Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep Approaching the early Greek Colonization in Southern Italy: Ceramic local production and imports in the Siritis area (Basilicata) Giacomo Eramo a, ⁎ , Italo M. Muntoni b , Savino Gallo c , Antonio De Siena d a Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e Geoambientali, Università degli Studi “Aldo Moro”, via Orabona 4, 70125 Bari, Italy b Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le Province di Barletta - Andria - Trani e Foggia, Via Alberto Alvarez Valentini 8, 71121 Foggia, Italy c Polo Museale Regionale della Basilicata, Recinto II D'Addozio 15, 75100 Matera, Italy d già Soprintendente Archeologo della Basilicata, via Andrea Serrao 1 - Palazzo Loffredo, 85100 Potenza, Italy ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Policoro Magna Graecia Corinthian ware Greek-type ware Oenotrians ABSTRACT The paper presents archaeometric analyses (OM, XRPD and XRF) of Greek imports, Greek-type pottery, local reference materials of Orientalising Period (7th century BC) from the modern city of Policoro (Basilicata), in the area of ancient settlement of Siris/Polìeion along the Ionian Sea coast. The 34 potsherds can be divided into eight different fabrics for their composition and grain-size distribution. Fabrics IC, ICP, ICC and ICA (n = 27) can be ascribed to the use of a Ca-rich clay, while fabrics QA, IGC, Q and IA (n = 7) to the use of a Ca-poor clay. Pottery made of calcareous clay can be associated with four clay samples from the local marine Plio-Pleistocene clay and fluvial deposits, with significant elutriation as inferred from its very fine texture and chemical variability. Pottery made of non-calcareous clays shows very different non-plastic inclusions (mudstones, chert and quar- zarenitic as well as calcareous clasts) which suggest non-local production, with different imports from Greece, such us Corinthian amphorae, Subgeometric pottery and surprisingly also firing pots (chytrai). The Ca-poor samples show a general low to medium sintering (500 < Tmax < 800 °C), while Ca-rich show high sintering (900 < Tmax < 1050 °C). 1. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to define the peculiarities of the Greek- type pottery (also known as “colonial pottery”) produced by groups of people of Greek origins settled on the Ionic coast of Basilicata in the 7th century BC (mainly in the sites of Policoro and Incoronata). Greek-type pottery was produced in loco and is characterised by higher quality of aesthetic and technological features compared with those of the in- digenous populations. The understanding of these aspects of the ma- terial culture, contributes to the current debate about intercultural contact and cooperation, at various levels, between the new Greek settlers and the indigenous Chones/Oenotrians (Denti and Villette, 2013; Osanna, 2012; Swift, 2011). In this context we aim to study the sociocultural interaction be- tween the new Greek settlers and the Chones - mainly focusing on Greek imports, Greek-type pottery, typical matt painted pottery and local re- ference materials. In order to do this, the following two points were considered: 1) Local vs. import from Greece. We carried out archaeometric characterisation studies on pottery samples in order to establish the compositional and technological aspects of this production, and to compare it with clay outcrops available on site and likely extracted from the subcoastal area. 2) Use of local or proximal clay in the case of local production of pottery. Another goal of this study is to analyze the retrievalstrategies of the raw material used by the most likely allochthonous Greek potters, compared with the strategies of local populations (Chones) that knew the clay sources. 2. Early Greek Colonization in the Ionian region From the 10th century BC, in the central part of the Mediterranean Sea there was an intensification of trade that led, starting from the mid 8th century BC, to the beginning of the vast and profound phenomenon known with the conventional term of Greek colonization in the West, defined as "a great episode of cultural transfer" (Torelli, 2011). The ones that started these sea transfers, which in the following centuries in- volved a multitude of people, goods and knowledge, were at first the Phoenicians, and shortly after the Euboeans, the inhabitants of the is- land north of Attica. The latter, between the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 8th century BCE controlled the maritime route to the Tyrrhenian Sea for commercial purposes, in order to acquire raw metal https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.01.021 Received 14 July 2016; Received in revised form 18 December 2017; Accepted 19 January 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: giacomo.eramo@uniba.it (G. Eramo). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 21 (2018) 995–1008 Available online 01 February 2018 2352-409X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T