Panel 8.13 – Central places and un-central landscapes: political economies and natural ressources in the longue durée


Organiser/Chair:

  • Giorgos Papantoniou (University of Bonn)
  • Athanasios Vionis (University of Cyprus)

External Discussant:

  •   John Bintliff (University of Edinburgh)

Speakers:

Panel abstract

This Panel aims to rethink and revaluate Central Place Theory in light of contemporary developments in settlement archaeology, methods and archaeological thought by bringing together 'central places' and 'un-central landscapes' and grasping diachronically upon the complex relation between town and country, as shaped by political economies and the availability of natural resources. The Panel covers the period between the Bronze Age and the end of Late Antiquity, and includes all the disciplines and regions that deal with the so-called 'Greco-Roman civilization'. Micro-environments with natural boundaries (e.g. rivers, mountains, woods) and desirable resources (e.g. water, arable land, minerals) sustained nucleated communities and remained occupied for almost every period. On the other hand, 'central persons' may be as important as 'central place' and this is where the concept of political economy evolves. As T. Earle has eloquently argued on several occasions, all economic theories should recognise that, to whatever degree realised, power strategies were built on economic and ideological control over resources. Landscape archaeology is an area of study that overcomes the conventional boundaries between disciplines such as anthropology, history and geography, and provides a fresh perspective and a powerful investigative tool to address research questions related to the conscious and the unconscious shaping of the land and the processes of organising space, involving interaction between the physical environment and human presence. Temporality, spatiality, materiality and site-based analysis are all encompassed in the concept of landscapes, and therefore through its study much can be said about human responses to the changing conditions of life in the longue durée. We welcome papers addressing 'central places' and/or 'un-central landscapes' from a political economy or/and a natural resources perspective. Moving away from model-bounded approaches, Central Place Theory is used more flexibly to include all the places that may have functioned as places of economic or ideological centrality (even in a local context) in the past, including urban centres, agro-towns, countryside settlements, burial and ritual topoi. The diversity of the different disciplinary perspectives and approaches, combined with dialogues, enriches our task of multiple interpretations.

Paper abstracts

1. Athanasios Vionis (University of Cyprus) / Giorgos Papantoniou (University of Bonn)

Central Place Theory reloaded and revised: Landscape archaeology and political economy
This paper aims to introduce the topic of the panel. It rethinks Central Place Theory and re-evaluates it in light of contemporary developments in settlement archaeology, methods and archaeological thought by bringing together ‘central places’ and ‘un-central landscapes’ and grasping diachronically upon the complex relation between town and country, as shaped by political economies and the availability of natural resources.

 

2. Jennifer Webb (La Trobe University)

Shifting centres: political, ideological and economic authority on the north coast of Cyprus over the longue durée of the prehistoric Bronze Age
Centres are, by definition, neither beginning nor end points within the landscape; the mobilisation, management and distribution of both symbolic and material resources are therefore critical to their political economies. This paper will explore possible mechanisms involved in the establishment of three localised centres of authority, which succeeded each other in the narrow, naturally bounded coastal strip of northern Cyprus during the 800 years of the prehistoric Bronze Age. Among the factors that appear to have played a role are historical contingency, a favourable natural environment (rainfall, soils, harbours), technological advantage and, potentially, coercion (actual or ideological), alongside less (archaeologically) tangible factors such as cultural and ancestral legitimacy, language and the role of entrepreneurial individuals (‘central persons’).

 

3. Diamantis Panagiotopoulos (University of Heidelberg)

Unravelling the ancient and modern potential of (un-)central places: The case of Minoan Koumasa
The history of marginal Mediterranean landscapes seems to follow a pendulum motion, oscillating from periods of transregional significance to periods of total isolation and decline. One of the big challenges of archaeology and related disciplines is to explore from a diachronic point of view the stabilizing and destabilizing parameters which determined the ups and downs of ‘peripheries’. For tackling this task, specialists need to adopt not only an interdisciplinary approach but also an explicit multiscalar perspective, moving back and forth between the macro-, meso-, and micro-level in an attempt to elucidate the intricate web of interdependent factors that shaped a region’s historical trajectory. The present paper discusses an on-going field project in Southern Crete aiming at the systematic study of a thriving regional Bronze Age centre as a case study for exploring the hermeneutic potential of such approaches. The dramatic contrast between the flourishing Minoan settlement at Koumasa and the isolated modern village nearby begs for an explanation. A further objective of this project goes beyond the narrow limits of scientific analysis, striving to demonstrate the social dimension of modern archaeology. The fieldwork is integrated into an innovative strategy for landscape stewardship, in the course of which scientific expertise is combined with local experiential knowledge and – above all – local needs in a region suffering under the effects of a dramatic economic crisis.

