Overview
This first monograph in the EARTH: The Dynamics of Non-Industrial Agriculture: 8,000 years of Resilience and Innovation series, approaches the great variety of agricultural practices in human terms. It focuses on the relationship between plants and people, the complexity of agricultural processes and their organisation within particular communities and societies. Collaborative European research among archaeologists, archaeobotanists, ethnographers, historians and agronomists using a broad analytical scale of investigation seeks to establish new common ground for integrating different approaches. By means of interdisciplinary examples, this book showcases the relationship between people and plants across wide ranging and diverse spatial and temporal milieus, including crop diversity, the use of wild foodstuffs, social context, status and choices of food plants.
Full Product Details
Author: Alexandre Chevalier ,
Elena Marinova ,
Leonor Pena-Chocarro
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Volume: 1
Dimensions:
Width: 20.80cm
, Height: 3.30cm
, Length: 29.50cm
Weight: 2.118kg
ISBN: 9781842175149
ISBN 10: 1842175149
Pages: 432
Publication Date: 01 April 2014
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
Choice and diversity are watchwords of consumer society and one only need look at supermarket shelves to see that this applies as much to food as to any other commodity. In reality, however, we rely on a narrower range of plant and animal species than ever before. The contributors to Plants and people: choices and diversity through time, edited by CHEVALIER, MARINOVA and PE NA-CHOCARRO, demonstrate that our ancestors made use of a much more varied range of food sources-diversity meant survival and choice meant something more profound than whether to have pizza or paella. This volume is the first of three resulting from the 'Early Agricultural Remnants and Technical Heritage (EARTH) Programme'. Funded by the European Science Foundation, this programme promoted collaboration between archaeologists, ethnographers, historians, geographers and geologists from across Europe, as well as North America and the Middle East. This first volume deals with the diversity of crop choice; the second volume examines agricultural technology and the third, agricultural landscapes. Following an introduction to the range of methodologies and source materials, such as archaeobotany, ethnobotany, written sources and artistic representations of plants, the volume is divided into two main sections: 'Food plants' and 'Food and beyond'. Each section contains three chapters, which are themselves comprised of up to nine stand-alone contributions bookended with editorial introductions and conclusions, plus consolidated chapter bibliographies. The wealth of material makes it impossible to name-check every contribution and instead we will have to make do with a taster's menu. The section on 'Food plants' begins with synthetic overviews of the archaeobotanical evidence for crop cultivation in various geographical regions of Europe, plus the US Southwest and the Lake Titicaca Basin. Attention then turns to fruit trees, from the harvesting of acorns in California to the expanding evidence for the presence of lemon trees in first millennium BC Italy. Also in this section, Bouby et al. consider viticulture in southern Gaul, where the archaeobotanical evidence now clearly attests to the cultivation of grape vines from at least the fifth century BC and possibly earlier. The lack of evidence for the processing facilities associated with intensive viticulture, however, suggests that grapes were grown for local, small-scale production only. Consequently, Bouby et al. conclude that the Romans did not introduce the (southern) Gauls to viticulture, as claimed by Greco-Roman writers, but rather to the commercialisation of viticulture (more on this topic below). Meanwhile, the contribution by Aumeeruddy- Thomas et al. draws a contrast between the domestication of cereals and fruit trees. The former is characterised by a clear progression from wild to domesticated. The differences between wild, spontaneous and cultivated fruit trees such as fig and olive are much less clear, hence the practice of more diverse and flexible systems of arboriculture, illustrated here with examples from Morocco. Other interesting papers include two on the Canary Islands, both co-authored byMorales and Gil, exploring plant use in this fascinating island laboratory. Pre-Hispanic colonisers arrived with a limited range of crops (the only fruit tree introduced, for example, was the fig) and colonisers must have learnt to make good use of the indigenous plants. The second main section moves on to the non-food uses of plants: fuel, temper in earthen construction, basketry, insecticide, and resin for boat caulking. There are also chapters on the use of plants in ritual and festive contexts, and on social status and identity. The latter include examination of the archaeobotanical evidence for the use of food plants at the late Iron Age and early Roman oppidum of Bibracte, France; Durand and Wiethold compare assemblages from across this large site, concluding that no single plant type can be associated with social status. Some new exotic species introduced during the Roman period, such as coriander, are present, but, the authors suggest, it is the evidence for wine (amphorae), and possibly meat, consumption that are more likely to be indicative of social status than plants (more on drink and status in Iron Age Gaul anon). After all that diversity, any attempt at synthesis would be a tall order. Instead, the editors sign off with a brief conclusion that flags the need for diversity in the use of plants in the past and the reduction in the present day: What was a dietary necessity sixty years ago in most of the European mountainous regions is now a family Sunday pastime (p. 469). They also draw attention to the social and cultural contexts, alongside soil and climate, that shape the decisions concerning which plants to cultivate. For example, rice in northern Italy was promoted during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries under the influence of the Sforza family (Rottoli, p. 80); for earlier periods, we obviously lack the textual sources that help to illuminate these choices but, as with the increasing preference for rye in early medieval Europe (Rottoli, p. 78), it seems likely that such decisions are to be similarly explained by social and cultural factors. With over 60 contributions spanning 500 pages and more than 40 authors from a dozen countries, the volume has the potential to make an indigestible meal. That it is not can be attributed in no small part to the generally high standard of language editing and, unusually for such a collection of papers, the provision of a detailed index. EARTH 1, along with its two companion volumes, will form an important and useful collection that should appear on every archaeobotanist's bookshelves. -- Antiquity Antiquity
With over 60 contributions spanning 500 pages and more than 40 authors from a dozen countries, the volume has the potential to make an indigestible meal. That it is not can be attributed in no small part to the generally high standard of language editing and, unusually for such a collection of papers, the provision of a detailed index. EARTH 1, along with its two companion volumes, will form an important and useful collection that should appear on every archaeobotanist's bookshelves. Or should that be palaeoethnobotanist's bookshelves? -- Antiquity Antiquity This book amply meets the proposed objectives, finding a new common ground for integrating different approaches, and viewing agriculture from the standpoint of the human actors involved. -- Jose Antonio Lopez-Saez European Journal of Archaeology
