1 Understanding interactions between different groups of peoples as much as self presentation on the basis of the material evidence is one of the major challenges of archaeology. The data from burial sites play a prominent role in such studies, since they can provide information about particular individuals in closed and often easily datable contexts. However, the question of how, and on what basis one can distinguish between members of particular groups remains hotly debated. The concepts of “ethnicity” and/or, more broadly, “identity” are used to classify and interpret the data with increasing frequency, but these approaches are argued here to be largely unsatisfactory due to their inadequacy to the material record. Instead, a new methodological tool aimed at solving the problem is presented, and its applicability is demonstrated with the case study of the cemetery of the settlement of Nymphaion, situated on the northern shores of the Black Sea basin.

Nymphaion

2 Nymphaion was a settlement situated on the northern shores of the Black Sea [1]. It has long been identified with ruins situated near the village of Eltigen, 17 km south-east of Kerch, on the eastern fringes of the Crimean Peninsula (fig. 1). Literary sources do not provide any information concerning the date of its establishment or the origins of its inhabitants [2]. It does however feature in one of the speeches of Aeschines [3], where the orator accuses an ancestor of Demosthenes of betraying it to Bosporan monarchs, and Strabo includes it in his description of the Black Sea region [4].

Fig. 1

Greek Settlements of the Northern Black Sea (Wikimedia Commons, MapMaster)

Greek Settlements of the Northern Black Sea (Wikimedia Commons, MapMaster)

3 The settlement of Nymphaion became widely known thanks to the richly furnished kurgan graves of its cemetery, some of which were excavated already in the 19^th c. [5] Many of these tombs display features characteristic of funerary customs attested at local necropoleis as well as those associated with Greek settlements in the Aegean, which led to speculation concerning the identity of the people buried within them. The people entombed at Nymphaion kurgans have been referred to variously as Hellenized Scythians, Maeotians/ Sindians – that is, peoples who inhabited the northern shores of the Black Sea according to the written sources – or Greeks themselves [6]. Some of the humbler graves in the Nymphaion cemetery and the settlement’s chora [7], which received considerably less scholarly attention, are also characterized by a similar mixture of burial customs.

4 The burial record of Nymphaion therefore appears to be an important source of information on contacts between Greek settlers and local peoples – but only if properly analyzed. Before using the evidence to understand the nature of the interactions, one needs to answer how, and on what basis, it is possible to distinguish between “Greek” and “non-Greek” burials, and what is the meaning of this distinction.

5 Instead of following in the footsteps of previous scholars addressing this problem, the current study will commence with a brief presentation of the evidence from Nymphaion’s burial sites without a priori ascribing them to any particular people. The following section will address the methodological problems related to attempts at distinguishing between different groups on the basis of their material cultures. Finally, the theoretical framework adopted for this study will be presented.

Pots and Peoples

13 The traditional approach, which is still followed by some students of Black Sea archaeology [11], is to assume that a particular class or classes of objects can be equalled with specific, if undefined, “peoples” [12]. Ideally, this method, combined with the literary evidence, should allow archaeologists to identify all peoples mentioned by the sources, delineate their territories or at least spheres of influence and follow their migrations. For example, according to this method, burials with characteristic hand-made vessels found in the Crimean hinterland [13] can be identified with the Taurians, who, according to Herodotus, lived in this area [14], whereas tombs with Greek pots discovered in the vicinity of the settlements of the Kerch and Taman peninsulas belonged to Greeks.

14 This method is entirely unsatisfactory. Firstly, it is circular – e.g., since objects decorated in the so-called animal style [15] are found mainly in the Ukrainian steppes, which Herodotus says were inhabited by the Scythians [16], the discovery of such items in any given grave is assumed to prove it belonged to a Scythian. The defectiveness of this logic is self-evident and requires no further comment [17].

15 Secondly, it has been demonstrated by a number of scholars that, famously, “pots do not equal people” – that is, the sheer presence of objects associated with a particular group in a given grave does not mean that this grave belonged to a member of the said community [18]. It has been shown that any particular artefact can be shared by a number of distinct peoples and that objects made by one group can be appropriated and redefined by others [19]. It follows that single artefacts do not possess any kind of inherent group affinity and their meaning is constantly negotiated by their users [20]. Consequently, they cannot be used for distinguishing between different “peoples”.

