36 A. Bernard Knapp
meanwhile, continues to characterize archaeological approaches to ethnicity (Jones
1997: 76–9). Some postmodernists have viewed ethnicity as “sliding” and without
fixed meaning (Sarup 1996: 179); others have predicted its demise as an analytical term
(Eriksen 1993: 156–60). In reaction, scholars such as Levine (1999: 177) argue that
ethnicity, shaped by consciousness and interaction, is situated at the active interface
between mind, society, and culture.
Ethnicity and Identity in the Material Record
If identity in the present is difficult to capture, then it should be no surprise that identity
in the past has proved a vexation. The travails of one meso-scale aspect of identity, ethnic-
ity, are instructive. Not an individual, not a society, but a series of dynamic collective and
intergenerational beliefs and practices, sometimes adaptive, sometimes decorative, ethnicity
is always on the move. But archaeology has the misfortune to track its prey in a hapless fash-
ion. When we get it in our sights, it turns and fires back with salvos of complexity, evasion
and equivocation...(Joffe 2003: 80)Before we can properly assess Joffe’s trenchant views, and explore further the poten-
tial value of ethnicity to archaeology, we must have a working definition. The features
emphasized by Herodotos (see quote at outset)—descent, language, religion and rit-
ual, customs—form the basis for most definitions, to which we might add choice and
self-perception. Diaz-Andreu’s (1998: 205) definition has the virtue of brevity: “Ethnic-
ity [is]...an aspect of a person’s self-conceptualization, which results from identification
with one or more broader groups in opposition to others on the basis of perceived cultural
differentiation and/or common descent.” Equally important, she maintains that material
culture is one medium through which people both display and negotiate their ethnic-
ity (Diaz-Andreu 1998: 212). Most archaeologists would probably agree that ethnicity
revolves closely around perception, and is less concerned directly with material culture:
the materialities of an ethnic identity often present intractable problems for archaeologi-
cal interpretation. Ethnicity, however, in different forms at different times (Knapp 2001:
31–4), has long been integral to the discipline of archaeology, so it is important to decide
just how we might best accommodate it.
Self-conceptualization, as well as choice and otherness, are clearly integral to any
understanding of ethnicity. Such criteria, however, suffer from being vague or incon-
sistent, if not historically contingent: they do not really define ethnicity but rather
serve as criteria for membership in an ethnic group (Just 1989: 76). Emberling (1997:
306) has even argued that ethnicity is not an inherent attribute of individuals or social
groups, but is instead a process that involves identification and differentiation. If so,
archaeologists surely will have more success in examining the ways that identity might
be constructed than trying to define the (material, social, spatial) aspects of specific
ethnic groups.
Emberling (1997: 300) also maintained: “If we are going to use the term ‘ethnicity’
to refer to social groups in the past, we must be prepared to accept its meanings in
the present.” Among many features that have been used in attempts to define ethnicity,