From the one to the multiple: one problem and many approaches

The study of cultural contacts and cultural transmission in the ancient Mediterranean has emerged as a significant research area in the last 15 years.Footnote ¹ The most suitable methods and theories for the analysis of these themes are the subjects of ongoing scientific debate. A conference held in Auckland in 2020, whose proceedings are discussed in this review, was dedicated to the topic as it relates to pre-Roman Italy. The general debate originated from the rejection of both a diffusionist perspective on cultural exchange and the previous acculturation models. Whilst it is widely acknowledged that the focus on cultural contacts and transmission followed the introduction of world-system, globalization, and entanglement theories in archaeology, these interpretative frames were all developed to offset a common issue: a colonialist approach to the mobility of ancient peoples and ideas.Footnote ² In the introduction to the volume under discussion, the editors, Jeremy Armstrong and Aaron Rhodes-Schroeder, underscore that the change in perspective is due not only to archaeologists’ self-reflexivity, which has led to the acknowledgment of their own colonial bias in interpreting ancient phenomena and sources, but also to the amount of new data from recent excavations, which has enhanced the quality and the quantity of information (19). Reference works on the application of these theories to studies of the ancient world have focused on the importance of the social networks of local communities in the reception of more broadly attested cultural items and images in the so-called glocal dimension or in their local response to global phenomena.Footnote ³ The editors refer to this entanglement of global and local history using the concept of micro-history. They also remark that the advent of the new postcolonial perspective has had a significant impact on the conceptualization of “Hellenization” and “Romanization.” This impact has been characterized by the supersession of core-periphery models (21–22).Footnote ⁴

It is only recently that postcolonial approaches have been proposed for pre-Roman Italy between the 7th and the 2nd c. BCE.Footnote ⁵ A particularly noteworthy aspect of the volume is the attempt to exemplify different theoretical frames, the paradigms of the title, in different regions and chronologies. The editors also draw attention to a number of issues related to these paradigms, for example, the gap between Mediterranean-wide analysis and micro-history, risking losing the meso-dimension (20). Attema, Belelli Marchesini, and Catsman (123–33) propose a multiscalar approach as a means of overcoming this limitation. Alternative approaches are to analyse the local impact of Mediterranean models (De Angelis (47–58) and Rhodes-Schroder (101–15)), or to employ trans-local regional analysis, as in the contributions of Lechenault and Peche-Quilichini (59–70), Attema et al. (235–75), and Tol (161–75). A further issue pertains to the temporal frame needed to determine the distinction between tradition and innovation within local societies (23). A bias stemming from the established scholarly tradition – for instance, the separation of Bronze Age and Iron Age – has resulted in the under-exploration of continuities. In an effort to address this issue, some contributions focus on long-lasting relationships between society and landscape, for instance, those of Lechenault and Peche-Quilichini (59–61) and of Tol (163–64). A third issue identified by the editors pertains to the prevalent use of certain classes of materials, such as imported Greek pottery, as proxies for the analysis. This unbalanced focus on ancient data leads to distortion in the interpretation of cultural contacts (24). The attention paid to other classes of material in the contributions of Hopkins, Pavlick, and Norman enables us to reconsider cultural contact as a pervasive and complex phenomenon. The focus on social actors is a common thread in the contributions, which consider innovation and transmission as part of a coherent and codified system of symbols and values (29). Local communities are thus not passive recipients but active agents, who make their own choices (30). In the following discussion of the book, I will consider three paradigms, extrapolated from my reading of the collected papers: (1) the paradigm of the social recipients; (2) the non-anthropocentric paradigm; and (3) the semiotic paradigm.

