This volume is the outcome of collaborative European research among archaeologists, archaeobotanists, ethnographers, historians and agronomists, and frequently uses experiments in archaeology. It aims to establish new common ground for integrating different approaches and for viewing agriculture from the standpoint of the human actors involved. Each chapter provides an interdisciplinary overview of the skills used and the social context of the pursuit of agriculture, highlighting examples of tools, technologies and processes from land clearance to cereal processing and food preparation. This is the second of three volumes in the EARTH monograph series, The dynamics of non-industrial agriculture: 8,000 years of resilience and innovation , which shows the great variety of agricultural practices in human terms, in their social, political, cultural and legal contexts.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• ESF member organisations funding the EARTH Networking Programme and publications
• Foreword
• Preface
• Section 1: Introduction
  • Chapter 1: The Dimension of Tools, Skills and Processes – Exploring Diversity
• Section 2: The Agricultural Process: Tools and Techniques in Cultural Context
  • Chapter 2: From Land Clearance and Preparation to Sowing
    • 2.1. Introduction
    • 2.2. Minoan Enclosure Walls
    • 2.3. Fire-clearance Husbandry in Slovenia: The Marija Reka Case Study
    • 2.4. Working with the Ard in Present-day Tunisia
    • 2.5. Ploughing Techniques in Slovenia: What tools can Tell and People Explain
    • 2.6. An Experimental Approach to Medieval Cultivation: The Danish Wheel Plough and Tillage Practice
    • 2.7. Concluding Remarks
  • Chapter 3: Tending the Crops
    • 3.1. Introduction
    • 3.2. Water and Land Preparation: Irrigation in the Northwestern Iberian Peninsula
    • 3.3. Rituals for Harvest Protection in Preindustrial Cultures of the Iberian Peninsula
    • 3.4. Seasonal Variations in Crop Tending and Folk Knowledge in Southern France
    • 3.5. Conclusion
  • Chapter 4: Diversity in Harvesting Techniques
    • 4.1. Introduction: Reasons for Variability in Harvesting Techniques and Tools
    • 4.2. Harvesting by Pulling up the Crop by Hand: An ‘Invisible’ Method?
    • 4.3. Harvesting of the Wild Grass Alfa (Stipa tenacisssima L.) by Pulling in the High Tunisian Steppe: an Unusual Method
    • 4.4. The Use of Mesorias to Harvest Hulled Wheat by Stripping: An Ancient Tool?
    • 4.5. Experiments with Harvesting Techniques: Neolithic Sickles and Uprooting
    • 4.6. The Mystery of the Missing Sickles in the Northwest Michelsberg Culture in Limburg, The Netherlands
    • 4.7. Neolithic Sickles in the Iberian Peninsula
    • 4.8. Sickles with Teeth and Bone Anvils
    • 4.9. Conclusions
  • Chapter 5: Threshing Processes and Tools
    • 5.1. Exploring Diversity in the Past: An Introduction
    • 5.2. Threshing Floors in Cyprus
    • 5.3. Trampling the Crop with Animals
    • 5.4. The Manufacture and Use of Threshing Sledges
    • 5.5. Ethnographic Threshing Sledge Use in Eastern Europe: Evidence from Bulgaria
    • 5.6. Persistence of the Threshing Sledge: The Tunisian Tribulum
    • 5.7. The Contemporary use of Iberian Threshing Sledges: Some Ethnographic Observations about an Obsolete Choice
    • 5.8. Is the Tribulum Traditional in Crete? Problems of Historical Documentation
    • 5.9. Prehistoric Threshing Sledges: A Case Study from Bulgaria
    • 5.10. Blades, Sickles, Threshing Sledges and Experimental Archaeology in Northern Mesopotamia
    • 5.11. The Use of Flails for Threshing Cereals
    • 5.12. Alternative Threshing Methods: Lashing and Beating with Sticks and Mallets in the Western Mediterranean
    • 5.13. Pre-mechanised Threshing Systems in France
    • 5.14. The Interdependence of Time, Crops and Techniques
    • 5.15. Between the Threshing Floor and the Oven: Winnowing, Cleaning and Milling Grain in Crete
    • 5.16. Conclusions
  • Chapter 6: Storage and Preservation
    • 6.1. Introduction
    • 6.2. The Preparation of Storage Pits in Ancient France: Phytolith Evidence
    • 6.3. Maize Storage in Simple Pits
    • 6.4. A Participatory Approach to Post-Harvest Loss Assessment: Underground and Outdoor Cereal Storage in Doukkala, Morocco
    • 6.5. Explaining the Variability in Storage Structures in Slovenia
    • 6.6. Storage in the Western Rif (Morocco): Baskets and Clay/Dung Containers
    • 6.7. Fodder and Straw in Tunisia and Syria: Modern and Archaeological Contexts
    • 6.8. The Preservation of Quince in Honey According to Columella: An Interpretation Using Food Biochemistry
    • 6.9. Final Remarks
  • Chapter 7: Cereal Processing and Cooking: Techniques, Tools and Gestures
    • 7.1. Introduction
    • 7.2. Parching and Dehusking Hulled Wheats
    • 7.3. Crop Drying and Roasting in the Roman Period (Northern France). Identifying a Drying Structure by Phytolith Analysis
    • 7.4. Diversity in Quern Shape and Use in the Neolithic of the Lower Rhine Basin
    • 7.5. Grinding and Pounding Tools in Bronze Age Crete
    • 7.6. Barley Meal Processing in the Aegean World: A Look at Diversity
    • 7.7. Conclusions
• Section 3: The Social Context of Agricultural Technology
  • Chapter 8: Aquiring Skills and the Transmission of Knowledge
    • 8.1. Introduction
    • 8.2. ‘Training Oxen Meant Training for the Children’
    • 8.3. Art of a Mower: Skills with a Scent of Sexuality
    • 8.4. Skills as Identity Markers
    • 8.5. Blades as Messengers of Agriculture: A Case Study from Scandinavia
    • 8.6. Concluding Remarks
  • Chapter 9: Religious and Legal Aspects of Agarian Life
    • 9.1. Introduction
    • 9.2. The Complex Art of Changing Lifestyles on the Verge of the Neolithic
    • 9.3. The Ritualisation of Agricultural Tools During the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age
    • 9.4. An ‘Agricultural Calendar’ from the Bronze Age?
    • 9.5. The Symbolic Connotations of Agricultural Tools in Antiquity
    • 9.6. Technical Solutions between Habits and Regulations
    • 9.7. Influence of Legislation on Agrarian Techniques: Medieval and Modern Local Laws in the Iberian Peninsula
  • Chapter 10: Agricultural Practices: Change and Stability
    • 10.1. Introduction
    • 10.2. Some Examples of Technological Change in Prehistoric Bulgaria
    • 10.3. The stability of Byzantine Tools
    • 10.4. Some Principles of Technological Decline: The Case of the Tribulum
    • 10.5. Transformation and Resilience in a Local Agro-System: The Canton of Comps in the Southern French Alps 1850–1990
• Annexes
• Contributors
• The EARTH Steering Committee (2004–2009)
• EARTH Programme Members
• Scientific Networking Workshops Contributing to the Contents of this Book