Konzepte CONTACT ZONE und BORDER AREA in der Archäologie

Abstract

The article provides results of a cognitive analysis into the conceptual opposition of CONTACT ZONE vs. BORDER AREA in English and German languages highlighting problems related to their definition in history, linguistics, communication studies, education, etc. The author discusses a series of issues concerning the typology of contact zones in sciences and humanities, offers definitions of the concepts of CONTACT ZONE and BORDER AREA, identifies their constitutive characteristics: motivation (origin) of the concept and types of sub-concepts, type/number of contact cultures and the nature of their relationship, inner structure of a zone and its size, stability/transitivity of a zone, interculturalism/hybridity, etc. The proposed linguistic interpretation of the concept of CONTACT ZONE in archeological discourse contributes to the refinement of the terminological apparatus used by archaeologists specializing in contact zone studies and complex systems of boundaries allowing a more sophisticated way for analyzing ethno-archaeological contact zones as a hypernym-hyponym relationship with several border areas within one contact zone, and provides an ideal-type model of CONTACT ZONE for further interdisciplinary research.