Middle Bronze Age and Hellenistic Mollusk Meals from Soúrpi Bay (Thessaly, Greece)

Abstract

Mollusk shells from three sites at Soúrpi Bay in Thessaly, Greece, were studied. These are the Middle Bronze Age site of Magoúla Pavlfna, the Hellenistic town of New Halos, and Hellenistic dwellings at the former Southeast Gate of this town. The mollusks of all sites were collected in Soúrpi Bay and in the lagoon that existed just inland from the bay during the Middle Bronze Age. Mollusks from shallow water with a soft floor prevailed at the three sites, among which the Mediterranean lagoon cockle, Cerastoderma glaucum, was most numerous . Significant differences in valve wall thickness were found that presumably can be explained by the change in habitat: the Middle Bronze Age cockles from the lagoon had thick valves, the cockles from the Hellenistic period, which grew in river estuaries, had thinner walls. The inhabitants of the large town of New Halos consumed small as well as large cockles, whereas the inhabitants of the Magoúla Pavlína and the Southeast Gate could be more choosy and consume larger cockles almost exclusively. The deep-water species Spondylus gaederopus was gathered by divers more often in the Middle Bronze Age than in the Hellenistid period.