Spatial variation and patterning in the distribution of artefacts are topics of fundamental significance in Balkan archaeology. For decades, archaeologists have classified spatial clusters of artefacts into discrete “cultures”, which have been conventionally treated as bound entities and equated with past social or ethnic groups. This timely volume fulfils the need for an up-to-date and theoretically informed dialogue on group identity in Balkan prehistory. Thirteen case studies covering the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age and written by archaeologists conducting fieldwork in the region, as well as by ethnologists with a research focus on material culture and identity, provide a robust foundation for exploring these issues. Bringing together the latest research, with a particular intentional focus on the central and western Balkans, this collection offers original perspectives on Balkan prehistory with relevance to the neighbouring regions of Eastern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean and Anatolia. Balkan Dialogues challenges long-established interpretations in the field and provides a new, contextualised reading of the archaeological record of this region.

Balkan ceramic studies is an emerging field within archaeology. This book brings together diverse studies by leading researchers and upcoming scholars, capturing the variety of current archaeological, ethnographic, experimental and scientific studies on Balkan ceramic production, distribution and use.

Is cultural dialogue an abstruse intellectual exercise obsessed with examining the interaction of high and low culture in our communication? Is the way we understand communication underpinned by universals or are these assumptions also culturally specific?

This book examines the actors that shape societal dynamics leading to, or preventing, violent extremism from taking roots in their communities, including state representatives, religious institutions, and civil society actors. The volume contributes to an emerging stream of research focusing on intra- and inter-group dynamics to explain the emergence and persistence of, or resilience against, violent extremism. It utilises an actor-centric approach, uncovering the landscape of actors that play relevant roles in shaping societal dynamics leading to, or preventing, violent extremism affecting their communities. The analysis builds on new empirical evidence collected in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Tunisia. This allows for an innovative comparative perspective on two regions in the European neighbourhood that are rarely studied together, even though they seem to share common patterns of (de-)radicalisation and violent extremism despite their distinct historical, political, and cultural trajectories and relations with the EU. In both regions, the book analyses the roles of and interactions between state, political, religious, and civil society actors in shaping community vulnerability to and/or resilience against violent extremism. Different types of community leaders are equipped with varying levels of authority, trust, legitimacy, and influence over community members. As such, the categories of actors analysed can play either detrimental or beneficial roles, which makes vulnerability and resilience to violent extremism two sides of the same coin. This volume will be of much interest to students of countering violent extremism, terrorism, political violence, security studies, and International Relations generally.

I saggi raccolti in questo volume illustrano i risultati scientifici del primo anno di attività che un team italo-montenegrino ha svolto sul sito di Doclea e sul territorio circostante (ArcheoLab Italia Montenegro). Il progetto nasce da una serie di accordi bilaterali che dal 2015 l’Istituto di Studi sul Mediterraneo Antico e il Dipartimento Scienze Umane e Sociali, Patrimonio culturale del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche ha intrattenuto con il Ministero della Scienza, il Ministero della Cultura del Montenegro e l’Historical Institute dell’Università del Montenegro. Oggetto della ricerca è la città romana di Doclea e il suo territorio: fondata come municipio romano nel I sec. d.C. in una pianura circondata da colline e delimitata da tre corsi d’acqua, si trova a circa tre chilometri dall’attuale capitale del paese, Podgorica. Scavata soprattutto alla fine del XIX secolo e solo in parte nel corso del XX secolo, fu la seconda città importante per dimensioni della Dalmazia romana. Ancora oggi sono visibili un grande foro, terme, templi e case private, tre chiese di epoca medievale oltre a un imponente circuito murario. Alcuni discutibili interventi moderni, quali la costruzione di una ferrovia che negli anni ’40 ha tagliato a metà il sito archeologico e la mancanza di una vera politica di conservazione e valorizzazione, stanno mettendo a rischio l’integrità e la capacità di fruizione del sito, che rappresenta uno dei monumenti più importanti per l’identità culturale della nazione montenegrina. Dalle ricerche di archivio e bibliografiche alla ricognizione archeologica, fino all’applicazione di nuove tecnologie di indagine, il testo è il risultato di un dialogo interdisciplinare che ha lo scopo di conoscere e valorizzare il sito e il suo paesaggio. Dal 2018 l’ArcheoLab Italia Montenegro è divenuto Progetto di Grande Rilevanza del Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale con il titolo “Il Futuro del Passato: studio e valorizzazione dell’antica Doclea, Montenegro” (2018-2020).

Digging Politics explores uses of the ancient past in east-central Europe spanning the fascist, communist and post-communist period. Contributions range from East Germany to Poland to Romania to the Balkans. The volume addresses two central questions: Why then and why there. Without arguing for an east-central European exceptionalism, Digging Politics uncovers transnational phenomena across the region that have characterized political wrangling over ancient pasts. Contributions include the biographies of famous archaeologists during the Cold War, the wrought history of organizational politics of archaeology in Romania and the Balkans, politically charged Cold War exhibitions of the Thracians, the historical re-enactment of supposed ancient Central tribes in Hungary, and the virtual archaeology of Game of Thrones in Croatia. Digging Politics charts the extraordinary story of ancient pasts in modern east-central Europe.

Nineteen contributions by eminent scholars cover topics in Greek Epigraphy, Ancient History, Archaeology, and the Historiography of Archaeology. The section on Epigraphy and Ancient History has a particular focus on Attica, whereas material from Eretria, Delphi, the Argolid, Aetolia, Macedonia, Samothrace, and Aphrodisias widens the picture. The section on Archaeology discusses cultural variation as well as matters of cult, myth, and style, especially in Attica, from the Chalcolithic to the Roman period. The final section on the History of Archaeology reviews the early history of archaeological research at sites such as Piraeus, Rhamnous, Marathon, Oropos, Pylos, and Eretria, based on unpublished archival sources as well as on preliminary sketches and architectural drawings by 19th century artists.

This book presents a comprehensive review of archaeological and environmental data between Syria and the Balkans around 6000 BC.

The book aims rethinking the cultural history of Mediterranean nationalisms between 19th and 20th centuries by tracing their specific approach to antiquity in the forging of a national past. By focusing on how national imaginaries dealt with this topic and how history and archaeology relied on antiquity, this collection of essays introduces a comparative approach presenting several cases studies concerning many regions including Spain, Italy and Slovenia as well as Albania, Greece and Turkey. By adopting the perspective of a dialogue among all these Mediterranean political cultures, this book breaks significantly new ground, because it shifts attention on how Southern Europe nationalisms are an interconnected political and cultural experience, directly related to the intellectual examples of Northern Europe, but also developing its own particular trends. Contributors are: Çiğdem Atakuman, Filippo Carlà, Francisco Garcia Alonso, Maja Gori, Eleni Stefanou, Rok Stergar, Katia Visconti.

The Rise of Metallurgy in Eurasia is a landmark study in the evolution of early metallurgy in the Balkans. It demonstrates that far from being a rare and elite practice, the earliest metallurgy in the world was a common and communal craft activity.