Archaeology and Migration

The Journey Towards a Relational World

Abstract

This paper takes the notion of a “migration-centred worldview” as a starting point to outline (a) how the concept of migration emerged in archaeological discourses over the 18^th-20^th century, (b) where we find ourselves in this discourse at the start of the 21^st century, and (c) how we might course-correct to adopt realistic models of migration in historical and archaeological narratives. I argue that such realistic models of migration require adjusting ongoing assumptions about culture and ethnicity, which include ideas of cultures as “bounded units” on landscapes, and also, on a deeper level, perceptions that culture and mobility can somehow be construed as separate processes. The renewed focus on migration and mobility in archaeology represents an opportunity to integrate these processes into relational models that can account for the entire spectrum of movement and identity creation at local and global scales. A relational model of migration and culture is subsequently explored through several means, including integrating humanistic and scientific worldviews, employing polythetic notions of culture, understanding the scale of ancient migrations, and adopting network-based theories of how connections form and behaviours spread, even in the absence of mass migrations.