Abstract
Recently, interest in the archaeology of ethnogenesis has surged. This renewed interest stems from innovations in the historical study of ethnogenesis, theoretical shifts favoring multidirectional agency, and relevant contemporary sociopolitical debates. Theoretical problems surrounding the appropriateness of the social science concept of “ethnicity,” however, have made the comparative study of ethnogenesis difficult. Drawing from past and emergent perspectives adds renewed vigor to comparative studies of ethnogenesis. A methodology that integrates the different types of theory can resolve the theoretical tensions in the archaeological study of ethnogenesis.
Similar content being viewed by others
References cited
Abend, G. (2008). The meaning of ‘theory.’ Sociological Theory 26: 173–199.
Alconini, S. (2004). The southeastern Inka frontier against the Chiriguanos: Structure and dynamics of the Inka imperial borderlands. Latin American Antiquity 15: 389–418.
Attarian, C. (2003). Pre-Hispanic Urbanism and Community expression in the Chicama Valley, Peru, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.
Avksentiev, A., and Avksentiev, V. (1993). Etnicheskie Problemy Sovremennosti i Kultura Mezhnatsional’nogo Obsheniya/ Ethnic Problems of the Present and the Culture of Interethnic Communication, State Pedagogical Institute Press, Stavropol.
Bandy, M. S. (2001). Population and History in the Ancient Titicaca Basin, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.
Bandy, M. S. (2004). Fissioning, scalar stress, and social evolution in early village societies. American Anthropologist 106: 322–333.
Banks, M. (1996). Ethnicity: Anthropological Constructions, Routledge, London.
Barth, F. (1969). Introduction. In Barth, F. (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, Allen and Unwin, London, pp. 9–37.
Bawden, G. (2005). Ethnogenesis at Galindo, Peru. In Reycraft, R. (ed.), Us and Them: Archaeology and Ethnicity in the Andes, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 12–33.
Bawden, G., and Reycraft, R. (2009). Exploration of punctuated equilibrium and culture change in the archaeology of Andean ethnogenesis. In Marcus, J., and Williams, P. R. (eds.), Andean Civilization: A Tribute to Michael E. Moseley, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 195–210.
Bell, A. (2005). White ethnogenesis and gradual capitalism: Perspectives from colonial archaeological sites in the Chesapeake. American Anthropologist 107: 446–460.
Bell, D. (1975). Ethnicity and social change. In Glazer, N., and Moynihan, D. (eds.), Ethnicity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 141–176.
Bentley, G. C. (1987). Ethnicity and practice. Comparative Studies in Society and History 29: 24–55.
Bentley, G. C. (1991). Response to Yelvington. Comparative Studies in Society and History 33: 169–175.
Borgstede, G. J. (2004). Ethnicity and Archaeology in the Western Maya Highlands, Guatemala, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). The Logic of Practice, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA.
Braswell, G. E. (2003). K’iche’an origins, symbolic emulation, and ethnogenesis in the Maya highlands, AD 1400–1524. In Smith, M. E., and Berdan, F. F. (eds.), The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 297–306.
Brather, S. (2005). Acculturation and ethnogenesis along the frontier: Rome and the ancient Germans in an archaeological perspective. In Curta, F. (ed.), Borders, Barriers, and Ethnogenesis: Frontiers in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Brepols, Turnhout, Belgium, pp. 139–171.
Brubaker, R., and Cooper, F. (2000). Beyond “identity.” Theory and Society 29: 1–47.
Brumfiel, E. M. (1994a). Factional competition and political development in the New World: An introduction. In Brumfiel, E. M., and Fox, J. W. (eds.), Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 3–13.
Brumfiel, E. M. (1994b). Ethnic groups and political development in ancient Mexico. In Brumfiel, E. M., and Fox, J. W. (eds.), Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 89–102.
