Loading...

Two Oxen Ahead: Pre-Mechanized Farming in the Mediterranean

Share Icon

ISBN: 978-1-118-81933-3

February 2014

Wiley-Blackwell

384 pages

Description
TWO OXEN AHEAD

This revealing study of farming practices in societies around the Mediterranean draws out the valuable contribution that knowledge of recent practices can make to our understanding of husbandry in prehistoric and Greco-Roman times. It reflects increased academic interest in the formative influence of farming regimes on the societies they were designed to feed. The author’s intensive research took him to farming communities around the Mediterranean, where he recorded observational and interview data on differing farming strategies and practices, many of which can be traced back to classical antiquity or earlier.

The book documents these variables, through the annual chaîne opératoire (from ploughing and sowing to harvesting and threshing), interannual schemes of crop rotation and husbandry, and the generational cycle of household development. It traces the interdependence of these successive stages and explores how cultural tradition, ecological conditions, and access to resources shape variability in husbandry practice. Each chapter identifies ways in which heuristic use of data on recent farming can shed light on ancient practices and societies.

About the Author

Paul Halstead is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. He has edited and contributed to numerous publications, including Bad Year Economics (with John O’Shea), Neolithic Society in Greece (1999), and Food, Cuisine and Society in Prehistoric Greece (with John Barrett, 2004).