NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ROMAN GREECE: 

CONNECTIVITY, INTERACTION AND INNOVATION 

CONFERENCE

15th–17th May 2024 

The British School at Athens 

In her 2015 afterword to the volume "What's New in Roman Greece," Susan Alcock points out that future scholars might face challenges in fully grasping the significance and originality of the rigorous research focused on Roman Greece in recent years. While a substantial body of literature on the Roman provinces of the Greek mainland and the islands continues to be produced, there remains a compelling need for a deeper exploration of this region’s role within the intricate networks of the time. This is especially true in terms of the cross-regional and intercultural connectedness that characterised the globalising Roman world. 

The main goal of this international conference is to integrate the research on Greece during the Roman Empire and Greece’s position within the wider Roman Mediterranean into the current Roman archaeology scholarship while actively engaging with the conceptual agenda of interconnectivity, identities, and social inequalities. The conference explores how new networks of connectivity and mobility impacted Greek communities amidst the economically, socially, and politically changing climate brought by the Roman Empire. 

Sixteen papers, presented across three days, will bring together different perspectives on the effects of connections, exchange, and innovation in the region in terms of commodity flow, demography, foodways, religious interaction, social dynamics, and cultural transformations. With a strong focus on cutting-edge approaches, the conference seeks to establish an interdisciplinary dialogue, challenge existing paradigms, and stimulate fresh perspectives on the complex interplay between global connections and local innovations in Roman Greece during this dynamic period. 

The conference explores a number of key themes in the archaeology of Roman Greece: 

Theme 1 – Mobility: the effects of Mediterranean mobilities and new forms of cross-cultural interactions.

Theme 2 – ­Demographics and Society: material traces of diasporic communities, social inequalities, and communities in the making.

Theme 3 – Religious Networks: the impact of travelling objects on social practices, religious experience, and historical memory.

Theme 4 – Material Conditions: land and maritime connectivity, entangled cities, and supply networks.

Theme 5 – Material Culture: material changes, cultural exchange, and interconnected economies.