The Long-Term Ecology of Agricultural Terraces and Enclosed Fields from Antikythera, Greece

Abstract

Terraces are ubiquitous, in some ways defining, features of Mediterranean environments, yet their longer--term history and relationship to human populations and food economies are not well understood. This paper discusses a complete system of terraces across the small island of Antikythera, Greece. We bring together the evidence from archaeology, ethnography, archival history, botany and geoarchaeology, supported by direct dating of buried terrace soils, and consider terrace investment in relation to major episodes in the island's punctuated history of human activity. This broad--spectrum approach leads to a range of interesting insights on the spatial structure of terraces, on the degree of correlation between terrace construction and changing human population, and on the implications of terrace abandonment for vegetation and soils.

The Origins of Terracing in the Southern Levant and Patch Cultivation/Box Fields

“…Clearly, on methodological grounds, the dating of agricultural field systems, specifically terraces in highland regions, is a complicated procedure (Frederick & Krahtopoulou, 2000;Fall et al, 2012;Galletti et al, 2013;Bevan et al, 2013;Korobov & Borisov, 2013;Gibson, 2015). The assumption that terraces can only be dated when found in direct association with single-period farmhouses, or, alternatively, when the OSL method is applied to the internal deposits of terraces, have both been shown to be inaccurate (Gibson, 2015;Gibson & Lewis, 2017).…”

Environmental factors influencing the distribution of agricultural terraces: Case study of Horný Tisovník, Slovakia

“…For example, McCane et al (2010), Fall et al (2012) and Quintus et al, (2015) have reported results on relationships among terraces and settlements. Agnoletti et al (2015) evaluated the influence of natural factors on terraces, while Bevan et al (2013) used a broad-spectrum approach. In this work, we focused on the assessment of relationships among terraces and selected factors from natural and human environments using multivariate analysis.…”

“…A complete inventory of terraced areas is not available, however, and the total terraced surface is therefore unknown (Stanchi et al, 2012). Terraces deserve considerable research investment to understand how different historical and environmental contexts affected their cycles of construction, use and abandonment (Bevan et al, 2013). Comprehensive studies on agricultural landscapes with terraces, interpreting their context with respect to the natural environment, including human interactions, however, have appeared in the last ten years in Slovakia (Lieskovský et al, 2014;Lieskovský et al, 2015).…”

Reconstructing past terrace fields in the Pyrenees: Insights into land management and settlement from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern era at Vilalta (1650 masl, Cerdagne, France)

“…In off-site excavations, and in particular in the case of terraces where the fill is constructed, we are always faced with intermixing of soil and the study of features must take this into account (Boissinot 2000: 38). Moreover, several recent studies on dating agrarian land transformations, and in particular terraces, have shown that multiplying the dates and contextualizing them within archaeological and sedimentary sequences enable the dates to be used profitably for archaeological analysis (see Schwartz et al 2003;Kemp et al 2006;Bal 2006;Bal et al 2010;Borejsza et al 2008;Frederick and Krahtopoulou 2008;Bevan et al 2013;Davidovich et al 2012). The 30 dates collected at the Vilalta site range from the 5th millennium B.C.…”

“…Combining methods enabled us to compare a large number of stratigraphies and to understand the morphological dynamics of terrace systems within a relatively continuous area, which is fairly rare. Based on the considerable number of dates obtained, the goal was also to contribute to research on terrace systems in other regions, such as in South America (Sandor andEash 1991, 1995;Sandor 2006;Kemp et al 2006;Borejsza et al 2008;Acabado 2010) and in the Mediterranean (Bal 2006;Ballesteros Arias 2006, 2010Harfouche 2007;Riera and Palet 2008;Frederick and Krahtopoulou 2008;Quiros Castillo 2009;Bal et al 2010;Bevan et al 2013;Davidovich et al 2012). Thus, we also discuss the chronological relevance of the elements dated within the stratigraphies (see below).…”