Sara FORSDYKE Land, Labor and Economy in Solonian Athens: Breaking the Impasse between History and Archaeology
 

Lin Foxhall ( in  L. Mitchell and P.J.Rhodes eds. The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece,1997:122-129) has recently drawn attention to the gap between historical reconstructions of the crisis of Solonian Athens and the evidence of archaeological survey. In short, while historians continue posit increased demands on the productivity of the land as a major cause of the social disruptions of the Solonian period, archaeological survey reveals no sign of the intensification of agriculture until the Classical period. This paper aims to reexamine the evidence of regional surveys to reassess the question of what the material record can reveal about sixth century Attic land use.