Bush, L. (2001). Boundary Conditions: Botanical Remains of the Oliver phase, Central Indiana, AD 1200—1450, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Cahill, D. (1994). Colour by numbers: Racial and ethnic categories in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1532–1824. Journal of Latin American Studies 26: 325–346.
Card, J. (2007). The Ceramics of Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Culture Contact and Social Change in Mesoamerica, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.
Chappell, D. (1993). Ethnogenesis and frontiers. Journal of World History 4: 267–275.
Cipolla, C. (2010). The Dualities of Endurance: A Collaborative Historical Archaeology of Ethnogenesis at Brothertown, 1780—1910, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Cohen, A. (1969). Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Comaroff, J., and Comaroff, J. L. (1991). Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Conkey, M. (1990). Experimenting with style in archaeology: Some historical and theoretical issues. In Conkey, M., and Hastorf, C. (eds.), The Uses of Style in Archaeology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 5–17.
Conkey, M., and Hastorf, C. (1990). Introduction. In Conkey, M., and Hastorf, C. (eds.), The Uses of Style in Archaeology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 1–4.
Curta, F. (2001). The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, ca. 500–700, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Curta, F. (2005). Frontier ethnogenesis in late antiquity: The Danube, the Tervingi, and the Slavs. In Curta, F. (ed.), Borders, Barriers, and Ethnogenesis: Frontiers in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Brepols, Turnhout, Belgium, pp. 173–204.
De Vos, G. A., and Romanucci-Ross, L. (2006). Ethnic identity: A psychocultural perspective. In Romanucci-Ross L., De Vos, G., and Tsuda, T. (eds.), Ethnic Identity: Problems and Prospects for the Twenty-first Century, 4th ed., AltaMira Press, Lanham, MD, pp. 375–400.
Deagan, K. (1998). Transculturation and Spanish American ethnogenesis: The archaeological legacy of the quincentennary. In Cusick, J. (ed.), Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology, Occasional Paper No. 25, Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, pp. 23–43.
Deetz, J. (1994). Flowerdew Hundred: The Archaeology of a Virginia Plantation, 1619–1864, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Edelstein, J. (1974). Pluralist and Marxist perspectives on ethnicity and nation-building. In Bell, W., and Freeman, W. (eds.), Ethnicity and Nation-Building: Comparative, International, and Historical Perspectives, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA, pp. 45–57.
Emans, R. (2007). Tribalization, Ethnic Formation, and Migration on the Allegheny Plateau of Southwestern New York, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Buffalo.
Emberling, G. (1997). Ethnicity in complex societies: Archaeological perspectives. Journal of Archaeological Research 5: 295–344.
Epstein, A. (2006). Ethos and Identity: Three Studies in Ethnicity, Aldine, Chicago.
Eriksen, T. (1993). Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives, Pluto Press, London.
Flannery, K. (1982). The Golden Marshalltown: A parable for the archeology of the 1980s. American Anthropologist 84: 265–278.
Foster, G. (1960). Culture and Conquest: America’s Spanish Heritage, Wenner–Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, New York.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Vintage Books, New York.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Herder and Herder, New York.
Fried, M. H. (1967). The Evolution of Political Society, Random House, New York.
Fried, M. H. (1968). On the concepts of ‘tribe’ and ‘tribal society.’ In Helm, J. (ed.), Essays on the Problem of Tribe, University of Washington Press, Seattle, pp. 3–22.
Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and Nationalism, Blackwell, Oxford.
Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Glazer, N., and Moynihan, D. (1975). Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Gosden, C. (1999). Anthropology and Archaeology: A Changing Relationship, Routledge, London.
Gregory, D., and Wilcox, D. (eds.) (2007). Zuni Origins: Toward a New Synthesis of Southwestern Archaeology, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Gruzinski, S. (2002). The Mestizo Mind: The Intellectual Dynamics of Colonization and Globalization = La pensée métisse, Routledge, New York.
Guamán Poma de Ayala, F. (1978). Letter to a King: A Peruvian Chief’s Account of Life under the Incas and under Spanish Rule, Dutton, New York.
