Detecting Mobility in Early Iron Age Thessaly by Strontium Isotope Analysis
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European Journal of Archaeology 21 (4) 2018, 590–611 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Detecting Mobility in Early Iron Age Thessaly by Strontium Isotope Analysis 1 2 3 ELENI PANAGIOTOPOULOU ,JANET MONTGOMERY ,GEOFF NOWELL , 3 4 4 JOANNE PETERKIN ,ARGIRO DOULGERI-INTZESILOGLOU ,POLIXENI ARACHOVITI , 5 6 STILIANI KATAKOUTA AND FOTINI TSIOUKA 1Institute of Archaeology, University of Groningen, The Netherlands 2Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK 3Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, UK 4Ephorate of Antiquities of Magnesia, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Volos, Greece 5Ephorate of Antiquities of Larisa, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Larisa, Greece 6Ephorate of Antiquities of Karditsa, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Karditsa, Greece This article presents evidence of population movements in Thessaly, Greece, during the Early Iron Age (Protogeometric period, eleventh–ninth centuries BC). The method we employed to detect non-local indi- viduals is strontium isotope analysis (87Sr/86Sr) of tooth enamel integrated with the contextual analysis of mortuary practices and osteological analysis of the skeletal assemblage. During the Protogeometric period, social and cultural transformations occurred while society was recovering from the disintegration of the Mycenaean civilization (twelfth century BC). The analysis of the cemeteries of Voulokaliva, Chloe, and Pharsala, located in southern Thessaly, showed that non-local individuals integrated in the commu- nities we focused on and contributed to the observed diversity in burial practices and to the develop- ments in the formation of a social organization. Keywords: Early Iron Age, Greece, strontium isotope analysis, population mobility, Thessaly INTRODUCTION investigate diet, chronology, and metal and ceramic production in Early Iron Age This article consists of an investigation of Greece (Papathanasiou, 2013; Toffolo population movements in Thessaly during et al., 2013; Rückl, 2014; Orfanou, 2015; the post-Mycenaean period (Early Iron Panagiotopoulou & Papathanasiou, 2015; Age, tenth–ninth centuries BC), using Triantaphyllou, 2015). While strontium strontium isotope analysis of human tooth isotope analysis has been previously con- enamel. Previous research on this period ducted on Greek assemblages (Richards, has primarily focused on the analysis of 2008;Nafplioti,2011), this is the first time ancient historical sources and archaeological this method has been employed to investi- data (Desborough, 1964; Snodgrass, 2000; gate anthropological remains from the Lemos, 2002; Dickinson, 2006;Morris, Early Iron Age in Greece. 2007). In more recent years, various analyt- The region of Thessaly was chosen ical methods have been employed to because it is traditionally considered as © European Association of Archaeologists 2018 doi:10.1017/eaa.2017.88 Manuscript received 19 March 2017, accepted 13 December 2017, revised 5 November 2017 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.58, on 26 Sep 2021 at 11:17:10, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2017.88 Panagiotopoulou et al. – Detecting Mobility in Early Iron Age Thessaly by Strontium Isotope Analysis 591 forming the northern border of the 1991; Morris, 2007). Another hypothesis Mycenaean world and, thus, was affected attributes the changes to a shift from seden- in the same way as the rest of the main- tary agriculture to pastoralism (Snodgrass, land by the disintegration of the 2006); studies into the health status of Early Mycenaean civilization (thirteenth–twelfth Iron Age populations, which was considered centuries BC). The collapse of the palatial to have improved compared to the Late system resulted in a deep crisis; it Bronze Age, suggested they consumed prompted the breakdown of a stratified larger amounts of meat (Morris, 2007). society, a decline in social institutions, and However, the lack of sufficient archaeozoo- a social regression (Dickinson, 2006). In logical studies in this period makes it prob- the subsequent Sub-Mycenaean (eleventh lematic to follow this line of enquiry further. century BC) and Protogeometric (tenth More recently, population movement and ninth centuries BC) periods, changes models have once again come to the fore as occurred in social organization, in trade an explanation. These models propose that and interaction, in production and tech- small-scale movements of groups or indivi- nology, in material culture, and in burial duals within and without