The Past in the Past: The Significance of Memory and Tradition in the Transmission of Culture

The present volume is the outcome of a session held at the 12th European Archaeological Association conference at Krakow in Poland, in September 2006. The purpose of this volume is to present several studies related to the issues of memory, tradition and identity, and highlight different dimensions. The aim is to offer fresh views with up-to-date approaches on specific examples which follow different theoretical and thematic paths. The papers in this volume are chronologically diverse, covering prehistory, the classical period, the middle ages and as well as modern times, and are presented in this order. Spatially, they are concentrated in the Aegean and Scandinavia, offering different geographical contexts. Contents: Introduction (Mercourios Georgiadis and Chrysanthi Gallou); 1) Memory and Cultural Values in the Middle Helladic Period Some Preliminary Thoughts (Helène Whittaker); 2) Old Bulls, New Tricks: The Reinvention of a Minoan Tradition (Kathryn Soar); 3) The East Aegean-Western Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age III: what do the tombs tell us about memory, tradition and identity? (Mercourios Georgiadis); 4) Memories of place. Bronze Age rock art and landscape in West Norway (Melanie Wrigglesworth); 5) Living in the mountains, Arkadian identity in the classical period (James Roy); 6) The Formation of Female Identity in Ancient Sparta through Kinetics (Pandelis Constantinakos and Metaxia Papapostolou); 7) Memories, practice and identity. A case of early medieval migration (Magdalena Naum); 8) The Branding of Minoan Archaeology (Anna Simandiraki, Trevor Grimshaw); 9) Material Identity Archaeology and National Identity (Charlotta Hillerdal).