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Roads to recovery: an investigation of early medieval agrarian strategies in Byzantine Italy in and around the eighth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Paul Arthur ,
Girolamo Fiorentino  and
Anna Maria Grasso
Paul Arthur
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Medieval Archaeology, University of Salento, Via D. Birago 64, 73100 Lecce, Italy (Email: paul.arthur@unisalento.it)
Girolamo Fiorentino
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Palaeoecology, University of Salento, Via D. Birago 64, 73100 Lecce, Italy (Email: girolamo._fiorentino@unisalento.it)
Anna Maria Grasso
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Palaeoecology, University of Salento, Via D. Birago 64, 73100 Lecce, Italy (Email: girolamo._fiorentino@unisalento.it) Dipartimento di Archeologia e Storia delle Arti, Università di Siena, Via Roma 56, 53100 Siena, Italy (Email: grasso13@unisi.it)
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The cumulative power of botanical and chemical analysis is demonstrated here by our authors, who succeed in opening a window on Europe's most obscure period, in the south as in the north, the time after the Roman and then the Byzantine empire lost its hold. The emphasis here is on the rise in production and trade of cash crops in the eighth century as detected by survey, pollen, charcoal and residues. Taken together, the new data show a community well on the road to economic recovery after two centuries of recession and monetary failure.

Keywords

ItalyByzantiumeighth century ADeconomic recovery
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 332 , June 2012 , pp. 444 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2012

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