This volume presents papers from a round table conference held in St Petersburg in 2005. After an introductory survey of the key issues in contemporary studies of Archaic Greece by John Boardman, the papers deal with the following major themes: Archaic art; the Greek polis (forms and rates of development); and colonisation (models and evolution, relations between Greeks and non-Greeks). Attention is directed to the Greek city-states of the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, to the penetration of Greek culture to the East and West, and to the trade relations of the Greek cities.