Minoan ‘villas’ were large complexes—in the vast majority of cases, the central buildings of settlements—erected in the Neo-palatial period in Crete. Their function is still a matter of debate while very little is known about subsistence and economic activities in relation to farming for these sites. The excavation research project at the Minoan villa of Zominthos, the highest in altitude Minoan villa found to date, conducted between 2004 and 2008, provided an opportunity to shed light into these issues. For the purposes of this project, the first systematic archaeobotanical study of a Minoan villa was conducted. This indicated a potentially varied food plant base at Zominthos that included the most common and ubiquitous food plants and their combinations recorded in Bronze Age Crete. Spatial analysis of the finds added information on activities that were taking place in the various excavated parts of this villa and also highlighted taphonomic factors influencing the assemblage. Comparison of the arhaeobotanical results with those previously obtained from another four villas in Crete stressed the disparities in the quality of the different datasets and allowed only some tentative suggestions to be made. All villas included basic cereal and fruit staples of the period and recorded a variety and regular presence of legumes, with stored produce found to date only at Myrtos-Pyrgos. This study highlighted the need for embracing bioarchaeological investigations when excavating these sites and implementing sampling strategies planned together with excavators. It provided the data and, therefore, the potential for coming closer to understanding the function(s) that villas had in the spheres of subsistence, leading to a closer understanding of their socio-economic role(s) in the Minoan political society.

中文翻译：

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克里特岛佐明索斯的米诺斯山晚期“别墅”中的植物资源和生存

Minoan的“ villas”是大型建筑群-在大多数情况下是定居点的中央建筑物-建于克里特岛的新教皇时代。它们的功能仍是一个有争议的问题，而对于这些地点与耕种有关的生存和经济活动知之甚少。Zominthos的Minoan别墅（目前发现的海拔最高的Minoan别墅）的挖掘研究项目于2004年至2008年之间进行，为阐明这些问题提供了机会。为了该项目的目的，对Minoan别墅进行了首次系统的考古植物学研究。这表明Zominthos的食物植物基地可能会发生变化，其中包括最常见和普遍存在的食物植物及其在青铜时代克里特岛记录的组合。对发现物的空间分析增加了有关在该别墅各个出土部分中进行的活动的信息，并且还强调了影响组装体的拼音因素。将人工植物学结果与先前从克里特岛上另外四栋别墅获得的结果进行比较，强调了不同数据集的质量差异，仅提出了一些初步的建议。所有别墅均包含该时期的基本谷物和水果主食，并记录了各种豆科植物的定期存在，并且仅在Myrtos-Pyrgos才发现储藏产品。这项研究强调了在挖掘这些地点并与挖掘机一起实施计划的采样策略时需要进行生物考古调查的必要性。它提供了数据，因此，