In archaeological approaches, identity is inherently a multiscalar concept because it includes identities experienced at the scale of the person and those of persons in groups. This means that identity must be considered multiple, shifting, and relational. A person may act as a member of a group in one context, and as a member of a faction of the group in another. The same person may participate in identities that crosscut groups with which they otherwise identify, experiencing identification with others of the same sex, gender, race, ethnicity, or other identity. A person’s sense of identity may change as they mature and age, and their status may change as they learn and exercise skills and gain authority and status. From these social science observations, it follows that at the level of the person, identity should never be thought of as an essence, but should always be treated as in process. Identification, rather than identity, would be a better focus for research.
Identification, of course, is not only a process of individuals, but of groups. Indeed, identification is indispensable for group formation, maintenance, and reproduction. While, on the one hand, groups are made up of persons who identify with each other, human societies also reify group identities of various kinds, often projecting them onto nonhuman features in the environment. People may identify as members of named or unnamed groups that reside together, work together, and hand down property over generations. These co-residential, familial, corporate, or house identities may be symbolized by constructed architectural features such as tombs, houses, estates, or shared property. Archaeologists routinely recover traces of these kinds of material foci of small group identities. At larger scales, groups of people may create settlements that are the context for common actions that bind together, reproduce, and symbolize broader identification, as citizens of towns, as members of regional networks of interconnected settlements, or as part of nation-states. Again, archaeologically recoverable materials, such as stylistically distinctive movable objects, or ‘public’ spaces and buildings, can provide evidence for these processes of urban, ethnic, and national identification. Within the same settlement contexts, at scales from the small group to the largest scale of the nation or international network, people may identify with others of similar status or history in different places, and distinguish themselves from others in their immediate vicinity through habits of dress, foodways, religious practice, and the organization of household space. All of these identities of class, faction, and ethnicity, may leave material residues for archaeological investigation.
Because identity is so fluid, archaeologists are challenged not to reify or simplify the situation. Treating one identity as more significant may be a choice made for the purposes of analysis, but it always must be countered by consideration of other aspects of identity. The same material remains may serve to link some people together through identification, and to differentiate them from others through disidentification. People may actively manipulate the multiple possibilities open to them, and always actively work to shape and reshape their identifications with others in ways informed by their understandings of the effects identity may have on power relations.
World History
