Relying on material and textual evidence, this seminar explores the connection between culture contact and cultural change in fields such as religious behavior, social hierarchies, political institutions, and patterns of behavior. We focus on key case-studies from the Iron Age to Late Antiquity, including the Orientalizing revolution, the Hellenization of Sicily and Southern Italy, the Romanization of Italy and of the provinces of the Roman empire, and the emergence of the Post-Roman kingdoms. Attention is devoted both to the trajectories of past scholarship and to possible new approaches based on new evidence and/or methods.
