Vegetation recolonisation of abandoned agricultural terraces on Antikythera, Greece (original) (raw)
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Vegetation recolonisation of abandoned agricultural terraces on Antikythera, Greece (2010)
Environmental Archaeology 15.1: 64-80, 2010
Antikythera is a small, relatively remote Mediterranean island, lying 35 km north-west of Crete, and its few contemporary inhabitants live mainly in the small village at the only port. However, an extensive network of terraces across the island bears witness to the past importance of farming on the island, although the intensity of use of these cultivated plots has changed according to fluctuating population levels. Most recently, the rural population and intensity of cultivation have dramatically declined. Our aim is to understand the recolonisation process of agricultural land by plants after terraces are no longer used for the cultivation of crops. The results demonstrate a relatively quick pace of vegetative recolonisation, with abandoned farm land covered by dense scrub within 20 to 60 years. The archaeological implications are that, following even relatively short periods of abandonment, the landscape would have required arduous reinvestment in the removal of scrub growth, as well as the repair and construction of stone terraces, to allow cultivation once again.
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The long-term ecology of agricultural terraces and enclosed fields from Antikythera, Greece (2013)
Human Ecology, 2013
Terraces are ubiquitous, in some ways defining, features of Mediterranean environments, yet their longer-term history and relationship to human populations and food economies are not well understood. This paper discusses a complete system of terraces across the small island of Antikythera, Greece. We bring together the evidence from archaeology, ethnography, archival history, botany and geoarchaeology, supported by direct dating of buried terrace soils, and consider terrace investment in relation to major episodes in the island’s punctuated history of human activity. This broad-spectrum approach leads to a range of interesting insights on the spatial structure of terraces, on the degree of correlation between terrace construction and changing human population, and on the implications of terrace abandonment for vegetation and soils.
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Environmental Management, 2008
Agricultural landscapes illustrate the impact of human actions on physical settings, and differential human pressures cause these landscapes to change with time. Our study explored changes in the terraced landscapes of Nisyros Island, Greece, focusing on the socioeconomic aspects during two time periods using field data, cadastral research, local documents, and published literature, as well as surveys of the islanders. Population increases during the late 19th to early 20th centuries marked a significant escalation of terrace and dry stone wall construction, which facilitated cultivation on 58.4% of the island. By the mid-20th century, the economic collapse of agricultural activities and consequent emigration caused the abandonment of cultivated land and traditional management practices, dramatically reducing farm and field numbers. Terrace abandonment continued in recent decades, with increased livestock grazing becoming the main land management tool; as a result, both farm and pasture sizes increased. Neglect and changing land use has led to deterioration and destruction of many terraces on the island. We discuss the socioeconomic and political backgrounds responsible for the land-use change before World War II (annexation of Nisyros Island by the Ottoman Empire, Italy, and Greece; overseas migration opportunities; and world transportation changes) and after the war (social changes in peasant societies; worldwide changes in agricultural production practices). The adverse landscape changes documented for Nisyros Island appear to be inevitable for modern Mediterranean rural societies, including those on other islands in this region. The island’s unique terraced landscapes may qualify Nisyros to become an archive or repository of old agricultural management techniques to be used by future generations and a living resource for sustainable management.
