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2500-2000 BC: connectivity phenomena between the Balkans, Greece, Southern Italy, Eastern Sicily, the Aeolian Islands and Malta - Recent research projects have provided new data to tackle the issue of long range cultural contacts and movements of small human groups across the Central Mediterranean during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. This complex phenomenon, whose epicentre was probably the Dalmatian culture of Cetina, implies intertwined processes of interactions between various regions. Unlike the previous periods, when evidence of cross-cultural contacts mostly consists of similarities in the material culture between regions, in the period under scrutiny it is possible to recognise both close parallels in pottery production and the circulation of imports/ imitations of artefacts made of bone/antler, stone and metal. The paper offers a brief reconsideration of the available data from the western Balkans, western Greece and from various contexts in southern Italy, Sicily and the small adjacent islands that were involved in these long-range interactions. A critical evaluation of the incidence of allogenous artefacts in the various contexts is also provided. The impact of the Bell Beaker phenomenon in the area under scrutiny is also discussed. This was in fact marginal, though Bell Beaker-type elements did actually co-exist with western Balkan-type ones in some of the examined regions. Finally, the chronological aspect of the 'Cetina phenomenon' is discussed: two sub-phases in these processes of interactions are argued to be discernible, which helps a more detailed understanding of the socio-ideological mechanisms at play on the local scale.

Studies on the “uses of the past” have steadily and consistently advanced over the past twenty years. Following the seminal studies by Hobsbawm and Ranger and Benedict Anderson on the role of narratives of the past in constructing (national) identities, and thanks the always more widespread practice of reception studies, the attention for cultural memory and lieux de mémoire, and following, many publications have investigated the role of nearer and further time layers in defining and determining structures of identity and senses of belonging across the world. Didactics of history has also contributed a great deal to this field of studies, also thanks to the always more refined methodologies of school book analysis. Classical Antiquity has obviously not been neglected, and multiple studies have been dedicated to its role in the development and reinforcement of modern identities. Yet, not only some areas of the world have remained less considered than others, but most attention has been dedicated to national identities, nationalistic discourses, and their activation through historical narratives. This special issues of thersites wants to contribute further to research on the role of Classical Antiquity within modern identities, asking scholars to focus especially on areas that have been less strongly represented in scholarship until now., Preface Leonidas in Stalingrad I film peplum e la fine del mito fascista della romanità Alatri in the Sky with Diamonds Die Tabula Traiana und Drăgans Decebalus: symbolische Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Serbien und Rumänien an der Donau Funerary Masks and the Geopolitical Use of Classical Archaeology in Nationalist Disputes Margarites Demitsas (1830–1902) und die Anfänge der griechischen Erforschung der Inschriftenkunde Makedoniens in ihrem Verhältnis zur makedonischen Frage The Origins and Evolution of Ancient Spartan Identity in the Mani Peninsula, Greece Rezension von Eva Marlene Hausteiner: Greater than Rome. Neubestimmungen britischer Imperialität 1870–1914 Reseña de A. Duplá Ansuategui, E. Dell’ Elicine & J. Pérez Mostazo (eds.), Antigüedad clásica y naciones modernas en el Viejo y el Nuevo Mundo Review of Donna Zuckerberg: Not All Dead White Men. Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age Review of Hans Lamers and Bettina Reitz-Joosse, The Codex Fori Mussolini Review of Helen Roche & Kyriakos Demetriou: Brill’s Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany Review of Stephen L. Dyson: Archaeology, Ideology, and Urbanism in Rome from the Grand Tour to Berlusconi Review of Kenneth Royce Moore (ed.): Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great Recensione di Thorsten Fögen, Richard Warren (Eds.): Graeco-Roman Antiquity and the Idea of Nationalism in the 19 th Century: Case Studies

Gori Maja, Krapf Tobias. The Bronze and Iron Age Pottery from Sovjan. In: Iliria, vol. 39, 2015. pp. 91-135.

International audience; The use of the term "culture" in Balkan prehistory, from the creation of the discipline until today, has followed generally the theoretical principles of the culture-historical approach, which was the dominant trend in the humanities during the second part of the 19th and much of the 20th century. This chapter discusses the examples from the area of the Balkan Chalcolithic, showing why "cultures" are inefficient and even misleading as chronological tools, and proposes some alternative means of assessing historical realities. To understand the exact meaning of the coexistence of "Karanovo V" and "Karanovo VI" vessels inside the same buildings at Dikili Tash, people should take a closer look at their technology, their provenances and their functions, and compare them with the results from the study of pottery technology, provenance and function at other sites. The overall validity of the concept is supported neither by the history of later periods, nor by ethnography, ancient or modern.

International audience; The use of the term "culture" in Balkan prehistory, from the creation of the discipline until today, has followed generally the theoretical principles of the culture-historical approach, which was the dominant trend in the humanities during the second part of the 19th and much of the 20th century. This chapter discusses the examples from the area of the Balkan Chalcolithic, showing why "cultures" are inefficient and even misleading as chronological tools, and proposes some alternative means of assessing historical realities. To understand the exact meaning of the coexistence of "Karanovo V" and "Karanovo VI" vessels inside the same buildings at Dikili Tash, people should take a closer look at their technology, their provenances and their functions, and compare them with the results from the study of pottery technology, provenance and function at other sites. The overall validity of the concept is supported neither by the history of later periods, nor by ethnography, ancient or modern.