Cultural amalgamation refers to the process of mixing two cultures to create a new culture.[1][2] It is often described as a more balanced type of cultural interaction than the process of cultural assimilation.[3][4] Cultural amalgamation does not involve one group's culture changing another group's culture (acculturation)[5] or one group adopting another group's culture (assimilation).[6][1] Instead, a new culture results.[1] This is the origin of cultural amalgamation. It is the ideological equivalent of the melting pot theory.[1]
The term cultural amalgamation is often used in studies on post–civil rights era in the United States and contemporary multiculturalism and multiracialism.[7][1] For instance, the cultural amalgamation process happened with the fall of the Roman empire when the Middle Ages started and Roman Jewish/Christian culture and Germanic tribal cultures mixed with each other in the European continent.[8][9] In present day, cultural amalgamation occurs with immigration.[4]