land Article How Much Is Enough? First Steps to a Social Ecology of the Pergamon Microregion Julian Laabs 1, * and Daniel Knitter 2   Citation: Laabs, J.; Knitter, D. How Much Is Enough? First Steps to a Social Ecology of the Pergamon Microregion. Land 2021, 10, 479. https://doi.org/10.3390/land10050479 Academic Editor: César Parcero-Oubiña Received: 10 March 2021 Accepted: 21 April 2021 Published: 3 May 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Johanna-Mestorf-Str. 2-6, 24118 Kiel, Germany 2 Department of Geography, Physical Geography, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Ludewig-Meyn-Str. 14, 24118 Kiel, Germany; knitter@geographie.uni-kiel.de * Correspondence: julian.laabs@ufg.uni-kiel.de; Tel.: +49-431-880-2335 Abstract: In this study, we present a transparent and reproducible approach to model agricultural production with respect to environmental characteristics and available labour. Our research focuses on the city of Pergamon and its surroundings, with an emphasis on the transition between the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Period, where widespread demographic changes took place. We investigated the degree of local self-sufficiency using different concepts of a city’s complementary region. Using simple topographic derivatives, we derive a measure of environmental suitability that we translate into a carrying capacity index. Our results show that workforce was not a limiting factor for local self-sufficiency. However, environmental carrying capacity may have been limiting in a scenario with a large population. An active investment into the environment, e.g., by the construction of terraces, could have helped to increase the degree of self-sufficiency. Future research should investigate the level of resilience of such a coupled socio-ecological system in relation to environmental and socio-cultural dynamics. Keywords: landscape archaeology; social ecology; land use; antiquity; reproducible research 1. Introduction In this study, we focus on the potential food production of Pergamon and its comple- mentary region during the transition between the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Period, where widespread demographic changes in the city and its complementary region are attested [1,2]. The complementary region is the area surrounding a central place that is supplied by it with central functions, e.g., in terms of administration, commerce, and cult [3,4]. In turn, this area is often thought of as the basis of the local supply for the central place [5,6]. It is not our intention to conduct a detailed analysis of the city of Pergamon as a central place (see [7] on this) or to conduct an analysis of the interactions between the city and its surrounding hamlets, villages, and cities. In this study, we focus on the potential productivity of Pergamon’s complementary region in terms of cereal and legumi- nous production, as the main dietary share. We use three different heuristics to delineate the complementary region: (a) the reconstructed chora as the core territory or hinterland of a city, (b) the Pergamon Micro-Region, which comprises further cities with their own territories (chorai), and (c) the accompanying river catchments (Figure 1). The delineation of Pergamon’s chora is, due to limited information in written sources and archaeological remains, difficult. A cautious reconstruction of its potential extent by Sommerey [8] during the Roman Imperial Period includes the Kaikos (Bakırçay) valley approximately from the modern village Tekkedere in the west to Soma in the east and was framed by the slopes and mountains of the Pindasos (Kozak and Madra Da ˘ gı) in the north and Aspordenon (Yunt Da˘ gı) in the south (Figure 1). The geographical extent of the Pergamon Micro-Region includes the lower valley of the Kaikos (Bakırçay) up to its delta (incorporating the cities of Pitane and Elaia), the adjacent mountains of Pindasos (Kozak and Madra Da ˘ gı) in the Land 2021, 10, 479. https://doi.org/10.3390/land10050479 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land