Agricultural And Pastoral Landscapes In Pre Industrial Society

Through a series of case studies, this third volume in the Earth series deals with the technological constraints and innovations that enabled societies to survive and thrive across a range of environmental conditions. The contributions are structured into three sections to draw out particular commonalities and contrasts in the choices made by pre-industrial communities in the construction of varied landscapes and cultural heritage: Landnam, from the Old Norse for ‘taking of land’, deals with colonisation, including the drivers and processes through which colonisers developed an understanding of the productive potential and limitations of their new lands. Fields and field systems: Field-walls are a distinctive and apparently timeless characteristic of many pre-industrial farming landscapes but they present many the challenges to their study, such as the effects of ploughing, abandonment and land-use change and of urban development in fertile lowland zones which may eradicate, reduce or conceal past systems of land-use and division. The importance of indirect and proxy evidence is illustrated and the value of interdisciplinary and modelling approaches emphasised. Agro-pastoralism: focuses on the complex ‘time-space adaptations’ devised for managing cultivation and livestock production, particularly the need to prevent stock incursions into arable fields during the growing season whilst making effective use of seasonal grazing resources. The contributions focus on mountainous areas, where temporary migrations, in the form of transhumance, provided access to a diversity of resources based around seasonal constraints on their availability and productivity.

All three volumes in the EARTH series; Plants and People: Choice and Diversity Through Time, Exploring and Explaining Diversity in Agricultural Technology, and Agricultural and Pastoral Landscapes in Pre-Industrial Society: Choices, Stability and ChangeAgriculture has been at the heart of human action and decision-making from the beginning of the Neolithic right up to the present day, when it presents some of the deepest hopes, and greatest challenges for our future. The daily activities and concerns of people, as they went about producing the food to sustain themselves, determined the nature of their relationships, the structure of their communities, and the overall organisation of the societies in which they lived. Knowledge of crops, soils and local climates was complemented by skills in cultivation, the making of agricultural tools and shelter for humans and livestock. This all took place against the background of a changing natural, anthropogenic and social landscape.This series of three Monographs delves into the dynamics of non-industrial, non-mechanised agriculture, from different vantage points – human interaction with plants (including the skills involved), tool use and agricultural techniques, and human adaptation to and interaction with landscapes. Various disciplines are called upon to explore and highlight ways in which pre-industrial societies participated – and often still participate – in developing and maintaining crop diversity around the world, using techniques, landscape modification and plant selection for food and a host of other uses. This book series takes a resolutely human-centric approach, investigating the knowledge, skills, perceptions and experiences of farmers, both of the past and of the present. Scientific methods are applied for example in the analysis of botanical remains, function of tools, structure of soils, and fluctuations in climate, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the knowledge, relationships and experiences of individuals, groups and societies in relation to their agricultural activities, from the beginnings of agriculture some 8,000 years ago to the present day, emphasising a diachronic and methodological perspective.All the books are richly illustrated and in colour, and aim at readers interested in agricultural heritage, history, archaeology and anthropology. The book series will appeal to specialists as well as non-specialist academics, students from various disciplines, and the informed general public.

First full survey of how transhumance operated in Ireland from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth.

The landscape of the north-east of Scotland ranges from wild mountains to undulating farmlands; from cosy, quaint fishing coves to long, sandy bays. This landscape witnessed the death of MacBeth, the final stand of the Comyns earls of Buchan against Robert the Bruce and the last victory, in Britain, of a catholic army at Glenlivet. But behind these momentous battles lie the quieter histories of ordinary folk farming the land - and supping their local malts. Colin Shepherd paints a picture of rural life within the landscapes of the north-east between the 13th and 18th centuries by using documentary, cartographic and archaeological evidence. He shows how the landscape was ordered by topographic and environmental constraints that resulted in great variation across the region and considers the evidence for the way late medieval lifestyles developed and blended sustainably within their environments to create a patchwork of cultural and agricultural diversity. However, these socio-economic developments subsequently led to a breakdown of this structure, resulting in what Adam Smith, in the 18th century, described as 'oppression'. The 12th-century Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and the Industrial Revolution are used here to define a framework for considering the cultural changes that affected this region of Scotland. These include the dispossession of rights to land ownership that continue to haunt policy makers in the Scottish government today. While the story also shows how a regional cultural divergence, recognized here, can undermine 'big theories' of socio-political change when viewed across the wider stage of Europe and the Americas.

This collection is published in the Crusades Subsidia series in honour of Professor Adrian J. Boas, an archaeologist, historian and scholar who has contributed widely and significantly to the study and teaching of the Middle Ages. Professor Boas’ research encompasses the archaeology of the Latin East, military orders with particular emphasis on the Teutonic Order, material culture, architecture and medieval art, historiography, and not least, the Crusades and the Latin East. Exploring Outremer Volume II is a collection of 15 original essays by the leading scholars in the field on the history and archaeology of the Latin East. It covers aspects dealing with the history, archaeology, architecture and function of several castles and fortifications in the Latin Kingdom, and presents new studies on the material, including pottery, numismatics and many other finds. In addition, it includes a chapter dealing with landscape archaeology. This book will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Duchies of Edessa and Antioch, as well as the Crusades and Crusading Orders.

With one volume each year, this series keeps scientists and advanced students informed of the latest developments and results in all areas of the plant sciences. This latest volume includes reviews on plant physiology, biochemistry, genetics and genomics, forests, and ecosystems.

Geoarchaeology is traditionally concerned with reconstructing the environmental aspects of past societies using the methods of the earth sciences. The field has been steadily enriched by scholars from a diversity of disciplines and much has happened as the importance of global perspectives on environmental change has emerged. Carlos Cordova, provides a fully up-to-date account of geoarchaeology that reflects the important changes that have occurred in the past four decades. Innovative features include: the development of the human-ecological approach and the impact of technology on this approach; how the diversity of disciplines contributes to archaeological questions; frontiers of archaeology in the deep past, particularly the Anthropocene; the geoarchaeology of the contemporary past; the emerging field of ethno-geoarchaeology; the role of geoarchaeology in global environmental crises and climate change.