Hall, T. (1986). Incorporation in the world-system: Toward a critique. American Sociological Review 51: 390–402.
Hamilton, C. (2009). Intrasite Variation among Household Assemblages at Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.
Hardy, M. (2008). Saladoid Economy and Complexity on the Arawakan Frontier, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee.
Hedstrom, P., and Swedberg, R. (1998). Social mechanisms: An introductory essay. In Hedstrom, P., and Swedberg, R. (eds.), Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 1–31.
Hill, J. (1996a). Introduction. In Hill, J. (ed.), History, Power, and Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Americas, 1492–1992, University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, pp. 1–19.
Hill, J. (ed.) (1996b). History, Power, and Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Americas, 1492–1992, University of Iowa Press, Iowa City.
Hillier, B., and Hanson, J. (1984). The Social Logic of Space, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hodder, I. (1978). Simple correlations between material culture and society: A review. In Hodder, I. (ed.), The Spatial Organisation of Culture, Duckworth, London, pp. 3–24.
Holloman, R., and Arutiunov, S. (eds.) (1978). Perspectives on Ethnicity, Mouton, The Hague.
Isajiw, W. (1994). Definitions of ethnicity: New approaches. Ethnic Forum 14: 9–16.
Jenkins, R. (1994). Rethinking ethnicity: Identity, categorization and power. Ethnic and Racial Studies 17: 197–233.
Jenkins, R. (2007). Rethinking Ethnicity, 2nd ed., Sage Publications, Los Angeles.
Jones, S. (1997). The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present, Routledge, London.
Jordan, B. (2002). A Geographical Perspective on Ethnogenesis: The Case of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Texas, Austin.
Karner, C. (2007). Ethnicity and Everyday Life, Routledge, London.
Kincaid, G. (2005). The Political Anthropology of the Mosel Franks: State Formation in Migration Period Europe AD 350—700, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia.
Klaus, H. (2008). Out of Light Came Darkness: Bioarchaeology of Mortuary Ritual, Health, and Ethnogenesis in the Lambayeque Valley Complex, North Coast of Peru (AD 900—1750), Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University, Columbus.
Kohl, P. (1998). Nationalism and archaeology: On the constructions of nations and the reconstructions of the remote past. Annual Review of Anthropology 27: 223–246.
Kopytoff, I. (1987). The internal African frontier: The making of African political culture. In Kopytoff, I. (ed.), The African Frontier, The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Laitin, D. (1998). Identity Information: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Levy, T. (2008). Ethnic identity in Biblical Edom, Israel and Midian: Some insights from mortuary contexts in the lowlands of Edom. In Schloen, D. (ed.), Exploring the Longue Durée: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager, Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, IN, pp. 251–261.
Liebmann, M. (2006). “Burn the Churches, Break Up the Bells”: The Archaeology of the Pueblo Revolt Revitalization Movement in New Mexico, AD 1680—1696, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Liebmann, M. (2012). Revolt: An Archaeological History of Pueblo Resistance and Revitalization in 17th century New Mexico, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Liebmann, M., and Preucel, R. (2007). The archaeology of the Pueblo Revolt and the formation of the modern Pueblo world. Kiva 73: 195–217.
Lightfoot, K., and Martinez, A. (1995). Frontiers and boundaries in archaeological perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 471–492.
Lucas, G. (2004). An Archaeology of Colonial Identity: Power and Material Culture in the Dwars Valley, South Africa, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
Lucy, S. (2005). Ethnic and cultural identities. In Diaz-Andreu, M., Lucy, S., Babic, S., and Edwards, D. N. (eds.), The Archaeology of Identity: Approaches to Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity and Religion, Routledge, London, pp. 86–109.
Mann, R. (2003). Colonizing the Colonizers: Canadien Fur Traders and Fur Trade Society in the Great Lakes Region, 1763—1850, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Binghamton.
