The Emergence of Arboriculture in the 1st Millennium BC along the Mediterranean’s “Far West”

Abstract

This paper presents the history of the introduction and expansion of arboriculture during the 1st millennium BC from the South of the Iberian Peninsula to the South of France. The earliest evidence of arboriculture at the beginning of the 1st millennium hails from the south of the Iberia from where it spread northward along the peninsula’s eastern edge. The different fruits (grape, olive, fig, almond, pomegranate and apple/pear) arrived together in certain areas in spite of uneven distribution and acceptance by local communities. Grape was the crop with the greatest diffusion. The greater diversity of crops in the southern half of the peninsula is also noteworthy. Their development paved the way for a commercial agricultural model in some territories where fruits and their derivatives, such as wine and oil, played vital roles.

The Roman Legacy on European Chestnut and Walnut Arboriculture

“…So for instance, the increase in the presence of walnut in south-eastern France starting from 1700 BC, although it has been reported by some authors (e.g. Argant and Argant 2000;Visset et al 2004;Ledger et al 2015) would require a confirmation by additional sites, when accounting for the little number of representative Neotoma pollen records, the negative sum score of the selected non-Neotoma pollen records (trend 21 in Figure 4), and the almost total absence of remains of walnut nuts dated to the Bronze Age for this area (Pérez-Jordà et al 2021;Bouby et al 2022).…”

Talkin’ About a Revolution. Changes and Continuities in Fruit Use in Southern France From Neolithic to Roman Times Using Archaeobotanical Data (ca. 5,800 BCE – 500 CE)

“…The new fruit species may have been introduced and locally cultivated or may have been imported. In Spain too, the adoption of new fruits occurred first on the coast, in relation to colonial activities, starting in the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE in Andalucia, where important Phoenician colonies were founded (Pérez-Jordà et al, 2021a) and spread progressively to the North-East (Buxó, 2008;Pérez-Jordà et al, 2021b).…”

New Products, New Tastes? Agricultural Innovations and Continuities Between the Ninth and Fourth Centuries Bc in Mediterranean Iberia

“…This is the case of several fruits such as the grape ( Vitis vinifera ) and the olive ( Olea europaea ) that began to be cultivated about 3000 years ago (Pérez‐Jordà et al . 2021), or, for instance, of rice ( Oryza sativa ), a key element of the Mediterranean area, which was documented in Iberia about 1000 years ago. Many of these products have been integrated into our diet and some, such as rice and wine, have become key components of our culinary tradition.…”

“…The first great transformation took place at the beginning of the first millennium BC, when seafarers from the Eastern Mediterranean settled in the area and established contacts with the local Iberian communities, leading to a substantial transformation of the local economy, the traditional farming system and, ultimately, the diet (Pérez‐Jordà et al . 2021). Both local and foreign communities were amalgamated by Mediterranean peoples that had a common agricultural tradition based on the cultivation of cereals and legumes.…”