16 The inverted commas accompanying the word “people” in this context signify another important problem. The adherents of the discussed method do not explain what is meant by particular group names, such as “Greek” or “Taurian”. To what kind of social units do they refer – tribes, clans, groups with a common ethnic identity? What defines and binds them together – apart from a particular element of material culture? With these questions left unanswered, the term “people”, or, more specifically, “Greek” or “Taurian”, are little else than undefined constructs, which do not reflect on how people perceived themselves or were perceived by others in past times.

17 Finally, this approach is singularly ill-suited for the analysis of interaction: since a particular class of objects is being equated with particular people, what is one to make of graves where objects characteristic of two or more groups are present – which is so often the case at Nymphaion, and at other necropoleis of the Bosporan Kingdom [21]? The discussed method crashes when applied to hybrid contexts.

Ethnicity

18 Another possible approach is to attempt to distinguish and define ethnic groups responsible for creating different types of graves. This method, in contrast with the one discussed above, does not focus on any single class of artefacts, but concentrates on practices [22] – i.e., on how the material culture is used. It relies on the premise that ethnicity is expressed by one’s actions and customs, which are in turn encapsulated in the objects one uses. Ideally, by following this method, archaeologists should be able to discern between different ethnic groups solely on the basis of the material record [23]. This approach may seem promising at first – various ethnic groups have indeed been demonstrated to be associated with particular practices and in consequence, sets of artefacts [24] –, but a closer investigation reveals that it too is highly problematic.

19 To begin with, ethnicity is not, as forcefully argued by Barth and others, an objectively perceptible feature; contrarily, it is ever-changing and subjective in nature [25]. Accepting this raises many problems for archaeologists. The main premise of archaeology of ethnicity – i.e. that the study of the material remains of practices can lead to detecting and distinguishing between ethnic groups – has been rendered invalid by post-Barthian anthropological research. It has been demonstrated that different ethnic groups can share a nearly identical material culture [26] and, conversely, that significant differences can be observed within the material culture of a single ethnic group [27].

20 Furthermore, even though elements of material culture can be used to signify ethnic affinity, they never form its basis [28]. This observation allows supposing that any given community can significantly change its material culture without necessarily losing its ethnic identity [29]. The validity of such hypothesis is supported by a recent study of the Mapoyo people from Venezuela, conducted by Scaramelli and Tarble [30]. Already in the 1970s, ethnographers were convinced that the Mapoyo would soon disappear, at least in cultural terms, because “… there were no apparent differences in dress, language, and living conditions between the Mapoyo and the surrounding criollo population [31]”. To the great surprise of the researchers, the Mapoyo not only preserved their ethnic identity, but are now returning to what they consider traditional burial customs, after following the Christian funerary rites for over eighty years [32].

21 Additionally, it is necessary to bear in mind that ethnicity is not the only possible group-denominator [33]. Communities can be formed around different social features, such as a clan or religious ties. Items which archaeologists argue are signs of a shared ethnic affinity may in fact be expressions of other forms of identity – some of which may be emphatically trans-ethnic [34].

22 Furthermore, since ethnic identity is a social construct, people can change it – as has been amply demonstrated by various anthropological studies [35]. What is more, some researchers argue that, at least in modern times, individuals can also subscribe to more than one ethnic identity at the same time [36] or even periodically change their ethnic affinity depending on the circumstances [37]. Additionally, anthropological research suggests that members of different social classes express the same ethnic identity in dissimilar manners [38]. Again, archaeologists cannot hope to be able to understand these important aspects of ethnicity through the study of the material record [39].

23 In the light of this overview, it appears that archaeologists cannot identify different ethnic groups solely on the basis of the material record – as argued forcefully by Hall [40] and others [41]. Consequently, from an archaeologist’s point of view, the utility of the concept of ethnicity is limited.

Identity

24 Another possible manner of approaching the problem is to use the archaeological record to distinguish and define different identities (apart from ethnic identity), putatively expressed by the material culture [42]. Rather than authoritatively assigning the studied people to some artificial categories, this method aims at letting them express themselves through the material remains. This approach is being adopted by a growing number of scholars [43], yet a thorough analysis reveals that it too has its drawbacks.

