CityLife investigates urban living in Thessaloniki, one of Europe’s oldest continuously inhabited cities characterised by remarkable social, cultural, and demographic diversity. The project places Thessaloniki at the core of its research, using archaeological evidence from the city’s excavations to explore patterns of urban life across time. Complementary evidence from selected rural and peri-urban settlement contexts is incorporated comparatively, in order to examine broader urban-rural dynamics and regional interactions.
The CityLife Project prioritizes the dignified and respectful treatment of archaeological human remains in accordance with established ethical and scientific principles. All destructive sampling methods were carefully justified to ensure an optimal balance between advancing scientific knowledge and preserving these irreplaceable collections, in full accordance with Open Access and FAIR data standards.
This project received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 101126337). CityLife is hosted at the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology, Department of Humanities, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.