In this paper we explore the integration of science-based and
ethnographic approaches that respond to the need to consider
ancient economy and subsistence in the Greek world on a
landscape level. It is particularly important to be in a position
to understand changes and developments in the processes associated
with the preparation of food as well as agro-industrial
commodities such as wine and olive oil. While ancient economic
and subsistence patterns are traditionally and most
effectively investigated where animal and plant remains have
been recovered from excavation, our strategy is less direct;
operating by proxy, it is well suited in the first instance to
archaeological field survey. Having first determined the soils’
chemical signatures and the identity of pottery residues, a comparison
will then be made with data obtained from ethnographic
surveys of abandoned 20th-century farmsteads and workplaces,
where particular activities are known to have taken
place. Integrating these approaches, our work is applying them
to archaeological field survey, specifically the current project on
the city of Sikyon and its vicinity in the North Peloponnese
