MORTUARY DISPLAY AND CULTURAL CONTACT: A CEMETERY AT KASTRI ON THASOS

Abstract

Summary. This article explores how the patterns of development within the local populations prior to Greek colonization, or even Greek contact, can elucidate the process of Greek colonization. Focusing upon the Thracian Early Iron Age cemetery of Kastri on Thasos, it suggests that past interpretations of such cemeteries as undifferentiated is due to the imposition of modern ideas of value. This article instead uses the criterion of diversity to suggest that the cemetery in fact has clear patterns of social differentiation in the first and last periods of use. Furthermore imports are restricted to graves of highest diversity in the last period of use (the early seventh century BC). This pattern is repeated over Early Iron Age Thrace, and is indicative of a social change within Thrace prior to Greek colonization which saw nascent Thracian elites seeking out imports from many areas in order to bolster their status.