Under the direction of Dr. Bettina Arnold, William Balco will explore indigenous responses to sophisticated colonial contact through an examination of pottery fragments recovered from nine Late Iron Age (seventh to fourth century BC) western Sicilian population centers. Western Sicily is particularly important for the study of social entanglements because it is one of the few locations where both Greeks and Phoenicians settled in close proximity to each other, fostering multi-nodal social encounters between locals and foreigners. Such Greek and Phoenician mercantile posts regularly interacted with the indigenous Elymi, facilitating complex social entanglements which permanently changed the Elymi and led to the development of hybrid cultures. This research combines stylistic analysis with cutting-edge archaeological analyses, such as x-ray fluorescence (XRF), x-ray diffraction (XRD), and petrography to study the development and adoption of mixed-style pottery as a component of hybrid culture.
This research employs theories and methods readily applied to contemporary social entanglement studies involving social transformation as reflected in material culture. Understanding cultural transformation processes more than two millennia ago remains relevant in parsing social adaptive strategies in response to contemporary issues of global trade and interaction.
Although other studies have attempted to characterize indigenous Sicilian entanglement, they have often ignored indigenous developments incorporating foreign lifestyles within local culture. The project uses stylistic and compositional analyses to answer questions regarding: 1) the scale of cultural hybridization in western Sicily; 2) the spread of hybrid items in western Sicily; and 3) identifying the stimuli responsible for indigenous Elymi cultural hybridization. What makes this situation unusual is that three and not two cultural entities are involved. This project builds upon traditional studies of western Sicilian pottery, yet still represents a unique opportunity to evaluate social and economic changes to indigenous Elymian communities incorporating local and foreign Greek and Phoenician material culture.
The research takes advantage of previously established international research collaborations and will develop new research initiatives among Italian, Swedish, and American scholars. The results will contribute to the corpus of scholarly research through publication in peer-reviewed archaeology journals. Upon degree completion, the project data will be made available online via Open Access for use by other researchers. The results of this study will be made public through both conference presentations and public lectures, stimulating discussion of social entanglements and the development of hybrid culture. Finally, this research will provide training in laboratory analysis for undergraduate and graduate students.
National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (MIL105529) was utilized to examine the manufacture and exchange of seventh to fourth century BC mixed-style pottery in western Sicily as a proxy for the broader social transformations occurring in the western portion of the island at that time. A total of seven raw clay samples and 65 fired-clay vessels from five ancient population centers and three clay deposits in western Sicily were analyzed using X-Ray diffraction and ceramic petrography. The results of X-Ray diffraction of clay and pottery samples indicate that similar types of aplastic materials were included in different types of pottery. Biplots of select minerals demonstrate overlapping mineralogical diversities between pottery recovered from Mozia, Salemi, and Monte Polizzo. Despite such overlap, pottery from Salemi tended to segregate from Mozia pottery, demonstrating a slight mineralogical diversity between these two assemblages. Ceramic petrography was also carried out as part of this multifaceted approach to compositional analysis. The results indicated that pottery from Mozia, Montagna Grande, Monte Polizzo, and Salemi differed petrographically, with certain aplastics including monocrystalline quartz and opaques naturally present in the raw clays rather than added by potters during clay paste preparation. Likewise, the presence of mica in some samples appears to represent either a natural inclusion in local clays, or micaceous clays selected by potters in Greek or Phoenician controlled areas. The results of X-Ray diffraction and ceramic petrography facilitated the identification of materials exchange between the sites sampled. Some pottery recovered from Salemi is compositionally similar to pottery recovered from Mozia, while other pottery recovered from Salemi is compositionally similar to pottery from Monte Polizzo. These results demonstrate the ancient exchange of fired-clay vessels between centers in the western part of the island, and indicate that Salemi played a role as a consumer of pottery manufactured locally as well as wares from other centers. Mixed-style vessels appear to have largely been consumed locally; few vessels identified in this study had a mineralogical composition different from local pottery. This may be interpreted as a preference for local products manufactured within the population center where one lived. Such an explanation is akin to contemporary "Buy local" campaigns in which manufactured goods from the immediate vicinity are preferred over imported ones. Alternatively, this may reflect the find contexts of the samples as scarcer imported feasting vessels may not have been discarded. This study clearly demonstrated that mixed-style fired-clay vessels were manufactured at several population centers in western Sicily and were consumed locally and exchanged. These conclusions reflect the complex social middle ground which had developed between indigenous Sicilians, Greek colonists, and Phoenician traders, helping us to more fully understand the social context of pottery production and exchange, social transformation, and the complexity of the economic and social stimuli responsible for the development of mixed-style pottery. The introduction of Greek feasting behaviors and accoutrements to indigenous polities initiated a social transformation process between the seventh and fourth centuries BC that is, in some respects, similar to earlier Aegean transformations. The feast brought diverse people together, spilling (sometimes literally) food, drink, and culture while conveying a sense of shared identity, even if only during the feast itself. Indigenous Sicilians did not simply mimick Greek feasting rituals; they rarely incorporated their own vessel forms among mixed-style pottery. Instead, they emulated the Greek feast, choosing to actively pursue a feasting tradition different from their own. The transition from indigenous vessels to Greek forms suggests that while the feasting behavior was significant, consuming liquid from a Greek-style cup was more important than how that cup was manufactured or decorated. This transformation in feasting vessel form suggests that the consumable was transformed as well. The manner in which indigenous Sicilian potters manufactured mixed-style vessels, retaining indigenous pottery manufacturing techniques while producing a novel vessel form, suggests that the demand for the form exceeded the availability of such forms. Hybridity in the form of mixed-style feasting vessels was no act of resistance to change, or an attempt to retain indigenous tradition; it was primarliy an entrepreneurial response exploiting an economic opportunity. That opportunity waned after the mid-fifth century BC when colonial and imported vessels became more readily available. The resulting influx of Greek imports eclipsed the impetus to manufacture mixed-style pottery, once again transforming feasting behaviors and the requisite vessel assemblages. This project evaluated social and economic changes to ancient indigenous Sicilian communities incorporating local and foreign material culture. This research employed theories and methods readily applied to contemporary social entanglement studies to understand the processes driving social transformation more than two millennia ago. This remains relevant in parsing social adaptive strategies in response to contemporary issues of global trade and interaction. Finally, this research implemented long-term, collaborative ties with international colleagues in Europe, facilitating future discourse on the topic of ancient social interconnectedness.
