Alonia

The Ethnoarchaeology of Cypriot Thershing Floors

Abstract

Prepared threshing floors, used with flint-toothed threshing sledges drawn by animals, were a common feature of traditional Mediterranean agriculture. Archaeological examples of threshing floors are known from at least the first millennium BC in Greece. Although they are widespread, common, durable, and economically and socially important, few archaeologists have attempted to interpret or even describe them. The ethnoarchaeological information necessary to understand threshing floors and realise their interpretive potential is also spare and scattered. Examples of threshing floors from Cyprus, and ethnographic information about Cypriot threshing, reveal both variation and common features which reflect functional, social and economic contexts.