From entities to interaction. Replacing pots and people with networks of transmission

Abstract

The understanding of the relationship between language, ethnic groups, and material culture in prehistory is still very limited, even within highly competent academic communities. To researchers without archaeological training it may be easy to make a direct association between archaeological cultures, distribution of signifi cant artefact types, and ethnic groups, especially as such explicit links are occasionally made also by archaeologists (e.g. Carpelan 2006). While there is undoubtedly some association between material culture and ethnicity (Damm 2010), and by inference perhaps also language, this is not straightforward, and is in many respects still poorly understood.