For context, I'm a writer and am working on a story for an anthology with an ancient Greek theme. I studied history in college and had some courses on ancient slavery and society. I've still got the books and have been reading through them, and think I'll be setting my story in Chios around the eighth century BC. I'm very interested in reports, as from Theopompos, about the development of large-scale chattel slavery in the Greek world potentially originating on Chios, along with the development of an export economy (particularly of wine). The book I'm reading suggests it may have occurred in the centuries preceding the classical period, and I hope to depict a fictional version of perhaps the very early stages of this (with other elements related to Chios in this period, particularly including the legendary accounts of it as the alleged birthplace of Homer).
I'm just beginning my research but have some books on Greek slavery (Slavery in Classical Greece by N.R.E. Fisher and Greek & Roman Slavery by Thomas Wiedemann). However, I'm curious if there are any sources that might touch on social or cultural histories either of Chios in particular or of Ionia at large in that period. Material culture, architecture, religion (local cults?), food, political life before the classical period, anything that would flesh out the setting a bit more.
I know this period is more defined by holes than by strong historical records, and I initially became interested in Chios mainly because, as far as sources go on ancient Greek slavery, it is one of the few cities we have much of note on outside of Athens and Sparta. So I'd appreciate any and all suggestions that might relate, even tangentially. Thank you!
A bit of a tangent, perhaps, but the birthplace of "Homer" -- if he did ever exist, and if he was a single person, is hard to pin-point. Chios is one place where he is said to have been born; the other is Smyrna. Modern politics has ensured that no one place has been positively identied as his birthplace, if such is even possible (it isn't: we know nothing of "Homer the man"). Chios, of course, is a part of Greece, whereas ancient Smyrna lies in within Turkish borders. It is in the interest of modern Greece to lay claim to the birthplace of Homer, as it is also in the interest of modern Turkey (viz. the cradle of Anatolian civilizations). But that's a different discussion.
And then there's the question of when Homer was supposed to have lived. Scholarship has, over the past few decades, pushed his floruit further down, from the late eighth century BC to around 700 BC and now even the early seventh century BC, to the point that Christoph Ulf, in his chapter in A Companion to Archaic Greece (2009), edited by Kurt Raaflaub and Hans van Wees, writes that the epics are "generally dated to 750-650 in histories of Greek literature" (p. 81), so "Homer" must have been around back then. But the Greek world changed in that century in marked ways, so that's hardly helpful. Modern consensus, such as it is, favours a lower date, closer to 650 than 750 BC; for an archaeological investigation, see Jan Paul Crielaard's “Homer, History and Archaeology: Some Remarks on the Date of the Homeric World,” in his edited volume Homeric Questions (1995), pp. 201–88.
With regards to sources that you could use on Archaic Ionia, a good starting point would be Alan M. Greaves's The Land of Ionia: Society and Economy in the Archaic Period (2010).; the bibliography is extensive, so you're likely to find further references there. For something more foundational and wide-reaching, to get a better understanding of the Archaic period as a whole, I recommend Jonathan M. Hall's A HIstory of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200-479 BC (second edition, 2014). It is probably the single best book that you can read to get a handle on Archaic Greece.
Hope this helps!