25 To begin with, many of the concerns raised in relation to the concept of ethnicity (see above) relate to identity as well. Most importantly, it is necessary to remember that even though objects do express identities, they rarely form their bases [44]. It follows that people, or rather communities, can significantly alter their material culture without necessarily abandoning the previously expressed identities. Consequently, shared material culture does not unequivocally indicate a shared identity and reading identities from objects alone is not always possible [45]. Again, the case of the Mapoyo people serve s as an example to illustrate this phenomenon [46].

26 What is more, the term identity is problematic in itself, since it is highly ambiguous. “Identity” can be defined as a social category that an individual uses to describe himself [47], or, more simply, as the answer to the question “who are you?” [48]. The term “identity” is thus very broad, and it is used to cover “… all affinities and affiliations, all forms of belonging, all experiences of commonality, connectedness, and cohesion, all self-understandings and self-identifications [49]”; it can be formed on a number of different types of bases [50] and variously understood [51]. Such vagueness is hardly advantageous – since “identity” can mean almost anything, it makes an overused and blunt methodological tool [52]. A growing number of scholars advocate distinguishing between different forms of identities and their components [53], whereas others even argue that the term should be abandoned altogether [54]. Furthermore, an all-embracing “identity” appears to be a flawed methodological tool, since people subscribe to more than one identity [55]. It follows that any attempt to connect particular material assemblages to any single identity rather than a plethora of various identities is to create another artificial construct – in the fashion of concepts such as “people” or “culture”, much criticized in recent archaeological literature – rather than to describe past realities [56].

27 It is therefore clear that archaeologists should not aim to analyse the identity, but need to think of different identities and their separate components [57]. Initially, this may not seem like a difficult task, since material culture is a medium for expressing identities in all known societies [58], and there is no reason to suppose that ancient peoples were different in this respect. Arguably, a detailed analysis of the archaeological record should allow deciphering this non-verbal system of communication.

28 However, the evidence supplied by anthropological and sociological studies suggests that this aim may not always be possible to achieve. Research in these fields demonstrates that people not only have more than just one identity, but can also switch between them depending on the circumstances, instead of expressing them concurrently [59]. What is more, particular identities can change, overlap or intersect; they are dynamic and protean in nature [60]. It follows that the archaeological record from burial sites is unlikely to allow reconstructing the deceased as fully-dimensional individuals, but, at best, to see isolated snapshots of their multidimensional, dynamic personalities. A good example of this phenomenon is offered by the dress worn by the Herero women from South-Western Africa, which at the same time conveys messages about ethnic, gender and social identities [61]. Additionally, it appears that not all identities are necessarily materially expressed [62]. Overall, archaeologists face a serious difficulty: they cannot fully disentangle the web of intersecting and conflicting identities, but at the same time they also should refrain from using “identity” as a broad, all-encompassing term, since to do so could lead to erroneous conclusions.

29 It is also necessary to remember that in the context of funerary evidence, on which this paper concentrates, the identities of the deceased are materially expressed by the relatives rather than the deceased [63], and may be an incomplete or perhaps even untruthful representation of what the deceased felt; after all, identity is a highly individual and subjective attribute. To give an example, one may doubt whether a Greek settler would follow all the funerary customs of the local tribe to which his recently deceased wife belonged to and with which she still identified herself.

30 The difficulties inherent to attempts at deciphering past identities on the basis of the material record are well illustrated by case studies from the field of historical archaeology. It appears that even when the presence of people expressing starkly different identities is attested by literary evidence, these dissimilar affinities are not necessarily preserved in the material record. For example, archaeologists exploring the ruins of Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri Lanka, concluded that caste identities, around which the city’s society was structured, could not be detected [64]. This is particularly important, since caste membership is closely related to social position, diet, dwelling-type and burial rites [65], so it could be expected to be more tangible than other identities. Similarly, at the settlement of El Presidio de San Francisco in colonial-age North America different identities were not detected, even though, according to the surviving census data, it was inhabited by four different, internally diverse groups (Indio, Mulatto, Mestizo and Español) [66]. The excavator explains the uniformity of the material culture by the emergence of a new identity expressed by all the inhabitants [67]. However, it may equally well be interpreted as a sign that the material expressions of the identities of residents of El Presidio did not survive well in the archaeological record – or that textual classifications did not reflect the lived experience [68].

