Mediterranean land use systems from prehistory to antiquity: a case study from Peloponnese (Greece)

Abstract

Understanding the sustainability of land use systems over time requires an accounting of the diversity of land uses and their varying influences on the environment. Here we present a standardized review of land use systems in the Peloponnese, Greece, from the Neolithic to the Roman period (~6500 BC-AD 300). Using a combination of sources, we synthesize the fundamental information required to characterize and quantify the spatial requirements of land use. We contextualize our results in a discussion of temporal trends, the probable drivers of change, and how these changes can be integrated with the general knowledge of these societies and the overall effect of land use across time. While our review concentrates on the Peloponnese, our methodology is widely applicable where suitable archaeological and historical records are available, and is broadly representative of the prehistoric and early historical evolution of agricultural land use systems in the eastern Mediterranean.

Effects of land use and anthropogenic aerosol emissions in the Roman Empire

“…In accordance with the crop residue burning emissions, we used the land cover reconstructions from HYDE11 for the low and the intermediate scenarios and the land cover estimates from KK11 for the high emission scenario. With this approach, the pasture area per person lies in a range between 0.58 and 1.0 ha for the different emission scenarios, which is similar to the values (0.56 and 1.05 ha, respectively) mentioned in Klein Goldewijk et al (2011, 2017) but somewhat lower than the number derived in a case study for Greece in the Roman period (1.75 ha; Weiberg et al, 2019). We considered low, intermediate, and high estimates for Fr pasture_burnt and the emission factors because these variables have large uncertainties.…”

“…In general, the abundance of prescribed burning depends on the accumulation of biomass: the higher the accumulation, the shorter the fire interval. As a consequence, the fire interval depends on rainfall and grazing pressure (Weir et al, 2013;Frost and Robertson, 1987), thus showing pronounced regional variability. In the following we summarise guidelines for the rate of prescribed burning from different regions around the world.…”

“…This is in agreement with the findings of Norman (1963Norman ( , 1969 for native pasture on Tippera clay loam in the Katherine region. For North America, the recommended fire-return interval of prescribed patch burning is 3 years in areas with rainfall above ≈ 760 mm yr −1 and 4 years in drier regions (Weir et al, 2013).…”

How Much Is Enough? First Steps to a Social Ecology of the Pergamon Microregion

“…Furthermore, in our current scenarios, we suggest that the foremost endeavour of the primary sector was to sustain human subsistence and to maximise this first by cultivating mostly cereals and leguminosae on suitable land, before producing for a non-essential market. The cultivation of profitable foods for export or elites, such as olives and wine, might have decreased the area for subsistence farming further, causing conflicts of land [21,109]. We currently assume that livestock was grazed on fallow land or plots that were rather unsuitable for cereal and leguminosae cultivation, especially on steeper slopes of the adjacent hilly and mountainous landscapes of the complementary territories.…”

Land use patterns and climate change—a modeled scenario of the Late Bronze Age in Southern Greece

“…In the present study, only dietary needs are modeled, and the results therefore indicate the minimum needs of the settlements. The prescribed diet is based on estimations by Weiberg et al (2019) and is cereal based, complemented primarily by legumes, fruits and nuts, dairy, and only a limited amount of meat (see supplemental material 1 available online at stacks.iop. org/ERL/14/125003/mmedia).…”