engleski

To be or...NOT to be Liburnian: views on ethnicity in the Iron Age of the Eastern Adriatic

The Iron Age landscape of the Eastern Adriatic coast with its immediate hinterland is usually divided into territories assigned to diverse groups, i.e. the Liburni, Iapodes or Delmates, thought to correspond to ethnic communities. Such divisions are probably more rooted in the traditional interpretations of ancient literary sources than in the actual archaeological record. The problematic bias due to the uneven state of research between different areas is another factor to be considered. This simplistic ethnic identification is however challenged with a new critical analysis of both historical and archaeological sources, allowing us to evaluate the results in the light of more recent theoretical approaches to ethnicity and identity.The picture that emerges is that of a non-homogenous ethnic landscape. The paper will give an overview of the current state of research and possible interpretations for the area of northern and central Eastern Adriatic. Further data from other parts of the Adriatic coast will also be addressed in order to demonstrate how our perspective changes in the light of new information. It will also try to answer the questio as to what challenges the ethnic interpretation of the archaeological record poses and how this diverse data may be integrated, while bearing in mind the traditional views on regional identity markers that are still held today.

eastern Adriatic ; Iron Age ; Liburni ; ethnic identity

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