Over the last decade, studies of the foundation and development of Greek settlements around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea have been caught up in globalization dialogues. Network models have been put forward to explain the complex web of interactions between different communities, the development of new ways of doing things, and the formation of a ‘small Greek world’ attendant with this expansion (Malkin, Reference Malkin2011; see also e.g. Hodos, Reference Hodos2010; van Dommelen, Reference van Dommelen and Hodos2017). This volume occupies a unique position in this dialogue, as it grew out of a conference from 2007 that in many ways sat at the early stages of these discussions.
The conference marked the end of a Leverhulme Trust-funded project (2004–2007) led by Martin Millett with the editors of this volume (Lucas, Murray, Owen) as research associates. The project, ‘Greek colonisation: Its impact on Europe’, was designed to look at understudied regions of Greek colonisation, the roles and agency of communities involved and how these relationships changed through time. Delays in publication mean that the proceedings of this conference were published in 2019. Thus, since there are few references past 2007, these papers serve as a time capsule, representing a dynamic moment in time in the study of the phenomenon known as ancient Greek colonisation. This was a time when the anachronism of the term colonisation for ancient Greek settlements abroad was well established (e.g. Hurst & Owen, Reference Hurst and Owen2005) and postcolonial approaches were starting to be embraced by some in order to address the frustration of entrenched binary Hellenisation interpretations (e.g. Malkin, Reference Malkin2004; Hodos, Reference Hodos2006). This volume sits at the edge of this period—indeed citing Hodos (Reference Hodos2006) and Hurst & Owen (Reference Hurst and Owen2005) as inspirations—engaged as it is in the coloniser/local binary but striving to find models for thinking beyond it. It is a time capsule in part, but also a very timely reminder of where the study of the more peripheral regions of the ancient Greek world has gone in the last fifteen years and, more importantly, of valuable avenues of investigation that have been neglected in the process.
After a foreword (Millett) and introduction (Murray & Lucas), the volume is organised by geographic area: western and central Mediterranean, Thrace, and the Black Sea. While inclusion of Greek settlements in the western Mediterranean and the Black Sea in discussions of Greek colonisation is currently more common in English language publications, this was only starting to be the case in the early 2000s. In particular, this volume reflects a time when work from colleagues in the Black Sea region had started to be published in English (as well as German and French) in earnest, opening up this region for consideration in larger narratives of Greek colonisation. This volume's focus on regions that had traditionally been less considered is clear (nine of the thirteen case study papers consider regions other than the central Mediterranean), although the geographic organisation masks some of the more interesting thematic connections between papers.
Some of these themes, which are laid out in the introduction, are ones that have been championed by globalization and network approaches and have been more fully developed in the past decade. These themes, including an emphasis on the agency of local populations, the importance of a regional perspective, and the transformation of social practices, are developed in a number of the papers.
Murray's chapter (Ch. 2), in what serves as an extended introduction to the aims of the original Leverhulme project, investigates the ways in which the physical spaces of settlement and cemetery can be understood as the ‘result of social action’ (p.7). Through a confident discussion of wide-ranging examples from the Greek west, she considers the social choices involved in the foundation of settlements, changes in the use and organisation of space and the development of architectural and burial styles, and the ways in which these can inform the nature of interactions between colonisers, locals, and the metropoleis. This is a well-evidenced consideration of the role of the built environment in transforming social dynamics between communities, building on postcolonial ‘middle ground’ theorising (e.g. Malkin, Reference Malkin2004) and looking forward to ‘globalization’ narratives of material culture transformation (e.g. Hodos, Reference Hodos2010). Domínguez (Ch. 3), although not explicitly theorised as such, also looks forward to global/local narratives of ancient Greek colonization in a reconstruction of the conditions of Locrian colonisation in Magna Graecia, using the ancient literary tradition and archaeology. After discussing the ancient sources and the larger context of Greek trade, he turns his attention to the expansion of territory and the relationship between colonists and natives, emphasising the textual and archaeological evidence for continued native settlements and their implications for the development of Locris.
Similarly, several chapters in this volume view trade networks as nested and intersecting spheres of social interaction in the colonial context, a theme that has also continued to develop more explicitly in network approaches to the ancient Mediterranean (e.g. Tartaron, Reference Tartaron2013). For example, Miro i Alaix (Ch. 6) discusses the Attic red-figure pottery from Emporion as a reflection of trade relations in the Mediterranean in the fifth and fourth centuries bce, arguing for an interesting model of trade, redistribution and consumption, with Emporion at the centre and varied connections to coastal and inland settlements. Focusing on the north coast of the Black Sea, Petropoulos (Ch. 13) develops a model of early trade into the forest steppe region driven by Greeks (rather than Scythians) based on distributions of early Greek pottery. Although the contention that Bel'sk was the Gelonos described by Herodotus is not sufficient to argue for a Greek contingent at this multifaceted, fortified forest-steppe settlement, the comparisons with southern France and the chora of Metaponto are welcome and foreshadow an increasing trend to consider the development of Greek settlements and trade relationships in a comparative perspective (e.g. Handberg & Jacobsen, Reference Handberg, Jacobsen, Gleba and Horsnaes2011).
