Multi-scalar Lenses on the Mediterranean in the First Millennium BC

Abstract In the current era of global approaches in archaeology and, more broadly, in the social and historical sciences, questions on the benefits, modes, and challenges of addressing multiple analytical scales are becoming central. The Mediterranean basin is a prime region to explore these questions because of its long-standing field research history and rich cultural geography. The first millennium BC of this region is a particularly interesting period for these aims because of its remarkable variability in the polities and societies that developed there, and an acceleration of change that saw the growth of imperial states extending their hegemonic political and economic control from east to west and west to east until the Roman state eventually exerted a pan-Mediterranean hegemony. In this paper, I survey recent and current research of this period in the Mediterranean, and the various ways in which it has addressed multi-scalar analysis and the tension of local and global inherent in the latter. I will suggest that the key benefit for such an analysis is developing a comparative perspective to our research questions, which has been thus far constrained by Graeco-Roman scholarly traditions.