Boundaries Archaeology: Economy, Sacred Places, Cultural Influences in the Ionian and Adriatic Areas: Introductory Notes

The territories of the Adriatic and the Ionian area were separated from each other both from a political and a cultural point of view. Because of this circumstance, they represent a suitable area for the study of commercial and cultural exchange. This meeting of cultures generated mutual influences and cultural osmosis in various ways and at different times, and was linked to different historical and geographical contexts, which nevertheless sometimes generated similar results. Recent archaeological research allows us to assume that sanctuaries and sacred places are suitable contexts in which these phenomena can be analysed, as they were places in which large amounts of people gathered and centres of cultural mediation that were involved in economic and political interests