IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v10y2021i5p479-d548246.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Much Is Enough? First Steps to a Social Ecology of the Pergamon Microregion

Author

Listed:
  • Julian Laabs

    (Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Johanna-Mestorf-Str. 2-6, 24118 Kiel, Germany)

  • Daniel Knitter

    (Department of Geography, Physical Geography, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Ludewig-Meyn-Str. 14, 24118 Kiel, Germany)

Abstract

In this study, we present a transparent and reproducible approach to model agricultural production with respect to environmental characteristics and available labour. Our research focuses on the city of Pergamon and its surroundings, with an emphasis on the transition between the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Period, where widespread demographic changes took place. We investigated the degree of local self-sufficiency using different concepts of a city’s complementary region. Using simple topographic derivatives, we derive a measure of environmental suitability that we translate into a carrying capacity index. Our results show that workforce was not a limiting factor for local self-sufficiency. However, environmental carrying capacity may have been limiting in a scenario with a large population. An active investment into the environment, e.g., by the construction of terraces, could have helped to increase the degree of self-sufficiency. Future research should investigate the level of resilience of such a coupled socio-ecological system in relation to environmental and socio-cultural dynamics.

Suggested Citation

  • Julian Laabs & Daniel Knitter, 2021. "How Much Is Enough? First Steps to a Social Ecology of the Pergamon Microregion," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-19, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:5:p:479-:d:548246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/5/479/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/5/479/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ryan E. Hughes & Erika Weiberg & Anton Bonnier & Martin Finné & Jed O. Kaplan, 2018. "Quantifying Land Use in Past Societies from Cultural Practice and Archaeological Data," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-21, January.
    2. Scheidel,Walter & Morris,Ian & Saller,Richard P. (ed.), 2007. "The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521780537, October.
    3. Fabian Becker & Daniel Knitter & Moritz Nykamp & Brigitta Schütt, 2020. "Meta-Analysis of Geomorphodynamics in the Western Lower Bakırçay Plain (Aegean Region, Turkey)," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-29, September.
    4. Bernhard Ludwig, 2020. "Reconstructing the Ancient Route Network in Pergamon’s Surroundings," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-38, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xun Yang & Fabian Becker & Daniel Knitter & Brigitta Schütt, 2021. "An Overview of the Geomorphological Characteristics of the Pergamon Micro-Region (Bakırçay and Madra River Catchments, Aegean Region, West Turkey)," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-27, June.
    2. Gerrit Günther & Thomas Clemen & Rainer Duttmann & Brigitta Schütt & Daniel Knitter, 2021. "Of Animal Husbandry and Food Production—A First Step towards a Modular Agent-Based Modelling Platform for Socio-Ecological Dynamics," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-25, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xun Yang & Fabian Becker & Daniel Knitter & Brigitta Schütt, 2021. "An Overview of the Geomorphological Characteristics of the Pergamon Micro-Region (Bakırçay and Madra River Catchments, Aegean Region, West Turkey)," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-27, June.
    2. Gerrit Günther & Thomas Clemen & Rainer Duttmann & Brigitta Schütt & Daniel Knitter, 2021. "Of Animal Husbandry and Food Production—A First Step towards a Modular Agent-Based Modelling Platform for Socio-Ecological Dynamics," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-25, December.
    3. Nicholas Kyriazis & Xenophon Paparrigopoulos, 2014. "War and democracy in ancient Greece," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 163-183, August.
    4. Haas, Levi & Schenk-Hoppé, Klaus R., 2019. "International Trade: Smarten up to talk the talk," MPRA Paper 99096, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Haddad, Eduardo & Araújo, Inácio, 2022. "Regional Science Meets the Past: What Do Coin Finds Tell Us About the Ancient Spatial Economy?," TD NEREUS 2-2022, Núcleo de Economia Regional e Urbana da Universidade de São Paulo (NEREUS).
    6. Robert T. Nyamushosho & Shadreck Chirikure & Ari Sitas & Eric N. Maṱhoho, 2022. "Modelling Land Use in The Gold Belt Territories of Iron Age Southern Zambezia," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-27, August.
    7. Jongman, Willem M. & Jacobs, Jan P.A.M. & Klein Goldewijk, Geertje M., 2019. "Health and wealth in the Roman Empire," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 138-150.
    8. Benito Arruñada, 2015. "The Institutions of Roman Markets," Working Papers 813, Barcelona School of Economics.
    9. Kyriazis, Nicholas & Metaxas, Theodore, 2012. "War for Profit: Macroculture, Corsairs and partnership companies," MPRA Paper 40926, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Robert Allen & Robert C. Allen, 2007. "How Prosperous were the Romans? Evidence from Diocletian`s Price Edict (301 AD)," Economics Series Working Papers 363, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    11. Dari-Mattiacci Giuseppe & de Oliveira Guilherme, 2021. "Slavery versus Labor," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 495-568, November.
    12. Lyttkens, Carl Hampus, 2011. "Health, Economics and Ancient Greek Medicine," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 165-192.
    13. Bergh, Andreas & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus, 2014. "Measuring institutional quality in ancient Athens," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 279-310, June.
    14. Peter Temin, 2014. "Economic History and Economic Development: New Economic History in Retrospect and Prospect," NBER Working Papers 20107, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Javier Mejía, 2015. "The Evolution of Economic History since 1950: From Cliometrics to Cliodynamics (La evolución de la historia económica desde 1950: de cliometría hasta cliodinámica)," Tiempo y Economía, Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano, vol. 2(2), pages 79, December.
    16. Faïz Gallouj & Faridah Djellal (ed.), 2010. "The Handbook of Innovation and Services," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12872.
    17. Kallmes Kevin, 2018. "Imperial Monetary Policy and Social Reaction in Third Century Rome," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 24(1), pages 1-11, June.
    18. Fan Yang & Fanneng He & Shicheng Li, 2020. "Spatially Explicit Reconstruction of Anthropogenic Grassland Cover Change in China from 1700 to 2000," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-15, August.
    19. Simon Carrignon & Tom Brughmans & Iza Romanowska, 2020. "Tableware trade in the Roman East: Exploring cultural and economic transmission with agent-based modelling and approximate Bayesian computation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-23, November.
    20. Terpstra, Taco, 2020. "Roman technological progress in comparative context: The Roman Empire, Medieval Europe and Imperial China," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:5:p:479-:d:548246. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.