ABSTRACT
The growing archaeological interest in ethnicity – a reflection of current events – has developed in two main directions. The first, a particularly theoretical one, broadly interprets ethnicity as cultural identity; concerned with the origin, formation and partition of societies ‘from tribe to state’; against the background of sociology and the anthropological sciences. On such a basis, scholars look for the contemporary identity of living socio-cultural groups 1 and yet play down the importance of ethnicity, in order to counteract any possible misuse for political aims.
