Abstract
This chapter focuses on the adoption of agricultural terracing as a technological enhancement that resulted in changes to cultivation practices and distribution and organization of farm labour. The macroscopic investigation and systematic documentation of terraces in and around the settlements of Kalamianos and Stiri in the south-eastern Corinthia in southern Greece revealed that several large systems of terraces were likely contemporary to these Late Bronze Age settlements in the productive hinterlands of nearby Argolid palace-centres like Mycenae. It is suggested here that the construction of several systems of agricultural terraces, likely achieved with some palatial support, prompted the implementation of diverse cultivation techniques that would have altered labour needs throughout the agricultural calendar. Garden terraces within the settlement of Kalamianos emphasize the variety of growing environments enabled by terraced farming and raise questions regarding the identity of farm workers and the creation of gendered agricultural spaces.
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Notes
- 1.
The Middle Bronze Age on the island of Crete, which includes the Middle Minoan IA to IIIB periods, lasts from c. 2100/2050 to 1700/1675 BC. The absolute chronology used here follows Manning (2010).
- 2.
The terraces on Kythera are dated to the Neopalatial period on Crete, which lasts from Middle Minoan IIIA to Late Minoan IB, c. 1750/1700–1470/1460 BC.
- 3.
These terraces are tentatively dated to the Minoan Proto-palatial and Neopalatial periods (Middle Minoan IB to Late Minoan IB, c. 1925/1900–1470/1460 BC) based on masonry style and associated sherds, but, as is frequently the case with terraces encountered during surface surveys, the chronology of terrace construction is based on circumstantial evidence that awaits corroboration by other means. “Sherds on the surface” (Betancourt et al. 2005), however, are not always the most reliable means of establishing a secure date, especially if they are the only factor considered, as opposed to the study presented here which examines multiple lines of evidence.
- 4.
Two terraces were excavated on the island of Pseira. Terrace G 2 is dated to the Middle Bronze Age (Middle Minoan period, c. 2100/2050–1700/1675 BC); terrace Q 21, the terrace referred to here, is dated to the Late Bronze Age (Late Minoan I, c. 1700/1675–1470/1460 BC). Q 21 appears to have been a contour terrace, although there is some confusion about its classification in the original publication (Hope Simpson et al. 2005) as well as references to it in other scholarship (Krahtopoulou and Frederick 2008).
- 5.
Analysis of the distribution of moveable finds indicate that in some cases erosional processes moved Late Bronze Age material into these basins, but not always. Early Bronze Age material, for example, was found in high density in down slope areas of a basin north of the settlement of Stiri from the settlement but no finds from that period were collected in the flat areas of the basin, whereas Late Bronze Age material was also found within the basin (Kvapil 2012).
- 6.
Palaima (2015), for example, connects the use of pairs of working oxen, loaned by the palace on Crete, to the harvest of approximately a million litres of grain, as recorded on tablet KN F(2) 852.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Tom Tartaron and Daniel Pullen for allowing and encouraging my fieldwork as part of SHARP, and the editors of this volume for their insightful comments on the text.
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Kvapil, L.A. (2021). Terraced Fields, Farming, and Farmers at the Settlements of Kalamianos and Stiri, Greece. In: Arnoldussen, S., Johnston, R., Løvschal, M. (eds) Europe's Early Fieldscapes . Themes in Contemporary Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71652-3_8
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