 

4. Maria Iacovou (University of Cyprus)

From the Hinterland to the Coastal Landscape: the political economy of a Cypriot central place
That Ancient Paphos functioned as a place of economic and ideological centrality in the context of a Cypriot polity, from circa the 13th c. BC to the very end of the fourth c. BC., is amply confirmed by a wealth of architectural and mortuary evidence, which in the Iron Age and, especially, since the Cypro-Archaic period are amplified by scores of early silver coins and royal inscriptions issued by state-leaders, invariably identified with the Greek term basileus (king).
The richness of the material and epigraphical evidence notwithstanding, the key question regarding the economic system(s) that led to the millennium-long success of Ancient Paphos as a central place, had not been approached before the initiation of the Palaepaphos Urban Landscape Project in 2006. We are currently in a position to suggest that the origins of the settlement of Paphos as a gateway community established on the coast circa 1700 BC, resulted from the interactive relation between the exploitation of hinterland resources (primarily minerals and timber) and the transformation of the hinterland’s prehistoric settlement pattern, especially along the 25km-long route of the river Diarizos from the mountains to the coast.
The on-going diachronic analysis of the entire region’s un-central and still little known landscape has begun to recognise in the interplay of natural and anthropogenic factors, the reasons behind drastic changes in the economic history of the region of from prehistory to the present day.

 

5. Christy Constantakopoulou (Birkbeck College)

Landscape and hunting: the economy of the eschatia
In recent years, there has been a re-examination of the meaning of the term eschatia. Rather than a territory on the border of a community, the term is now recognized to mean a specific type of land, at the border of prime agricultural land (eg. on a hill, as the term seems to be used in the Rationes Centesimarum in Attica, or by the sea-side, as the term seems to be used in the Delian accounts). The position of the eschatia in the borders of cultivated land, however, did not necessarily mean that the eschatia was not economically productive. Uncultivated land, or marginally cultivable land, could be extremely useful and agriculturally productive (for timber, coal, apiculture etc.). This paper examines the role of the eschatia for hunting. This is part of a bigger project on the social history of hunting in archaic and classical Greece, where emphasis is placed on the economic and dietary contribution of hunting for Greek communities. In this project, I would like to explore not just elite narratives about hunting (which arguably dominate the sources), but the relationship of different social classes to hunting (which is understood here to include poaching), as well as the role of gender, age, time of year, and use of landscape. This research aims to move current discussions forward by focusing less on the elite and more on everyday people and their practices.

 

6. Giorgia Di Paola (University of Foggia)

Central places and liminal landscapes in the territory of Populonia
Research on the territorial organization of Etruscan city of Populonia has recently improved thanks to the results coming from archeological surveys planned in different parts of the ancient centre.
The Landscape Archaeology approach has been revealed the most effective method to understand the processes of organising spaces, and so to detect both places of economic or ideological centrality and specific liminal landscape in the past. Starting from its origin, in the IX century BC, Populonia was provided with a really vary and heterogeneous supply basin, that included also the control on the Tuscan Archipelago Islands. Moving from the Iron Age (IX century BC) to the Hellenistic period (III-I centuries BC), Populonia carried out different strategies to manage inland and island natural resources, depending on the political circumstances in the Italian peninsula. These intentional planes had repercussions on the shaping of varied cultural landscapes, created in a dialogue involving cultural organizations, human strategies and topographic frameworks.
In this paper I will present results of my PhD research, focusing on the period between the VI century BC to the III century BC, before Etruscans were incorporated within the Roman Empire. In particular, I aim to prove the important role of Landscape Archeology approach to provide a fresh perspective concerning the crucial debate on “central places” and/or “un-central landscapes”.

 

7. Kyriakos Kyrousis (University of Cologne)

Hellenistic Foundations in Asia Minor and their Economic Impact on a Local and Regional Scale
The foundation by royal initiative of new communities throughout the Near East during the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. is one of the most remarkable policies distinguishing the Hellenistic kingdoms from their predecessors. Research on the subject has emphasised their political and military importance.
This paper, will handle the economic impact of the phenomenon and aims to present the progress of my research on these questions: firstly, how did new settlements in Asia Minor influence the cross-regional trade networks through which people travelled and conducted trade? Secondly, how did settlement patterns, and the rural landscape and its' exploitation change?
We shall approach these questions through the presentation of a variety of historical and archaeological sources: data from surveys signifying changes in the pattern of human habitation, numismatic circulation and excavated evidence concerning imports and exports of goods, and written sources on ancient travel and trade routes.
From the milieu of urban studies, the underlying theoretical concept will be that of energised crowding, seen as a consequence of population aggregation and density. Economic growth is held as one of the main outcomes of energised crowding. In this context, I shall give an overview of royal foundations of this period in Asia Minor and how and if they led to some form of economic growth. I will also present some results from my research on the case study of Alexandria Troas as a central place.