31 In spite of the difficulties outlined here, claiming that identities can never be studied in the material record would be a step too far. It is necessary, however, to be clear and precise in stating which identities are searched for and on what basis. In the light of the theoretical difficulties outlined above, it seems to me that one can only hope to detect and isolate different identities in two cases: either when the material record can be contrasted with ample historical evidence [69] or well understood iconographic data, which allows determining precisely whose material culture is being studied [70], or when the given identity is centred around a material and archaeologically visible feature – as opposed to an abstract idea, such as “ethnic” or “collective” identities. To give an example, the presence of particular objects or sets of objects in graves belonging to the deceased with a visible physical disability and their absence from other graves may suggest that this item was used to express/impose the “disabled identity”. However, even in such a relatively straightforward case, one needs to be cautious, since “… learning about one or more of the attributes that an individual possesses gives us some information about which identity categories (s) he might qualify for and which she might not, but does not permit us to make a precise prediction about self-placement [71]”.

32 The problems outlined above seem to me to demonstrate that “identity” cannot be the main methodological tool for archaeological study of cultural interactions. It should not, however, be entirely dismissed; the observation that objects express messages about their owners is significant and, if correctly applied, may lead to interesting and methodologically sound conclusions. Rather than attempting to decode all the identities conveyed by a given burial, we should rather concentrate on the “material vocabulary”, or, in other words, the system of signifiers it employs, its overall non-verbal language. All identities present in a given society must be understandable to their members, as they are all embedded in the same cultural context. Attention should therefore be given to how identities are materially expressed, even if we cannot fully understand them; in the words of Larick, we should concentrate on identifying “meaningfulness” rather than the “meaning” itself [72].

33 The essence of this proposition is best illustrated by an example. The presence of an iron knife in a burial, placed in a wooden bowl or directly by the body, and frequently associated with food – a common feature in many cemeteries of the Black Sea region [73], but a rare find elsewhere – is likely to be an expression of some aspect of the deceased individual’s identity. It might signify belonging to a particular social group or adherence to a certain religious belief, allude to the profession of the deceased or denote some sort of achievement he or she made in life. We cannot hope to fully understand its meaning (s), but the sheer fact that it was included among the grave goods is informative, as it suggests a connection to a set of values and beliefs characteristic of a certain group or groups of people. These conclusions stem from the assumption that there is a reason for which it appears in some graves and is absent from others.

Commonality

34 All three approaches discussed above, although different in many respects, are similarly constructed. They make the first step by identifying similar archaeological assemblages and defining features which appear in some contexts, but are absent from others. They then take the second step and proceed to attempt to explain this perceived similarity by crediting it to a particular, more or less precisely defined group – either “people”, “ethnic group”, or “people expressing the same identity”. All these categories refer to abstract ideas, putatively professed by members of the past societies. However, since archaeology deals with objectively perceptible realities, rather than subjective experiences, all these methods ultimately fail, and consequently cannot provide a suitable tool for further analysis.

35 Some scholars acknowledge these difficulties and argue that one should ignore the question of interactions between distinct groups of people altogether and concentrate on other issues [74]. This view is perhaps too pessimistic, and to follow it would mean to sweep a significant issue under the carpet. Instead, this paper suggests approaching the problem by introducing a new and less complex concept to archaeological research – archaeology of commonality. According to this method, the researcher should identify similarities, common features in the material record (hence the name) – and concentrate on their analysis, instead of making the second step (as in the case of the approaches just discussed), i.e. seeking to explain their source.

36 This commonality shared by the studied archaeological assemblages does not mean that they were created by members of the same group, however defined. The archaeology of commonality is thus not tantamount, or even similar, to concepts such as “common identity”, “ethnicity”, “archaeological identity” or “archaeological culture”, since it acknowledges that peoples who perceive themselves as entirely separate entities may be characterized by similar or even identical material cultures and be indistinguishable in the archaeological record.

37 The utility of this concept relies on the assumption that the more similar two given assemblages of material culture are, the more similar were the lifestyles of the peoples who created them, or, to use the expression coined by P. Richards, the more likely they were to share “… a common ‘grammar’ of social experience [75]”, since “… material culture reflects behavior [76]”. In other words, the similarity of material cultures also implies a similarity of the mode of life.

