Peasant Agricultural Strategies in Southern Tuscany: Convertible Agriculture and the Importance of Pasture

Bowes, Kim; Mercuri, Anna Maria; Rattigheri, Eleonora; Rinaldi, Rossella; Arnoldus-Huyzendveld, Antonia; Ghisleni, Mariaelena; Grey, Cam; MacKinnon, Michael; Vaccaro, Emanuele

doi:10.1163/9789004345027_009

Cited by 25 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The chronology of the sites was mainly determined by their archeological materials (e.g., pottery), and to a lesser extent by radiocarbon dates and layer correlations. Based on both the pollen data and archeological evidences, environmental reconstructions emphasize the importance of oliviculture in the past economies of these lands (Florenzano, 2013;Bowes et al, 2017). In Basilicata, the Greek and Roman settlements were characterized by well-developed economic activities, including agricultural and pastoral practices ).…”

Section: Reference Data From Archeological Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Representativeness of Olea Pollen from Olive Groves and the Late Holocene Landscape Reconstruction in Central Mediterranean

et al. 2017

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Modern pollen spectra are an invaluable reference tool for paleoenvironmental and cultural landscape reconstructions, but the importance of knowing the pollen rain released from orchards remains underexplored. In particular, the role of cultivated trees is in past and current agrarian landscapes has not been fully investigated. Here, we present a pollen analysis of 70 surface soil samples taken from 12 olive groves in Basilicata and Tuscany, two regions of Italy that exemplify this cultivation in the Mediterranean basin. This study was carried out to assess the representativeness of Olea pollen in modern cultivations. Although many variables can influence the amount of pollen observed in soils, it was clear that most of the pollen was deposited below the trees in the olive groves. A rapid decline in the olive pollen percentages (c. 85% on average) was found when comparing samples taken from IN vs. OUT of each grove. The mean percentages of Olea pollen obtained from the archeological sites close to the studied orchards suggest that olive groves were established far from the Roman farmhouses of Tuscany. Further south, in the core of the Mediterranean basin, the cultivation of Olea trees was likely situated ∼500-1,000 m from the rural sites in Basilicata, and dated from the Hellenistic to the Medieval period.

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Section: Reference Data From Archeological Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The Representativeness of Olea Pollen from Olive Groves and the Late Holocene Landscape Reconstruction in Central Mediterranean

et al. 2017

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“…32 See Hollander 2018, 1-4 for a review of this scholarship. On Roman peasants, see particularly Witcher 2006;Bowes et al 2017;Bowes 2020;Bowes 2021b. trade are guided by comparative, not absolute advantage. What matters is not a difference between trading partners in the amount of productive resources required to produce a good, but rather a difference between them in the rate at which one good can be transformed into the other by reallocating resources."…”

Section: Adjusting Our Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative advantage, specialized viticulture, and the economic development of Gallia Narbonensis

Rice

2023

J. Roman Archaeol.

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This paper explores the processes of specialized viticulture in the province of Gallia Narbonensis over the first three centuries CE and brings this evidence to bear on broader economic questions, particularly as they relate to the effects of connectivity and globalization on Roman economic development. Evidence from small farms to sprawling villas suggests that specialized production stretched across multiple strata of society in Narbonensis, from so-called peasants to the wealthiest elites. The existence of specialized agricultural production at the scale documented in Narbonensis required significant demand, well-connected and integrated markets, sustained trade, and an awareness of these economic factors by the residents of the province. The evidence presented here demonstrates that the residents of Narbonensis recognized that they were part of an economic environment in which high levels of connectivity and integrated markets allowed them to pursue more profitable production strategies and that they pursued these opportunities.

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“…Changes in the availability of manure may follow for instance from switching to more intensive systems of mixed farming, such as ley-farming or convertible agriculture and related strategies for increasing the production of fodder crops or hay (for Roman Italy see Kron 2000;Bowes et al 2017, cf. Heinrich 2012 for Roman Britain).…”

Section: The Economics Of Manuringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roman isotopes and economic meaning: millets, manure, mobility, marine signals, and Malthus

Heinrich

Hansen

Erdkamp

2021

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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Over the past decades, the disciplinary boundaries between Roman history and archaeology have begun to fade, as archaeological proxy data started playing an important role in studying socioeconomic processes and phenomena. This is especially true for several key debates such as those on Roman economic performance, diet and nutrition, and migration and mobility. More recently, archaeological sciences, such as stable isotope studies, have increasingly started contributing to these debates too. This paper is aimed at reviewing the valuable contributions stable isotope studies can make to these debates from the economic historian's perspective and focuses on the interpretative side of such studies: what sort of economic meaning is attributed to certain results? It will be ascertained that there sometimes seems to be a divergence between the interpretations made by isotope experts and what many economic historians would conclude. The main cause for this lies in differences in the underlying assumptions as to the working and performance of ancient economies. We will provide examples where the same isotope results can be interpreted completely differently by switching between sets of underlying assumptions. We will argue that greater interaction between economic historians and stable isotope experts is desirable so as to avoid the emergence of parallel debates and to facilitate the construction of stronger, well-integrated narratives.

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Peasant Agricultural Strategies in Southern Tuscany: Convertible Agriculture and the Importance of Pasture

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

The Representativeness of Olea Pollen from Olive Groves and the Late Holocene Landscape Reconstruction in Central Mediterranean

The Representativeness of Olea Pollen from Olive Groves and the Late Holocene Landscape Reconstruction in Central Mediterranean

Comparative advantage, specialized viticulture, and the economic development of Gallia Narbonensis

Roman isotopes and economic meaning: millets, manure, mobility, marine signals, and Malthus

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