 

8. Rabea Reimann (University of Cologne)

Approaching ‘central place theory’ in Greco-Roman Egypt: a closer look at the production and consumption of pottery at Bubastis
From the Old Kingdom onwards Egypt was traditionally divided into several administrative areas along the Nile valley, the so-called nomes. Over the course of Egypt’s long history, the nomes and their nomarchs were more or less independent from the pharaoh’s central power. This division survived well into Roman times and retained its primary function as an administrative system until the fundamental rearrangement in Late Antiquity.
Bubastis was the capital of the 18th lower-Egyptian nome and therefore the ‘central place’ in this region. Located in the western Nile delta and surrounded by two branches of the river, the area was rich in the natural resource ‘clay’ – the basis for the extensive pottery production of the city.
The aim of my presentation is to approach the ‘central place theory’ in the delta region using the production and (re-)distribution of pottery as a case study: To what extend did a ceramic network exist and what position had the larger cities of the nomes in the trade activities? What role played Alexandria, the political and cultural centre of Graeco-Roman Egypt, for Bubastis itself as a standard regarding ‘taste’ and as one of the primary hubs for the import and distribution of goods in Egypt?
To answer these questions, I will not only give a closer look to the production and consumption of pottery at Bubastis, but will also review other sources, mainly written records, for aspects of centrality or independence of nome capitals such as Bubastis.

 

9. Anna-Katharina Rieger (University of Graz)

“Un-central” arid landscapes of NE-Africa and W-Asia – landscape archaeology as tool for economic history
The paper aims at a comparative interpretation of two different datasets from different ancient arid regions to exemplify how a perspective less from centers rather than areas can enhance or even change our economic understanding of the economy of past societies. One case study derives from survey and excavation data from the Eastern Marmarica in Egypt, the second one is reviewed published data from Southern Syria. In both cases scarce resources determine life strategies and social organisation in these regions in Graeco-Roman times. A perspective encompassing the interrelations with neighbouring areas or people as well as a detailed look onto the organisation of the inner-regional contacts offer insights into economic history of the marginal environments. The case of Southern Hauran starts from a site-based look to open up to networks of resource availability, while the example from the Marmaria takes an area-focused perspective to find explanations for the functioning of an economy under arid conditions. Only through the overcoming of the focus on central places, embedded in a hinterland, supported by methodologies of landscape archaeology, the complex economic and social history of marginal - and as such sensitive markers for long-term changes in the Mediterranean – and “un-central” regions.

 

10. Jody Michael Gordon (Wentworth Institute of Technology)

Transforming Culture on an Insula Portuosa Romana: Port Cities as Central Places in Early Roman Cyprus
During the Early Roman period in the Mediterranean (ca. 30 B.C.E. – 330 C.E.), the key central places that distinguished socio-political landscapes were towns. These urban centers functioned as economic and administrative focal points that were controlled by local elites who oversaw wealth redistribution and maintained a dialectical relationship with Rome that mutually benefitted both parties. Yet, beyond providing such rudimentary observations, central place theory has recently been revised to examine how local factors, such as a place’s long-term geography and history, intersect with global ones to transform settlement hierarchies as well as economic, political, and cultural landscapes.
This paper’s goal is to explore such intersections through a study of how port towns functioned as central places that connected globalized imperial networks to localized provincial ones within island contexts. It specifically examines the archaeological remains (e.g., ceramics, architecture, prestige goods, and coinage) from coastal places in Early Roman Cyprus (e.g., Nea Paphos, Salamis etc.) in order to investigate how the island province’s integration into Roman economic and political networks created new central places that altered existing settlement types, hierarchies, and thus, local identities. Overall, this paper shows how the reanalysis of central places within their unique geohistorical contexts can shed new light on both regional and state-level processes of cultural change.

 

11. Lina Diers

Timacum Minus in Moesia Superior - Centrality, regional patterns, and urbanism at a Roman mining site
According to traditional urbanity criteria like administrative status and monumentality, several settlements in Roman Moesia Superior fall out of urban patterns. Timacum Minus is such a case. It was installed alongside the Timok road already in the 1st century AD and further developed due to mining ventures in the wider area from the 2nd century AD on. Timacum Minus never received official status and stayed comparatively small. Yet, the settlement displays certain urban traits in terms of social and economic agglomerative potential guided by local circumstances and acted out at different levels of centrality. First, its prominent location as the only urban settlement in the Timok valley made it geographically central. Secondly, mining as a major attraction factor created hierarchical centrality. Although settlement and mining are attested in and around Timacum Minus both in pre- and post-Roman times, the site has – except for during the Principate – never been central. Hence, the unique circumstances of the 1st-3rd century AD are a good example for both centrality patterns within the Roman World and specifics of urban evolution guided by economy in Moesia Superior. By embedding Timacum Minus’ development into regional patterns of settlement and economy this paper, thus, aims to brainstorm ideas for un-static CPT applications. In doing so, it also proposes more open approaches to urbanity as deriving from social and economic agglomerative potential and constantly creating it.

