Pottery Consumption and Hellenistic Globalisation Bottom-up

How did people living in small towns and rural areas experience life more than 2,000 years ago in a world that was becoming increasingly connected? This question lies at the heart of the research project. Between 330 and 30 BCE, major powers and empires emerged around the Mediterranean and beyond. Trade, mobility, and cultural exchange increased significantly. New goods, ideas, and ways of life spread across long distances. This early form of globalisation is often described from the perspective of major cities, rulers, and elites. The project deliberately takes a different point of view. It focuses on people living in smaller towns and rural regions in what is now Greece and Italy. The research explores how they organised their everyday lives and how they responded to external influences. This is not only about what they adopted from elsewhere, but also about what they deliberately kept, adapted, or rejected. The project shows that local communities actively made choices and shaped their own ways of living. The primary sources are pottery vessels, including cups, bowls, cooking pots, and storage containers. These everyday objects were used daily and have survived in large numbers. They provide insights into culinary or drinking habits, social differences, and shared rituals. By studying these vessels, it becomes possible to see whether people preferred new and fashionable forms, held on to familiar traditions, or combined both. The project develops a new digital method to analyse pottery finds in a systematic and clear way. It examines which types of vessels were used in specific activities, such as cooking, eating together, or storing food. Visualising diagrams makes these patterns easier to compare and helps to identify differences between places. A key aspect of the project is the connection between the objects and their social surroundings. Pottery is not studied in isolation, but in relation to houses, public spaces, and special events such as celebrations or farewell gatherings. This makes it clear that everyday objects were part of social relationships and cultural values. The project helps to improve our understanding of the diversity of past ways of life. It shows that even in antiquity, globalisation was not a single, uniform process, but was experienced and shaped differently at the local level. The results contribute to a better understanding of cultural identity, adaptation, and social cohesion in a connected worldtopics that remain highly relevant to society today.