Plain of Plenty: Farming Practices, Food Production, and the Agricultural Potential of the Late Bronze Age (1600–1200 BCE) Argive Plain, Greece

Riia Timonen is a PhD Candidate in Bronze Age Aegean archaeology at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She specializes in prehistoric and Bronze Age subsistence strategies, and early agriculture in the Eastern Mediterranean. Ms. Timonen has more than 10 years of field experience in Greece. Her previous publications include Timonen, R. & A. Brysbaert 2021. ‘Saving up for a rainy day? Climate events, human-induced processes, and their potential effects on people’s coping strategies in the Mycenaean Argive Plain, Greece’. In: Erdkamp, P., J. G. Manning and K. Verboven (eds.), Climate and Society in Ancient Worlds. Diversity in Collapse and Resilience. Springer.

Chapter 1: Introduction


Chapter 2: Mycenaean society and economy


Chapter 3: The Late Bronze Age Argive Plain


Chapter 4: Reconstructing agricultural systems and agricultural potential


Chapter 5: Late Bronze Age agriculture in archaeological data


Chapter 6: Farming strategies and the agricultural potential of the LH III Argive Plain


Chapter 7: Reconstructing Mycenaean agriculture and subsistence


Conclusion


References


Appendix 1: Bronze Age chronological systems


Appendix 2: Summary table of the ethnographic studies used in the publication


Appendix 3: Modern soil fertility classes


Appendix 4: Bronze Age macrobotanical finds from the Argive Plain sites


Appendix 5: Tree and maquis species present in the pollen cores of the Bronze Argive Plain (Lake Lerna and Kleonai) and the Southern Argolid (Limni Thermisia and Kiladha)


Appendix 6: Domestic and wild mammals, fish, and bird species present in the LH III deposits of the Argive Plain sites of Mycenae, Lerna, Midea, Tiryns, Asine, and Tsoungiza


Domestic and wild mammals, fish, and bird species present in the LH III deposits


Appendix 7: Comparative data of ovicaprid sizes and milk yields


Appendix 8: Stocking rates for (modern indigenous) cattle, sheep, and goats


Appendix 9: The number, age, and sex of the Bronze Age human individuals whose skeletal material are used in this publication


Appendix 10: The nutritional values of foodstuffs used in the dietary analysis of this publication


Appendix 11: Food consumption, and the production need of different food items according to Diet model 1


Appendix 12: Food consumption, and the production need of different food items according to diet model 2


Appendix 13: The individual subsistence production areas for different foodstuffs according to model 1


Appendix 14: The individual subsistence production areas for different foodstuffs according to model 2


Appendix 15: The agricultural potential of the LH III Argive Plain in Model 1


Appendix 16: The agricultural potential of the LH III Argive Plain in Model 2


Appendix 17: The agricultural potential of the three Argive Plain neighbours; the Berbati and Nemea Valleys and Asine plateau