Frontiers and Boundaries in Archaeological Perspective

Abstract

Most archaeological studies of frontiers and boundaries are informed by a colonialist perspective of core-periphery relationships. In this review, we identify three problems with colonialist models of territorial expansion, boundary maintenance, and homogeneousc olonial populations. These problems are (a) insular models of culture change that treat frontiers as passive recipients of core innovations, (b) the reliance on macro scales of analysis employed frontier research, and (c) the expectation of sharp frontier boundaries visible material culture. In the final section, we reconceptualize frontiers as zones of cross-cutting social networks based largely on our research on fur-trade outposts in western North America. Our approach considers the study of diverse and overlapping segmentary or factional groups that cross-cut traditionally perceived colonial-indigenous boundaries on the frontier at different spatial and temporal scales of analysis.

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).…”

Presentation is Everything: Foodways, Tablewares, and Colonial Identity at Presidio Los Adaes

“…Race and status were intimately tied together to distinguish Spanish elites from those lower status individuals of less homogenous Spanish blood, as well as the Native Americans and Africans who were incorporated into the Spanish colonial system. These official distinctions and boundaries, like so many others put in place in colonial contexts, were subject to manipulation and negotiation in colonial communities and households (Callaway 1993;Cope 1994;Lightfoot 1995;Lightfoot and Martinez 1995;see also Boyer 1997;Crowell 1997;Stoler and Cooper 1997). While the regimen de castas expressed idealized expectations with regard to the behavior and appearance of Spanish colonists, all colonists were actively involved in evaluating and reforming colonial identities within this system of hierarchical classification.…”

Re-emerging Frontiers: Postcolonial Theory and Historical Archaeology of the Borderlands

“…The most explicit use of world-system perspectives (deriving from Wallerstein's World System Theory and dependency theory) in frontier studies was the invocation of core-periphery relationships. Accordingly, frontier was conceived as a sharply delineated periphery, politically, economically and culturally dependent and subordinate to the central or "core" regions (Lightfoot and Martinez 1995). Although individual studies applying these perspectives produced interesting results (especially in understanding economic dynamics, e.g.…”