Im Westen was Neues!?

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The so-called Greek colonisation has long been a very controversially discussed field in Ancient Studies. In recent years, a large part of the dispute has particularly concentrated on the applicability of colonial conceptions to these migration processes, which has pushed fundamental questions - such as the reasons for emigration - into the background. The present volume re-centres interest on the question of the diverse triggers for the Greek settlement of southern Italy and Sicily. Building on models derived from historical and sociological migration research, the westward movements of Greek groups and individuals are identified as migrations and connected to a concept of resources as means for establishing, perpetuating and changing social units within the framework of culturally influenced interaction, as first developed by the SFB 1070 RESSOURCENKULTUREN at Tübingen. On the basis of published archaeological information and with the aid of written sources, the volume first examines the initial situation in the origin and destination areas. The analysis of material and immaterial resources then forms the core of the book. Access to them either had a decisive influence on positive decisions to migrate or, in contrast to earlier ideas, played only a minor role. For example, it becomes clear that characterisations of Greek apoikiai as planned "agrarian colonies" and/or bases for the export of raw materials to the Greek core territory are misleading. Rather, we have to think in terms of longer-lasting and developing settlement processes which followed very diverse sets of motivations. Especially activities connected to the increase or re-gaining of social prestige and status were of crucial importance, this was entirely independent of whether the actors involved were seafaring elites or mobile potters. A further important factor are locally divergent contacts to the already resident Italic or Sicilian populations, which cannot be adequately described with reference to primarily ethnically defined lines of conflict. Thus, the present volume on the one hand offers a migration-centred perspective on the origins of Greek relocations to Sicily and southern Italy, and on the other hand emphasises the intricacy and the processual character of the establishment of Greek settlements on new, but not foreign territory.