Oxbow Books Chapter Title: MINOANISATION, MYCENAEANISATION, AND MOBILITY: A VIEW FROM SOUTHWEST ANATOLIA Chapter Author(s): Jana Mokrišová Book Title: Beyond Thalassocracies Book Subtitle: Understanding Processes of Minoanisation and Mycenaeanisation in the Aegean Book Editor(s): Evi Gorogianni, Peter Pavúk, Luca Girella Published by: Oxbow Books. (2016) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1kw2b06.7 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Oxbow Books is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Beyond Thalassocracies This content downloaded from 128.148.254.57 on Mon, 21 Aug 2017 20:50:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 3 MINOANISATION, MYCENAEANISATION, AND MOBILITY: A VIEW FROM SOUTHWEST ANATOLIA Jana Mokrišová Introduction objects and ideas, but also people involved in selective and The material culture of Late Bronze Age (LBA) southwest directional mobility networks. Anatolia exhibits significant affinities with the Aegean, The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that while showing that settlements in the former region were closely Minoanisation and Mycenaeanisation share some common tied into the social, political, and cultural networks of the characteristics in terms of the underlying parameters of latter. It is no wonder, then, that themes of connectivity interaction, including selective appropriation of non­local and contact – mobility, trade, exchange, material trans­ stylistic elements (and in some cases also technologies) formations, and hybridisation – have figured prominently by Anatolian communities, they diverge significantly with in the current discussion of the cultural dynamics of respect to the scale and rate of local responses to the changes this part of the Mediterranean system (e.g., Mee 1998; in communication networks, in which both objects and Knappett and Nikolakopoulou 2005; Manning and Hulin people were mobile. Communities incorporated material 2005; Collins, Bachvarova, and Rutherford 2008; Davis culture from other participants (whether objects, production and Gorogianni 2008; Maran and Stockhammer 2012). and technological know­how, or ways of life) as determined Specifically, the incorporation of Aegean traits into the by local developmental trajectories, which prompted them material culture of southwest Anatolia has often been to selectively appropriate and adapt relevant traits from explained in terms of acculturation, and more recently of other participants in their sphere of interaction. Moreover, hybridisation. Within this framework the phenomena of these phenomena should be understood not only in terms Minoanisation and Mycenaeanisation have been at the of continuing mutual receptivity resulting in the creation forefront of archaeological debates for some time now of ‘international’ east Aegean/southwest Anatolian styles, (for the Aegean see Wiener 1990; selected contributions in but also in the context of different kinds of small-scale Laffineur and Greco 2005, and Macdonald et al. 2009). At migration across the Aegean sea and the Anatolian littoral the core of these explanatory models lies the assumption that – which created an interconnected milieu of familiar places material culture change in the ‘periphery’ was spurred on by and people, a shared knowledge base, and commensurate transformations in what have traditionally been perceived economic systems. as ‘core’ cultural zones, Minoan Crete and the Mycenaean The geography of southwest Anatolia has profoundly mainland. Explanations of this kind have often tended shaped the course of its cultural, economic, and social to focus on questions of material transfer through trade, development. The mountain ranges to the east of the coast exchange, and diffusion. The movement of objects, however, separated the land mass into a number of distinct microregions, is inexorably the outcome of a much wider spectrum of which in turn channelled the main communication routes different forms of human interaction, including small scale to central Anatolia through the two large valleys of the and short­range migrations and the accompanying dynamics Hermos and Meander rivers, and it should not come as a of cultural encounters. The inhabitants of Anatolia were surprise that southwest Anatolia, physically separated from intensely engaged with and responded to not only transacted the areas further inland, has always been deeply affected This content downloaded from 128.148.254.57 on Mon, 21 Aug 2017 20:50:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 44 Jana