4. Thelongue duréein the north Aegean
THE NORTH AEGEANLONGUE DURÉE
IN A NUTSHELL
This chapter explores the relationship that ancient north Aegean societies
had with their material environment through the matrices of social groups
and of everyday practical experience. The timescale examined here corres-
ponds to the late Iron Age of southern Europe, which covers the second
half of thefirst millenniumbc. The long-term ecologies of the north
Aegean region, which indigenous communities had co-created over sev-
eral millennia since the start of sedentary agricultural village life in the
Neolithic period (corresponding to the seventh through thefifth millen-
niumbcin this region), formed the natural environment in which these
societies emerged and in which new strategies for subsistence were
developed. In other words, the kinds of choices that local Neolithic and
Bronze Age groups made about where and how to live created the
background, and set the parameters, for choices made in thefirst millen-
nium. This applies, for instance, to the cutting back of forest cover in the
vicinity of settlements; the creation of upland meadow for pasture; and the
development of knowledge about the properties of raw materials.^1
The distinctive characteristics of subsistence that emerged in the early
first millenniumbcare connected with the expansion of new forms of
settlement, the dispersal of large numbers of people from the compact,
closely spaced environment of Late Bronze Age mounds to a range of
new locations, including smaller, more diversified lowland sites and
various kinds of intermediate and upland foci, utilizing the full variety
of ecological opportunities at different elevations in the landscape. This
dynamic of dispersal was at least in part a function of enhanced
(^1) Neolithic and Bronze Age: Chrysostomou et al. 2007; Grammenos et al. 1997;
Misaïlidou-Despotidou 2008, 25–65 (Toumba Nares and Trapeza Nares, close to the
River Gallikos).