Il Barbaricum. Una periferia che si fece centro. Società, insediamento ed economia tra I e X secolo.

While Italian archaeologists tend to look further north from a Rome-centred perspective, Marco Valenti changes this view. His ambitious book seeks, ‘to understand the genesis and development of territories and peoples that for centuries had relations with’ the Mediterranean and, ‘to reconstruct a coherent overall picture’ (p 637). This weighty monograph consists of seven thematic chapters. A relatively short first chapter characterises ‘the Barbarians’ as a concept, defined as ‘the non-Romans’ and much debated in recent years. Valenti plausibly argues for a more complex understanding, drawing also on aDNA research, which so far has not revealed any surprising results. In Chapter 2, relations between the Mediterranean and the north are presented, spanning the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD. Valenti highlights the impacts the Mediterranean world made on Celtic and Germanic populations and cultures that became part of the Roman Empire and civilised barbarians. Next, the situation beyond the limes is presented, including bog bodies, skull deformations, settlement lay-outs, weapon sacrifices and textiles. Overall, Valenti argues for Roman influences, which were selected by Germanic elites/societies; he see active roles on the non-Roman side. Special attention is given in Chapter 4 to elites and funerals from the 1st to 8th centuries, exploring the well-known princely burials of the L€ ubsow and Hassleben-Leuna groups of the imperial age, as well as special early medieval graves from southern Germany to Sweden. As generally accepted, the burials reflect unstable or dynamic social circumstances, partly influenced by the Roman world. Chapter 5 shifts from burials to settlements, looking for social hierarchies. Surprisingly, Valenti starts with the Neolithic (linear pottery), continuing through the Bronze and Iron Ages. If correct that patterns derived from traditions, why is this longer examination undertaken for the settlements only? Richly furnished graves existed before Roman times too. In the long run, in the pre-Roman Iron Age ‘there was a stabilisation of power’, while new settlements after the Roman conquest reflected agricultural and economic improvements. However, houses and settlements varied considerably in the vast regions of the northern Barbarians. (Note that the presented view of Lauchheim is outdated, since new research has led to a different interpretation by Valerie Schoenenberg). During the Early Middle Ages (6th–10th centuries), the situation generally changed. Chapter 6 covers the development of ‘modified systems’, referring to the establishment of new, post-Roman power structures in continental Europe which current research plausibly calls ‘states’ again. To my mind, the differences between western and eastern Europe — Germanic versus Slavic traditions — are somewhat overemphasised, as is the statement that, ‘Barbarian Europe lived as it had done for centuries’ — without any incentives? Perhaps antique roots played a role too. A separate chapter (7) is devoted to Scandinavia, which contradicts the ‘bipartite’ concept of continental Europe before. Conflicts, redefinitions of roles and territories can been observed throughout Europe, which had become fully Christian around AD 1000. Valenti argues that the northern periphery of the antique Roman world has been underestimated so far and history has to be rewritten — a statement probably correct from an Italian point of view — but that, seen from the north, the barbarian past has been overestimated for a long time. The same can be said for the role of migrations: Valenti criticises their supposed denial, while others are sceptical when they seemingly explain everything. The truth may lie