The paradigm of the social recipients

This paradigm moves the discussion away from models of innovation to the reasons for its occurrence. It can be found in Terrenato’s contribution, which focuses on why a society introduces innovation. An interesting twist is the warning against the modernist approach that always considers innovation to be positive. For Terrenato, power dynamics and social interaction are the primary drivers of changes in dwelling, in consumption, and even in the most conservative fields, such as religious practice. A new scale of power relationships in urban centers carries a cultural revolution that also involves religious aspects, such as the cult of the ancestors, which was linked to traditional clan structures (34–35). This last aspect is indeed very sensitive for the pre-Roman collective memory. The cult of ancestors could be a means to construct tradition. Mythical ancestors and city founders are frequently depicted as foreigners in literary sources about the Po Valley, Latium, and southern Italy.Footnote ⁶ Ancestors and their material manifestations, such as their images, burials, and residences, were projected in a collective dimension as lieux de mémoire,Footnote ⁷ an immaterial source of social cohesion that works on different scales over time, from enlarged familiesFootnote ⁸ to urban communities.Footnote ⁹

Potts’s contribution also focuses on social recipients, comparing two Etruscan sanctuaries that, despite having different geographic and social backgrounds, present common features: the emporion of Pyrgi on the coast of southern Etruria and the urban temples of Uni and Tinia at Marzabotto, in the northern Apennines. Rather than stemming from Hellenization processes, the features of these sanctuaries responded to local needs. Potts deconstructs core-periphery models, introducing concepts such as social networks: innovation, variety, and Greek-like forms are ways to achieve social power. Potts views the syncretism of Greek and local forms and techniques as a local creation, with architectural variation seen as an expression of the power of prominent individuals, families, or even entire urban communities (96). To her interesting proposal, it could be added that in the cities chosen as case studies, the presence of Greek merchants and craftsmen is epigraphically attested.Footnote ¹⁰ Public architectural spaces, such as temples, were visible and open to strangers. The combination of Greek and Etruscan architectural forms could therefore also be considered a form of external political communication, linked in social networks to local strategies of power legitimation.

Pavlick’s contribution concerns the introduction of clay roofs in Archaic Rome. This is a well-known case study, but also a very peculiar one, which needs to be located within the broader development of central Italy (154).Footnote ¹¹ This contextualization shows, in my opinion, that the chosen poleocentric analysis is not suitable for generalization. Different social contexts and, consequently, dwelling forms would have required different local strategies, which used the same form of innovation for purposes tailored to their own social needs. I am not questioning Pavlick’s assertion that the popularity and the standardization of the new roof system was triggered by its use in urban contexts. However, this does not imply that this innovation was exclusive to urban society. An increased quantity of labor and specialized craftsmen is not necessarily linked to urban centers, but can also be found in other seats of power, such as regiae, and in hierarchically structured settlements in rural areas, where the same innovation first appears in buildings with traditional clay walls.Footnote ¹² As the analysis of the differences between Rome and Acquarossa highlight (150–52), it is not necessary to suppose either a linear evolution of the roofing system or a homogeneous social meaning and use of this innovation, which can be valued differently in different social contexts.

In their paper, Attema, Belelli Marchesini, and Catsman examine the relationship between innovation and social actors, focusing on the consumption of funerary pottery in the local community of Archaic and Orientalizing Crustumerium, in Latium Vetus. The high level of interregional connectivity between the Etruscans, Sabines, Latins, and Falisci-Capenates has been analyzed using a variety of methods ranging from contextual analysis to architectural formal analysis. Catsman uses affiliation networks to understand consumption collectives. Although affiliation networks have already been applied to funerary consumption in Hellenistic Etruria,Footnote ¹³ the added value of Catsman’s contribution lies in using them to identify consumption spheres in a multi-scalar system that integrates local, regional, and supra-regional dimensions (123–32). The only limitation of this analysis is that funerary objects could have been preserved and rearranged for commemorative purposes. Thus, the integration of this methodology with other analyses such as grave architecture and the use of imported and imitated pottery, as proposed in the second part of the paper, is very useful for reconstructing the general social context of consumption. The authors emphasize changes that occurred in the 6th c. BCE, when the new urban form was introduced and new social actors and families began to use the innovation for representational purposes. The authors suggest the introduction of sumptuary laws in Crustumerium, as known from the nearby city of Rome (138). This is an interesting point that needs to be framed within broader changes to social structures, which also involve southern Etruria.Footnote ¹⁴