Mann, R. (2008). From ethnogenesis to ethnic segmentation in the Wabash Valley: Constructing identity and houses in Great Lakes fur trade society. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 12: 319–337.
Marx, K., and Engels, F. (2002). The Communist Manifesto, Penguin Books, London.
Matthews, C., Leone, M., and Jordan, K. (2002). The political economy of archaeological cultures: Marxism and American historical archaeology. Journal of Social Archaeology 2: 109–134.
McGuire, R. (1982). The study of ethnicity in historical archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1: 159–178.
Merton, R. K. (1968). Social Theory and Social Structure, 3rd ed., Free Press, New York.
Meskell, L. (2001). Archaeologies of identity. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Archaeological Theory Today, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp. 187–213.
Metz, J. (1999). Industrial transition and the rise of a “Creole” society in the Chesapeake, 1660–1725. In Franklin, M., and Fesler, G. (eds.), Historical Archaeology, Identity Formation, and the Interpretation of Ethnicity, Dietz Press, Richmond, VA, pp. 11–30.
Moore, J. H. (1994). Putting anthropology back together again: The ethnogenetic critique of cladistic theory. American Anthropologist 96: 925–948.
Moore, J. H. (2001). Ethnogenetic patterns in native North America. In Terrell, J. E. (ed.), Archaeology, Language, and History, Bergin and Garvey, Westport, CT, pp. 31–56.
Naunapper, L. (2007). History, Archaeology and the Construction of Ethnicity: Bell Type II Ceramics and the Potawatomi, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Ngwenyama, C. (2007). Material Beginnings of the Saramaka Maroons: An Archaeological Investigation, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Orser, C. E. (2007). The Archaeology of Race and Racialization in Historic America, University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Ortman, S. (2010). Genes, Language and Culture in Tewa Ethnogenesis, AD 1150–1400, Ph.D. dissertation, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe.
Ortman, S. G. (2012). Winds from the North: Tewa Origins and Historical Anthropology, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Peeples, M. (2011). Identity and Social Transformation in the Prehispanic Cibola World: AD 1150–1325, Ph.D. dissertation, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe.
Pogodin, A. (1901). Iz Istorii Slavianskikh Peredvizhenii, A. P. Lopukhina, St. Petersburg.
Pokshishevskiy, V. (1987). Geography of ethnic groups and processes. Soviet Geography 28: 591–608.
Preucel, R., Traxler, L., and Wilcox, M. (2002). “Now the God of the Spaniards is dead”: Ethnogenesis and community formation in the aftermath of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. In Schlanger, S. (ed.), Traditions, Transitions and Technologies: Themes in Southwestern Archaeology, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, pp. 71–93.
Pugh, D. (2010). The Swantek Site: Late Prehistoric Oneota Expansion and Ethnogenesis, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Quimby, G. I., and Spoehr, A. (1951). Acculturation and Material Culture, Fieldiana: Anthropology 36, No. 6, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
Rajnovich, M. (2003). The Laurel World: Time-Space Patterns of Ceramic Styles and their Implications for Culture Change in the Upper Great Lakes in the First Millennium AD, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing.
Renfrew, C. (1993). The Roots of Ethnicity, Archaeology, Genetics and the Origins of Europe, Unione Internazionale Degli Istituti di Archeologia, Storia e Storia dell Arte in Roma, Roma.
Rice, P., and Rice, D. (2005). The final frontier of the Maya: Central Petén, Guatemala, 1450–1700 CE. In Parker, B., and Rodseth, L. (eds.), Untaming the Frontier in Anthropology, Archaeology, and History, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 147–173.
Roosens, E. (1989). Creating Ethnicity: The Process of Ethnogenesis, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA.
Rostafinski, J. (1908). O Pierwotnych Siedzibach i Gospodarstwie sl Owian w Przedhistorycznych Czasach, Nakladem M. Arcta, Cracow.
