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How Early Greeks Coped With Their Environment
 Jay Stratton Noller | |
| This scene in the dry hills
of Cyprus shows a couple of check dams built in ancient times to
prevent soil loss due to water runoff.
|
Ancient Greeks, while blessed with bright sunshine and the bounty of the nearby Mediterranean, had their own difficulties to deal with —poor, rocky soils. Various archaeological projects are studying the impact of humans on the Greek islands, and how they coped with their environment.
One project headed by Jay Noller of Vanderbilt University studies the ancient use of small stone dams, called check dams, dating back 2600 years that were used to prevent soil erosion.
Check dams
trap sediment moving down gulleys. "This technology has been long-used in
the Mediterranean - and elsewhere - to conserve soil in hilly areas,"
comments Noller. "By the time they implemented these check dams, ancient
Cypriots perceived that soil was being lost. They also used these dams to
reclaim marginal agricultural land, such as river and gully bottoms." By
laying down check dams, they were able to terrace those areas into flat
steps for agricultural use.
Robert Scranton
Collection, Archaeological Computing Laboratory,
St. Cloud State
University
Excavators uncover remains
of an early harbor in Corinth.
Another Cypriot measure aimed at preserving soil was the practice of coppicing, in which they cut off the lower dead branches of trees for use in order to preserve the entire tree. Although the Greeks required fuel for their copper smelters, they apparently removed the dead limbs (in conifers, the deadwood is often the lower branches), leaving the roots intact. This prevents the erosion that would occur by chopping down the tree.
"By looking at ages of deposits in river valleys, we can come up with the time they would have been harvesting wood for the copper smelter," says Noller. "We can determine if there are great soil accumulations, which would result if the trees were taken, and the loose soil runs downslope."
Another theory suggests that a stewardship existed for goatherds a few millennia ago. Left to their own devices, sheep—with their voracious grazing habits - would nibble all the plant life down. It appears that these early pastoralists were aware of the negative impact of overgrazing, and tried to prevent it.
Richard
Rothaus of St. Cloud University examines how coastal Greeks maintained
their built harbors in the face of endemic earthquakes. At the ancient
eastern harbor site of Kenchreai, Corinth, Rothaus found that Corinthians
re-constructed the harbor three times from the first to the fifth century
A.D. after being damaged by earthquakes. Repairs included putting down new
floors and modifying facilities in flooded warehouses, and rebuilding
piers. One pier even had a fish tank.
Richard M.
Rothaus
This harborside picture
shows a modern example of the destructive force of earthquakes on
Corinth.
"Kenchreai was not a dirty, gritty harbor town," says Rothaus. "There were nice places for entertainment and relaxation. Some had spectacular mosaic floors and fountain houses."
The extreme seismic activity of Corinth changes the coastline every century or two. Because of uplifting and subsidence, any constructed harbor is impacted by the frequent earthquakes. One earthquake in A.D. 400 lowered the harbor 40 cm, catastrophically damaging facilities and flooding the area, and finally dousing Corinthian persistence at rebuilding. The resigned Corinthians then settled for the natural harbors that existed on the island, and no further attempts were made to save their built harbor.
Lisa Parks, Scientific American Discovering Archaeology
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