Mokrišová Panaztepe He rmo s River Smyrna Sardis Çeşme- LimanTepe Bağlararası Chios Bademgediği Tepe Ephesus Halkapınar er Rive Samos Meand r Miletus Çine- Tepecik Tavşan Teichioussa Adası Iasos Pilavtepe Müsgebi Kos Serraglio Trianda E A A N S G E A E Rhodes Karpathos 0 50 100km Fig. 3.1: Map of east Aegean and southwest Anatolia showing sites mentioned in the text (Courtesy of Lorene Sterner). by the maritime sphere. This coastal region, roughly The ‘-isation’ Paradigms in Aegean and Anatolian equivalent to the extent of what P. Mountjoy described as Archaeology the LH IIIC Lower Interface together with the southern From the early archaeological explorations numerous part of the Upper Interface, the area around modern­day projects were launched to examine the relationship between Izmir (1998), comprise the focus of this contribution. While the Anatolian littoral and the rest of the Aegean.1 Usually, most Minoanising and Mycenaeanising features, in fact, are the extent of southern and western Aegean (Minoan or concentrated south of the Meander River in the vicinity of Mycenaean) presence (often considered in terms of uneven the Aegean coast, the tributaries of the Meander River and distribution of economic and political power as a part of a the Hermos River valley are also incorporated into this colonization enterprise of the Aegean peoples) was assessed discussion because of their importance in communication by a ‘check­list’ of attributes. Added points were given to with the interior (Fig. 3.1). the material assemblages that had a more complex array of This content downloaded from 128.148.254.57 on Mon, 21 Aug 2017 20:50:17 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 3. Minoanisation, Mycenaeanisation, and Mobility: A View from Southwest Anatolia 45 what were considered to be Minoan or Mycenaean cultural As such, these concepts are fundamentally grounded indicators: pottery, architectural features, system of weights, in the broader theoretical framework of hybridisation and the occurrence of Linear A and B writing, among others (Bhabha 2007; Stockhammer 2012). Ultimately, hybridity, (for critique, see Broodbank 2004; Momigliano 2009, Minoanisation, and Mycenaeanisation are modern constructs 121–122). Ultimately, the presence of these cultural markers that describe a degree of cultural mixing in a specific period was directly linked to the presence of foreigners exerting of the ancient past; the manner in which these constructs dominant political and economic control of the settlement are employed in the archaeological discourse, nonetheless, in question. Within this framework, southwest Anatolia tends to mask material heterogeneity in various ways. was perceived as peripheral to the more ‘dynamic’ Aegean. First, these terms are applied to long periods of time and Models focused on the circulation of Minoan and large regions, flattening variations over time and space Mycenaean objects outside of the core zones (of Crete and the into one homogeneous entity. Second, the Aegean was not Greek mainland) offer explanations such as thalassocracy, inhabited by distinct ‘pure cultures’ to begin with. Generally, and political, economic, and/or cultural colonization. the term ‘Minoan’ has referred to the material culture of The impetus for these models stems from the differential Crete from the EBA through the MBA and early LBA, circulation of Aegean and Anatolian objects – that is, the while ‘Mycenaean’ designates the material culture of the fact that the amount of Mycenaean and Minoan objects inhabitants of LBA polities on the Greek mainland, whose retrieved in Anatolia exceeds the amount of Anatolian items roots can be traced back to the end of the MBA period found in the Aegean region (Cline 1991; Georgakopoulos (Broodbank 2004, 50ff; Wright 2004, 14; Feuer 2011, 509). 2012, 139ff). The wide geographical distribution of artefacts Yet, bounded cultures and well-defined populations with alone, however, should not be taken as adequate proof of distinct identities may not have been common in the past due one theory over another; rather, a heterogeneous range to contact and general permeability of cultural boundaries of material traits needs to be taken into consideration. In (Van Dommelen and Knapp 2011, 1–3). The variation of southwest Anatolia the principal zones of interaction were material culture in time and space within Crete and mainland centred on selected nodes along the Aegean littoral, which Greece argues against the existence of pure cultures or constituted the hubs of maritime­based trade and