Bronze and Oil: A Possible Link between the Introduction of Tin and Lallemantia to Northern Greece

ARCHAEOBOTANICAL investigations in northern Greece in the last 20 years have yielded a considerable body of data for the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods in the region (Kroll 1983; Jones, G. et al. 1986; Kroll 1991; Hubbard and Housley 2000; Renfrew, J. 2003; Valamoti and Jones 2003; Valamoti 2004). This has facilitated comparisons between the crops used during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. During the course of the Bronze Age a wide range of new crops (e.g. spelt wheat, opium poppy, millet) were imported or introduced into northern Greece, probably mostly from regions further north (Valamoti 2007), although some, like coriander and Celtic bean, have a Mediterranean origin (Zohary and Hopf 2000). The available evidence at present suggests that these ʹnewʹ crops were not introduced into the region as a package but at different times during the Bronze Age (Valamoti 2007). Recent examination of the archaeobotanical assemblages from three Bronze Age sites in the Macedonia region of northern Greece, Mandalo, Archontiko, and Assiros, has revealed the presence, in the archaeobotanical record, of a previously unrecognized genus, Lallemantia (Jones, G. and Valamoti 2005). The natural distributions of the species of this genus lie outside Greece, and Europe in general, in regions ranging from Iran westwards into Anatolia, and south into Jordan, Palestine and Israel (Davis 1982; Greuter et al. 1986; Post 1932; Tutin et al. 1972). L. royleana extends into India but its seeds are smaller than those recovered archaeologically. The possible routes through which Lallemantia arrived in northern Greece are considered in relation to evidence for trade in metals, in particular tin.