The Archaeology of Ethnicity - Constructing Identities in the Past and Present (Paperback)

The study of ethnicity is a highly controversial area in contemporary archaeology. It has been argued that the traditional identification of 'cultures' from archaeological remains and their association with past ethnic groups is hopelessly inadequate. Yet such an approach continues to play a significant role in archaeological enquiry, and in the legitimation of contemporary ethnic and national claims.
Siân Jones responds to the need for a radical reassessment of the ways in which past cultural groups are reconstructed from archaeological evidence with a comprehensive and critical synthesis of recent theories of ethnicity in the human sciences. In doing so, she develops a new framework for the analysis of ethnicity in archaeology which takes into account the dynamic and situational nature of ethnic identification, a framework which has important methodological, interpretive and political implications.
Opening up the important issues of ethnicity and identity, this book will provide invaluable reading for the student of archaeology and other disciplines in the human sciences.