Caroline Hall

Research School of Archaeology & Archaeological Science, University of Sheffield, Westcourt, 2 Mappin Street, Sheffield S1 4DT.
E-mail: c.hall@sheffield.ac.uk

On Mt. Grammos in north-west Greece a once common agricultural activity, now almost extinct in Europe, still survives.  As a result of the severity of the winters the inhabitants of the highest village, Plikati (1200m), cut leafy hay as fodder to overwinter their animals.  At the end of the summer the villagers “shred” predominantly oak trees on the surrounding valley slopes, cutting off leafy branches which are then stored either in barns or free-standing stacks and used to stall-feed the animals over winter.

Since the recent construction of a road connecting Plikati with the outside world, the younger generations have left the village in search of employment and, as a result the practice of cutting leafy hay is coming to an end.  The inhabitants of Gorgopotamos, a village three miles south and 300 meters lower in elevation, which has been connected to the road for longer, have long since given up this practice, but there is plenty of evidence in the valley for widespread shredding in the past.  Trees were shredded every three to four years resulting, in time, in a distinctive knobbly shape.  Oaks of this kind are to be found throughout the Gorgopotamos Valley. 

Today’s heavily wooded landscape on the upper slopes of Mt. Grammos only came into existence with the Civil War and the later depopulation of the area.  Over the previous fifty to a hundred years, the density of trees had gradually increased as sedentary mixed farming communities replaced seasonal use as a summer base by transhumant shepherds.  Whereas transhumant shepherds subjected the land to severe grazing pressure, sedentary farmers encouraged tree growth for use as winter fodder for animals kept year-round on the mountain.  It is these changes in woodland history which are the subject of this study.

The primary stage of this study was focused on recording the effect of this type of woodland management on tree-ring growth using dendrochronological analysis.  Shredding was found to restrict ring-growth in the year following.  The examination of cores, obtained from living trees; and cross-section slices, taken from recently felled trees, consequently shows when and how often these individual trees were cut for leafy hay.

The ultimate goal of this research is to apply dendrochronology and other techniques to a broader study of the recent history of woodland management in this area.  The dendrochronological data covers a period of two to three hundred years containing a record of changes in woodland practices due to the effect of socio-political factors, such as the decline of the Ottoman Empire (resulting in the termination of Turkish absentee landlord ownership), the Greek Civil War (and associated temporary depopulation), and the encroachment of modern society (and consequent abandonment of local farming).  Oral historical data concerning agricultural practices has been collected to provide a context in which to interpret the tree-ring data, and aerial photographs studied to identify broad-scale changes in woodland cover.  In addition detailed mapping of present woodland composition along selected transects will be undertaken so that individual trees can be placed within a broader landscape-wide context.