Rousseau, D., and van der Veen, A. M. (2005). The emergence of a shared identity: An agent-based computer simulation of idea diffusion. The Journal of Conflict Resolution 49: 686–712.
Royce, A. (1982). Ethnic Identity: Strategies of Diversity, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Sabloff, J. (2011). Foreword. In Smith, M. E. (ed.), The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. xvii–xix.
Sackett, J. R. (1982). Approaches to style in lithic archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1: 59–112.
Schafarik, P. (1844). Slawische Alterthümer, Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig.
Schortman, E. M., Urban, P. A., and Ausec, M. (2001). Politics with style: Identity formation in prehispanic southeastern Mesoamerica. American Anthropologist 103: 312–330.
Scott, J. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Scott, J. C. (2009). The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Shelach, G. (2009). Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China: Archaeological Perspectives on Identity Formation and Economic Change during the First Millennium BCE, Equinox, London.
Shennan, S. (1989). Introduction: Archaeological approaches to cultural identity. In Shennan, S. (ed.), Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity, Unwin Hyman, London, pp. 1–32.
Seibert, E. M. (2010). Hidden in Plain View: African American Archaeological Landscapes at Manassas National Battlefield Park, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park.
Smith, A. (1986). The Ethnic Origins of Nations, Blackwell, Oxford.
Smith, A. (2000). The Nation in History: Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism, The Menahem Stern Jerusalem lectures, University Press of New England, Hanover, NH.
Smith, M. E. (1987). Household possessions and wealth in agrarian states: Implications for archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6: 297–335.
Smith, M. E. (2011a). Empirical urban theory for archaeologists. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 18: 167–192.
Smith, M. E. (ed.) (2011b). The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Smith, S. T. (2003). Wretched Kush: Ethnic Identities and Boundaries in Egypt’s Nubian Empire, Routledge, London.
Smoak, G. (2006). Ghost Dances and Identity: Prophetic Religion and American Indian Ethnogenesis in the Nineteenth Century, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Sokolovskii, S., and Tishkov, V. (2002). Ethnicity. In Barnard, A., and Spencer, J. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Routledge, London, pp. 290–295.
Stark, B., and Chance, J. (2008). Diachronic and multidisciplinary perspectives on Mesoamerican ethnicity. In Berdan, F., Chance, J., Sandstrom, A., Stark, B., Taggart, J., and Umberger, E. (eds.), Ethnic Identity in Nahua Mesoamerica: The View from Archaeology, Art History, Ethnohistory, and Contemporary Ethnography, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 1–37.
Stern, S. (1993). Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640, 2nd ed., University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.
Stojanowski, C. (2001). Cemetery Structure, Population Aggregation, and Biological Variability in the Mission Centers of La Florida, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
Stojanowski, C. (2010). Bioarchaeology of Ethnogenesis in the Colonial Southeast, University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Sturtevant, W. (1971). Creek into Seminole. In Leacock, E., and Lurie, N. (eds.), North American Indians in Historical Perspective, Random House, New York, pp. 92–128.
Sunseri, J. (2009). Nowhere to Run, Everywhere to Hide: Multi-scalar Identity Practices at Casitas Viejas, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Terrell, J. E. (2001). The uncommon sense of race, language, and culture. In Terrell, J. E. (ed.), Archaeology, Language, and History, Bergin and Garvey, Westport, CT, pp. 11–30.
Tilly, C. (2004). Social boundary mechanisms. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34: 211–236.
Tilly, C. (2005). Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO.
Tilly, C. (2008). Explaining Social Processes, Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO.
Trigger, B. (1995). Archaeology and the integrated circus. Critique of Anthropology 15: 319–335.
