4 - Ancestry and Ethnicity

Summary

Matters related to ancestry and ethnicity are among the most complex and contested issues in archaeology. Ancestry and ethnicity are facets of social identity, and each person has multiple strands of social identities that influence or dictate their roles in society. These strands are often connected with age, gender, class, status, rank, profession and sexuality, among others, and they all function differently in social group contexts. Rank and gender, for instance, are often cited as the causes of division among social groups, whereas ethnicity and ancestry are more cohesive in nature and have the capacity to bring groups together and strengthen bonds (MacSweeney 2009). Although ancestry and ethnicity are commonly understood as immutable and rooted in biology, the reality is far more complicated. Genealogy, for example, can be fabricated, and ethnic affiliations can shift in response to sociopolitical stimuli such as conflict, violence and changing constellations of power. Ancestry and ethnicity are always defined in response to political systems, and like many other social identities, they are cultural constructs characterised by their dynamism, flexibility and selfdefinition (Smedley and Smedley 2005: 17; Derks and Roymans 2009b: 1–2).

Two prominent historical figures, Herodotus and Philip II, illustrate the complexity of ethnic identity. Herodotus was born in the 480s BCE in Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum, Turkey) in the geographical region of Caria. Historically, the people of Caria did not speak Greek – indeed, Homer describes the Carians fighting for Troy as barbarophonos, or ‘of incomprehensible speech’ (Iliad 2.867). However, it was in this land of non-Greeks, approximately 500 years prior to Herodotus’ birth, that the polis of Halicarnassus was founded by Doric-speaking Greeks. It did not remain a strictly Dorian city throughout its history, as there is strong evidence that a significant portion of the population identified as Ionian in the fifth century BCE when the city was a member of the Delian League. At this point, official documents from Halicarnassus were issued in Ionian, and Herodotus composed his Histories in Ionic Greek. So, the population of Halicarnassus was of heterogeneous Greek ethnicity. It is also safe to assume that Halicarnassus was home to people of non-Greek ancestry and ethnicity, as it would have been a zone of contact for Greeks, Carians and Persians (Cartledge 2002: 52–3; Herda 2013).