Soils

Greece’s semi-arid climate limits its soils (Figure 1.6) from developing a great depth or elaborate mature profiles. Greek soils often remain thin, accumulating slowly, and largely reflect the parent rock and sediment they develop on. Geology is therefore fundamental for soil type distribution. Thus the scattered volcanic districts are echoed by characteristic Volcanic Soils, mostly not too fertile as they border the dry Aegean Sea. Far commoner, hard crystalline limestone produces characteristic derived soils (Limestone Soils), thin and none too fertile, often patchy between rugged rock. The intermediate hill land of Greece once possessed fertile deep woodland soils, but due to human impact those parts occupied the longest, and farmed continuously, have developed thin stony soils, here mapped along with similar naturally thin soils of the interior mountains (Stony Mountain Soils and bare Rock); Terra Rossas and Rendzinas have similar properties and origins (for the former, see Color Plate 1.3a). Only in some zones do better, deeper soils survive extensively (Brown Forest Soils and Mediterranean Dry Forest Soils) (Color Plate 1.3b). Coastal plains and the drier inland basins, with alluvial and colluvial sediments, have their own fertile but sometimes marshy soils (Alluvial, Marsh, and Meadow Soils) (Color Plate 1.2b).

The overall picture reflects the rocky, mountainous topography of Greece, the limited expanses of rocks that make rich soil, the confined zones of plain (excepting Northern Greece), and the dry climate. Greece is not a naturally rich country for farming, reminding us why the Greeks in many eras imported food, notably grain. However, even if we assume that in regions with dense prehistoric and ancient settlement the once deeper soils have been reduced to a thinner form, due to woodland clearance and erosion, these soils can still provide plentiful harvests at subsistence level (Shiel 2000), though hardly for sustained, large-scale export of wheat, barley or vegetables. Moreover, in some areas, soil impoverishment based on a model of constant environmental decline may not hold true at all (James et al. 1994). In compensation, the abundant exposures of steep and rocky, thin soils in a dry climate with low frosts make ideal growing conditions for two classic Mediterranean crops, the olive and the vine, the former vital to enrich the diet, and both excellent trade crops. Even the “wasteland” of scrub and thin woodland formed till recently a sustainable, fruitful extension of food and raw materials for rural communities (Rackham 1982, Forbes 1997).