ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how connectivity and production can be profitably deployed in investigations of community, particularly in contexts which lack contemporary, emic literature. It discusses the difficulties involved in attempting to assign traditional, and often literary-based, cultural, and ethnic labels to groups in the churning maelstrom of our increasingly fluid and connected conceptualisation of the ancient Mediterranean basin. It argues that the nature of our archaeological and literary evidence makes accessing a past sense of identity – a cognitive community – impossible in a pre-Roman context. In response to this, it highlights how production, and the connectivities which are evidenced within it, can indicate a range of networked connective communities – including communities of practice, economic communities and chaînes opératoires, market communities, and many others. These connective communities therefore can be understood not as an assigned category but rather as a dynamic and overlapping set of connectivities which can serve as a framework for placing both people and artefacts within the wider landscape. The chapter also briefly introduces the chapters of the volume and indicates their connections to this theme.
