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Abstract:

Abstract The programme of radiocarbon dating undertaken at Stanwick, Northamptonshire, demonstrates the value of scientific dating of Romano-British sites, including those with good pottery sequences and large numbers of datable coins and other finds. It has refined and clarified the chronology and phasing of the site, particularly in its final phase of occupation. It confirmed some of our original dating of the human burials, and showed other dates were significantly wrong. It also addresses issues relating to the calibration of radiocarbon dates and dietary isotopes in the period. This has enabled us to identify activities, material culture and burial practices current at Stanwick and elsewhere in the immediate post-Roman period.

Abstract:

Abstract This chapter considers the implications of the evidence presented in Chapters 3–6. It concludes that the ‘long eighth century’ was a period of innovation in farming regimes that brought a new emphasis on surplus production. The tenth to early eleventh centuries saw the establishment of ‘proto-manorial’ settlement complexes alongside more widespread take-up of the mouldboard plough and systematic rotation, as well as a calibration of cropping regimes to local conditions. The mid-eleventh and twelfth centuries, when planned, ‘nucleated’ villages were established in many parts of the country, are not obviously associated with agricultural innovations but did see a ‘scaling up’ of production and increasing take-up of systematic rotation and the plough. The potential drivers of these developments—technological innovation, demographic change, local lordship, climate change, long-distance trade, etc.—are considered in relation to regional patterns. The conclusion revisits the question of whether there was a medieval ‘agricultural revolution’.

Abstract:

Abstract This chapter presents an analysis of pollen data collated from over fifty cores supplemented by new analyses to provide an overview of land use from the Roman period to the fourteenth century. Existing pollen studies show that much of England was already cleared of woodland by the late Roman period and that the post-Roman centuries saw relatively little woodland regeneration. A new method is presented that allows for a more focused investigation within these open landscapes to establish whether arable expanded or reduced relative to pasture and heath. This approach is used to trace regional changes in land use over time, with consideration of type of land cover, emphasis of land use (i.e. arable, pasture, mixed), strength of the land use signal, and diversity of key crops and weeds. The results allow several hypotheses to be tested, for example that the end of the Roman period saw a marked ‘abatement’ of cereal farming and that changes in farming regimes in some regions were driven by a shortage of pasture.

Abstract:

Abstract Chapter 1 examines the new forms of cereal farming that developed between c.AD 700 and 1300. These involved expanding the amount of land under cultivation and ultimately enabled landowners to amass wealth by exploiting the labour of others. Increases in agricultural outputs in the later part of the period are well documented, but the nature of the farming regimes that underpinned this growth are much debated. The lack of agreement regarding whether there was a period of ‘revolutionary’ change or a gradual process of ‘cerealization’, and how closely innovations like the mouldboard plough and systematic crop rotation were linked with each other and with field and village form, is explored. It is argued that new, direct evidence is needed and the range of bioarchaeological data now available is introduced. The ‘mouldboard plough package’ is introduced as a framing device, the regional and chronological frameworks used are introduced, and the structure of the volume is explained.