Villa Landscapes in the Roman North

Abstract

This edited volume presents a synthesis of recent research on villas and villa landscapes in the northern provinces of the Roman world. It offers an original, multi-dimensional perspective on the social, economic and cultural functioning of villas within the context of the Roman empire. Themes discussed include the economic basis of villa dominated landscapes, rural slavery, town-country dynamics, the role of monumental burials in villa landscapes, and self-representation and lifestyle of villa owners. This study offers a major contribution to the comparative research of villa landscapes and the phenomenon of regionality in Roman rural landscapes. Amsterdam Archaeological Studies is a series devoted to the study of past human societies from the prehistory up into modern times, primarily based on the study of archaeological remains. The series will include excavation reports of modern fieldwork; studies of categories of material culture; and synthesising studies with broader images of past societies, thereby contributing to the theoretical and methodological debates in archaeology.

Archaeological narratives in ethnicity studies

“…The sheer size of the open space at Titelberg, far larger than any ordinary needs of the oppidum community would call for, suggests a public space used for large popular assemblies, which Caesar describes precisely for the Treveri (BG V, 56). These collective meetings, in which politics and religion were surely intertwined and that were probably accompanied by the celebration of fairs, were basic in the construction and maintenance of collective identities, in the sense pointed out by Derks and Roymans (2009). Public spaces for assemblies and religious practices have also been recently recorded in other Treveran oppida such as Martberg, Wallendorf or Kastel-Staadt (Fernández-Götz 2014; Krausse 2006).…”

“…Therefore, ethnic markers are not necessarily the same for all members of society. In line with their different gender roles, we could for example expect men and women to have different ethnic markers (Derks -Roymans 2009). The concept of 'intersectionality' (Davis 2008), a theoretical tool for the holistic approach to the study of any identity, helps understand this reality without oversimplifying its natural complexity.…”

“…In our opinion the only answer lies in a diachronic analysis of past cultural contexts derived from a variety of sources and classes of data. In this sense, research on ethnicity in the Ancient World tends to be textually driven (Derks -Roymans 2009). As Hall (2002, 24) has noted: 'Ethnicity may be communicated archaeologically, but there can be no archaeology of ethnicity among societies who have left us no record'.…”

“…Given these conditions, the study of sanctuaries and other ritual places offers great possibilities. As Derks and Roymans (2009) have pointed out, the great sanctuaries of civic religion, as well as the meeting places of inter-group cult communities, offer one of the best possibilities for gaining access to ethnic constructs of the past at different scales of social organisation. These places would be the concrete anchoring points in the landscape where the polity's core values were transmitted to the wider community through recitals, dramatic performances and other collective rituals.…”

Arethusa and Kyane, Nymphs and Springs in Syracuse: Between Greece and Sicily

“…In the phenomenon of Greek expansion, myths and cults are among the topics that best allow us to understand how the new communities construct their ethnic identity. 1 The subject has been long discussed, from Irad Malkin's study (1998) of the figure of Odysseus, to an Oxford Companion edited by Jeremy McInerney (2014), and it features especially in epistemological and methodological debates about the definition and pertinence of the concept of ethnicity, sometimes associated, or even opposed, to those of culture and hybridity (Derks, Roymans 2009;Antonaccio 2003). Historians, relying on anthropological and sociological concepts, have then sought the constituent elements of the ethnicity of individual societies from Greek poleis or the Roman Empire to the margins of the Mediterranean.…”