I would be pleased to hear from anyone interested in the following
session for this years TAG conference, we still have a few slots
left.
Paul
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Archaeology on the Margin
Paul Graves-Brown and Martin Locock
Marginality takes many forms. It can be physical, ecological,
economic, social or cultural, or a combination of any or all of
these. In this session we aim to look at the issue from as broad a
perspective as possible. In a period when political maps are being
redrawn, it seems timely to reconsider how different areas relate to
each other, whether there are such things as discrete, integrated
regions and nations and whether perceptions of relationships between
different regions in the present can and should colour our
understanding of the past.
Within any modern polity some regions (e.g. Wales) are seen to be on
the margins in history and prehistory. But is this a classic example
of the imposition of recent/ present political tensions onto the
past? Often these interpretations are based upon a lack of research,
such that social and cultural developments in one area are assumed
to be absent in another. But at the same time, factors of assumed
ecological and economic/physical marginality are overlain on these
assumptions of political core and periphery. Thus, for example, the
Highland Zone of "mainland" Britain (originally distinguished by
Fox) is often assumed to be marginal to the Lowland Zone.
Underlying such substantive issues are a range of far reaching
theoretical questions. Marginality can be a matter of perception,
both within and outside communities in both space and time. The
inhabitants of a region may not regard themselves are marginal
whilst others, either in other regions or from the perspective of
the future, may see them as marginal. Questions of ethnicity,
identity and nationalism clearly have an importance here.
Marginality is also a matter of communication. For example, one
might expect that in an era of globalisation, the
physical/geographical bases of marginality might become increasingly
fluid and uncertain. Other changes in means and mode of
communication will have been influential in past societies. Also in
need of consideration is the relationship between marginality and
insularity - a society/community may see itself as isolated from
other surrounding societies or communities even if it cannot be
regarded as marginal. Thus, for example, the society of Ancient
Egypt seems to have been highly insular despite its power and
influence in the Mediterranean world. Finally, how do our
conceptions of marginality relate to other conceptions of economic,
political and geographical relationships, such as core/periphery or
liminality. Are the margins defined in relation to a specific core?
Or are they liminal zones between core areas?
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