On microhistory, Iberian culture and other neglected Mediterranean ancient civilizations

Abstract

Graeco-Roman models can only enhance our understanding of the complexity of the Mediterranean in the 1st millennium B.C. Close analysis discloses both specific temporalities and micro-dynamics in social processes. In other words, changing usage and participation in necropolises and sanctuaries in Iron Age Iberia highlight specific historical phases not dependent on pre-established etic frameworks in long-term processes. The analysis of both refined time lapses and the spatial micro-scale transformations of ritual participation has enabled us to observe the intensity and sequencing of constitutive practices that can be compared to what we know of Greek citizenship. In fact, such a comparative exercise can only be enriched by the incorporation of other well-known and well-investigated urban micro-regions such as southern Tyrrhenian Etruria, also subjected to a Graeco-Roman straitjacket as far as urbanism is concerned (Riva 2010, 2–8). Ultimately and beyond the Mediterranean, it is recognizing diversity at different scales that we come to an in-depth understanding of specific social phenomena comparatively beyond conventional interpretations and excessively broad views (Graeber and Wengrow 2021). The brief treatment of south-eastern Iberia is ultimately aimed at proposing a truly global archaeology, one which takes into account the variability of scales across both time and space. Mindful of its methodological potential, we thus advocate a microhistorical approach to global archaeology accompanying multi-scalar analysis. Despite this potential, scholarship proposing the integration of a microhistorical perspective is infrequent (Fahlander 2003; Boric 2007; Mimisson and Magnusson 2014; Ribeiro 2019) and much more so in studies related to the Mediterranean in the 1st millennium B.C. (Perego et al. 2019). We hope that our present review will contribute to further debates for a true global archaeology.