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Ancient and modern cultivation of Lathyrus ochrus (L.) DC. in the Greek islands1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Glynis Jones
Glynis Jones
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Abstract

A pulse from Late Minoan Knossos, Crete, is identified as cf. Lathyrus ochrus (L.) DC. L. ochrus is grown today, for food or fodder, on the islands of Karpathos and Evvia (Euboea). This paper underlines the extent of crop diversity in both prehistoric and recent Greek agriculture.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 87 , November 1992 , pp. 211 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1992

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References

2 Sarpaki, A. and Jones, G., ‘Ancient and modern cultivation of Lathyrus clymenum L. in the Greek islands’, BSA 85 (1990), 363–8.Google Scholar

3 G. Jones, ‘The LM II plant remains’ (appendix 1), in Popiham, M. R., The Minoan Unexplored Mansion at Knossos (BSA supp. vol. 17; London, 1984), 303–6.Google Scholar

4 Sarpaki and Jones (n. 2), pl. 36.

5 Butler, E. A., Legumes in Antiquity: A Micromorphological Investigation of Seeds of the Vicieae (Ph.D. thesis: University College London, 1990).Google Scholar

6 After Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M., and Webb, D. A., Flora Europaea, ii (Cambridge, 1968)Google Scholar; Allkin, R., MacFarlane, T. D., White, R. J., Bisby, F. A., and Adey, M. E., ‘The geographical distribution of Vicia: issue 1’, Vicieae Database Project Publications, 5 (Southampton, 1983)Google Scholar; iid., ‘The geographical distribution of Lathyrus: issue 1’, Vicieae Database Project Publications, 6 (Southampton, 1985).

7 Lersten, N. R. and Gunn, C. R., Testa Characters in Tribe Viciaeae: With Notes about Tribes Abreae, Cicereae, and Trifolieae (Fabaceae) (US Department of Agriculture, Technical Bulletin 1667; Washington, DC. 1982).Google Scholar

8 Under SEM examination both the charred specimens of the main pulse and seeds of two modern, cultivated L. ochrus populations from Evvia and Karpathos (Greece) revealed the same papillose surface. On none of these specimens was the waxy surface noted by Butler (n. 5) observed.

9 Sarpaki and Jones (n. 2).

10 Tutin et al. (n. 6); Lersten and Gunn (n. 7).

11 Halstead, P. and Jones, G., ‘Agrarian ecology in the Greek islands: time stress, scale and risk’, JHS 109 (1989), 41–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarL. ochrus is also grown (for human consumption) in Cyprus, under the name of louvana; see Photiades, J. and Alexandrou, G., ‘Food legume research and production in Cyprus’, in Hawtin, G. C. and Chancellor, G. J. (eds.), Food Legume Improvement and Development (Ottawa, 1979), 75–9.Google Scholar Seeds of louvana from Paphos (Cyprus), provided by Dr P. Chrysostomou, are identical to those from Evvia and Karpathos referred here to L. ochrus.

12 e.g. Polunin, O., The Flowers of Europe (London, 1969)Google Scholar; cf. Photiades and Alexandrou (n. 11).

13 Tutin et al. (n. 6); Allkin et al. (n. 6 bis).

14 Sarpaki, A., The Palaeoethnobotany of the West House, Akrotiri, Thera (Ph.D. diss.: Sheffield, 1987).Google Scholar

15 e.g. cf. L. ochrus at Knossos, first identified by the author as common pea (n. 3); also a pulse from Middle Bronze Age Argissa, originally identified as pea but with published drawings of what appears to be V. ervilia; see Hopf, M., ‘Bericht uber die Untersuchungen von Samen und Holzkohlenresten von der Argissa-Magula aus den präkeramischen bis mittlerebronzezeitlichen Schichten’, in Milojčić, Y., Boessneck, J., and Hopf, M., Argissa-Magula, i: Das präkeramische Neolithikum sowie die Tier- und Pflanzenreste (Bonn. 1962), 101–19, esp. 109 and pl. 16, 8.Google Scholar

16 Forbes, H. A., ‘“We have a little of everything”; the ecological basis of some agricultural practices in Methana, Trizinia’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 268 (1976), 236–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Halstead, P. and O'Shea, J., ‘Introduction: cultural responses to risk and uncertainty’, in Halstead, P. and O'Shea, J. (eds.), Bad Year Economics (Cambridge, 1989), 1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Jones (n. 3).

19 Sarpaki and Jones (n. 2); L. clymenum is also grown for animal fodder on the peninsula of Methana (P. Halstead, pers. comm.).

20 Hodkinson, S., ‘Animal husbandry in the Greek polis’, in Whittaker, C. R. (ed.), Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, PCPS supp. vol. 14: Cambridge, 1988), 35–74, esp. 70 n. 4.Google Scholar

21 e.g. Lathyrus sativus and Vicia ervilia; Hodkinson (n. 20), 43. For recent comparanda see Halstead, P., ‘Waste not, want not: traditional responses to crop failure in Greece’, Rural History: Economy, Society, Culture, 1 (1990), 147–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar