Questions of ethnic and cultural identities are central to the contemporary understanding of the Roman world. The expansion of Rome across Italy, the Mediterranean, and beyond entailed encounters with a wide range of peoples. Many of these had well-established pre-conquest ethnic identities which can be compared with Roman perceptions of them. In other cases, the ethnicity of peoples conquered by Rome has been perceived almost entirely through the lenses of Roman ethnographic writing and administrative structures. The formation of such identities, and the shaping of these identities by Rome, was a vital part of the process of Roman imperialism. Comparisons across the empire reveal some similarities in the processes of identity formation during and after the period of Roman conquest, but they also reveal a considerable degree of diversity and localisation in interactions between Romans and others. This volume explores how these practices of ethnic categorisation formed part of Roman strategies of control, and how people living in particular places internalised them and developed their own senses of belonging to an ethnic community. It includes both regional studies and thematic approaches by leading scholars in the field.

The 1990s saw gender rise to become an important theme in archaeology. This collection of papers reviews the state of current research on this theme and presents a cross section of new work being done in relation to pre-Roman, Etruscan and early Roman Italy. Subjects include the visual representation of women, womens roles and status within society, androgyny, costume, religion and colonisation.

A study of matt-painted pottery in the context of social and economic developments from the 11th to 4th centuries BC. Chapters cover the geographical, archaeological and historical background; summary of and reasons for Matt-Painted pottery development; functions of Matt-Painted ware; regional styles and cultural identity; the role of centralisation; contemporaneous development of Wheel-Made Painted pottery; alternative patterns of development in North Apulia; territorial mapping by ceramic evidence.

The Archaeology of Death: Proceedings of the Seventh Conference of Italian Archaeology held at the National University of Ireland, Galway, April 16-18, 2016 includes more than 60 papers, with contributors from the British Isles, Italy and other parts of continental Europe, and North and South America, which consider recent developments in Italian archaeology from the Neolithic to the modern period. Each region of Italy is represented, with specific sections of the volume devoted to Etruria, South Italy, and Sicily. Other sections have a chronological focus, including Italian Prehistory, the Roman period, and Post Antiquity. Following the primary theme of the meeting, the majority of papers revolve around the archaeology of death; numerous contributions analyse the cultural significance of death through examinations of funerary rituals and mortuary practices, while others analyse burial data for evidence of wider social and political change. Various papers consider new and recent discoveries in Italian archaeology, while others ask fresh questions of older datasets. In addition, a number of contributions showcase their employment of new methodologies deriving from technological innovations. The volume opens with a dedicatory section to mark the achievements of the Accordia Research Institute, and to celebrate the careers of two of its founders, Ruth Whitehouse and John Wilkins. The following paper(s) are available to download in Open Access: Cremation structures and funerary dynamics in Roman Veneto. New perspectives from Padua/Patavium - Cecilia Rossi and Irene Marini: Download