Agricultural Adaptations During the Late Bronze Age: Archaeobotanical Evidence from Sovjan, Albania, and Tsoungiza, Greece
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Agricultural Adaptations during the Late Bronze Age: Archaeobotanical Evidence from Sovjan, Albania, and Tsoungiza, Greece A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Anthropology of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences 2012 by Kathleen M. Forste B.A., University of Cincinnati, 2011 Committee: Susan E. Allen, Ph.D., Chair Alan P. Sullivan, III, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the relationship between humans and their environment during the Late Bronze Age (LBA) (ca. 1600-1000 BC) in southern Europe. By studying archaeobotanical assemblages recovered through spatially intensive sampling methods from the LBA deposits from Sovjan, Albania, and Tsoungiza, Greece, agricultural regimes and landuse practices are examined in light of the increasing aridity and increasing seasonality of precipitation that characterizes the environment of this period. The dissimilar geographic and climatological settings of these sites suggest that their respective populations would develop different agricultural strategies to minimize the risks associated with such climatological fluctuations. However, I argue that the inhabitants of Sovjan and Tsoungiza practiced two of the same risk-mitigating strategies: (1) the selection of einkorn and barley, the grains most tolerant to a wide range of environmental conditions, as agricultural staples, and (2) the diversification of their consumable plant resource base. These data, combined with ecological information from the plant taxa recovered, provide detailed information that can be used to evaluate and enhance models of agriculture and landuse for this time period. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Susan Allen for introducing me to archaeobotany. Her mentorship and enthusiasm have not only helped me to develop a great appreciation and interest in these remains and the valuable information that they can provide, but also to become more insightful and confident in archaeological pursuits and personal interactions. Secondly, I would like to thank my parents, who were always there to listen and offer encouragement. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Alan Sullivan, whose constant mentorship throughout my academic career has provided invaluable insights into the world of archaeology and beyond. i TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………...i Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………………….ii List of Figures………………………………………………………………………….…………iii List of Tables………………………………………………………………………………….…..v Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………...…………………………………………….1 Chapter 2: The Environment and Archaeology of Sovjan Albania, and Tsoungiza, Greece……..6 Chapter 3: Recovery and Plant Identification Methods………………………………………….22 Chapter 4: Results and Analysis…………………………………………………………………34 Chapter 5: Interpretation and Conclusions………………………………………………………69 References Cited…………………………………………………………………………………90 Appendix A. Plant taxa recovered from Sovjan…………………………………………………98 Appendix B. Plant taxa recovered from Tsoungiza…………………………………………….100 Appendix C. Ecological summary of weed taxa recovered from Sovjan and Tsoungiza………103 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Map showing the location of the study sites…………………..……………………..…1 Figure 2. Plan of Sovjan excavations through 2004……………………………………………..37 Figure 3. Locus 970 from Sovjan...…………………………………………………………...…40 Figure 4. Contents of combined light and heavy fraction from Sample 2006…………..….…...40 Figure 5. Density of botanical material per liter of soil in Sample 2006……………………......41 Figure 6. Charcoal fragment of Quercus cf. robur from Sample 2006…………………..…..….42 Figure 7. Photo showing the bottom of Locus 984 and the top of Locus 987………………..…43 Figure 8. Generalized composition of frequencies of nonwood taxa categories in the Sovjan hearth samples……………………………………………………………………...….44 Figure 9. Compositional comparison of samples by relative percentages of cereal types and generalized taxa categories…………………………………………………………….45 Figure 10. Gracile Triticum glume bases from Sample 2041 (x30).…….....…………………...48 Figure 11. Robust Triticum glume bases from Sample 2041 (x30)……………………..……....48 Figure 12. Grains of Panicum miliaceum (millet) from Sample 2044 (x30)……………...….....50 Figure 13. Grains of Triticum monococcum (einkorn) from Sample 2044 (x30)...……………..50 Figure 14. Grains of Triticum dicoccum (emmer) from Sample 2044 (x20). ..………….…...…50 Figure 15. Grains of Secale cereale (rye) from Sample 2044 (x30)…………..………...…..…...51 iii Figure 16. Ternary chart showing relative percentages of grain, chaff, and weeds in the samples from Sovjan…………………………………………………………………………….54 Figure 17. Plan of EU 7 at Tsoungiza (by Julia E. Pfaff) and location of SUs from which the samples were taken……………...