4 - Islands and Mobility: Exploring Bronze Age Connectivity in the South-Central Mediterranean

Summary

Using the concept of the maritory, this chapter explores the degree, extent and social significance of material connections between the island worlds of the south-central Mediterranean in the Bronze Age. Of all the ways that islands make a difference in a study about ancient human mobility, two are the most important: first, that throughout prehistory, contact between the island group of the central Mediterranean and the rest of the world was entirely through the medium of maritime connections; second, that the sea was the medium which could both isolate the islanders from and bring them into contact with their closest neighbours. The chapter considers three principal cycles of object/human/knowledge mobility that touch on the central Mediterranean over the longue duree, conscious of the fact that the difficulty to pigeonhole archaeological data and processes in neat periodisation schemes should assist constructive generalizations.