38 This argument is best illustrated by an example about Nymphaion. The graves which share little or nothing in common with graves from the Greek mainland, but seem similar to the burials which appeared in the region prior to the establishment of the city, are likely to have belonged to members of the local peoples mentioned by the literary sources – Maeotians, Sindians, Scythians, Taurians, etc. We cannot hope to assign these graves to any of these particular peoples, but this does not necessarily mean that grouping them according to ‘commonality’ is useless. Even though all these local peoples might have been perceived by both themselves and the outside Greek observers as entirely distinct, the overview of the archaeological record of the northern shores of the Black Sea suggests that, in terms of their modes of life and every-day experience, they were far more similar to each other than to Greek settlers.

39 All graves in the northern Black Sea region situated away from Greek settlements are furnished with similar weapons (mostly long swords and arrowheads) which implies similar military tactics, and with similar types of hand-made pottery – suggesting they had comparable traditions of craftsmanship and patterns of consumption. The omnipresence of horse sacrifice, attested all over the discussed area, probably signifies that this animal was highly prized in all of the region’s societies, whereas the wide-spread distribution of the items decorated in the so-called animal style suggests a shared sense of aesthetics – and so on. There are, of course, some differences – e.g. the people who lived in central Crimea did not initially cover their tombs with heaps of soil (kurgans) [77], unlike those living in the Ukrainian steppes [78] and the Kuban area [79], which might e.g. mean that they had disparate ways of advertising their social status. However, these disparities seem to be outweighed by similarities. Overall, it is argued here that one can assume that all the local peoples shared a “common ‘grammar’ of social experience”, which differed greatly from that of the Greek settlers.

40 Basing on the visible commonality of these graves from Class II, peoples who created them can also be classified as a single, though internally diverse group: “people characterized by a material culture, and, consequently, following customs typical for the population of the northern shores of the Black Sea, who shared little, if any, common features with the Greek settlers”, or simply “Non-Greeks”, who, it is argued, shared a “common ‘grammar’ of social experience”. On the other hand, the strong similarity of the burials from Class I with contemporary graves from Greek sites in the Aegean, combined with the evidence of the written sources, epigraphy, and the character of material culture of the settlement of Nymphaion allows concluding that these graves belonged to people who were strongly connected with Greek culture. Not all of these individuals must have identified themselves as Greeks – e.g. Carians from Asia Minor [80] or members of local tribes might have been among them – but they seem to have been so completely immersed in the Greek “‘grammar’ of social experience” that calling them simply “Greek” – although bearing in mind the potential internal diversity, since this word covers a wide variety of social and cultural practices – appears justified.

41 Commonality is an entirely etic concept, as it relies solely on those features which can be identified by the outside observers. It therefore has the advantage of being relatively objective and easily perceptible. As in the case of “archaeology of ethnicity”, it concentrates on practices and cultural traits, but it does not posit that knowing them allows defining the self-identification of the studied peoples.

Hybrid burials

42 It should be emphasised here that Greeks and non-Greeks are not polarities [81] – yet they were often undeniably different in many respects, and these differences are reflected by their respective material cultures. Importantly, these dissimilarities were not insurmountable; they could be, and partly were, bridged – as demonstrated by the tombs which combine elements characteristic of both Greek and Non-Greek burial customs.

43 The usual approach towards these burials is to attempt to identify the stronger, more pronounced element, and categorize them accordingly – acknowledging however the presence of features characteristic of the other group. To give an example, a burial which follows burial customs associated with the Non-Greek populations, but contains some Greek vases and jewellery and is characterized by an inhumation in a coffin would be described as belonging to a “Hellenized Non-Greek”. On the other hand, a burial reminiscent of graves from Greek necropoleis in the Mediterranean, but covered with a kurgan and furnished with weapons, might be termed “Barbarized Greek” [82]. The former category – “Hellenized Barbarian” – is much more prominent in the literature than the latter, certainly reflecting an underlying belief that non-Greeks were more likely to adopt Greek customs than vice versa. This approach may appear intuitively right in some cases, yet its absolute subjectivity and the lack of methodological rigidity renders it unsuitable. Additionally, this approach requires discussing graves one-by-one, which precludes conducting a broad analysis of an entire necropolis, let alone the region.

