Fifth Annual M.I. Rostovtzeff Lecture Series - Displacements: Migration, Mobility, and Material Culture in the West Mediterranean

Discussions of migration have tended to privilege the bigger picture and long-distance connections, drawing lines between the dots, now mostly relabeled as ‘nodes’. There has been very little consideration, however, of what or rather who made up those dots and, most of all, how connections were forged and maintained at those critical places.

In the second lecture of the series, I focus on precisely these locales and examine why people were attracted by these particular places and how migrants interacted with local inhabitants to build new lives. In short, in order to gain a better understanding of migration as a social and economic process, I zoom in on a handful of specific local contexts at different places and times across the west Mediterranean. Seeking to disentangle the myriad connections that came together at these places enables us to look beyond the overarching networks and to gain an insight in the lives and practices of both migrants and host communities; we can thus begin to see how ‘migration works’.

Registration required, please send date(s) attending to isaw@nyu.edu

NOTICE: Admission to the ISAW Lecture Hall closes 10 minutes after the scheduled start time.

March 24 - Lecture 3: Rural Connections

March 31 - Lecture 4: Connected Communities

Series Abstract - Displacements: Migration, Mobility, and Material Culture in the West Mediterranean

Migration has long constituted a major topic in archaeology, because people have moved over shorter and longer distances since early prehistory, as they continue to do today. The Mediterranean is no exception in this respect and similarities in material culture between distant regions as well as straightforward transfers of particular objects have long been seized upon as evidence of prehistoric migrations. For classical and later times, written sources bear direct witness to migrations from for instance mainland Greece to the South Italian and Sicilian shores, and thus leave us in no doubt whether migrations took place. They clearly did.

As it is therefore no exaggeration to claim that migrations may be seen as the stuff that (pre)history was made of, there has been remarkably little archaeological interest in this topic in recent decades. As theoretical agendas have shifted attention to local developments and indigenous agency, migration and external influences were downplayed by prehistorians and they were simply not an issue for archaeologists and historians studying later periods. As a result, past migrations remain a poorly understood and, as I will argue, underrated phenomenon, as research has not kept up with recent insights in and innovative approaches to contemporary migration. At the same time, or perhaps as a result, few scholars of modern migration studies are aware of the deep (pre)histories of the processes they investigate in the modern world.

It is my intention in this lecture series first of all to take a fresh look at past migration. In doing so, it is not so much my aim to find ‘hard evidence’ of new migrations by resorting to new scientific techniques, even if such aspects may come into play when considering the range and variability of large-scale movements and migrant networks; it rather is my aim to examine the consequences of migration for both migrant and host societies. In short, this lecture series is about exploring the diversity and complexity of connectivity, mobility and migration in the past, both recent and distant, and about investigating the many dimensions of these broad processes. The emphasis thus falls as much on local actors, communities, practices and contexts as on overarching networks and long-distance connections in order to highlight the social and economic dimensions of migration and mobility of, within and between communities.

Because of the relative cultural coherence and connectivity of the Mediterranean throughout its (pre)history as well as the region’s rich archaeological and documentary records, I focus my attention on the shores and islands of this region. I pay particular attention to the western basin, because it witnessed a series of major and minor migratory processes, not least those of Greeks and Phoenicians in Antiquity and in recent centuries of French settlers and African refugees. As I will argue, a crucial step change in mobility and connectivity occurred in the first millennium BCE and this period will thus feature prominently in my lectures, without losing sight, however, of earlier and, especially, later, including modern, instances of mobility and migration.

About the Lecture Series

Michael I. Rostovzteff, a Russian ancient historian, came to the U.S. after the Russian Revolution and taught for many years at Yale University as Sterling Professor of Ancient History. Rostovtzeff's prodigious energies and sprawling interests led him to write on an almost unimaginable range of subjects. ISAW's Rostovtzeff series presents scholarship that embodies its aspirations to foster work that crosses disciplinary, geographical, and chronological lines. The lectures will be published by Princeton University Press.

Peter van Dommelen is Professor of Archaeology at the
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University.

This is a public event.

To RSVP, please email isaw@nyu.edu.