How did the Greek world come into being?

By c.550 BCE, the Greek world was a culturally integrated but geographically dispersed entity, comprising over a thousand autonomous communities scattered across the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Migration was a crucial factor in its formation. Yet the nature and scale of this migration remain poorly understood, and there is much heated debate over whether it should be termed ‘colonisation’.

This project attempts to break the stalemate, using an interdisciplinary methodology that combines theories from human geography and migration studies, new settlement and environmental data from archaeological survey, and the testimony of ancient literary sources.

This project will have implications for how we conceptualise the fundamental nature of the ancient Greek world, opening up new horizons within the disciplines of ancient cultural and political history. It will also set new agendas for research into past mobilities and the archaeology of migration.