This June-July Dr Alexandra Livarda visited the archaeological site of Akrotiri at Santorini, Greece, to start a new research collaboration with Dr Anaya Sarpaki, the head archaeobotanist of this important site. Akrotiri was a Bronze Age town, buried under the ashes of the volcanic eruption that led to the destruction of this busy and prosperous centre in the Aegean, providing us with a rare glimpse of life in the past. Famous for its amazing frescoes of the fisherman, the blue monkeys and the women collecting crocuses, the town has an extremely rich research potential to offer! The new collaboration between the two archaeobotanists aims to delve into the agricultural economy of the site and identify how the people at the town acquired and controlled their subsistence base, how they managed their land and how they used food to negotiate their social roles, using material from the impressive storages and from across various buildings of the town.
This collaboration is taking place within the framework of the I+D project DarkAegean (PID2022-139907NB-I00) led by Dr Livarda, and endeavours to use a series of complementary methodological approaches to analyse archaeobotanical remains of key crop products of the town. The two archaeobotanists reviewed plant remains recovered during the several years of the excavations at Akrotiri (directed by Prof. Ntoumas), assessed contextual and taphonomic parameters and prepared them for further processing. This research stay was enriched by everyday discussions on the archaeology and bioarchaeology of the Bronze Age site with the rest of the bioarchaeology team working there and organised by Dr Sarpaki, as well as by the numerous visits and discussions with botanists and local people that generously shared their knowledge on plants and traditional life at the island.
