Beyond Ethnicity, Beyond Dacians.
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2015-10-15

Beyond Ethnicity, Beyond Dacians. Group Identity and Statehood in the Late Iron Age of the Carpathian Basin

Catalin Popa
FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN

This paper illustrates that renouncing the traditional view of ethnic groups in the Late Iron Age of the Carpathian Basin can reveal a much more complex picture than previously thought. It is argued that the analysis of the funerary record does not support the existence of large, unitary ethnic units, such as Dacians or Celts. By employing an innovative method which combines current theoretical ideas on identity construction with statistical methods, it is shown that status and regional identities, strongly entangled with each other, played a significant role for the Iron Age inhabitants of the region.

The analysis results to do not clash with our previous knowledge regarding the political development of the area. Instead, they
serve to underline the importance that regional and status differences had, in the period from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD, for the political organisation of the Carpathian Basin. The results suggest that the so-called Dacian kingdoms were far from representing the political materialization of an ethnically unitary population. Instead, I propose that the political entities were characterised by a strong identity division between a ruling social strata and the rest of the population. This differentiation manifested itself in numerous areas of life as well as in death and may have its origins in pre-existing regional differences.