A collaborative synthetic view of migration in archaeology: Addressing challenges for policymakers

This article presents the latest results of a collaborative project that seeks to develop recommendations for policymakers on migration by drawing upon the incomparable dataset accessible to archaeologists. While prior archaeological research on migration has provided important theoretical insights, our policy-oriented goals required us to adopt different terminology and analytical frameworks. How did migration affect migrants and local populations? What were the primary challenges to a successful migration? Can modern migrations be more than sources of analogy for prehistoric cases? We present detailed case studies from very different cultural contexts prioritized by what we call modalities – the different challenges to migrants and the types of capital used to overcome them. We observe that these challenges are often cumulative, placing more burdens upon migrants that ultimately undermine a successful outcome.