Abstract
ETHNICITY AS A FORM OF SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NEOLITHIC CILICIA AND CENTRAL ANATOLIA
Isabella CANEVA
Facoltà di Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Università di Lecce, IT. 
isabella.caneva@uniroma1.it
The focus of modern archaeology has largely shifted from chronology and artefact classification to more sophisticated investigations on social structures and territorial organisation. Both vertical and functional social differentiations, and their implications, have been considered in the archaeological studies conducted over the last decades.
Although this approach offers a fundamental perspective which can be used to reconstruct the dynamics of past events, it only provides a somewhat schematic picture of the reality. What is lacking is a more faceted overview of prehistoric societies, including group differentiation regardless of function or hierarchy. Ethnological studies have shown that there is considerable wide cultural variability even within a restricted, homogeneous territory and limited time span. This implies, on the one hand, that the concept of "adaptation" in prehistory should not only be referred to man/environment/resources, but should be extended to similar human groups who share the same territory with only minor differences in economic adaptations. On the other hand, that micro-dynamics and less "total" explanations should also be considered when macro-scale global transformations, which have been given priority in the reconstruction of models of prehistoric development, are studied.
In this regard, archaeological debate has recently taken into consideration the notion of ethnicity in ancient societies. The ambiguity of this concept and its instrumental misuse in the past discouraged most archaeologists from discussing its definition and its application to ancient history. After the implications that Kossinna's theories had on European politics and the misunderstanding Gordon Childe was involved in, the concept of ethnicity was abandoned, in order to avoid any danger of political implications. It was later resumed, though subduedly, by F.Bordes in his debate with L.Binford on the variability of Mousterian assemblages: using the same type-list, Bordes ascribed differences to different cultures, Binford to different functions of the sites. Almost in the same years, Leroi-Gourhan (1943, 45, 73), quoting ethnological works, re-defined "ethnic group" as an unstable organism, largely constructed by its members, sometimes as a direct effect of colonialism. The archaeological use of the concept of ethnicity was not developed further in either cases. Although Leroi-Gourhan's definition contained the most important elements for a more general archaeological debate, it is only in the last decade that any discussion has been resumed, both theoretically (J.P. Demoule 1999, etc.) and applied to specific archaeological contexts, particularly as regards the historical times, in which written documents make interpretation easier.
Among the important advances in this concept, is the agreement that the definition of an ethnic group develops through contrast with others: contact and interrelationships are essential to identity definition. Eriksen (1993) defines ethnicity as an aspect of a relationship, not a property of a group. Instead of viewing prehistoric societies as isolated and homogeneous units, ethnicity may, therefore, represent a useful means of depicting a dynamic situation of varying contacts and mutual accommodation between similar groups.
A second key-point is that ethnic identity, rather than being a "primordial" phenomenon which is totally detached from modernity, is frequently a reaction to processes of modernisation: ethnic/cultural fragmentation and homogenisation are not two separate arguments, but two constitutive trends of global reality (Friedman 1990:311). Demonstrations of group identity develop particularly when highly mixed peoples are concentrated in a restricted space (the emblematic "melting pot", in which people never actually melt). Modern examples of this phenomenon are regard urbanised workers, or emigrants. We may argue that similar situations may also have existed in the past when people moved to new areas or were subdued by other groups. Though at a smaller scale, the phenomenon may have been a recurrent one, as a consequence of the afore-mentioned reasons. Peoples distinction among urbanised Cilician communities in Roman times was recently reinterpreted in this sense, a complex military, political and cultural divide between the coast and the hinterland replacing the traditional stereotypical town/country, nomadic/sedentary, upland/lowland, State/banditry dichotomy. (Lenski 2001). There is even earlier evidence of this phenomenon from the second millennium Syro-Mesopotamian region under the Assyrian domination (Buccellati 1990, Kamp, Yoffee 1980, etc.). Both the cultural heterogeneity and political instability which characterised Cilicia throughout its history could be ascribed to the multi-ethnic composition of its population, known not only during the Roman period but also in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (Yakar 2001). But how far back is it possible to find such evidence without written sources? The heterogeneous Cilician ethnicity might explain as yet unclear cultural contacts, both within the region and with neighbouring regions, in earlier times. Trade contacts between the Neolithic Cilician communities of eastern origin and those of Central Anatolia are attested by the circulation of obsidian of Cappadocian provenance. However, no other cultural traits, whether they be related to the subsistence economy, architecture, funerary rites or handicraft production, were shared by the two groups. The traditional interpretation of this phenomenon is that of nomadic middlemen who were involved in the obsidian trade and established indirect links between the two areas. This peculiar situation may, instead, reflect a territorial notion, with a complex land division, perhaps based on ecological features and economic activities, but essentially brought about by a concentration of heterogeneous peoples and, ultimately, ascribable to ethnicity. The exchange of raw materials, far from being hampered by the social heterogeneity, would have been essential, and therefore subjected to the discontinuity of relations between groups and to the related symbolic realm.
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