Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Social and Economic Responses to Colonial Entanglements in Iron Age Western Sicily

University Of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee WI

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Bettina Arnold, William Balco will explore indigenous responses to sophisticated colonial contact through an examination of pottery fragments recovered from nine Late Iron Age (seventh to fourth century BC) western Sicilian population centers. Western Sicily is particularly important for the study of social entanglements because it is one of the few locations where both Greeks and Phoenicians settled in close proximity to each other, fostering multi-nodal social encounters between locals and foreigners. Such Greek and Phoenician mercantile posts regularly interacted with the indigenous Elymi, facilitating complex social entanglements which permanently changed the Elymi and led to the development of hybrid cultures. This research combines stylistic analysis with cutting-edge archaeological analyses, such as x-ray fluorescence (XRF), x-ray diffraction (XRD), and petrography to study the development and adoption of mixed-style pottery as a component of hybrid culture. This research employs theories and methods readily applied to contemporary social entanglement studies involving social transformation as reflected in material culture. Understanding cultural transformation processes more than two millennia ago remains relevant in parsing social adaptive strategies in response to contemporary issues of global trade and interaction. Although other studies have attempted to characterize indigenous Sicilian entanglement, they have often ignored indigenous developments incorporating foreign lifestyles within local culture. The project uses stylistic and compositional analyses to answer questions regarding: 1) the scale of cultural hybridization in western Sicily; 2) the spread of hybrid items in western Sicily; and 3) identifying the stimuli responsible for indigenous Elymi cultural hybridization. What makes this situation unusual is that three and not two cultural entities are involved. This project builds upon traditional studies of western Sicilian pottery, yet still represents a unique opportunity to evaluate social and economic changes to indigenous Elymian communities incorporating local and foreign Greek and Phoenician material culture. The research takes advantage of previously established international research collaborations and will develop new research initiatives among Italian, Swedish, and American scholars. The results will contribute to the corpus of scholarly research through publication in peer-reviewed archaeology journals. Upon degree completion, the project data will be made available online via Open Access for use by other researchers. The results of this study will be made public through both conference presentations and public lectures, stimulating discussion of social entanglements and the development of hybrid culture. Finally, this research will provide training in laboratory analysis for undergraduate and graduate students.