Until the end of the 18th century, the agricultural landscape of Lesvos presented most of the Mediterranean characteristics
discussed above, namely mixed land uses being predominated by small parcels and cereals. Terraces most likely were used primarily for cereals, grazing lands and groves. The slow but steady increase of olive groves with the expansion of
agricultural land and the conversion of arable land into olive cultivation marked the gradual landscape transformation
with the expansion of terraces in groves, stone constructions for olives storage, the increase of olive mills and the decrease of forests, as terraced olive grove parcels began to ‘climb’ upwards on the mountain sides replacing forests. The 19th
century stabilized and reinforced these transformations