Van Gijseghem, H. (2004). Migration, Agency, and Social Change on a Prehistoric Frontier: The Paracas–Nasca Transition in the Southern Nasca Drainage, Peru, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Verdery, K. (1994). Ethnicity, nationalism, and state-making—Ethnic groups and boundaries: Past and future. In Vermeulen, H., and Govers, C. (eds.), The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond “Ethnic Groups and Boundaries,” Het Spinhuis, Amsterdam, pp. 35–58.
Viqueira Albán, J. P. (1999). Propriety and Permissiveness in Bourbon Mexico, Scholarly Resources, Wilmington, DE.
Voss, B. (2002). The Archaeology of El Presidio de San Francisco: Culture Contact, Gender, and Ethnicity in a Spanish–Colonial Military Community, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.
Voss, B. (2005). From casta to Californio: Social identity and the archaeology of culture contact. American Anthropologist 107: 461–474.
Voss, B. (2008). The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis: Race and Sexuality in Colonial San Francisco, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Wade, P. (1997). Race and Ethnicity in Latin America, Pluto Press, London.
Watson, P. J. (1995). Archaeology, anthropology, and the culture concept. American Anthropologist 97: 683–694.
Watson, R. A. (1990). Ozymandias, king of kings: Postprocessual radical archaeology as critique. American Antiquity 55: 673–689.
Weber, D. (2005). Bárbaros: Spaniards and their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Weber, M. (1949). The Methodology of the Social Sciences, Free Press, New York.
Weber, M. (1978). Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Weik, T. (2002). Archaeology of Black Seminole Maroons in Florida: Ethnogenesis and Culture Contact at Pilaklikaha, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Weik, T. (2009). The role of ethnogenesis and organization in the development of African–Native American settlements: An African Seminole model. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 13: 206–238.
Weisman, B. (1999). Unconquered People: Florida’s Seminole and Miccosukee Indians, University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Weisman, B. (2007). Nativism, resistance, and ethnogenesis of the Florida Seminole Indian identity. Historical Archaeology 41(4): 198–211.
Wiessner, P. (1983). Style and social information in Kalahari San projectile points. American Antiquity 48: 253–276.
Wilcox, M. (2001). The Archaeology of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680: A Contextual Study of Ethnicity, Conflict and Indigenous Resistance in Colonial New Mexico, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Wilkie, L., and Farnsworth, P. (2005). Sampling Many Pots: An Archaeology of Memory and Tradition at a Bahamian Plantation, University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Willems, W. (1989). Rome and its frontier in the north: The role of the periphery. In Randsborg, K. (ed.), The Birth of Europe: Archaeology and Social Development in the First Millennium AD, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici, Rome, pp. 33–45.
Williams, B. (1992). Of straightening combs, sodium hydroxide, and potassium hydroxide in archaeological and cultural-anthropological analyses of ethnogenesis. American Antiquity 57: 608–612.
Wobst, M. H. (1977). Stylistic behavior and information exchange. In Cleland, C. E. (ed.), Papers for the Director: Research Essays in Honor of James S. Griffin, Anthropological Papers No. 61, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, pp. 317–342.
Yanow, D. (2003). Constructing “Race” and “Ethnicity” in America: Category–Making in Public Policy and Administration, M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY.
Bibliography of recent literature
Bloch-Smith, E. (2003). Israelite ethnicity in Iron I: Archaeology preserves what is remembered and what is forgotten in Israel’s history. Journal of Biblical Literature 122: 401–425.
Brather, S. (2002). Ethnic identities as constructions of archaeology: The case of the Alamanni. In Gillet, A. (ed.), On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages, Brepols, Turnhout, Belgium, pp. 149–175.
Cusick, J. (2000). Creolization and the borderlands. Historical Archaeology 34(3): 46–55.
Curta, F. (2007). Some remarks on ethnicity in medieval archaeology. Early Medieval Europe 15: 159–185.
Curta, F. (2008). The making of the Slavs: Slavic ethnogenesis revisited. In Repič, J., Bartulović, A., and Altshul, K. S. (eds.), MESS and RAMSES II, Mediterranean Ethnological Summer School, Vol. 7, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, pp. 277–307.
