The Socio-Economics of Roman Storage: Agriculture, Trade, and Family
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In a pre-industrial world, storage could make or break farmers and empires alike. How did it shape the Roman empire? The Socio-Economics of Roman Storage cuts across the scales of farmer and state to trace the practical and moral reverberations of storage from villas in Italy to silos in Gaul, and from houses in Pompeii to warehouses in Ostia. Following on from the material turn, an abstract notion of 'surplus' makes way for an emphasis on storage's material transformations (e.g. wine fermenting; grain degrading; assemblages forming), which actively shuffle social relations and economic possibilities, and are a sensitive indicator of changing mentalities. This archaeological study tackles key topics, including the moral resonance of agricultural storage; storage as both a shared and a contested concern during and after conquest; the geography of knowledge in domestic settings; the supply of the metropolis of Rome; and the question of how empires scale up. It will be of interest to scholars and students of Roman archaeology and history, as well as anthropologists who study the links between the scales of farmer and state.
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Short-lived sample material from Akrotiri likely offers dates within ~0-2 years of the find context, and other short to shorter-lived sample material will not include more than a few years of in-built age.
“In view of what is known of traditional and ancient agricultural practices and storage at Akrotiri [125, 141, 142], the short-lived sample material likely offers dates within ~0-2 years of the find context and other short to shorter-lived sample material (animal bones from likely use as food, twigs, branches and outermost tree-rings) will not include more than a few years of in-built age.”
From Second Intermediate Period date for the Thera (Santorini) eruption and historical implications (2022) · cites this paper as [142]
In “Grain and Ownership” (page not provided), the source says one to two years was probably the upper limit for above-ground grain storage, with actual storage often shorter. That lends support to a short interval for stored grain, but the passage concerns Roman-period Italy, not Akrotiri, and does not establish the age of Akrotiri samples or address animal bones, twigs, branches, and outermost tree rings. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Second Intermediate Period date for the Thera (Santorini) eruption and historical implications
Manning, S. W. (2022) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0274835 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
- Authors
- Van Oyen, A.
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2020-05-06
- OpenAlex
- W3158067642
- Cited by
- 0
- References
- 6
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Classical Antiquity Studies
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Historical and Literary Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History
- Keywords
- agricultural storage, Roman Empire, grain storage, wine storage, surplus, material transformation, interpersonal relationships, Roman conquest, Pompeii, Ostia, Gaul, Italy
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