Early Cotswold woodland

Many “wold” names are derived from the OE wald, meaning “woodland”. In a recent paper Everitt examined the evidence for Kent and suggested that areas of wold downland had been wooded in the Anglo-Saxon period. They had also been territorially linked to river-estates as areas of outlying wood-pasture. The present paper examines the evidence for the Cotswolds. Here the name “wold” is applied to an area which was largely open pasture by the medieval period and the use of the term in its later sense of “high, open country” would not have been out of place. Yet the evidence from early place-names and pre-Conquest charters suggests that a great deal of woodland was present in the Anglo-Saxon period, especially in the valleys dissecting the escarpment and along the scarp face. Although this was a watershed area, divided between adjacent valley-based estates, as in Kent, there is little direct evidence here of an early interest in woodland-pasture. The importance of the area seems to have arisen in the middle and later Anglo-Saxon period as a result of an increased use of the upland for sheep pasture. Nevertheless, the term “wold” seems to date from an earlier period when woodland was indeed extensive.     

The Formation of Future Types of Rural Places in the Kuban'-Stavropol' Plain

The historical settling process in the Kuban'-Stavropol' plain of the Northern Caucasus has been dominated by the formation of large Cossack settlements and the subsequent establishment ot smaller peasant villages and individual homesteads. Two thirds of the collective and state farms of the region, as illustrated by the situation in Krasnodar Kray, now have a centralized settlement pattern consisting of a single permanent central settlement and seasonal outlying settlements. The other third is distinguished by a decentralized pattern of several smaller settlements. In the interest of more efficient production and the provision ot higher living standards, the recommendation is made that the centralized pattern be favored in the redesign of future rural settlement in the region.     

Insect invaders,seasonality and transhumant pastoralism in the Icelandic shieling economy

Abstract

The seasonal movement of people and animals to summer farms, or shielings in outfield pastures was a key element of Iceland's farming practice for over a millennium. At these sites, cattle and sheep husbandry, dairying and the harvesting of outfield resources took place. Despite their central role in the Icelandic economy, evidence for shielings in the landscape is ambiguous and the identification of a site as a shieling, as opposed to a farm, has relied upon written and place name evidence. The Norse colonists introduced a range of insects in their fodder, stored food, dunnage and ballast. Many of these are unable to live under natural conditions in Iceland and are dependent on people for survival. In 1991 Buckland and Sadler suggested that these species might be expected to be absent at shielings, as the sweepstake of their introduction and the seasonal hiatus in occupation would preclude their successful colonisation. This paper presents new evidence from a sub-fossil insect assemblage, which indicates that some of these insects are present at an Icelandic shieling. The implications of this for discerning the materials imported to shielings and the usefulness of Coleoptera for the identification of seasonality in the North Atlantic is discussed.     

Early Medieval Settlement and Social Power: The Middle Anglo-Saxon ‘Home Farm’

THE LAST TWO DECADES have witnessed a marked rise in middle Anglo-Saxon settlement research, as archaeologists have become increasingly aware of the way in which this transformative period in English history can be recognised through habitation sites. Though a period during which individuals and institutions seemingly wielded unprecedented new power, archaeologists have struggled to identify many of the processes or ‘motors’ by which such authority was articulated in the landscape. This paper concerns itself with understanding one such driver, demonstrating how early medieval kings shifted power from tribute-orientated regimes to ones rooted in agricultural exploitation. The Church was fundamental to this shift in authority, and was used as a means of consolidating new power relations. In order to sustain more permanent clerical communities, the Church developed core agricultural areas surrounding their centres, known as inland, upon which were established early types of ‘home farm’. In addition to their functional purpose middle Anglo-Saxon ‘home farms’ were subject to exceptionally high degrees of spatial ordering. Such definition of settlement space, which now included property plots and houses defined by boundaries of unprecedented permanence, allowed elites to shape and consolidate perceptions of social order in the landscape. Power was now being materialised, not only through agricultural production but also through the lived experience of rural communities, as a social hierarchy which considered the place of kings as divinely appointed became firmly established.     

The church as colonist: the benedictine abbey of Lorsch and planned Waldhufen colonization in the Odenwald

It is still uncertain whether earlier Waldhufen row settlements with single strip farms in the west of Germany served as models for this type of village, so widely diffused in east central Europe from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. In the Odenwald hills Waldhufen settlements were introduced as early as the late eighth century when the imperial monastery of Lorsch started to colonize a royal forest donated by Charlemagne. At first the abbey founded a small Waldhufe for dependent peasants of the manorial villicatio system, but later an enlarged version of strip farms incorporating large portions of forest—the classical Waldhufe—was developed by economically more independent farmers. Also a systematic network of central places in the form of villicatio centres and castle settlements was established within the colonization area. From the Lorsch colonies the diffusion of the Waldhufen settlement model can be traced to the neighbouring Spessart and to the distant Black Forest through personal contacts of territorial lords with Lorsch. Similar connections to one of the leading colonists in the Frankenwald may have brought the idea even to the east central European Waldhufen region in the early twelfth century.     

Rural Settlement Trends in Moldavia

An analysis of changes in rural settlement in the Moldavian SSR for the period 1959–1968 finds a high degree of stability, with few places eliminated because of resettlement or consolidation, and few new places established. The total rural population continues to increase, despite a relative decline of the rural component in the entire population. Growth rates have been highest for large central settlements of state farms and collective farms, but outlying peripheral villages within farm territories have also been growing.     