Tol’s contribution offers a critical re-evaluation of survey data from the territories of Antium and Satricum and more broadly from Latium Vetus. He questions the datation criteria based on pottery forms and styles. The subregional scale he adopts highlights the relationship between cities and the countryside. He asks whether cities were responsible for systematically plotting and exploiting agricultural land, or whether this idea is the result of a methodological bias. He proposes switching from pottery to assemblages as diagnostic items. He invites us to reconsider the supposed agricultural boom of the Archaic period, introducing the concept of a polycentric network of production and consumption, which involved cities, minor centers, and small family farms in a heterarchical and reciprocate interaction. The ruralization would thus have been gradual and not linear (173). Although this contribution is strongly focused on material analysis, it is also useful for challenging traditional ideas on cultural transmission, which tend to consider societies and entire regions as homogeneous recipients, ignoring social complexity and mobility.

Balco’s contribution analyses the social triggers behind the adoption of new vessel forms and decorations in the local feasting practices of Elymian centers in western Sicily. Adopting a postcolonial perspective, he draws on a great variety of theoretical frameworks (222), such as “middle-ground theory”Footnote ¹⁵ and the “symmetrical approach,” as well as object agency theory and cultural hybridization.Footnote ¹⁶ Formal analysis of commensal ware is rare. An exception is the holes in the capedunculae, which Balco interprets as being functional, enabling the vessels to be displayed as symbols of conspicuous consumption in the room of commensality. His idea seems to be appropriate given the known contexts in Monte Iato and Etruria.Footnote ¹⁷ The main drawback to this argumentation is the lack of information on Elymian social structures and on the accessibility of commensal vases to different social groups. If we assume that access to Greek imports was limited to local commercial and political partners of Greek and colonial elites, this process could initially have been based on reciprocity and gift exchange, with the habit then spreading as the consequence of an internal trickle-down effect.Footnote ¹⁸ Considered from another perspective, the local social function of feasting, recalled by Balco (229), may also have had a traditional meaning, linked to religious and social moments in collective and individual life or perhaps to the construction of specific local identities.Footnote ¹⁹ This suggests that the use of non-local pottery and motives underwent a local valuation process, rather than being a means of transcultural mediation of foreign habits.Footnote ²⁰

The non-anthropocentric paradigm

The non-anthropocentric paradigm considers cultural contacts from a symmetrical perspective, treating objects, images, and ecological factors as active agents of innovation.

In a case study on the introduction of wine into Etruria and, more broadly, the western Mediterranean, De Angelis challenges the traditional notion of an acculturation from Greece. He defines the Mediterranean as a network of independent, interconnected localisms, a polycentric cultural space, with fragmented environmental features (49). Recent archaeobotanical and molecular analysis makes it possible to date the production of wine in the western Mediterranean to as early as the 9th c. BCE, meaning it cannot be interpreted as the result of colonial contacts. Therefore, imports of Greek vases do not indicate the introduction of wine consumption, but rather new cultural habits related to it (52). The discussion of the reception of images of wine consumption on Corinthian or Attic black-figured pottery is more complex. That they were produced only for the Etruscan market is, in my opinion, difficult to prove for such an early phase. Moreover, symbolic layers could be considered besides the socioeconomic function, such as the sacralization of wine as a key social resource, as attested by the performance and depiction of wine consumption in funerary contexts.Footnote ²¹

Lechenault and Peche-Quilichini pay special attention to the geographical aspects and the role of raw materials in establishing cultural contacts in Corsica. The new research field of insularity could have been the perfect framework for their contribution.Footnote ²² By reversing core-periphery models, which considered islands as the target of colonization, Corsica is presented as the focal point of cultural encounters, with differentiated geo-cultural dynamics between the north and south of the island. These dynamics facilitated the establishment of social and economic networks, as parts of wider macro-regional and Mediterranean connectivity. Insularity does not imply uniformity, as interactions with Sardinia and Italy were fragmented and managed by different social and cultural actors. The authors define local specificities within an adaptive landscape, whose internal dynamics were influenced by changes in the wider Tyrrhenian sphere. A less essentialist perspective on raw materials and imported luxury goods could probably reveal new lines of interpretation, exploring the heuristic potential of the “culture of metal” mentioned by the authors (63).

