Middle and Late Bronze Age Metal Tools from the Aegean, Eastern ...

agricultural tools perhaps were tightly controlled and loaned out under contractual share-
cropping arrangements between the palace and local communities.
Considering the dearth of agricultural implements in the Aegean, it is worth
reviewing what is known about agriculture from the second millennium beyond the
textual records. Botanical evidence provides the greatest help, for the agricultural systems
of localized sites and broader regions may be reconstructed with the appropriate data. 201
Major changes in Aegean farming occurred during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze
Age; this transition is marked by “greater crop diversity, increasing crop purity and
specialization and intensification in land use resulting in the production of surplus.” 202
Zangger also recognized a vital transformation in the Pylian landscape during the LBA:
after forests were cleared for grazing, the planting and cultivation of olive and orchard
trees followed (according to evidence gleaned from pollen cores). 203 By the LBA, “the
majority of Mycenaean farmers would have practiced small scale mixed farming,”
according to Palmer. 204 Subsistence farming would have resulted in scattered agricultural
sites, cultivation of diverse crops and storage of surpluses. 205
Any discussion of agriculture must take into account the relevant soil conditions.
Greek soils are poorly developed with low levels of clay and nitrogen due to an arid
206
climate and limited surface vegetation. Zangger has argued that the Aegean—
especially Thessaly, the Argive Plain and the southern Argolid—witnessed a period of
serious soil erosion “within 1000 years after the introduction of agriculture.” 207
The
201
Hansen 1994, 186.
202
Hansen 1988, 51.
203
Palmer 2001, 65; Zangger et al. 1997, 589-592.
204
Palmer 2001, 76.
205
Sarpaki 1992, 61-2.
206
Sarpaki 1992, 62.
207
Zangger 1992, 18; Sarpaki (1992, 62) also observes that agriculture adversely affected soil conditions.
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