On the Periphery of Collapse: An Archaeobotanical View from the Mycenaean Hinterland at Tsoungiza

Summary

The site of Tsoungiza, situated in the Nemea Valley of southern Greece, offers a glimpse into processes of agricultural and land-use practices in the Mycenaean hinterland and their intersection with the waxing and waning of Mycenaean political, economic, and social control. After abandonment in the Early Helladic III period (ca. 2,000 B.C.), the site was re-occupied during the late Middle Helladic III (ca. 1,650 B.C.), at a time of regional population expansion associated with the rise of the palace center at nearby Mycenae. Similarly, this brief florescence of Tsoungiza ended with its re-abandonment at the end of Late Helladic IIIB/early Late Helladic IIIC (ca. 1,200 B.C.), coincident with the collapse of Mycenae.

Although rarely considered in narratives of political emergence or collapse, archaeobotanical remains provide a unique view of the role of economic reorganization that accompanies these major cultural transformations. The view from Tsoungiza – the only peripheral village where systematic recovery of plant remains has been undertaken – illuminates diachronic shifts in land-use practices and economic organization at Tsoungiza over the course of the Middle and Late Bronze Age that are entangled with significant environmental and sociopolitical changes that accompanied the rise and collapse of Mycenae.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• People without Collapse: Peripheries as Active Participants in Cultural Transformations

Keywords

Spatial Coverage