Abstrakt
The past two decades (and likely even more than that) have witnessed an unprecedented upsurge in rather complex discussions of various '-isation' phenomena, acculturation processes, and migration theories. At the same time, the long-held views of concepts of core, periphery, and margins as well as models of interaction within them had come, after closer scrutiny, under attack, but new unifying/rectifying models never emerged.
The past realities were simply more complex and complicated than that. Nevertheless, when approaching the complex past from a greater geographic perspective, larger cultural entities do emerge, with their borders, as fuzzy as they may be.
It is in these outer buffer zones that physical contact with the "others" happened, and more often than not, it led to mutual influences and transformations. It is precisely these interactions that the present conference would like to target.
Geographical and chronological limits: The conference will be conceptualised as Mediterranean in a broader sense, given the relatively wide diversity of archaeological projects currently investigated / carried out by our Institute and the emerging synergy between these projects. We would like to mirror this breadth in the conference as well.
The regions of interest include France, Italy, the Aegean, Anatolia and the Balkans, but experiences with archaeology in Central Asia will also be brought in. Chronologically, the processes should cover mainly the Bronze and Iron Ages, but aspects of Hellenisation and Romanisation are also welcome.
As this general outline indicates, the conference aims to discuss more general and methodological aspects, supplemented by the presentation of specific case studies, in a way that will stimulate further discussion. While the cultural, social, and economic aspects will possibly be at the forefront, adaptation strategies to changing ecological conditions should also be considered.