Itinerant Matters and Hybrid Objects: Research on material transfers and contact products

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Anthropological archaeology has moved beyond defining cultural geographical boundaries. Instead we understand the fluidity of territories and identities within and between geographic regions. The crossing of boundaries is often documented first through evidence of foreign products, foreign raw materials and foreign styles or practices. Another line of evidence for tracing boundaries and boundary crossings is hybrid styles or technologies. This session aims to bring together scholars spanning geographic, material and methodological specialties to discuss research on tracking and understanding the effects of interactions between different cultural or environmental worlds. The session participants will discuss transfers of knowledge, styles, technology, raw materials or material culture with a particular focus on the evidence and methods for recovering and interpreting this evidence for transregional and interregional interaction and the broader socio-cultural effects. Topics to be presented include evidence of transfer of raw materials beyond the expected ethnohistorically documented range; emerging and growing evidence of itinerant craftspersons who cross borders; interregional contacts reflected in hybrid ceramic styles or technologies; evidence of different modes of trade and how these are documented in the archaeological record and the evidence of the effects and role such transfers of materials, styles and knowledge played in the past.

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