Flash Talk | On the Origins of Leptiminus: Constructing Identity in the First Millennium BCE

Leptiminus, a city on the east coast of Tunisia, was the site of a Kelsey Museum archaeological project in the 1990s. Michigan’s research focused on the expansion of the city under Rome, its exports to the empire, and the activities of its suburbs.

In this talk, David Stone examines the evidence for the origins of the city—a subject that might be thought of as the “prequel” to Michigan’s research focus. He investigates the settlement and cemeteries of the 5th to 3rd century BCE, a time when we see the horizons of inhabitants expanding as they came into more frequent contact with other Mediterranean cultures. Using an approach to rooted in identity and globalization theories, Dr. Stone argues that to understand the early phases of the city, one must shift the debate on North African peoples in the first millennium BCE away from a focus on discrete cultural groups and toward the ways material culture was employed to make statements regarding power, identity, and social status.

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