Early Greek Colonialism in Macedonia and Italy

Apoikismos is the term in both ancient and modern Greek to describe intense human mobility and final settlement abroad. This was a historical phenomenon which began in the 8th century BC according to conventional absolute chronology and lasted several centuries. The usual translation of the Greek term is colonization, which however derives its etymology from the roman colonia (a military station for the control and suppression of defeated populations). Nowadays it is clear that the implications of this translation were in accordance with the ideology of the powerful West European colonial powers of the past centuries. The aim of this multidisciplinary project is a comparative study of the early Greek colonial movement in Macedonia and Italy during the 8th and 7th centuries BC through the prism of postcolonial theory. The basis of the project will be the publication of archaeological material from the Geometric and Early archaic layers of the settlements of Mende (Chalkidike) and Polichni (Thessaloniki). Mende was one of the most prominent Euboean colonies in the North Aegean, while Polichni was not a proper colonial establishment. However, the latter`s place in what we could call a zone of "colonial interest" among well-known colonies and the quality of its material culture, suggest that the study of its material culture can be exactly or even more useful for the comprehension of the early Greek colonial movement than that of a proper colony. The analytical presentation of the stratigraphy and archaeological material from these two settlements and their comparative study with similar evidence from other sites in Macedonia and Italy will offer insight into a significant historical phenomenon. By bridging the scholarship on both ends of the colonial Greek expansion we wish to overcome old prejudices and check the validity of a new model according to which, Greek colonization was not an ensemble of single events but rather a process of formation of new socio-political entities and identities. If this scenario is correct, then we can no longer take for granted the foundation dates of the early Greek colonies, nor Greek absolute chronology of the Geometric and Early archaic periods. The reconstruction of early colonial entanglements will have its basis on a series of archaeometrical analyses. These will include radiocarbon dating of well-stratified short lived samples and archaeometallurgical analysis of bronze objects in search of ancient ore trade networks. NAA and petrographic analyses of pottery will provide data concerning provenance and technological studies that can shed light upon important breaks in pottery production. Finally, a synthetic archaeobotanical study will offer a better view on the natural environment that the colonists encountered in their northern enterprises.

The aim of this project is the archaeological and (natural) scientific study of the earliest phases of the Greek colonisation that took place in Italy and Macedonia. For this purpose the archaeological material of the hitherto unpublished excavations of the settlement of Mende was analysed over the course of three documentation campaigns. The statistical and typological analysis of the Early Iron Age and archaic pottery barely presents any indication that the site was ever colonised by Euboeans as the textual evidence implies. At the same time the material culture of other indigenous, non-colonial sites exhibits more colonial connotations than that of sites known to have been colonies from textual evidence. This does not mean that Mende was not a Euboean colony. Instead it shows that traditional perceptions of Greek colonisation have to be revisited. A new series of radiocarbon analyses shows that the pre-colonial and earliest colonial pottery found at the major Greek colonies in Italy and Macedonia dates more than half a century earlier than originally thought. The comparative study of the foundation dates of the Sicilian colonies and the combined study of old and new radiocarbon dates as well as other evidence raise the begin of the colonial movement to the end of the 9th century BC but they also support the foundation dates of some early colonies as reported by Thucydides. An analytical study of the colonised landscapes in northern Greece was carried out in order to better understand the motives for the Greek colonisation. The examination of the local settlement patterns, their ecology, and economy demonstrates a very complex socioeconomic organisation that attracted settlers from the central and southern Aegean. Earlier colonialist perceptions of the ancient colonised populations as politically and economically less advanced are thus rejected. For a more comprehensive study of the Early Iron Age cultural encounters in the Mediterranean approximately three hundred samples of the earliest Protogeometric and Geometric Greek pottery overseas were analysed with neutron activation. The aim was a new discussion of the Greek pottery consumption patterns in some of the earliest Greek colonies as well as in several Phoenician, Punic, and other indigenous sites all over the Mediterranean. The results show an unexpected diversity in the origin of the Greek pottery that circulated in the Mediterranean and consisted of various Aegean and Italian wares. Finally, a series of lead isotope analyses has already been conducted on bronze artefacts in the northern Aegean presenting significant evidence for the exchange of ore commodities in the Early Iron Age. The overall analysis of the colonial phenomenon provides evidence for a non-state organized initiative that consisted at least initially of numerous private colonial enterprises which were only later coordinated by state institutions in metropolitan Greece.