Attema, Colelli, Guggisberg, Ippolito, Kindberg Jacobsen, Mittica, de Neef, and Grove Saxkjaer analyse the features of locally produced objects at the Timpone della Motta in the Sibaritide, where imports, local pottery, and mixed forms were used in the same contexts. Skeuomorphism and the function of pottery and votive figurines are the focus of the contribution. The long tradition of cultural contacts with Greek people and the foundation of the city of Sibaris, where Euboic and Corinthian potters worked, affected the decorative practices of local communities, but not their lifestyle and habits, as evidenced by the fact that the imitations of Greek pots are limited to shapes that were already familiar to local potters (259). This study highlights the differences between polysemantic common ware and special objects, such as votive figurines, used for religious purposes. The absence of imported votive figurines suggests that their Greek-like style was transmitted through other media, such as anthropomorphic perfume bottles. This object agency demonstrates that style and function did not necessarily follow the same transmission paths. The suggestion that the hubs of cultural transmission were potters’ quarters and workshops is more speculative (264), since we have few archaeological attestations for those, and other transmission models are possible. For example, neighbor-to-neighbor transmission could have occurred in sparse rural production spaces shared by single small productive units or mobile craftsmen.

The semiotic paradigm

This paradigm concerns the relationship between meaning and object design or images, as well as performative social rituals, such as festivals and funerals. The central question of this paradigm is how and why the models were selected, and what meaning they took on in the translation to the new society.Footnote ²³ This paradigm focuses on communicative practices and on the changing values of images and symbols.

Adopting a semiotic approach to a single object, Hopkins analyzes the Cista Ficoroni.Footnote ²⁴ His study has the advantage of revealing different communication layers within the same object by connecting the introduction of innovation with social consumption, across the entire object biography. In his analysis of the cista’s production, Hopkins highlights the Latin inscription on its handle and the Etruscan on its feet as indicators of a multicultural and complex production process. Another interesting point made by Hopkins concerns the function of this object in the kinship alliances of three noble Praenestine families. Thus, the innovation spread through social networks, so that a mixture and variety of styles and traditions represented added value for the local elites.Footnote ²⁵ The choice of Rome as the production center could also have been motivated by the possibility of collaboration between craftsmen from different traditions in the city, whose mention in the inscription added value to the artwork. In my opinion, Hopkins’s contribution sheds light on a well-known issue in Hellenistic art production: the role of buyers in the production process.Footnote ²⁶ In my reading of his analysis, the clients partly determine the selection of the model, having a significant impact on the spread of innovation and the choice of available models. Private artworks thus become a kind of miniaturized version of the public or royal artistic programs attested in Greece or in Etruria.

Based on quantitative and qualitative analyses, the contribution of Rhodes-Schroder discusses the reasons for the selection of images on imported Greek pottery and shapes in the funerary consumption of Tarquinia. He considers this selection to be an adaptation of the Greek repertoire to Etruscan Archaic funerary imagery, particularly regarding its eschatological contents (101).Footnote ²⁷ Rhodes-Schroder notes that Attic pottery is no longer used in the graves of Tarquinia by the 5th c. BCE, although it is still attested in the city at that time. He explains this difference as being a consequence of the shift in Athenian production: black-figure vases with mythological representation would have better appealed to Etruscan funerary imagery than red-figured vessels with genre scenes (103). In the case of Greek black-figured amphoras, for example, their reuse as cinerary vases would have been accompanied by the eschatological resemantization of the depicted Greek myths. For Rhodes-Schoeder, this adaptation would have related in particular to the images of Apollon, with an added eschatological meaning, Hermes, who had the function of psychopomp in Etruria, Minerva, for her role in the divinization of Heracles, and Heracles himself, because of his νέκυια in the underworld. The author insists on the role of Archaic Dionysos and his entourage for the connection with vegetation and his role in the divinization of his mother Semele. The author also notes how this resemantization changed over time. On the basis of this idea of fluidity of meanings in time, I believe that his reference to the satyrs with Charun on late Classical Felsinean steles (111) should be given more nuance. New layers of meaning may have been added to the already accepted figures in the Etruscan tradition due to the continuity of contacts with Greek culture, especially in the case of Etruria Padana.Footnote ²⁸ Moreover, it is a pity that this interesting analysis did not consider images of the same deities and myths on other locally produced classes of material, such as the Etruscan mirrors, to which only a brief reference is made (111).

