Iron Age in the Aegean: plants and people

Project summary

This project explores the human-plants relationship during the Iron Age in the Aegean to reconstruct past lifeways. Shedding new light on the ‘Dark Ages’ this project is reassessing agriculture and everyday life in the Aegean using archaeobotanical data. Primary material from two sites is at the core of this project: Xeropolis, Lefkandi in Euboea (excavations directed by Prof. Irene Lemos, Oxford University, UK) and Methone in Pieria (excavations directed by Matthaios Bessios, KZ’ Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, and Prof. John Papadopoulos and Prof. Sarah Morris, UCLA, USA). 

Xeropolis was a tell settlement with a continuous occupation from the Bronze to the Iron Age. According to Linear B tablets, the settlement had close links with the palace of Thebes but archaeological work has showed that after the destruction of the palace, Xeropolis became an important site. Methone is located at the western shore of the Thermaic Gulf and according to Plutarch was founded in c. 733 B.C. by Eretrians expelled from Corfu (see Tzifopoulos, I. 2012. “Ιστορικό διάγραμμα Μεθώνης,” in ΜΕΘΩΝΗ ΠΙΕΡΙΑΣ Ι: Επιγραφές, Χαράγματα και Εμπορικά Σύμβολα στη Γεωμετρική και Αρχαϊκή Κεραμική από το "Υπόγειο" της Μεθώνης Πιερίας στη Μακεδονία, ed. I. Tzifopoulos, Thessaloniki, pp. 13–40.). Both sites were extensively sampled for archaeobotanical material and they have yielded some of the largest and richest archaeobotanical assemblages of the period in the Aegean.

Publications

Livarda, A. and Kotzamani, G. An exploration of the social role of plants in rituals of prehistoric Aegean with reference to the site of Xeropolis, Lefkandi, Euboea. In Lemos, I. and Tsigarida, A. (eds.) Beyond the Polis: Ritual practices and the construction of social identity in Early Greece (12th-6th centuries B.C.) Forthcoming

Livarda, A., Veropoulidou, R., Vasileiadou, A. and Picornell Gelabert, L. 2018. Lifeways, foodways in Iron Age Methone: a perishable material culture approach. Hesperia. The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. 

Livarda, A. 2014. Archaeobotany in Greece. Archaeological Reports 60: 106-116.

Livarda, A. and Kotzamani, G. 2006. Plant lore in Dark Age Greece: Archaeobotanical evidence from Lefkandi, Euboea, literal sources and traditional knowledge of the local people combined, 435-437. In Ertug, F. (ed.) Proceedings of the 4th International Congress on Ethnobotany (ICEB) “Ethnobotany: at the junction of the continents and the disciplines”, Istanbul 21-26 August 2005, Yayinlari.