Staying local: Community formation and resilience in Archaic Southern Sicily

Abstract

In the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, Sicily saw migratory movements to and on the island, new power relations, and intercultural interconnections. In this environment, new communities emerged, existing communities were reconfigured and both were challenged to negotiate their lifeworlds. Drawing on concepts of community, locality and resilience, this paper examines how local communities in southern Sicily formed, consolidated their cohesion and demonstrated resilience, by taking a closer look at two sites and their burial grounds. Castiglione di Ragusa was located in a culturally diverse microregion, and yet the community maintained a steady consistency in burial practices and assemblages, while the community of Butera merged vessel depositions, cremations and differential body treatment in unique funerary conventions. The paper concludes that both communities mobilised social practices, material culture and cultural knowledge to create localised differences and built on these differences to forge and maintain a sense of belonging and boundedness.