Heuer dedicates her contribution to the sharing of iconographic motifs between Etruria and southern Italy, presenting an isolated head as case study. This is a topos in studies on cultural contacts and transmission between Macedonia, Magna Graecia, and Etruria.Footnote ²⁹ Heuer frames the motif within a long pre-Roman tradition (194) that facilitated the introduction and adaption of similar new motifs. She also offers interesting insights on the models of the Torcop Group in southern Etruria and in the Campanian pottery workshops (198). Therefore, the analysis understates the role of other areas in the transmission of the motif, especially in the interior of northern Etruria and in the Faliscan area, where isolated heads are widespread in the Clusium-Volaterrae Group, on the mirrors, and in the relief Volsinian pottery. The numerous attestations in this region suggest that Campania as well as Taranto and Apulia could have mediated Macedonian models.Footnote ³⁰ Heuer’s interesting observation that the motif appears in contexts of liminality (211) could probably be integrated into a more detailed discussion of the attributes of the isolated heads. The determinative function of these attributes seems thus very relevant to the communication of meaning.

Norman’s contribution on supra-regional communities of religious practices in Daunia and in the Hallstatt area is mostly based on iconographic sources, which will also be considered within this paradigm. She looks to the longue durée of Adriatic contacts, considering Daunian anthropomorphic funerary stones, which she interprets as a ritual representation of daily life (178–80). Given the funerary context of these steles, it seems problematic to interpret the depicted scenes as representing real moments of social or individual life.Footnote ³¹ The presence of these images in the Adriatic area and in the Hallstatt does not necessarily prove their spread along the Apennines, since they could have been an adaptation or local version of more widely diffused Mediterranean iconographies in all these different regions, open to numerous contacts. Moreover, the generic nature of these images makes them easier to adapt to local social and religious rituals, linked as they are to fertility, reproduction, and social cohesion. More than adaptive rituals, it seems that we are dealing with adaptive images embedded in traditional rituals. In any case, Norman’s analysis makes a valuable contribution to the volume’s topic, highlighting the transcultural fluidity of ritualized practices.

From the multiple to the one: innovation as a resource of social communication

This volume presents diverse case studies, from different regions, chronologies, and classes of materials, which sometimes makes it difficult to compare the different paradigms and methodological approaches. Therefore, it is this plurality that is the added value of the volume, which achieves its goal of representing different paradigms and scales of exploration. Considering selection, adoption, and adaption of images, pottery shapes, social rituals, and how they were intertwined in local communities, it is tempting to view these societies as open, living in an immersive and holistic world of symbols and meaning. These diverse approaches and paradigms present a common constructivist conception of pre-Roman cultures as permeable to innovation and ready to make foreign ideas, images, and designs their own specific media of social communication. As elements that can define, sustain, and alter identities, that play a role in the legitimation of powers and the status of individuals and groups, these media can be considered immaterial resources.Footnote ³² These resources have a contingent aspect, which makes them adaptable and different for any local social contexts of pre-Roman Italy. This resource perspective reinforces the arguments of the volume under discussion, supporting an emic approach to innovation, adoption, and adaption.