4 The archaeology of Byzantine Thrace: The state of research (2015–2025) and future directions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This article offers a critical synthesis of recent archaeological research on Byzantine Thrace (seventh–fourteenth centuries), emphasizing work undertaken in Bulgaria, Greece, and Türkiye over the past decade. Drawing on systematic excavations, regional surveys, and interdisciplinary projects, we highlight how new discoveries and re-examinations of legacy data have significantly reshaped our understanding of the landscape, settlements, and modes of connectivity in this strategically vital region. Key themes include long-term human–environment interactions, settlement hierarchies, and the interplay between urban and rural landscapes. Case studies of fortified centres such as Skopelos, Philippopolis, and Karasura reveal Thrace’s integration into imperial defence and trade networks, while investigations of port landscapes at Firuzköy, Ainos, and sites along the Black Sea coast underscore the centrality of waterways in structuring economic and social life. Research on monastic landscapes, from Mount Papikion to the Kosmosoteira monastery at Bera, demonstrates how religious communities functioned as hubs of economic production and aristocratic patronage. Parallel studies of rural and rupestrian sites highlight the dynamism of the countryside, challenging urban-centric models and foregrounding the adaptability of local populations to political and environmental change. Beyond individual sites, these findings reframe Thrace not as a peripheral hinterland but as a mosaic of interconnected microregions, each shaped by distinct ecological, cultural, and geopolitical conditions. They reveal both resilience and innovation in the face of shifting imperial borders, foreign incursions, and long-term environmental transformation. Yet the study also underscores the need for greater cross-border collaboration, as modern political boundaries continue to fragment the region’s archaeological record. By integrating diverse datasets and advocating for a transnational approach, this review situates Byzantine Thrace within broader Mediterranean discourse and highlights its potential to illuminate processes of connectivity, resilience, and change across the Byzantine world.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".