Mobile Pastoralists in Archaic Southern Italy?

The Use of Social and Material Evidence for the Detection of an Ancient Economy

Abstract

This paper seeks to discuss and identify indications for mobile pastoralism in Archaic southern Italy. Because of the perishable and seasonal nature of the material remains and therefore the difficulty of finding direct archaeological evidence for this kind of economy, indirect factors like social organization and social structure derived from cross-cultural ethnological comparisons are taken into account. Instead of solely focusing on the detection of material traces in the shape of objects, the paper tries to identify broadly shared social patterns typical for mobile pastoralism that is not only a special economy but also a way of life, demanding certain structures up into the most basic levels of societal organization. Based on a consideration of different historical and ethnologically observed pastoralist communities, it aims to identify a set of typical features shared by different kinds of mobile pastoralism. These observations will then be compared to the findings of a regional case study from Archaic southern Italy, looking for their possible traces in the archaeological record. Finally, further research prospects are discussed and possibilities for future investigations are highlighted, calling for an augmented attention to the topic in local projects as well as interdisciplinary research.