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Intensive agriculture and land use at Roman Gordion, central Turkey

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Abstract

Few archaeobotanical studies of Roman agricultural practices and their environmental impact in Anatolia (modern Turkey) have been published. New data from Roman levels at Gordion, a multi-period urban centre in central Anatolia, indicate that free-threshing wheat, most likely Triticum aestivum (bread wheat), was the focus of agricultural practice, in contrast to earlier periods when a more diverse agricultural system included greater amounts of barley and pulses. Evidence for increased levels of irrigation and wood fuel use relative to dung, along with regional overgrazing, provide further evidence for significant change in land-use practices during the Roman period. The emphasis on T. aestivum cultivation coupled with extensive grazing had significant environmental implications, leading to severe overgrazing and soil erosion on a regional scale. Historical sources and limited data from other Roman period sites suggest that similar patterns of agriculture may have been practiced across central Anatolia during the Roman period. We propose that this may have been due to externally imposed demands for taxation or military tribute in the form of wheat, and conclude that these demands led to the adoption of an unsustainable agricultural system at Gordion.

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Acknowledgments

We thank excavation directors Mary M. Voigt and Andrew Goldman for providing detailed stratigraphic information and interpretation for, and access to, the samples reported here, and Gordion project directors G. Kenneth Sams and C. Brian Rose. Shannon Palus helped to sort the Roman period flotation samples. We also thank our funding agencies: Marston’s research at Gordion has been supported by the US National Science Foundation (BCS-0832125), the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and the American Philosophical Society; Miller’s work on Roman Gordion has been funded by the Loeb Classical Library Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Excavation and survey at Gordion since 1988 has been supported funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (a US federal agency), the National Geographic Society, the IBM Foundation, the Kress Foundation, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and by gifts from generous private donors. All modern archaeological research at Gordion (1950-present) has been sponsored and supported by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; co-sponsors from 1991 to 2002 are the College of William and Mary and the Royal Ontario Museum. We thank Mary M. Voigt and Andrew Goldman for their comments on earlier versions of this text, as well as two anonymous reviewers whose focused and constructive critiques strengthened our arguments and improved our data presentation.

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  1. Department of Archaeology, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    John M. Marston

  2. Near East Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum, 3260 South St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Naomi F. Miller

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  1. John M. Marston
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Correspondence to John M. Marston.

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Communicated by A. Fairbairn.

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Marston, J.M., Miller, N.F. Intensive agriculture and land use at Roman Gordion, central Turkey. Veget Hist Archaeobot 23, 761–773 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-014-0467-x

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