Ancient crops, modern insights: a new look at farming in ancient Greece
The end of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean was a turning point in history, with major socioeconomic disruptions that led to the Greek Dark Ages. The collapse of once-thriving civilisations in this region and its impact on agriculture have long been topics of scholarly debate. Undertaken with the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the DarkSeeds project aimed to shed new light on the agricultural practices of this period. The societal transformations of this era set the stage for the Early Iron Age, a time marked by adaptation and resilience in the face of profound change. “Understanding how past populations coped with and adapted their food production systems to changing climatic conditions is more important than ever in our modern society,” states Charlotte Diffey, DarkSeeds project researcher.
Rethinking agricultural transitions
Traditional theories about the transformation from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age suggest that extensive agricultural systems gave way to small-scale farming and pastoralism. However, this idea has been reconsidered in recent years. The limited availability of direct bioarchaeological evidence indicates that our understanding of farming practices during this period remains incomplete. The results of DarkSeeds suggest that farming in northern Greece did not undergo radical changes during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. Instead, the data reveal a continuation of extensive farming strategies, tailored to specific local settings and environmental conditions. “Communities within this area continued to rely on rain-fed cereal cultivation as a mainstay of their agroeconomy, supplemented by more intensively managed pulse crops. This was a surprising discovery, as we were expecting to see more variation over time. Instead, farming practices remained remarkably consistent,” says Diffey. She also highlights the need for further research to gain a more nuanced understanding of farming during these periods.
Advancing techniques for exploring the past
To reach its conclusions, DarkSeeds employed stable isotope analysis of charred plant remains — the first time this technique was conducted on Early Iron Age material. The project measured carbon and nitrogen values from four different crops — einkorn wheat (as seen in the photo above), emmer wheat, hulled barley and lentil — to investigate specific husbandry conditions such as water availability and soil enrichment levels. “To date, this type of direct evidence is only available through stable isotope analysis on plant remains, as traditional archaeobotanical analysis can only provide indirect evidence,” explains Diffey. The project also intended to use a new 3D geometric morphometric approach but was unable to do so due to a shortened timeframe. Currently in development, this method combines micro 3D scanning, geometric morphometrics and machine learning with stable isotope analysis results to populate an algorithm that predicts crop growing conditions based on seed shape. “The development of this tool, currently in progress by Alex Livarda and Hector Orengo (project supervisor and co-supervisor respectively), will help overcome the inherent limitations of archaeobotanical data when inferring plant growing conditions. Moreover, it will provide a cheaper and non-destructive alternative to stable isotope analysis for archaeological sites where funding or lack of archaeobotanical material is a limiting factor,” adds Diffey. While the DarkSeeds project has not resolved all debates surrounding the Late Bronze Age collapse in Greece, it has paved the way for future research, highlighting the complexity of ancient socioeconomic systems and the resilience of agricultural practices during times of change.
Keywords
DarkSeeds, Bronze Age, Iron Age, agriculture, stable isotope analysis, Aegean communities, climate change
