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.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• ESF member organisations funding the EARTH Networking Programme and publications
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction: Strategies that Shaped Non-Industrial Landscapes
• Section 1: Landnám
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1: Neolithic Agriculture in Mediterranean Wetlands: A Complement to Pastoralism at Polje Čepić (Istria, Croatia)
  • Chapter 2: Desert Farming in the Southern ‘Araba Valley, Israel, 2nd Century BCE to 11th Century CE
  • Chapter 3: The Northern Frontier – North Atlantic Farming During the Viking and Middle Ages
  • Chapter 4: Becoming Islanders. Migration and Settlement in the Balearic Islands (10th–13th Centuries)
  • Chapter 5: The Transformation of Riversides: The Example of the Alluvial Valleys of Languedoc and the Lower Rhône Valley during the Medieval Period (9th–13th Centuries)
  • Chapter 6: The Formation of New Villages on the Northeastern Slopes of the Andes
• Section 2: Fields and Field Systems
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 7: Fields in Prehistoric Bohemia – Fact and Fiction
  • Chapter 8: Stability and Changes in the Agricultural Use of Limestone Soils in Northern Estonia
  • Chapter 9: Prehistoric Agriculture and the Ancient Fields of Orijärvi, Finland
  • Chapter 10: Ridge and Furrow Fields – Field Systems ca. 1000–1800 as a Stabilising Factor in an Agricultural Society – a Danish Example
  • Chapter 11: Coping with Gravity: The Case of Mas L’Agustí (Montseny Mountains, Catalonia, Spain, ca. 15th–18th centuries)
  • Chapter 12: Landscape Change and Agricultural Terraces in the Peruvian Andes
  • Chapter 13: Managing Slopes for Agricultural Purposes: Terrace Morphology in Andalusi Hydraulic Systems
  • Chapter 14: Agricultural Activities in the 10th–13th Century CE in Brussels (Belgium): An Interdisciplinary Approach
• Section 3: Agro-Pastoralism
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 15: Pastoralism, Landscape and Woodland Use in the Late Neolithic in Southern Germany
  • Chapter 16: Medieval Southern Alpine Mountains: Perceptions and Diverse Interweaving Sources
  • Chapter 17: Flexibility in Upland Farming: Pollen Evidence for the Role of Seasonal Pastures in the Scottish Farm Economy from ca. 1600–1900
  • Chapter 18: Moving Up and Down. Two Cases of Seasonal Family Dwellings in Mountainous Areas: Mid-Norway and the Southwestern Alps
  • Chapter 19: An Example of Vernacular Agro-Pastoral Landscape Perception: The Provençal Transhumant Shepherd
• Annexes
• Contributors
• The EARTH Steering Committee (2004–2009)
• EARTH Programme Members
• Scientific Networking Workshops Contributing to the Contents of this Book