Ethnicity and early Greek states: historical and material perspectives

Abstract

This article is an exploration of two distinct but related aspects of political life in the early Greek world, ethnicity (the conscious expression of group identity), and the existence of ethne, a term used very loosely in antiquity and now applied to most forms of state structure other than the polis. It is a review of a problem, namely a tendency to focus on the polis when studying state formation and a consequent need to re-examine certain assumptions about the relationship between material culture and group identity in order to trace ethnos development in the archaeological record. It is also an examination of current and potential avenues of research, illustrated with reference to one particular region, Achaia.