Agricultural and Pastoral Landscapes in Pre-Industrial Society

Choices, Stability and Change

Fèlix Retamero, Inge Schjellerup, Althea Davies, Inge Schjellerup, Althea Davies

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781782970125
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

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 colonization, including the drivers and processes through which colonizers 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 plowing, 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 modeling approaches emphasized.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.

SECTION 1

Landnám

Introduction

Fèlix Retamero

The papers included in the landnám section address the initial conditions and choices in the establishment of new agricultural systems in different periods and geographical contexts. The study, which is obviously far from exhaustive, aims at tackling essential questions in the study of agricultural systems: how did everything start? Which criteria were chosen for the selection of the new agricultural spaces? What tool assemblages were used in the colonisation of the new lands? What pre-existing practices were assimilated and included in the technical repertoire? Which of the initial choices prospered and which were abandoned after the adaptation period to the new environment? What was the main productive strategy in the exploitation of these spaces? And which role – if any – did political agents play in this process of agricultural colonisation?

These are among the key questions addressed in this section. As mentioned previously, the case studies embrace a wide geographical and chronological field, in accordance with the rest of the volume. Thus, the reader will find papers on the Neolithic occupation of the Istrian peninsula (A. Balbo), the pre-Hispanic, European, and contemporary colonisations of Ceja de Montaña in the Peruvian Andes (I. Schjellerup), and the various Medieval landnám-s to the south of the Negev, in the ‘Araba Valley (U. Avner), in the north Atlantic (C. Keller and S. Perdikaris), in the Andalusi Balearic Islands (H. Kirchner and F. Retamero), and in Languedoc and Provence (A. Durand).

On the other hand, the variety in the methodological approaches and the evidence on which these studies stand must be highlighted: these include the analysis of the written record, ethnographic inquiries, photo-interpretation, archaeological surveys and bio-archaeological studies. In this regard, the workshops celebrated within the framework of the EARTH programme offered the opportunity to share research avenues currently being followed in different countries on this topic, to discuss common questions, and also to appreciate the richness of results obtained through the combination of different methodological approaches.

Among the main questions arising from the evidence presented in this section, some stand out as especially prominent. In particular, we must mention the difficulties in finding significant traces of pre-existing agricultural practices. Apart from those cases in which no agriculture existed beforehand – for example with the Neolithic landnám process (A. Balbo) or the Norse colonisation of the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland (C. Keller and S. Perdikaris) – and making allowances for possible shortcomings in the approach and methodology employed in each case – this difficulty seems to reveal the discontinuity between pre-existing and later, ‘imported’ agricultural systems. In this regard, it is worth bringing to attention the ‘mother wells’ located within qanāt lines in southern Negev. It is believed that these wells were part of a system which predated the diffusion of the qanāts in the the Umayyad period (U. Avner). This lack of continuity is also visible in the dissociation of the irrigation systems introduced in the Balearic Islands by Arab and Berber colonising peasant groups from the 10th century onwards and the pre-existing agricultural practices, of which virtually nothing is known (H. Kirchner and F. Retamero).

These examples point towards the key issues of change and continuity. In the case of the Norse landnám, the farm was the basic unit in the colonisation of the north Atlantic during the Early Middle Ages, similarly to the Scandinavian case during the Iron Age (C. Keller and S. Perdikaris). On the other hand, some of the hydraulic devices – such as the qanāts – introduced in the Balearic Islands after the Arab and Berber migrations from the 10th century onwards, were part of the tool assemblage, including plants and pre-Islamic irrigation techniques, developed in the Middle East and north Africa and disseminated westwards along with the expansion of Islam.

These cases, among others, raise the question of up to what point the rapid and radical transformation of a pre-industrial agricultural system (the so-called ‘agricultural revolutions’) is actually possible without accompanying migratory phenomena. Obviously, this is not to deny the possibility of transformations in these systems, whether as a result of the application of resilience strategies, the effect of external political decisions, or the need to direct a substantial part of production to exchange. The papers included in this section address some transformations caused by these factors. An example of this is the development of sheep-breeding among the North Atlantic Norse colonies in adaptation to the environmental conditions of the Little Ice Age and the development of taxation and new exchange-focused production in the Late Middle Ages (C. Keller and S. Perdikaris). The transition between the predominant cultivation of sugarcane to the adoption of coffee as cash crop in Ceja de Montaña in the Andes (I. Schjellerup) is equally illustrative of the possibilities of change after the consolidation of colonisation. It must be stressed, however, that these transformations did not involve the dissolution or fragmentation of the organisational basis and the basic design of agricultural production established during the landnám processes. That is, the imprint left by the founders determined later developments, including the potential scope for later change.

