the communication of similarity and difference, which ethnicity inevitably entails. Thus, from an archaeological perspective, it cannot be assumed that there is any fixed relationship between particular material types and particular identities. And furthermore, rather than consisting of neat, coherent cultural entities, the resulting pattern is more likely to be a complex web of overlapping styles of material culture relating to the repeated realization and transformation of ethnicity in different social contexts. Examples of such an approach to ethnicity are provided by Stephen Shennan in his introduction to Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity (S. J. Shennan, ed. [1989]) and by Siân Jones in Archaeology of Ethnicity (1997). Peter Wells’s analysis entitled “Identity and Material Culture in the Later Prehistory of Europe” (Journal of Archaeological Research 6, 3, 1998) provides a convincing application of such an approach. Other general studies of cultural identity that reach similar conclusions include Julian Thomas’s Time, Culture and Identity (1996) and Andrew Jones’s “Where Eagle’s Dare” (Journal of Material Culture 3, 3, 1998). Studies focusing on the discourses involved in the construction of identity, particularly the role of myth and tradition, are also becoming common; for instance, see Jonathan Hall’s Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (1997).

Conclusions: The Present Past

Recent research focusing on ethnicity in archaeology has overturned many traditional assumptions about the discrete, bounded, and homogeneous nature of cultures and the straightforward link between culture and identity that is central to culture-historical archaeology. But studies focusing on ethnicity still tend to be sporadic. The relationship between cultures and ethnic groups remains a problematic area of archaeological analysis. There is, therefore, a pressing need for further research, at the very least because of the role of archaeological knowledge in the construction of modern ethnic and national identities. Of all the recent developments concerning identity in archaeology, perhaps the most significant in terms of its impact on the discipline as a whole is the concern with the role of archaeology in the construction and legitimation of national identities. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed an increasing body of conferences, symposia, and publications devoted to this topic. (Examples include the contributions to Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe, M. Diaz-Andreu and T.C. Champion, eds. [1996]; Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology, P.L. Kohl and C. Fawcett, eds. [1995]; Nationalism and Archaeology, J. Atkinson et al., eds. [1996]; and Philip Kohl’s overview entitled “Nationalism and Archaeology” in Annual Review of Anthropology 27, 1998.) Clearly, traditional approaches to race and ethnicity have enabled history, place, and people to be tied together in an exclusive and monolithic fashion, reinforcing essentialist representations of ethnic and national identity in the present. The challenge for archaeologists is twofold. First, they must recognize the relationship between present constructions of group identity and our interpretations of the past. And second, rather than abandon the study of ethnicity and identity altogether, they must pursue more sophisticated analytical and interpretive approaches in order to ensure that essentialist perspectives are not merely imposed on the past.

Siân Jones

References

Specific references have been included in the preceding text. Here, only overviews, syntheses, or compilations of articles are listed.

For discussions of early approaches to race and ethnicity and their relationship to other developments within the discipline, see K. Sklenár, Archaeology in Central Europe (Leicester, UK: University of Leicester Press, 1983); B. Trigger, A History of Archaeological Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); and P. Ucko, ed., Theory in Archaeology: A World Perspective (London: Routledge, 1995).

For overviews of recent research into ethnicity in archaeology, see S. Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity (Routledge, 1997); R.H. McGuire, “The Study of Ethnicity in Historical Archaeology,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1 (1982); B. Olsen and Z. Kobylinski, “Ethnicity in Anthropological and Archaeological Research: A Norwegian-Polish Perspective,” Archaeologia Polona 29 (1991), as well as other articles in the same volume; and G. Emberling, “Ethnicity in Complex Societies: Archaeological Perspectives,”