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Abstract:

Abstract As in the rest of Europe, the population of medieval England grew steeply, especially between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. This volume investigates how medieval farmers managed to produce sufficiently large harvests to sustain this growth—which in turn fuelled a major expansion of towns and markets—and the impact of this ‘cerealisation’ on the landscape. It presents new evidence recovered from hundreds of archaeological excavations for the development of the medieval farming regimes that shaped the English landscape in ways still visible today. Medieval farming is a contentious topic, not least because of the different approaches taken by historians, archaeologists, and geographers. No consensus has been reached about the cultivation regimes that underpinned the remarkable increase in cereal production seen in this period. A large-scale analysis of the excavated remains of medieval crops, weeds, livestock, and pollen has generated new evidence using a range of science-based methods. The results reveal the conditions in which medieval crops were grown and the way in which land use changed between the late Roman period and the Black Death. The authors relate the results to archaeological and written evidence for farms and farming, bringing an ecological perspective to the debate about the so-called medieval agricultural revolution. The ‘cerealisation’ of England emerges as a regionally variegated process lasting several centuries, whose overall impact can nevertheless be described as ‘revolutionary’.

Abstract:

Abstract Early medieval farmers expanded cereal production largely by adopting ‘low-input’ forms of farming. These involved increasing the area of land under cultivation while decreasing the amount of ‘input’—manure and human labour—per land unit. Weed flora vary according to soil fertility and tillage, and the seeds of arable weeds that grew among medieval crops and were preserved with them provide a valuable indicator of soil conditions. Analysis of weed flora is used here to distinguish crops grown in low-input (‘extensive’) conditions from those grown in higher input (more ‘intensive’, presumably smaller scale) conditions. This is complemented by an analysis of the stable isotope values of cereal grains to investigate how intensively crops were manured and whether cultivation expanded onto heavier, more productive soils. Finally, a national database of archaeobotanical remains is interrogated to establish what arable weeds reveal about the chronology and regional trajectory of arable ‘extensification’. The results reflect a shift to ‘low-input’ regimes beginning around the eighth century, indicating an expansion in the scale of arable farming.

Abstract:

Abstract The mouldboard plough is traditionally regarded as a key part of a technological package that boosted agricultural productivity north of the Alps. Chapter 5 reviews the evidence for the transition from ard to plough and considers when it changed from being a high-status implement used at a few elite sites to an essential piece of equipment for farmers wishing to implement an extensive cultivation regime. A study of cattle bones allows the changing emphasis on traction over time and regionally to be traced. The results, combined with an ecological study of arable weeds to gauge soil disturbance (reflecting the type and frequency of tillage), indicate that use of the plough increased from the eighth century, with a majority of settlements displaying a distinctive ‘draught cattle signature’ by the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Abstract:

ISODATE is a complete dating package for stable oxygen isotope dendrochronology that offers a user-friendly workspace for processing, crossmatching and precisely dating stable isotope chronologies. ISODATE provides the first standardisation of approach for isotope laboratories and the heritage sector for dating and the reporting of dates. The software produces downloadable figures and CSV files containing series alignments and statistical results. The application is freely and publicly available online (isodate.swansea.ac.uk). A manual and guided example accompanies the software. It is hoped that community-led refinements and additional reference chronologies will be added to ISODATE as the technique develops and is adopted more widely.

Abstract:

Multiple pre-Columbian (pre-1492 CE) archaeological sites now challenge the traditional portrayal of Amazonia as a ‘pristine wilderness’. This is especially true within the forest-savanna mosaic landscapes of lowland Bolivia, where the pre-Columbian Casarabe Culture constructed hundreds of settlement mounds, integrated with a dense causeway-canal network – one of the most complex, stratified societies yet discovered in Amazonia. Excavations at previous sites indicate that this culture sustained itself by practicing large-scale, maize-based agriculture. However, the Casarabe Culture’s mounds have also been found within the riparian forests abutting major river systems, where their inhabitants could have benefitted from greater access to forest resources and local fish species. To determine whether these differences influenced how the Casarabe Culture utilised the landscape, we conducted palaeoecological analysis on the sediments collected from Laguna Loma Suarez (LLS), an oxbow lake situated adjacent to a monumental habitation mound within these riparian forests. Our analysis reveals that, despite significant differences in natural resource availability, the Casarabe Culture continued to cultivate maize locally around LLS for over a millennium, between 280 BCE and 1130 CE, with anthropogenic fires largely restricted to the open savannas. Our record also suggests that the Casarabe Culture possibly delayed either forest recovery or natural forest encroachment until after the nearby settlement mound was abandoned. These findings, when compared with those of other sites in the region, show that maize was an important crop in pre-Columbian times, irrespective of major differences in natural resource availability across the complex forest-savanna mosaic settings of Amazonian Bolivia.