Shaping Regionality in Socio-Economic Systems: Late Hellenistic - Late Roman Ceramic Production, Circulation, and Consumption in Boeotia, Central Greece (c. 150 BC–AD 700)

Shaping Regionality in Socio-Economic Systems: Late Hellenistic-Late Roman Ceramic Production, Circulation, and Consumption in Boeotia, Central Greece (c. 150 BC-AD 700) sheds some necessary light on local economies from the (late) Hellenistic to the Late Roman period. The concepts of regions and regionality are employed to explore the complexity of ancient economies and (ceramic) variability and change in Boeotia (Central Greece), largely on the basis of the survey data generated by the Boeotia Project for Thespiae, Askra, Hyettos, Tanagra and their surroundings. The analysis illustrates the existence of a range of (micro-)regions within Boeotia that are characterised by patterns and differences in ceramic production, variable intensities of interaction in larger networks, and consumer preferences and/or variability in aspects of consumption. By putting this patterning in a broader context, this study shows that spatio-temporal differences in the production and circulation of pottery (as well as differences in something which might be called the ‘performance’ of ancient economies) are shaped by geographical factors, by the ways in which communities and interaction were organised institutionally, by aspects of agency and by the unfolding of history. Although we can observe these three main factors that contributed to the shaping of regional differences, such processes were contextually-embedded and took root on a very local scale through various forms of agency and consumption practices. The book shows that we can gain a better understanding of the ways in which regions emerged, were articulated, and maintained, and how regions and local economies functioned from within through the detailed study of ceramics and other relevant data on Boeotia and the wider ancient world.