Integrating geochemical survey, ethnography and organic residue analysis to identify and understand areas offoodstuff processing

In this paper we explore the integration of science-based and ethnographic approaches that respond to the need to consider ancient economy and subsistence in the Greek world on a landscape level. It is particularly important to be in a position to understand changes and developments in the processes associated with the preparation of food as well as agro-industrial commodities such as wine and olive oil. While ancient economic and subsistence patterns are traditionally and most effectively investigated where animal and plant remains have been recovered from excavation, our strategy is less direct; operating by proxy, it is well suited in the first instance to archaeological field survey. Having first determined the soils’ chemical signatures and the identity of pottery residues, a comparison will then be made with data obtained from ethnographic surveys of abandoned 20th-century farmsteads and workplaces, where particular activities are known to have taken place. Integrating these approaches, our work is applying them to archaeological field survey, specifically the current project on the city of Sikyon and its vicinity in the North Peloponnese.