A final aspect to be highlighted, among the many touched upon in this section, is the degree of involvement of political power in landnám processes. It seems clear that the imposition of the new agricultural system was only possible in the context of peasant colonisations, and that these practices, although new in the newly colonised spaces, were part of a known and successful heritage, susceptible to reproduction. The prevailing context of feudal consolidation between the 10th and 13th centuries suggests that the colonisation of wet lowlands in Languedoc and Provence may have been a seigneurial initiative, or at least a phenomenon favourable to the aristocratic hegemony perceptible in the condamines (A. Durand). On the other hand, regardless of who promoted the creation of the new irrigated space in ‘Avrona, a list of names and monetary entries of Umayyad date suggest the taxation of agricultural production in this context (U. Avner). Similarly, the case of Ceja de Montaña raises the question of the evolving relationship between peasant groups and changing political powers, from the pre-Inca period to the present day, including the Inca, and the estancias and missions of the colonial period (I. Schjellerup). Hopefully, the selected cases will not only illustrate common questions on pre-industrial agricultural colonisation from different perspectives and approaches, but also open new avenues of research into this topic.

1 Neolithic Agriculture in Mediterranean Wetlands: A Complement to Pastoralism at Polje Čepić (Istria, Croatia)

Andrea L. Balbo

Mediterranean karstic wetlands present different environmental and micro-climatic conditions from the predominant surrounding landscape. They have been attractive to humans because of the rich ecosystems they offer. However, living on the margins of a Mediterranean karstic wetland requires the ability to adapt to ever-changing environmental conditions. This involves the development of mosaic rural economies, based on the exploitation of a wide variety of seasonal resources. In such contexts, Neolithic communities introduced agriculture as a complement rather than an alternative to pastoralism, hunting and fishing.

This paper presents the results issued from the interdisciplinary study of Polje Čepić, a Mediterranean karstic wetland situated in central Istria, Croatia. Neolithic and post-Neolithic sites, dating from ca. 6400 cal BP onwards, have been discovered over this area, where environmental conditions over the past 6900 years have been studied through a sediment core extracted from the floor of the polje (‘field’ in Croatian).

The combined observation of these newly acquired data suggests that fishing and animal stock-keeping remained the principal subsistence strategies of the first Neolithic communities in the region, even after the adoption of small-scale fire clearance and agriculture. This kind of landnám evolved into a mosaic rural economy, which was sustained until modern times, when new mechanical means allowed wetland reclamation and the introduction of large-scale monoculture, leading to radical landscape and social transformation.

Introduction

Current research suggests that farming spread across Europe from the Near East (Levant and Anatolia) following two main routes: the Danube Valley, identified with the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) pottery production, and the Mediterranean coast, characterised by the impressed or cardial ware (Renfrew 1990). Robust ‘wave of advance’ models have been proposed that explain the spread of the Neolithic along the Danube Valley as the progressive substitution of foraging groups (Mesolithic) by farming groups (Neolithic) (Ammerman and Biagi 2003; Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1984; Bellwood and Renfrew 2002; Renfrew 2003, Fort et al. 2012). The Mediterranean region with its mountains and seas is physiographically less homogeneous than the Danube Valley, affecting the pace at which people move and communicate. New models for the diffusion of agriculture across Europe have been elaborated that take these variables into account (Pinhasi et al. 2005). Some incongruences remain in the Mediterranean region, not only regarding the understanding of the pace for the introduction and spread of agriculture, but also in terms of the modes in which foraging and farming communities interacted among one another and with local environmental conditions, potentially originating a myriad of ‘hybrid’ socio-ecological solutions (Binder 2000; Forenbaher and Miracle 2006; Forenbaher and Miracle 2005; Guilaine 2003; Pinhasi and Pluciennik 2004; Price 2000; Zilhão 2001; Zvelebil 2002; Zvelebil and Lillie 2000). In addition, the submersion of large portions of the Mediterranean coastal archaeological record, caused by the post-glacial rise in sea level, has contributed to making our understanding of the evidence from Mediterranean Europe even more elusive (Bailey 2007; Bailey et al. 2008; Bailey and Flemming 2008).

Fig. 1.1. Map of Croatia and adjacent countries with some of the locations mentioned in the text: 1) Polje Čepić; 2) Maliq; 3) Livanjsko Polje; 4) Danilo Polje; 5) Bitola; 6) Cerkniško Polje. Map: R. Lugon, J. C. Loubier and A. Chevalier.

The development of interdisciplinary research in the Mediterranean region is rapidly improving our understanding of the ‘domestication’ of Mediterranean landscapes. A wealth of new information has been produced in recent years along the eastern side of the Adriatic, from Greece to Croatia (Bailey et al. 1999; Chapman et al. 1987; Chapman et al. 1996; Forenbaher and Miracle 2006; Forenbaher and Miracle 2005; Miracle and Forenbaher 2006c; Runnels et al. 2004; van Andel and Runnels 2005). The variety of environments and microclimates offered by Mediterranean coastal regions seems to have favoured the development of much more varied landnám processes than those found in Continental Europe, characterised by a more homogeneous landscape. This study contri...