“Cui Bono?” An Agricultural Turning Point in the Roman Provinces Upper Germania and Raetia

The history of agricultural innovation, intensification and the associated diversity of land use and plant food consumption in the Roman provinces of Upper Germania and Raetia was investigated using charred plant macrofossils (on-site data) and pollen assemblages (off-site data). A presence/absence data set compiled from major published data (n=106) allowed to assess the diversity of food plants according to site types. Highest diversity occurred at small vici (rural villages), reflecting the diversity of features studied, but also the diversity of activities typical for this site type. Generally, the larger, urbanised or military sites, such as forts and large vici (country towns), show higher plant food diversity compared to the smaller, rural sites such as villae rusticae. This difference is based mainly on the diversity of fruits, vegetables and spices consumed. To put the results in a broader chronological context, the feature-based ubiquity of charred finds of six taxa, as indicators of less intensive agriculture (i.e. lowintensity tillage, longer fallow period, smaller field sizes) were evaluated. This dataset obtained from 248 archaeological sites covering the period from Bronze Age to Middle Ages, showed the strongest decrease of perennial arable weeds during the Roman period pointing to a possible shortening of fallow periods and deeper tillage than before. The pollen records (n=7) indicate a decreasing importance of wood pasture and ruderals during the Roman period compared to the preceding and following periods. The studied archaeobotanical evidence indicates a clear turning point in food culture and land use in the area during the Roman period.