GREEKS, BARBARIANS AND ARCHAEOLOGISTS: MAPPING THE CONTACT * StasaBABIC Abstract The paper critically explores the ways in which archaeologists produce maps of phenomena they investigate and draw inferences from these visual representations, especially concerning contact situations and influences exchanged between cultures. The contacts between Archaic Greek culture and its northern hinterland are analysed as a case study and some specific ways of thinking about and experiencing space in these two cultures are investigated in order to introduce other possible lines of inquiry. The proposition is put forward that archaeologists need not abandon their practice of drawing maps according to our own con- cepts of space, but that these should be supplemented by an effort to approach the experi- ences of space of the people we study. The Early Iron Age of temperate Europe (7th-5th centuries BC) saw the advent of a new cultural phenomenon, labelled by scholars as ‘princely graves’. 1 Spreading from France and Germany to the Central Balkans, these elaborate funerary assem- blages are unanimously interpreted as burials of the members of the newly emer- gent ruling elite. Among the opulent offerings registered in them especially promi- nent are the objects of Greek manufacture – bronze vessels, painted pottery and, less frequently, pieces of warrior equipment. The presence of these Mediterranean prod- ucts deep in the European hinterland has raised interest among archaeologists about the contacts between the Iron Age societies and the Archaic and Early Classical Greek culture and a number of interpretations have been offered, differing in approach and basic theoretical assumptions. 2 More often than not this endeavour has evolved around spatial considerations. In the traditional archaeological frame- work the centres of production were established on the Mediterranean shores and then linked to the places of discovery of the Greek products in their Iron Age set- tings, via the most obvious natural communications, such as river valleys. The result doi: 10.2143/AWE.6.0.2022794 AWE 6 (2007) 73-89 * Many thanks to Zorica Ivanovic and Aleksandar Palavestra for offering sound advice once more. The text was written while teaching two graduate courses at the Belgrade Department of Archaeol- ogy: ‘The Rise of the Polis’ and ‘Greeks and Others’. Active discussions with a very lively group of students helped shape some of the ideas developed here. 1 Fischer 1982; Mohen et al. 1987. 2 Babic 2002.