Creating an Imperial Frontier: Archaeology of the Formation of Rome?s Danube Borderland

Abstract

For investigating the formation of frontier zones, study of changes in small communities that constituted the majority of earlier populations provides a different perspective from a focus on major centers. A network model applied to settlement and cemetery sites on Rome's Danube River frontier in Bavaria, Germany, shows that many communities, through participation in regional and long-distance circulation systems, played significant roles in creating the dynamic and culturally heterogeneous character of that landscape. This approach offers a model applicable to analysis of the formation and functioning of frontier regions in all cultural contexts.

Unity and Diversity in the European Iron Age: Out of the Mists, Some Clarity?

“…Many have introduced evidence that Mediterranean culture was substantially or equally impacted by the cultures of Celts, Celtiberians, Germans, and Britons. Following a trend seen in general archaeological theory (e.g., Lightfoot and Martinez 1995;Schortman and Urban 1992), Romans were especially influenced by outsiders at frontier locations such as trade or military outposts far away from core regions (Cabrera 1998;Carroll 2001;Freeman 1993;Kurchin 1995;McCarthy 2005;Millett 1990a, b), since their everyday needs (including sexual encounters) would have been drawn from local contexts (Allison 2006);Wells' (2005) review article addresses this on the Roman Danube frontier. That the individual identities of Roman soldiers, drawn from all over the empire, from Scotland to Syria, appear to have often been in contrast to their identities as state representatives is a condition recently explicated through archaeology and inscriptions (Hope 2003).…”

“…World systems theory also initially placed barbarians in the periphery/dependency category (Randsborg 1992) and soon became a primary explanatory model for the interaction of Europeans with Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans. Early, literal applications and the subsequent overuse of the concept were followed by more considered and nuanced interpretations of this theory (Wells 2005). A look at the Greeks themselves as peripheral to other world systems also has been offered (Morris 1996).…”

An Archaeological Investigation of the Kirfi Area, Northern Nigeria: Craft, Identity and Landscape

“…Ashmore & Knapp 1999, Lightfoot & Martinez 1995, Wells 2005, Naum 2010) interested in frontiers, contact zones and marginal cultural developments outside Africa, have examined how cultural systems are altered across boundaries and where social territories emerge when human factors are recognised on spatial grounds. How do people perceive themselves and others at a distance, and is the way that potential resources of the landscape are collectively exploited located through the material production of objects?…”

Modeling and testing polity boundaries in the Classic Tuxtla Mountains, Southern Veracruz, Mexico

“…Political boundaries in ancient states were dynamic and highly contested loci on the landscape (e.g., Feinman, 1994;Hare, 2004;Lightfoot and Martinez, 1995;Parker, 2006;Smith, 2004;Venter, 2008;Wells, 2005). A polity is ''a spatialized set of political practices dedicated to producing and reproducing authority in relationships between subjects and regimes (Smith, 2004, p. 148)''.…”