INTRODUCTION

Until recently, the study of the protohistorical societies discussed in chapter 5 was strongly overshadowed by that of the Greek colonial world. Indigenous peoples throughout the eastern and western reaches of the Greek colonial ventures have commonly been perceived as socio-politically and culturally subordinate to the Greek colonists who settled among them. In southern Italy, or Megale Hellas, most pre-Roman archaeological research concentrated on colonial Greek city-states, from Poseidonia on the Tyrrhenian coast to Sybaris and Taras along the Ionic Sea. Traditionally, these excavations focused – as many continue to do – on Greek colonization and Greek art, architecture and town planning. The merits of this research tradition are indisputable. Unfortunately, however, research of the contemporary indigenous regions was in no way comparable. If these regions were studied at all, it was primarily when indigenous burial grounds were found to contain vast numbers of Greek vases and other artefacts, the style and iconography of which appealed to researchers. At the same time, such finds were seen as a confirmation of the widespread power of Hellenization, the concept denoting the diffusion of Greek culture among indigenous peoples. This, in turn, was felt to support the general belief in Greek cultural, political and technological superiority.

The limitations of this ‘Hellenophile’ mindset have been made explicit in many publications in recent decades (see section 1.1.3). One aspect of this critical attitude is particularly relevant to the present study: new perspectives have been developed that expand the scope of Classical Archaeology to include regions that the Greeks considered marginal. Recent problem-oriented fieldwork in some of these regions has revealed that many non-Greek groups were far less ‘behind’ with respect to the Greek city states than previously presumed. It was the explicit aim of the RPC research team to investigate these issues. In this chapter we seek to contribute towards that goal, especially with regard to early Greek colonization in southern Italy, which took place roughly in the eighth and seventh centuries BC. Two of the RPC study regions, the Sybaris region and the Salento isthmus, offer ample scope for a reassessment of long-standing perceptions of Greek impact on local societies.