Other of the themes laid out in the introduction of this volume, however, are ones that have been neglected in more recent discussions of ancient Greek settlements abroad and the papers that consider them here are welcome reminders of their importance. These themes include the role of the landscape as actor and the emphasis on multiple colonisers and multiple local groups.
The active role of landscape and settlement patterns in shaping the experience and development of cultural interactions has not been a key focus of investigations of Greek settlements abroad over the past decade but several papers in this volume remind us why this is such a fruitful avenue of research (see also Rempel & Doonan, Reference Rempel and Doonan2020). For example, Lucas (Ch. 5) looks at the impact of the foundation of Massalia on Early Iron Age southern France and its complex network of small-scale polities. Using a database of sites from regional surveys that was created as part of the original Leverhulme project, Lucas traces a rich picture of a dynamic settlement pattern from the eighth century bce, in which the impact of the foundation of Massalia—along with a shift towards the coastal region and possibly increased nucleation—is part of a continuum. This data is then used to nuance Dietler's (Reference Dietler2005) arguments about wine production and Gaulish feasting practices ‘amplified through access to Greek material culture’ (p.73). Although a more explicit consideration of the changing settlement patterns in relation to Dietler's consumption framework would have been interesting, Lucas’ perspective continues to be pertinent as it refocuses the picture to place Massalia at the fringes of larger regional settlement dynamics.
The contributions by Braund (Ch. 14), Bujskikh & Bujskikh (Ch. 12) and Bylkova (Ch. 10) all consider the settlement and riverine landscapes in the territory around ancient Olbia in southern Ukraine. Braund marshals the history, archaeology and epigraphy of Olbia to consider its location on the bank of the Bug as a reflection of local interactions and Greek knowledge of the landscape. Bylkova in particular embraces the potential of a landscape approach to de-centre the colonial by developing a model for the integration of Greek settlers into the existing landscapes of the lower Dnieper, based on differing practices of land use by the Scythian and Greek populations. Permanent settlements in this region were only established in the late fifth/mid fourth centuries bce but Bylkova outlines key differences (settlement organisation, construction, agricultural activities, cult practice) between the northern settlements, along the terraces of the lower Dnieper and its tributaries, and those at the southern, coastal end of the river. She argues that they represent Scythian and Greek settlements respectively and, while these broad cultural labels are essentializing, the larger argument that the communities in each group of settlements were responding to a different ‘line of landscape use’ (p. 154) is intriguing.
A second theme that is strong in this volume, but one that has been neglected in more recent scholarship, is the recognition of the multiplicity of communities, Greek and other, involved in the foundation of Greek settlements abroad and the ways in which the particular communities involved in the foundation of any one settlement impacted local experiences. Tusa, who tragically passed away in 2019 and to whom this volume is dedicated in memoriam, provides a clear example of the power of this approach. His paper (Ch. 4) traces the ancient cultural and ethnic dynamics in Sicily, arguing that regional divisions that existed from Bronze Age through Early Iron Age migrations from Italy as well as contact with North Africa, Phoenicia, and Greece means that there cannot be a generalised discussion of Sicilian colonisation. Even within the Elymian regions during the Early Iron Age, Tusa traces a range of interactions between various groups using textual and archaeological evidence. In the final paper in the volume, Greaves (Ch. 15) shifts the focus of this approach to the Greek metropoleis, arguing that they were not ‘mono-cultural’ (p. 239) and that local and regional conditions of the settlers’ home cities would necessarily have informed their experience of colonisation.
Some of the papers in this volume are more descriptive, including Gotzev (Ch. 7, Pistiros), Lungu (Ch. 9, Orgame), Triandaphyllos (Ch. 8, Aegean Thrace) and these perhaps suffer the most from the lag to publication as they do not include the most recent research on their sites or regions and/or the results have been covered in more recent publications. In particular, Solovyov's paper (Ch. 11), on Borysthenes and Olbia, a clear and well-illustrated summary of his arguments about the nature of the settlement at Berezan, is republished from another conference proceedings (Solovyov, Reference Solovyov and Solovyov2010). On a related note, several papers—Bujskikh & Bujskikh, Bylkova and Petropoulos—engage in arguments about the interpretation of dugout structures in the north coast of the Black Sea, implicitly or explicitly disagreeing with Solovyov's view that they were inhabited by non-Greeks. These arguments represent a delayed final flourish of this debate over the interpretation of these semi-subterranean structures as ‘Greek’ or ‘Scythian’ (see Tsetskhladze, Reference Tsetskhladze and Tuplin2004 for an argumentative summary), one that has largely been made redundant in light of postcolonial and globalization interpretations.
Despite the fact that some of the papers have been superseded by publications in the intervening years and the use and quality of illustrations being very inconsistent (in particular, many readers might have appreciated an overview map of the locations discussed and more maps within the papers themselves), this volume should still be of interest. It is valuable to advanced students and researchers interested in the archaeology of ancient Greek settlements founded throughout the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, as well as the development of more recent theoretical frameworks for understanding them. It is not simply a historical document, however; this volume serves as a stimulating and welcome reminder of the potential of avenues and evidence that have been somewhat neglected in more recent discussions of ancient Greek ‘colonization’.