Effros, B. (2003). Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology and the Making of the Early Middle Ages, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Faust, A. (2006). Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance, Equinox, London.
Fennell, C. (2007). Crossroads and Cosmologies: Diasporas and Ethnogenesis in the New World, University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Finkelstein, I. (1997). Pots and people revisited: Ethnic boundaries in Iron Age I. In Silberman, N. A., and Small, D. (eds.), The Archaeology of Israel: Constructing the Past, Interpreting the Present, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, pp. 216–237.
Franklin, M., and Fesler, G. (eds.) (1999). Historical Archaeology, Identity Formation, and the Interpretation of Ethnicity, Dietz Press, Richmond, VA.
Gabbert, W. (2004). Becoming Maya: Ethnicity and Social Inequality in Yucatán since 1500, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Gillett, A. (2006). Ethnogenesis: A contested model of early medieval Europe. History Compass 4: 241–260.
Hall, J. M. (2002). Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Habicht-Mauche, J. (1992). Coronado’s Querechos and Teyas in the archaeological record of the Texas Panhandle. Plains Anthropologist 37: 247–259.
Hornborg, A. (2005). Ethnogenesis, regional integration, and ecology in prehistoric Amazonia: Toward a system perspective. Current Anthropology 46: 589–620.
Jamieson, R. (2005). Caste in Cuenca: Colonial identity in the seventeenth-century Andes. In Casella, E., and Fowler, C. (eds.), The Archaeology of Plural and Changing Identities, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, pp. 211–232.
Jordan, B., and Jordan-Bychkov, T. (2003). Ethnogenesis and cultural geography. Journal of Cultural Geography 21: 3–18.
Ilkhamov, A. (2004). The archaeology of Uzbek identity. Central Asian Survey 23: 289–326.
Killebrew, A. (2005). Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines and Early Israel, 1300–1100 BCE, Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, GA.
Levy, T., and Holl, A. (2002). Migrations, ethnogenesis, and settlement dynamics: Israelites in Iron Age Canaan and Shuwa-Arabs in the Chad Basin. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21: 83–118.
Lowe, G. W. (2007). Early Formative Chiapas: The beginnings of civilization in the central depression of Chiapas. In Lowe, L. S., and Pye, M. E. (eds.), Archaeology, Art and Ethnogenesis in Mesoamerican Prehistory: Papers in Honor of Gareth W. Lowe, Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation No. 68, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, pp. 63–108.
Lozada Cerna, M., and Buikstra, J. (2005). Pescadores and labradores among the señorío of Chiribaya in southern Peru. In Reycraft, R. (ed.), Us and Them: Archaeology and Ethnicity in the Andes, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 206–225.
Mullins, P., and Paynter, R. (2000). Representing colonizers: An archaeology of creolization, ethnogenesis, and indigenous material culture among the Haida. Historical Archaeology 34(3): 73–84.
Ogburn, D. (2008). Becoming Saraguro: Ethnogenesis in the context of Inca and Spanish colonialism. Ethnohistory 55: 287–319.
Palka, J. (2009). Historical archaeology of indigenous culture change in Mesoamerica. Journal of Archaeological Research 17: 297–346.
Powers, K. (1995). Andean Journeys: Migration, Ethnogenesis, and the State in Colonial Quito, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Restall, M. (2004). Maya ethnogenesis. The Journal of Latin American Anthropology 9: 64–89.
Reycraft, R. (2005). Style change and ethnogenesis among the Chiribaya of far south coastal Peru. In Reycraft, R. (ed.), Us and Them: Archaeology and Ethnicity in the Andes, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 54–72.
Salomon, F. (1987). Ancestors, grave robbers, and the possible origins of Cañari “Incaism.” In Salomon F., and Skar, H. (eds.), Natives and Neighbors in Indigenous South America, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden, pp. 207–232.
