AgRICULTURAL PRODUCTION IN HELLENISTIC gREECE 195
for surplus and capital rather than to a regime of subsistence farming, charac-
terized by an area of around 0.25 hectares or less (Acheson 1997 ). According
to these last data, the present sites correspond to wealthy households rather
than typical farmsteads (see Discussion), and correspond, in size at least, with
wealthy city houses such as House IV at Eretria, and the Houses of Dionysus
and Rape of Helen at Pella mentioned by Morris ( 2005 : 108). Kompoloi and
Platania may represent estates (αγρεπαύλεις) a term normally used for the
description of large rural establishments with large storage areas engaged in
large scale farming for Roman Greece. Both sites are built in the rich land of
Macedonia, close to big cities, circumstances that possibly favoured the crea-
tion of such estates, as seen at other sites such as Liotopi-Routseli further north
in Macedonia, with an estimated size of more than 0.4 ha (Adam-Veleni 2003 ).
The Archaeobotanical Remains
Archaeobotanical samples were taken from the rooms of the north and east
wings of the house (the south and west wings were badly damaged by modern
construction work and therefore not sampled), their adjacent stoas, the tower,
the kiln, the area of the threshing floor, pits in the courtyard and from the stoa
east of the building. A synopsis of the plant remains found at Platania dem-
onstrates that a variety of species is present (see Margaritis forthcoming for a
detailed analysis of the data): hulled and naked barley; free threshing macaroni
and bread wheat; glume wheats such as spelt, emmer and einkorn; oat; rye;
lentil; bitter vetch; lupines; grape; olive; fig; almond; hazelnut; walnut; cornelian
cherry; blackberry and danewort. In addition, a variety of wild/weed species
are present in the assemblage in small numbers including, among others, dar-
nel, small vetches, sheep’s sorrel, plantain, medic, clover, field gromwell and
christ’s thorn.
It is clear that the plant remains at Platania contrast with the ones pre-sent at Kompoloi, suggesting quite different agricultural practices, organisation
and management at the two sites. The predominant cereals are barley, maca-
roni and bread wheat. The common occurrence of barley with the wheat is
not surprising as they go through the same processing stages (Hillman 1984 )
and could have been grown together as a ‘maslin’ (mixed crop) and subse-
quently discarded in the same areas. Macaroni and bread wheat could have also
been grown as a separate ‘maslin’ (Halstead and Jones 1989 ). The dominance
of free-threshing wheat at the site, which is more vulnerable and demanding
than other wheat species, can be explained by the distinct possibility at this
site of a more intensive regime (in terms of labour and weeding) necessary
‘to obtain the high yield potential’ (Jones 1978 ). All glume wheats are pre-
sent in insignificant amounts, suggesting that they occur only as contaminants
among other crops. A similar pattern emerges for oats and ryes. Pulses are rep-
resented by lentils and bitter vetch. Lentils would have formed an additional