 

12. Gregor Utz

From contrary models to complementary ones - Central Places and Gateways in the Southern Provence (Arles and Marseille)
The contribution wants to focus on the concept of the “Gateway-City”, which was formulated as a direct response to the Anglo-Saxons’ application of Christaller’s Central-Place-Theory in the 1970ies (BURGHARDT 1971). Nowadays the abstraction of “centrality” as a “relative concentration of interactions” permits to merge both concepts into a powerful tool for archaeologists (NAKOINZ 2014). Here the emphasis will lie on its functionality as a port of trade with infrastructure and buildings, on related administrations as well as on the supply and exchange of long-distance and local/regional products.
By looking at the contact zones and contributory areas of Arles and Marseille in the Southern Provence, the dynamic evolution of these cities as competing and complementary places during time and space can be explained. Was it competition along the trading routes that led to a loss of locational advantage for one or the other city? What role did the political interventions for the development of economy and power play (confiscation, promotion, laws)? To what extent was this predetermined by natural resources and conditions (accessibility, fertility), was this influenced by geological changes (sedimentation, floods)?
By means of several archaeological markers (trading spaces and goods, infrastructure, inscriptions) the modern understanding of the Central-Place-Theory will be proved partly helpful, partly discussion-stimulating looking at the interaction of two distinct economic zones.

 

13. Eli Weaverdyck (University of Freiburg)

Understanding the central place functions of Roman forts through landscapes
The auxiliary forts that lined Rome’s northern frontiers contained a diverse population, craft production, and commercial functions, leading many to conclude that they acted as central places. If they did, the frontier would have offered a wealth of opportunities for local peasants to market their produce. Identifying such small-scale exchange is difficult due to the perishability of the goods and containers. I propose a new approach that relies on quantitative modeling of settlement landscapes, i.e. the spatial relationships between settlements and social and environmental features. By identifying the affordances that attracted and repelled ancient settlers we can begin to understand the economic conditions under which settlement decisions were made. Univariate analysis of the territories surrounding settlements elucidates agricultural strategies, but simple statistical methods are less helpful in understanding marketing because most peasants prioritize production for auto-consumption over commercial exchange. Therefore, I have developed a novel method of comparative, multivariate modeling that illuminates the influence of market places on rural settlement location while controlling for other environmental factors. By varying the composition of the market system, I am able to test the economic relationship between auxiliary forts and the surrounding countryside. Case studies from the Lower Rhine and the Lower Danube are considered.

 

14. Erik Timmerman (University of Cologne)

The Romanization of socio-economic life in the Lower Rhine region: blessing or curse?
By way of his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar had successfully expanded the border of the Roman Empire up to the river Rhine. The native tribes that inhabited the area were now submitted to Roman rule and their territories became part of Rome’s world empire. The central purpose of this paper is to find out to what extent the Roman occupation of the Lower Rhine region transformed the socio-economic landscape of this region in the long term (from the Late Iron Age until the Late Antique period). Did population and urbanization grow? What changed in the way and the intensity in which the natural landscape was exploited? Was there economic growth and, if so, are there also indications that per capita incomes rose? Did such improvements also extend into the lower strata of society, or were they confined to a relatively small elite, only leading to increased inequality? What was the role of the Roman army, the taxation system, infrastructural developments, and other aspects of the Roman political economy? To what extent did variation between sub-regions exist and how should this be explained? In finding answers to these questions, I will bring together a wide variety of (archaeological) studies in order to better understand the impact of Romanization in this particularly well researched part of the Roman World.

 

15. Giorgos Papantoniou (University of Bonn) / Athanasios Vionis (University of Cyprus)

River as an economic asset: settlement and society in the Xeros Valley in Cyprus
Settled and Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus (SeSaLaC) surface survey project has recently initiated an archaeological programme in the Xeros river valley (Larnaka district), Cyprus. This paper, focusing on this valley and the preliminary results of SeSaLaC, aims to present a first synthesis of the diachronic settlement pattern in the region. After a short introduction on the area and the SeSaLaC project, we will attempt to interpret the settlement pattern of the region, from early prehistory to Late Antiquity. Following, we will focus on the main chronological phases recognised through the archaeological evidence, i.e. the Early and Middle Bronze Age, the era of the Cypro-Archaic and Cypro-Classical city-kingdoms, and the Late Roman period/Late Antiquity. We will discuss those periods in the framework of recent developments in landscape archaeology, central place theory and political economy. We conclude that the combination of these approaches can offer a better interpretative framework when reading material culture deriving from surface survey assemblages. Finally, it is demonstrated how the Xeros river played an important role in the settlement hierarchy and economic activity in the area.