This book closes by returning to the problem of the polis, and to considering the extent to which a fresh approach can contribute new thoughts to an old debate. In considering what exactly an ancient city was, its activities are emphasised: the fact that a city formed political and economic connection with its neighbours helped to define it. The potentials and pitfalls of modelling for historical enquiry are considered, and the case is made for a more data-driven and ‘scientific’ classical archaeology of the next generation.

This chapter begins by considering the pattern of archaeology in Greece form the past 100 years that has generated huge datasets – and that these datasets have been largely under deployed in making historical conclusions about Greece of the seventh and sixth centuries BC. After reviewing the history of scholarship on ‘Archaic Greece’ (and the relative quietness of scholarship on this topic in the most recent decades) this chapter considers ways in which the huge amount of data from Archaic Greece could be organised and analysed. Various methods from the Digital Humanities are considered, with discussion focusing also on data cleaning and organisation, before proposing that network analysis will be a useful framework for this study in making clear the ways in which the first communities of Archaic Greece formed economic and political alliances – and rivalries – with one another.

Chapter 2 explores archaeological evidence for housing in mainland Greece, the eastern Aegean islands, and Greek settlements on the west coast of Asia Minor. The period covered runs from around 950 BCE to about 600 BCE. The Chapter highlights the fact that a growth in the scale and complexity of the communities themselves during this period was accompanied by the creation of a broader variety of buildings with more specialised roles, as well as by an increase in the size and segmentation of residential buildings. While the exact reason for this change in domestic architecture cannot be pinpointed (and may have been different in different settlements) social factors are suggested as playing a significant role. The Chapter discusses how to interpret the archaeological remains at a number of sites including: Nichoria (Peloponnese), Eretria (Euboia), Lefkandi Toumba (Euboia), Skala Oropou (Attica) and Zagora (Andros). Emphasis is placed on the diversity of house forms in different locations and on differences in the ways in which houses changed through time.