Sachse, F. (ed.) (2006). Maya Ethnicity: The Construction of Ethnic Identity from Preclassic to Modern Times, Acta Mesoamericana 19, Verlag Anton Saurwein, Markt Schwaben.
Small, D. (1997). Group identification and ethnicity in the construction of the early state of Israel: From the outside looking in. In Silberman, N., and Small, D. (eds.), The Archaeology of Israel, Constructing the Past, Interpreting the Present, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, pp. 271–288.
Stavig, W. (1999). The World of Túpac Amaru: Conflict, Community, and Identity in Colonial Peru, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
Stojanowski, C. (2005). The bioarchaeology of identity in Spanish colonial Florida: Social and evolutionary transformation before, during, and after demographic collapse. American Anthropologist 107: 417–443.
Sutter, M. (2005). A bioarchaeological approach to Tiwanaku group dynamics. In Reycraft, R. (ed.), Us and Them: Archaeology and Ethnicity in the Andes, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 183–205.
Sutter, R. (2009). Post-Tiwanaku ethnogenesis in the coastal Moquegua Valley, Peru. In Bioarcheology and Identity in the Americas, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp. 205–240.
Tanudirjo, D. (2006). The dispersal of Austronesian-speaking people and the ethnogenesis of Indonesian people. In Simanjuntak, T., Pojoh, I., and Hisyam, M. (eds.), Austronesian Diaspora and the Ethnogenesis of People in the Indonesian Archipelago, Proceedings of the International Symposium, LIPI Press, Jakarta, pp. 83–98.
Tilly, C. (1998). Durable Inequality, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Towner, R. (1996). The Pueblito phenomenon: A new perspective on post-revolt Navajo culture. In Towner, R. (ed.), The Archaeology of Navajo Origins, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 149–170.
Van Gijseghem, H. (2006). A frontier perspective on Paracas society and Nasca ethnogenesis. Latin American Antiquity 17: 419–444.
Vermeulen, H., and Govers, C. (eds.) (1994). The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond “Ethnic Groups and Boundaries,” Het Spinhuis, Amsterdam.
Voss, B. (2008). Domesticating imperialism: Sexual politics and the archaeology of empire. American Anthropologist 110: 191–203.
Voss, B. (2008). “Poor people in silk shirts”: Dress and ethnogenesis in Spanish–colonial San Francisco. Journal of Social Archaeology 8: 404–432.
Warburton, M., and Begay, R. (2005). An exploration of Navajo-Anasazi relationships. Ethnohistory 52: 533–561.
Weik, T. (1997). The archaeology of maroon societies in the Americas: Resistance, cultural continuity and transformation in the African diaspora. Historical Archaeology 31(2): 81–92.
Weik, T. (2004). Archaeology of the African diaspora in Latin America. Historical Archaeology 38(1): 32–49.
Weik, T. (2007). Allies, adversaries, and kin in the African Seminole communities of Florida: Archaeology at Pilaklikaha. In Ogundiran, A., and Falola, T. (eds.), Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, pp. 311–331.
Wolfel, U., and Fruhsorge, L. (2008). Archaeological sites near San Mateo Ixtatan: Hints at ethnic plurality. Mexicon 30: 86–93.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Kent Lightfoot, Christine Hastorf, Michael E. Smith, Barbara Voss, and Adam K. Webb for useful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. Smith’s blog Publishing Archaeology proved instrumental for key citations and ideas. Susan Tarcov’s copyediting and comments improved clarity. The incisive reviews of Don Fowler, Gary Feinman, and five anonymous reviewers greatly improved the coherence and argument of this paper. This paper would not have come to fruition without the patience and encouragement of Gary Feinman and Linda Nicholas in the editorial process.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hu, D. Approaches to the Archaeology of Ethnogenesis: Past and Emergent Perspectives. J Archaeol Res 21, 371–402 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-013-9066-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-013-9066-0