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In the Archaic period, the Adriatic region constitutes a particularly favourable field of enquiry for studying the process of the construction of identity and culture. Analysis of ancient texts shows that the creation of a series of tales and mythological genealogies was designed to attribute a common ancestry to the “barbaric” peoples of the Western Adriatic and the Greeks of Arcadia and Crete. Archaeological enquiry reveals, among these Italic peoples, a phenomenon of identity construction which developed through the adoption of cultural markers and ritual practices. Thus while they maintained their differences, the populations intermingled within social groups and beyond ethnic frontiers.