The Identification of pastoralist sites Within the context of estate-based agriculture in ancient Greece: beyond the ‘Transhumance versus agro-pastoralism’ debate

Abstract

The present ‘transhumance versus agro-pastoralism’ debate is here set within the context of a broadly based anthropological approach to pastoralism. Certain constant features of the relationship of pastoralists to their landscape are identifiable, although many aspects of pastoral strategies are variable over time and space and across socio-economic groups. The control of much of the pastoral exploitation of the landscape in antiquity by wealthy estate owners is one important difference from the present day. The resulting observations are applied to the archaeological record of isolated rural sites now widely known from surface survey projects. It is argued that the tendency to assume that pastoralists are archaeologically invisible has meant that these very visible sites have been ignored as possible pastoral bases. The location of a number of these sites suggests that pastoralism was a major element in the activities focused on them in antiquity.

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