Critical Approaches to Cypriot and Wider Mediterranean Archaeology - (Volume 16) - Sturt W. Manning
13. Mediterranean Entanglements: Exploring Material Connections in Iron Age Sardinia
Critical Approaches to Cypriot and Wider Mediterranean Archaeology - (Volume 16) - Sturt W. Manning
Peter van Dommelen [+]
Brown University
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Description
With this contribution, I build on my collaboration with Bernard Knapp that resulted in the publication of the edited volume Material Connections (2010) to look back at a decade of publications and debate on the twin themes of connectivity and material culture. Most of all, this chapter also offers an opportunity to present emerging comprehensive results from seven years of fieldwork and finds study at nuraghe S’Urachi in west central Sardinia as a case study of what fresh data collected against explicit theoretical perspectives may bring to the ongoing connectivity debates. I discuss architectural, ceramic, zoological and botanical evidence from deposits covering the late 7th to 5th centuries BCE to argue that a concerted focus on people’s everyday lives is a sine qua non for understanding connectivity. The fieldwork at S’Urachi also offers robust support for my claim that connectivity was not a colonial prerogative and that colonial settlements should not be prioritized over their indigenous counterparts, as has all too often been the case.