Local Agency in an Interconnected World: Exploring the Impact of Regional Interaction on Social, Cultural and Political Changes in the 2nd Millennium BCE North Aegean from the Perspective of Local Communities

• Applicant: Dr. Filip Frankovic
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 555531341

This project explores the impact of regional interaction on social, cultural and political changes in the 2nd millennium BCE North Aegean. Recent research deconstructs the idea that the North Aegean represented a mere periphery of the “Minoan” and “Mycenaean” civilizations, and argues instead for its independent and dynamic character with a clear tendency for divergent social, cultural and political developments in its various subregions. Moreover, it demonstrates that the complexity in the distribution of material culture and practices emerged from North Aegean communities’ active participation in various intra- and interregional interaction networks. Following this premise, instead of focusing on the origin and dissemination of specific resources, objects and practices, this project examines how local communities actively used them in creating their own social realities, as well as how such local strategies led to divergent social, cultural and political developments in the respective subregions of the North Aegean. The project defines four research problems. First, some subregions, such as the Northern Sporades, remain largely unexplored, which hinders a better understanding of regional interaction. Second, the overemphasised focus on “foreign” influences (e.g., Mycenaean) in some subregions, such as Thessaly, resulted in a poor understanding of local developments. Third, exact interaction networks, their gradual changes and roles of specific sites in such networks remain understood only to a limited extent. Fourth, the influence of local communities on the distribution of material forms and practices remains insufficiently explored. These research problems are addressed through: (1) a detailed exploration of a case study area, consisting of Magnesia, the Northern Sporades, East Lokris and the Northern Euboean Gulf, and (2) a regional-scale analysis. In the case study area, the project will: (1) explore the changes in habitation patterns on the insufficiently researched Northern Sporades by conducting field research on Skopelos island, (2) explore local developments in coastal Thessaly/Magnesia by analysing Late Bronze Age material from Pefkakia Magoula, and (3) compare the results to patterns documented in the neighbouring East Locris and the Northern Euboean Gulf. The case study area will serve as a point of departure for a regional analysis which will explore: (1) formation of subregional and regional interaction networks through the application of (spatial) network analysis, (2) modes of interaction between communities with different socio-political organisations by combining micro-scale network analysis with relevant social-theory models, and (3) local responses to the introduction of new objects and practices through contextual analysis and use-wear analysis of ceramic vessels.

• DFG Programme: Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Groups