A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean

Bronze Age Identities 83

Atlantic Tradition

Nordic Tradition

North-alpine Tradition

Iberian Tradition

Italian Tradition

Lusatian

Tradition

Aegean Balkan

Tradition

0

0

800

800

Miles

Kilometers

400

400

Lower

Danube

Tradition

Carpathian

Tradition

Map 6.1 The new regional traditions of the developed Bronze Age. From Kristiansen (1998,
Figure 26). Reproduced by permission of Kristian Kristiansen.

more complex, ranked societies with a corresponding complexity of identities. From this
follows that we need first to understand the nature of social organization, in order to
see how various types of identities are linked to different social institutions. Identity and
ethnicity thus emerge from the nature of social organization and the institutions that
make up society. In a similar way, language is also a secondary product of social organi-
zation, and represents a more generalized form of identity, supporting a specific social
and cosmological organization of society.