to harness innovative
approaches to the exceptionally rich mortuary evidence of first
millennium BC Italy, in order to investigate the roles and identities of
social actors who either struggled for power and social recognition, or
were manipulated and exploited by superior authorities in a phase of
tumultuous sociopolitical change throughout the entire Mediterranean
basin. Contributors provide a diverse range of approaches in order to
examine how power operated in society, how it was exercised and
resisted, and how this can be studied through mortuary evidence. Section
1 addresses the construction of identity by focusing mainly on the
manipulation of age, ethnic and gender categories in society in regions
and sites that reached notable power and splendor in first millennium BC
Italy. These include Etruria, Latium, Campania and the rich settlement
of Verucchio, in Emilia Romagna. Each paper in Section 2 offers a
counterpoint to a contribution in Section 1 with an overall emphasis on
scholarly multivocality, and the multiplicity of the theoretical
approaches that can be used to read the archaeological evidence.
