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Plant diversity and storage at Mandalo, Macedonia, Greece: archaeobotanical evidence from the Final Neolithic and Early Bronze Age1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Soultana M. Valamoti
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki
Glynis Jones
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield, Northgate House

Abstract

The charred plant remains from Final Neolithic and Early Bronze Age levels at Mandalo, Macedonia, Greece provide evidence for a broad range of crops and wild plant resources. There is clear evidence for the storage of some of these, in particular emmer, lentils and bitter vetch, but also barley, einkorn, Celtic bean, grass pea and acorns. There is also evidence for the possible storage and use of animal dung fuel, which has not previously been reported for Greece, and for the cultivation of flax dating back to the 5th millennium BC. The diversity of plant resources will have provided a ‘buffering mechanism’ against occasional crop failure, and the relationship of this to the proposed ‘marginal colonization’ of Greece is discussed. On the basis of the species found in animal dung, it is suggested that the arable and pastoral sectors were integrated, with relatively small numbers of animals grazed locally on stubble or fallow fields.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2003

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Footnotes

1

Above all, we should like to thank Dr K. Kotsakis, Dr A Pilali-Papasteriou, and Dr K. Papaefthymiou-Papanthimou for giving us the opportunity to study the plant remains from Mandalo and, together with Mrs E. Papadopoulou, for their invaluable assistance with the field notebooks and site inter pretations. We are also grateful to Dr P. Halstead, Professor V. Pappanastasis and Dr M. Charles for many valuable discussions, and to Neil Rutledge and Alison Powers who sorted some of the flot samples. Financial support for the study of the Mandalo plant remains was provided by the University of Sheffield, by Ph.D. awards to S. M. Valamoti from the A. G. Levendis Foundation, the British School at Athens and the British Federation for Women Graduates, and by grants to G. Jones from Darwin College Cambridge and the Science and Engineering Research Council. We thank Mike Charles and Rob Craigie for assistance with the final figures, and Colin Merrony for drawing some of them. All site plans reproduced in this article are provisional.

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