New evidence for food in the Late-Medieval Balkans. Archaeobotany of Venetian houses at Butrint in southern Albania

The Roman Forum Excavations (RFE) Project discovered three Venetian houses, dating from the 14th to the 16th century, at the site of the Roman forum of Butrint, located on the coast of SW Albania. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, the city is among Albania's most important archaeological sites, having evolved from a Greek emporium to a substantial Roman colony to a bishopric in the Middle Ages. The Republic of Venice acquired Butrint, together with Corfu, in 1386 and held them until the fall of the Republic in 1797. The Venetian houses are the first dwellings of the Late Medieval period to be excavated in this region and are among the few excavated in the Balkans, serving as exemplars of Late Medieval domestic architecture in Epeiros (NW Greece and S Albania). The larger, two-story house (Venetian House III) had been destroyed by fire in the first half of the 16th century, apparently connected with the sack of the city of 1537. Thereafter the Venetians abandoned the old city but maintained a small outpost on the edge of the headland to defend the lucrative fisheries and the enclave from small-scale Ottoman attacks. The collapsed roof of the house sealed and preserved the contents of a vast quantity of plant macro remains. The seeds and fruit discovered include cereals, pulses and other plants, of which the most abundant was naked wheat. The density distribution of the deposition suggests that foodstuffs were stored on the upper floor of the house, probably to keep them away from ground humidity. The presence of a wide range of vetches (Vicia sp.) and vetchlings (Lathyrus sp.) may be associated with cultural use. Indeed, baked products made with cereal-pulse mixtures were common during the Middle Ages, and traditional uses of some of these crops like Spanish vetchling (L. clymenum), common vetch (V. sativa), pea (Pisum sativum), grass pea (L. sativus), red pea (L. cicera), lentil (Lens culinaris) and one-flowered vetch (V. articulata) remain locally attested in regions associated with Albanian culture. The analysis of this assemblage provides a new window into a period and territory rarely studied for its archaeobotany.