……………………………………………………..55 Figure 18. Grains of Hordeum vulgare (barley) from SU 1138 (x30)………...………………...58 Figure 19. Compositional comparison of sample by relative percentages of general taxa categories from SU 1154………………………………………………………………59 Figure 20. Absolute counts of weed remains from SU 1154…………………………………….60 Figure 21. Compositional comparison of samples according to cereal type and generalized taxa categories from SU 1154………………………………………………………………60 Figure 22. Grain of Hordeum hexastichum (6-rowed barley) from SU 1154 (x40)……………..61 Figure 23. Transverse views of wood charcoal specimens identified from SU 1154…………...62 Figure 24. Bar chart showing the ubiquity of Hordeum in all Tsoungiza samples.……………..66 Figure 25. Ternary chart showing diachronic patterns of Sovjan sample composition………….78 Figure 26. Cereal grain with culm partially intact from SU 1154 (x30)…………………………83 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Regional chronology of Sovjan and Tsoungiza………………………………………….7 Table 2. Strata and relative chronology at Sovjan and Tsoungiza………………………………...8 Table 3. Sovjan samples included in this study………………………………………………….34 Table 4. Tsoungiza samples included in this study………………………………………………35 Table 5. Samples analyzed by Susan E. Allen and Kathleen M. Forste…………………………38 v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This thesis explores the relationship between humans and their environment during the Late Bronze Age (LBA) (ca. 1600-1000 B.C.), with particular attention paid to how people in different environments adapted their agricultural strategies to varying environmental factors. In order to address this problem, I analyzed archaeobotanical remains from two sites that have LBA deposits: Sovjan, a site in southern Albania, and Tsoungiza, a site in southern Greece (Figure 1). These two sites were chosen for this study because of their similarity in chronology, size, and archaeobotanical recovery techniques that include a spatially intensive sampling strategy. As these sites are situated in slightly different environmental settings, for which palaeoenvironmental and climatic data are available, they offer an opportunity to compare strategies of human adaptation. Environmental data indicate that the LBA was a time of great climatological fluctuation, trending towards warmer and drier conditions, with increased seasonality of precipitation, which would likely have necessitated that the occupants of these sites adapt accordingly. Figure 1. Map showing the locations of the study sites. 1 In addition to providing direct evidence of the plants utilized by LBA populations at these sites, these archaeobotanical assemblages also represent selected resources from the plant communities that these people manipulated in their agricultural practices. A total of 43 samples is investigated (14 from Sovjan and 29 from Tsoungiza). All of the investigated samples represent similar domestic contexts, including hearths, ovens, pits and floors. In addition to the remains of cultivars, weed seeds and wood were identified to enable more accurate inferences to be made about human-plant interactions and a more accurate reconstruction of the sites’ environments during the LBA. The analysis of regional pollen samples and solar radiation records, based on 10Be and 14C proxies measured from tree rings and ice cores indicates climatological fluctuations during the LBA, specifically seasonal change in precipitation and temperature (Allen in press; Atherden et al. 1993; Bordon et al. 2009; Fouache et al. 2010; Magny et al. 2009; Moody 2005). Coupling the archaeobotanical data and climatological data enables the assessment of a “complex mosaic of human action… and natural change” during the LBA (Fisher et al. 2009:5). Archaeobotany Archaeobotany is the recovery and study of plant remains found in archaeological contexts. People working in the New World make a distinction between archaeobotany and palaeoethnobotany, the former being the methodological aspect, and the latter being the interpretive aspect (Hastorf and Popper 1988; Pearsall 2010). However, people working in the Old World do not make such a differentiation. Thus, as archaeobotany is always considered to be primarily about human behavior, these terms can be used interchangeably. 2 There is an increasing recognition of the importance of archaeobotany in archaeological research. The revitalization and expansion of this field is strongly evidenced by work conducted in the 1980s, during which great attention was paid to refining sampling strategies and understanding their problems, developing more precise recovery methods than previously employed, and analyzing archaeobotanical remains in conjunction with other lines of evidence. Christine Hastorf