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Human-shaped landscape history in NE Greece. A palaeoenvironmental perspective
Following palaeobotanical, sedimentological and archaeological research recently conducted on and around the tell of Dikili Tash (Eastern Macedonia, Greece), we present continuous palaeoenvironmental data on this multiperiod site. This study combines pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs), macro-charcoal and sedimentological analyses that are compared with archaeological data from the Middle Neolithic to Antiquity period. It provides an overview of the local environment near the former Tenaghi-Philippon marsh and a comprehensive view of human impact on vegetation cover in lowlands. As early as ca. 4550 cal BCE, an initial phase of change in vegetation cover, has been recorded. This period, in the Eastern Mediterranean region, is one of intensifying human activities and social interactions into the Balkan region, which resulting in the foundation and transformation of early Late Neolithic societies. Although the palynological record does not show the crops species grown, the intensive clearance resulted in the increase of open herbaceous landscapes with anthropogenic indicators. This, as well as the increase of macro-charcoal values strongly supports a more or less continuously shaping of the landscape by human induced fires. New tree species that also became established at this time include Olea and Castanea. The presence of three main formations can be argued from the Early Neolithic to Antiquity: (1) riparian vegetation, (2) oak woodlands and (3) open vegetation in the form of wooded grasslands. Beyond the responses to climate changes, the vegetation composition reflects a regionally diversified land management system as indicated by a greater diversity in cultivated or harvested plants. The study reveals two phases of decline in land use directly on the edge of the marsh, although indicators of anthropogenic disturbance of the vegetation never entirely disappear during these periods between 3900 and 3300 cal BCE at the transition from the Late Neolithic (LNII) to the Bronze Age and from 1650 to 800 cal BCE when we observe a reorganization of the settlement on the higher slopes. In contrast, four periods are characterized by an increase in land use extension and intensification: Late Neolithic (4500–3900 cal BC); Early to Middle Bronze Age (3000–1600 cal BCE), the Iron Age (1000–800 cal BCE) and Antiquity during the Macedonian (ca. 357–148 cal BCE) and Roman periods (148 cal BCE–cal 395 CE).
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Landscape and Early Farming Settlement Dynamics In Central Greece
Geoarchaeology, 2006
Current hyperintensive surface survey in the Tanagra district of Boeotia, central Greece (J. L. Bintliff et al., 2002), together with a recent reanalysis of survey results from the Thespiae dis- trict (J. L. Bintliff et al., 1999), have led to a radical rethinking of how and where early farm- ers exploited the Greek landscape between earliest Neolithic and Early Bronze Age times. This new work is described, and its significance for the wider debates about the Greek land- scape in this period is further discussed, to demonstrate that alongside widely spaced villages in earlier Neolithic times there were also small, short-lived farms; both were associated with wetland hand cultivation. In later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age times, these locations remained, but vestigial traces discovered by hyperintensive survey methods have identified an explosion of small, short-lived, and horizontally migrating farms across the newly cleared interfluve zones. A largely lost alluvial terrace provides a major resource for the earlier, wet- land farming foci. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Quaternary Science Reviews, 2018
On the east Mediterranean island of Crete, a hierarchical society centred on large palatial complexes emerges during the Bronze Age. The economic basis for this significant social change has long been debated, particularly concerning the role of olive cultivation in the island's agricultural system. With the aim of studying vegetation changes and human management to understand the landscape history from Late Neolithic to Bronze Age, two palaeoenvironmental records have been studied at Kouremenos marsh, near the site of Palaikastro (Eastern Crete). Pollen, NPP and charcoal particles analyses evidenced seven phases of landscape change, resulting from different agricultural and pastoral practices and the use of fire probably to manage vegetation. Moreover, the Kouremenos records show the importance of the olive tree in the area. They reflect a clear trend for its increasing use and exploitation from 3600 cal yr BC (Final Neolithic) to the Early Minoan period, that is coeval with an opening of the landscape. The increase of Olea pollen was due to the expansion of the tree and its management using pruning and mechanical cleaning. The onset of olive expansion at c. 3600 cal yr BC places Crete among the first locales in the eastern Mediterranean in the management of this tree. Between c. 2780 and 2525 cal yr BC the landscape was largely occupied by olive and grasslands, coinciding with an increase in grazing practices. The high Olea pollen percentages (40-45%) suggest an intensive and large-scale exploitation of the olive tree. The results suggest that a complex and organized landscape with complementary land uses and activities was already in place since the Final Neolithic. The notable expansion of olive trees suggests the relevance of olive exploitation in the socioeconomic development of Minoan towns of eastern Crete. Other crops, such as cereals and vine, and activities such as grazing have also played an important role in the configuration of the past landscape.
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