Editing Migration Period (section)

=== Ethnicity ===
Based on the belief that particular types of artifacts, elements of personal adornment generally found in a funerary context, are thought to indicate the [[ethnicity]] of the person buried, the "Culture-History" school of archaeology assumed that archaeological cultures represent the ''{{lang|de|[[Urheimat]]}}'' (homeland) of tribal polities named in historical sources.<ref>{{harvtxt|Pohl|1998|pp=17–23}}</ref> As a consequence, the shifting extensions of material cultures were interpreted as the expansion of peoples.{{sfn|Kulikowski|2007|p=61}}

Influenced by [[social constructionism|constructionism]], process-driven archaeologists rejected the [[culture-historical archaeology|culture-historical]] doctrine{{sfn|Kulikowski|2007|p=61}} and marginalized the discussion of ethnicity altogether and focused on the intragroup dynamics that generated such material remains. Moreover, they argued that adoption of new cultures could occur through trade or internal political developments rather than only military takeovers.