Page 58 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

comparative borders and frontiers 407

Remains of a portion of Hadrian’s Wall and
an entranceway in Scotland. The wall was
meant to keep the Romans from expanding
the boundary of their Empire further north.

and evaluated the ways in which frontier conditions
transformed the societies and economies created as a
result of the migration of Europeans across oceans and
across the Eurasian steppe (the vast, usually level and tree-
less tracts in southeastern Europe or Asia) after 1500.The
Great Frontier was characterized by a dichotomy between
freedom and compulsion. In some cases the frontier pro-
moted freedom and equality (the Cossacks, European
colonists in North America), whereas in others the avail- tier because of its cultural baggage, but many sophisti-
ability of land and relative shortage of labor led to cated studies of cross-cultural interaction, ecological trans-
enslavement or enserfment of workers. McNeill’s work formation, and settlement owe an intellectual debt to
helped to frame frontiers in such a way that no single out- Turner.
come could be considered characteristic of frontier Applied on a global scale, the frontier concept provides
processes. a lens for examining how the forces of environment,
Most recently anthropologist Igor Kopytoff has ap- cross-cultural interaction, and adaptation can create new
plied the frontier concept to broad expanses of African communities and societies. Furthermore, frontiers
history. In various places and periods networks of local demonstrate how important processes of change can
frontiers formed a great process in African history. As a originate at the margins of existing societies and how
result of famines, conflicts, ecological pressures, and peripheries can become new centers.
entrepreneurial pursuits, individuals and groups departed
their settlements to take up residence in “no-man’s lands” The Question of
beyond the jurisdiction of established communities.After Ancient Borders
they were successfully established, they formed a nucleus Although people often consider borders to be character-
of a new group, which could serve as a magnet for the istically modern, recent research by Italian historian
disaffected groups and individuals from neighboring Mario Liverani has documented their existence in inter-
societies. Given the right conditions (distance, ecological national relations of the ancient Near East. During the
barriers, inability of existing societies to extend control), late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1200 BCE) interstate relations
new polities (political organizations) emerged at the developed between emerging states in Anatolia (in mod-
margins of existing polities. Some of these new polities ern Turkey), Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the lands adjacent
eventually became powerful enough to form new polities to or between those states. Many of the rulers of such
and absorb their older neighbors. Kopytoff’s model effec- ancient states claimed to be universal rulers, but they
tively distanced frontiers from predetermined outcomes: nonetheless delineated fixed borders of effective control.
“The frontier is permissive rather than determinant, it In the ideology of kingship, the ruler should continuously
does not create a type of society, but provides an institu- expand his territory to the ends of the known world.
tional vacuum for the unfolding of social processes” Because the process of expansion would never be com-
(Kopytoff 1987, 14).Thus, each frontier provides the pos- plete, rulers often erected commemorative monuments at
sibility of generating multiple outcomes. the extremities of the territories they had conquered or
Comparative frontier studies have gradually aban- traversed. Liverani writes: “if we view the border as an
doned the Eurocentric models promoted by Turner and elastic perimeter that follows the outward movements of
his students. Historians in the United States still debate the king, the stela [a stone slab or pillar used for com-
Turner’s legacy, with some even rejecting the term fron- memorative purposes], which has his name and image