Bones from ancient farm animals are revealing how ancient Greek settlers farmed in what is now Croatia more than 2,300 years ago, and how Roman rule later changed those practices.
Researchers led by Rudolph Alagich of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sydney studied animal remains from Pharos, a Greek colony founded around 385 BC on Croatia’s Hvar Island.
The study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, shows that the colonists relied on careful, hands-on farming after they settled among the island’s indigenous population.
Greek settlers from the island of Paros built Pharos and at first lived peacefully alongside local tribes. That peace broke down into conflict, and Pharos won out with help from Dionysius of Syracuse.
The Greeks then took control of the fertile Stari Grad plain and built watchtowers to guard it, while local groups kept the rest of the island. Rome eventually destroyed Pharos in 219 BC during a regional war and folded the area into its empire decades later.
How ancient Greeks in Croatia practiced intensive farming
To understand how farming changed through these events, researchers tested chemical signatures of carbon and nitrogen in 99 animal bones recovered from Pharos during excavations in 2021 and 2022.
The samples came from cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, red deer, and other animals. These chemical markers reveal what each animal ate, which in turn shows how farmers managed them.
Sheep and pigs from the Greek period carried signs of intensive farming, the study found. That suggests these animals stayed close to the settlement and fed on crops grown in heavily fertilized soil.
Pigs split into two distinct groups, with one set living almost like household animals that ate scraps and waste, while others ranged more freely. Cattle showed three separate patterns.
Most grazed on open, untreated pasture, while a smaller number appeared to have fed on coastal marsh plants, and another group ate crops from manured fields. Some cattle may have even come from outside the colony through trade.
Free-roaming goats and Rome’s new farming order
Goats showed signs of free grazing, likely roaming the hilly land south of the plain. Once Rome took over, those differences faded.
Diets across species became far more alike, the data showed, pointing to larger and more standardized herds grazing freely across the island. That shift matches the wine presses, farm villas, and other agricultural sites already found on Hvar from the Roman era.
The findings give one of the clearest pictures yet of how political upheaval reshaped everyday farming in an ancient Adriatic colony, before larger, more uniform operations took hold across the region.
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