Animal husbandry in Classical and Hellenistic Thessaly (Central Greece): A zooarchaeological perspective from Almiros

Going to See the Nymphs: Landscape and Religious Experience at the Zar Trypa Cave (Mount Ossa, Thessaly)

“… 18 For example, the results of stable isotope analyses of sheep and goat teeth from Hellenistic Kastro Kallithea in southern Thessaly include evidence for seasonal mobile flock management (Bishop 2021; Bishop et al 2020), while vertical transhumance between winter pastures in the Almyros and Sourpi plains and summer pastures in the Othrys mountains was still practised at least as recently as the 1990s (Reinders and Prummel 1998, 86–9). In contrast, survivorship curves from the Classical and Hellenistic sites of Magoula Plataniotiki and New Halos (both on the Almyros plain) highlight the importance of local flock management strategies, perhaps due to the political instability of the region (Filioglou, Prummel and Çakirlar 2021). Judging by this case study, archaeologists should not necessarily assume that transhumance was a predominant practice in antiquity, even in areas where mobile flock management strategies existed in more recent periods.…”