44 What is more, it is argued here that ascribing the “mixed” graves from the cemetery of Nymphaion to either of the two groups is not only methodologically unsound, but also results in misunderstanding the archaeological record and the intentions of the people who created it. One cannot know what identities were professed by the people buried in such graves – Greek, non-Greek, either or neither? – and to assign them to any of these groups would be to ignore the complexity of the message they convey.

Cultural Interactions at Nymphaion

45 In spite of our inability to understand the identities of the people buried in “mixed” graves, some conclusions about the nature of the interactions of Greeks and non-Greeks of Nymphaion can be reached. These burials are of key importance to archaeologists interested in interactions between the Greek settlers and local tribes, as they form a part of the so-called “Third Space”, the zone of cultural dialogue [83].

46 First, it is important to note that burials combining Greek and non-Greek elements appear already in the earliest phases of existence of Greek settlements. This in itself is not proof that non-Greek people lived alongside the newly arrived Greeks, but it does suggest that early Bosporan settlements were not isolated, self-sufficient nuclei, and that Greek settlers did not limit their contacts with the local peoples to commercial exchange. To the contrary, these newly established communities seem to be characterized by a certain receptivity to local peoples and their customs.

47 Second, the mixed character of these graves suggests that the people who created them were not interested in raising sharp distinctions and using the material evidence to place themselves unambiguously in a single social context. This is especially interesting given that anthropological research suggests that strong group differentiation is usually caused by an economic or military conflict; in other words, people who are hostile towards each other take more effort to differentiate themselves from their opponents [84]. The fact that so many inhabitants of Bosporan settlements chose to draw from both Greek and Non-Greek traditions does not necessarily imply that the relations between the two groups were cordial. It does however signify that hybridity [85] was socially acceptable, or perhaps even desirable, among both lower and higher ranks of the society.

48 It is important to emphasise that many graves at the Nymphaion cemetery are characterized by a thorough mixing of Greek and non-Greek burial customs and material cultures – that is, they do not just contain one odd object, which could have been included among the burial gifts as an intriguing exoticum, deprived of its original meaning, but entire sets of artefacts, assembling which required a certain understanding of the other culture, a certain “middle ground” [86].

Fig. 2

figurine of an athlete, crowning a bronze stand from burial 24/9. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

figurine of an athlete, crowning a bronze stand from burial 24/9. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

49 Let us take the kurgan grave 24/9, dating to the 5^th c. BC, as an example [87]. Some of its characteristics seem unmistakably Greek: the deceased was placed in a wooden coffin, in the supine position, with the head directed towards the East. Next to him stood a bronze candelabrum, topped with a figurine of a naked athlete (fig. 2) – suggesting that he or his relatives considered representative art and nudity, both largely absent from local artistic traditions [88], as desirable and acceptable. One of his hands was adorned with a scaraboid ring with a depiction of a cow and a fox. He was also equipped with a set for drinking wine – a red-figure skyphos, two black-gloss kylikes and a bronze oinochoe, accompanied with a ladle and a strainer, which suggests that the deceased consumed alcohol in a manner similar to that practised in Greek milieux. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that shards of red-figure krater were found in the heap covering the grave, which could mean that the buried man or at least his relatives might have drank wine mixed with water. Another metal vase – a silver phiale – could have been used for pouring libations, although a different use of the vessel cannot be excluded. Furthermore, two terracotta figurines were found in the heap.

50 On the other hand, grave 24/9 is also full of objects of non-Greek provenance, which were deposed in a manner strongly recalling local burial practices. To begin with, eight horses, decked in adornment executed in the animal style (fig. 3), were buried around the stone chamber – a custom which has no parallels in chronologically concurrent Greek cemeteries, but is widely attested at affluent burials of the northern Black Sea region, e.g. the Seven Brothers (Semibratne) Kurgans in the Kuban area [89]. Similarly, the presence of a full panoply – remains of armour, long sword of the local type, daggers, spears and arrows – as well as personal adornments in the form of a golden torque and over fifty golden plaques, some of which are decorated in the so-called animal style (fig. 4), are closely related to local funerary rites. Clearly, the individual buried in this grave cannot be classified as either Greek or Non-Greek. Even though graves are not literal reflections of who the buried person was during his lifetime, it can be argued that the person buried in grave 24/9 led a life which combined Greek and non-Greek material cultures, as well as some norms and customs characteristic of both social matrices. He was capable of operating, to an extent at least, in both Greek and non-Greek systems of non-verbal communication.

