Ancient German Identity in the Shadow of the Roman Empire - Eric Michael Vrba

Slovakia is a convergent zone of three interrelated spheres of study in Roman history and archaeology. These three spheres are the frontier, Romanization, and cultural identity. The aim of the project that forms the core of this book is a greater understanding of how identity functions, as reflected in a culture's material remains, and what affect outside agents have on identity, if any. The primary focus of this project is cultural identity and Part I outlines the ancient German culture along the Middle Danube River using ancient literary evidence and archaeological material. Part II is an account of the archaeological project conducted at Urbárske Sedliská, along with detailed descriptions of specific artifact groups, such as pottery, seen in southwest Slovakia. The final section, Part III, is a synthesis of parts I and II, bringing together the known archaeological data of the region and the theoretical discussions with the new data recovered from the excavations.