the old palatial practices (Lemos, 2002). territories explain the cultural and social In the Protogeometric period, the first changes observed (Snodgrass, 2000;Lemos, signs of important social developments 2002;Coldstream,2003;Morris,2007; become visible (Morris, 2007). The distri- Georganas, 2009). bution of pottery and metalwork indicates Several major questions currently dom- that these regions had contacts and inter- inate the scholarly discussions of Early acted either inside or outside Thessaly Iron Age Greece: (Rückl, 2014; Lis et al., 2015). New A. Can we detect whether population cemeteries were established, but pre-exist- movements were associated with ing Mycenaean ones were also still in use. changes in the mortuary record? Mycenaean funerary practices, such as B. If so, were they at the level of a popu- multiple burials in tholoi, were still lation or did they involve individuals present alongside single burials in cists, a or small groups (such as families) practice that spread very extensively in the moving from one place to another? Early Iron Age and is considered to have largely replaced the traditional burial Many approaches have been devised forms (Dickinson, 2006). to detect movements of groups, such as Many theories have been put forward to cultural, technological, and linguistic dif- explain the changes and the mosaic in the fusion, but arguments against such inter- burial record of the post-Mycenaean pretations have been put forward due to period. The notion, based on an interpret- ambiguities or biases in the archaeologi- ation of the work of ancient writers, of a cal data or lack of substantial evidence large-scale migration of hostile groups (Hall, 1997). Here, we aim to examine the from northern areas of Greece and the movements of people in the Early Iron Balkans was posited to explain the sudden Age by integrating strontium isotope ana- and widespread change (Desborough, lysis of human tooth enamel with the con- 1972). This idea lost ground as new evi- textual analysis of mortuary data. dence suggested that it was a deterioration Our study focuses on the mortuary evi- of living conditions that led to a gradual dence from three sites in Thessaly, which transformation of the social organization occupy significant locations and exhibit of Early Iron Age communities (Whitley, substantial variation in funerary practices: Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.58, on 26 Sep 2021 at 11:17:10, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2017.88 592 European Journal of Archaeology 21 (4) 2018 the cemetery of Chloe, the cemetery of Thessaly (Figure 1), with a period of use Voulokaliva in Halos, and the cemeteries fromthelaterBronzeAge(c. 1300–1100 of Pharsala (Figure 1). BC)toHellenistictimes(c.300–265 BC) (Reinders, 2003; Malakasioti, 2006). Voulokaliva is located on the western coast ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT of the Pagasetic Gulf near important mari- time routes and along land routes that con- The cemetery of Chloe is one of the burial nected it with the southern and northern grounds of Pherae, a town occupied con- Greek mainland (Stissi et al., 2004). The tinuously from the Late Neolithic (4500– individuals were buriedmainlyinsimplepits 3200/3000 BC) to the Roman period (first andcists,butacircularconstruction,prob- century BC to fourth century AD) (Doulgeri- ably an imitation of a tholos tomb, was also Intzesiloglou, 1994; Doulgeri-Intzesiloglou found. Adjacent to the clusters of burials in &Arachoviti,2006; Georganas, 2008). the cemetery, scattered graves have been The cemetery is located in eastern Thessaly, found throughout the area, but, because the on a plain north-west of the Pagasetic cemetery was a rescue excavation, its full Gulf (Doulgeri-Intzesiloglou, 1994, 1996; extent and perimeter is not (yet) known. Arachoviti, 2000; Doulgeri-Intzesiloglou & The graves included single and double inhu- Arachoviti, 2006; Georganas, 2008) mations of males, females, and subadults (Figure 1). Eight tholoi were discovered, all of all ages (Panagiotopoulou et al., 2016). of the same type; which follows that of the Pharsala is located in southern Thessaly, Mycenaean predecessors, but are smaller near routes to western Thessaly and (Arachoviti, 2000) and located close to each Epirus through Mount Pindos. Two other. This study focuses on two of the burial grounds have been excavated eight tholoi (EII, ZI). These two tholoi (Tziafalias & Batziou-Efstathiou, 2010; contained multiple inhumations of males, Katakouta, 2012): one (Site 1) is a north- females, and subadults older than five years wards extension of the Mycenaean ceme- (Panagiotopoulou et al., forthcoming).