Fig. 3

element of harness executed in the animal style, from burial 24/9. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

element of harness executed in the animal style, from burial 24/9. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

Fig. 4

a golden plaque executed in the animal style, from burial 24/9. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

a golden plaque executed in the animal style, from burial 24/9. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

51 Since material culture reflects behaviour, one may argue that the significant presence of burials such as 24/9 in the Nymphaion cemetery, which contain thoroughly mixed Greek and non-Greek elements, suggests that at least some of the city’s inhabitants led lives which combined two previously unconnected “‘grammars’ of social experience”. The extensive overlapping of material cultures visible at Nymphaion suggests intensive contact between the Greeks and non-Greeks, not only in terms of commercial exchange and political interaction, but also in the sense of a cultural osmosis.

52 The evidence from the cemetery of Nymphaion is difficult to interpret because of the uncertainty regarding the origins and affinity of the people deposed in the “mixed” burials – were they Greeks who adopted some of the customs of their Non-Greek neighbours, or local peoples who emulated Greeks? Probably there were some in each category, but the respective scales of these phenomena cannot be established, since under the proposed framework one can appreciate the depth of the cultural interaction, but cannot establish its direction. It should however be mentioned in this context that some 25 % of Bosporan inscriptions dating to the 6^th-1^st c. BC contain non-Greek names [90]. This does not of course mean that a quarter of the population was non-Greek, but it strongly suggests a presence of some local people among the inhabitants of Bosporan settlements.

53 It has been recently argued that some people from culturally diverse regions of the ancient world were “culturally bilingual”, ever-switching between different, parallel identities [91]. There is little evidence for such a phenomenon to have occurred at Nymphaion, or in fact anywhere in the Bosporan Kingdom and its vicinities. If one were to follow the linguistic metaphor, people in the northern Black Sea seem to have borrowed extensively from foreign languages, forming regional dialects different from their mother tongues.

Conclusions

54 The aim of this paper was to present a new approach to the study of interactions – the archaeology of commonality. Commonality describes the quality of sharing similar features which, it is argued, also reflects similar modes of life or “‘grammars’ of social experience”. Its advantages over other key concepts commonly used in the study of interactions between different groups of people – “ethnicity” and “identity” – are twofold. Firstly, it is based on relatively objective features rather than subjective and abstract concepts, and as such is more adequate to analysing the mute material record. Secondly, it allows conducting methodologically sound research without having to tackle the difficult, and perhaps ultimately unanswerable, question of what was the central factor of social cohesion of the particular past society. Consequently, it allows the researcher to concentrate on the material record instead of attempting to unravel subjective self-perceptions.

55 Admittedly, adopting commonality as the main research tool has its drawbacks. Grouping various peoples living on the Northern shores of the Black Sea in antiquity under only three categories may seem exceedingly minimalistic. However, it has to be emphasised that this paper did not aim at constructing a complete ethnic map of the area, but only at investigating the interactions between Greek settlers and non-Greek peoples. What is more, given that literary evidence regarding certain peoples consists of little else than their name, being unable to associate them with a particular archaeological assemblage is not a great loss.

56 Basing this analysis on the broad categories defined on the basis of commonalities does of course reduce the depth of the analysis. The interactions within these groups, which must have taken place – e.g. between the tribes of Ukrainian steppes and Crimean mountains, or between the settlers from Miletos and Crete – will be inevitably invisible under this framework, but it is doubtful whether such interactions can be soundly detected under any other framework. Also, since the origins and affinity of the people buried in “mixed” graves cannot be established, our understanding of the process of cultural interactions is perforce limited; one can attempt to estimate its depth and pace of development, but is ill-equipped to understand its direction. This, however, seems to me to be the price one has to pay in order to write a coherent, relatively objective and methodologically sound account of cultural interactions in the region.