Transhumance in Hellenistic Thessaly

Abstract

The relatively mild winters in the Almirós-Soúrpi Plain, due to the vicinity of the Pagasitic Gulf, implied excellent conditions for the winter pasturing of the flocks of the (semi-)nomadic Sarakatsanéi and Vláchi and of the villages and the Turkish manors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Present-day specialized pastoralists still graze their flocks in the stubble fields and the foothills surrounding the plain.The Óthris mountain range, which marks the border between the Mediterranean climate of the south and the continental climate of the Thessalian plains, has a moderate altitude and lies at a short distance from the surrounding plains. Nowadays, the pastoralists of the surrounding plains and those of the villages on the slopes of the mountains take their flocks to the pastures of the Óthris in the summertime. All of the people who keep animals are specialized pastoralists. They include Sarakatsanéi, Vláchi and villagers. Usually it is only the men and shepherds who accompany the flocks on their journeys between the summer and winter pastures: transhumance proper. Occasionally entire families or small pastoral communities move to the summer pastures, but this type of (semi-)nomadism is in decline; it is mostly practised by the elder members of the families.The faunal remains from six houses of New Halos show that the meat of sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and probably equids, too, was consumed. Cattle, sheep and goats were the most important in terms of meat. Sheep and goats, and possibly cattle too, yielded milk for human consumption. It will have been necessary to take the cattle into the Óthris mountains in the hot season to ensure a sufficient milk yield. The Óthris may have provided a good quantity of acorns and other fruits for pigs in the autumn. Game may have been hunted in the Óthris.The pollen record obtained for a sample from a backswamp near New Halos shows a decrease in deciduous trees and an increase in evergreen trees like Kermes oak around 2890 ± 70 BP. Samples from the basin of Mavrikopoúla in the Óthris showed a decrease in Hungarian oak and an increase in bracken around 2940 ± BP. These changes were caused by human interference, namely burning and grazing. Two literary sources attest to the use of summer pastures in the Óthris in Hellenistic times: the Demeter hymn of Kallimachos and the myth of Kerambos in the Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis.The moderate altitude of the Óthris and the short distance to the surrounding plains suggest transhumance proper rather than (semi-)nomadism. The increase in population in Hellenistic times and the number of towns around and in the Óthris make it likely that there were sufficient urban centres with markets where the products of specialized pastoralists could be sold.

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