Early Medieval Settlement in Southern Russia: Changing Directions

Abstract

THIS ARTICLE CONCERNS the evolution of approaches to the archaeology of early medieval settlements in southern Russia. Over the last 70 years, a large amount of data have been collected, especially from sites related to the Saltovo-Mayatsk culture on the Middle Don river. In this region, large-scale excavations since the 1930s have produced information about the types of settlements and dwellings, making it possible to suggest what the overall settlement pattern may have looked like. By way of contrast, the early medieval settlement archaeology in the North Caucasus is less developed even though its beginnings go back further. Sufficient data exist only about a few areas of the region, in particular Dagestan, the Taman’ peninsula, and the Kislovodsk basin. In the latter area, a new systematic approach to surveys of, and trial excavations on, early medieval settlements have led to the reconstruction of the complex settlement hierarchy of the 5th to 8th centuries AD involving central fortifications, enclosed villages and a system of watch-towers.     

Diet of aurochs and early cattle in southern Scandinavia: evidence from 15N and 13C stable isotopes

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from ¹⁴C dated bones of early Atlantic aurochs (Bos primigenius Bojanus) and late Atlantic first domestic cattle (Bos taurus Linnaeus) in eastern Denmark and southern Sweden are significantly different and provide information on the origin and feeding strategies of the two species.Radiocarbon dates generally divide the bone material of aurochs and domestic cattle in three groups: aurochs older than 4000 cal yr BP, an older group of domestic cattle around 4000 cal yr BP, and a younger, less well-defined group of domestic cattle starting at around 3500 cal yr BP. The older domestic cattle are represented mainly by fragmentary bones left over from meals, and deposited in lakes at the vicinity of the settlement areas. Bones of the younger domestic cattle group occur both as settlement debris and as single articulated skeletons in bogs, commonly in association with different types of clay pots. The latter type of finds suggests that sacrifice of domestic cattle began at this time. The dating of the early domestic cattle further indicates that they were contemporaneous with or slightly younger than the elm decline, which occurred shortly after 4000 cal yr BC on the Danish island of Sjælland. Our results indicate a sudden rapid introduction of domestic cattle into Denmark, heralding the introduction of agriculture and there is no evidence for leaf foddering or domestication of aurochs. A combination of several natural events may have created the necessary open land, providing the grazing areas for the imported cattle.     

THE USE OF ANALYTICAL METHODS OF MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS FOR IDENTIFYING RURAL PLACES WITH GROWTH PROSPECTS: (with particular reference to Kaliningrad Oblast)

One of the key objectives in the rural development program for the Nonchernozem Zone of the RSFSR is the consolidation of rural settlement in larger places. An example of the dispersed settlement pattern is Kaliningrad Oblast, which has a total of 1,527 rural places ranging from fewer than 5 to more than 2,000 inhabitants, with a total rural population of 195,529 (1970 census). The author shows that growth prospects are dependent on a combination of five factors—geographical setting and level of development; population; fixed assets in agriculture; nonfarm fixed assets; availability of services—and, using correlation analysis, identifies 283 places with prospects of future growth, ranging from 32 in the 51–100 size class to one of more than 2,000 population. The preservation of some small rural places is termed inevitable because many serve as outlying settlements for livestock subdivisions of collective and state farms, and dairy and beef cattle represents a characteristic type of farming in Kaliningrad Oblast.     

Seasonal stability in Late Holocene shellfish harvesting on the central California coast

Oxygen isotope determinations from 92 California mussel (Mytilus californianus) shells from ten archaeological sites in central coastal California show relatively stable seasonal harvesting patterns between 3600 CAL BP and historic contact (AD 1769). Coastal occupants harvested mussels nearly year-round and seem to have occupied individual residential bases throughout the seasonal cycle. Interior groups returned with mussels from the coast mostly in the spring and early summer, but almost never in the late summer/early fall when nut crops were harvested. These findings suggest two inter-dependent groups with distinct seasonal settlement strategies: inland people, reliant on acorns and other nut crops harvested in the fall, and coastal inhabitants who were less involved with acorns. This pattern is supported by accounts recorded by the first Spanish explorers in AD 1769. While some interior groups may have been seasonally migrating “collectors,” coastal populations were less mobile, inhabiting individual residential sites throughout the year, albeit not necessarily on a permanent basis. These findings highlight the strong influence of coastal environments and resources on hunter-gatherer mobility.     

The Rushenden Estate,Queenborough, Kent: An Early British Industrial Estate

Abstract

Queenborough, a town with origins as a medieval planted settlement on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, is set for major redevelopment over the coming years as part of the regeneration of the Thames Gateway region. English Heritage has produced an Historic Area Appraisal,¹ and, in the course of its research, documents relating to a hitherto obscure Edwardian industrial estate came to light. Laid out from 1904, the Rushenden Estate is significant because it was one of the first factory estates in the wake of Trafford Park, Manchester (1896), widely acknowledged as Britain's² — or even the world's³ — world's first industrial estate. Despite some economic history analyses and studies of individual sites, the subject of early industrial estates is surprisingly incomplete. Using material evidence derived from documentary research and fieldwork, this paper describes the evolution and growth of the Rushenden Estate, placing it in regional and typological contexts and within the milieu of the 'Second Industrial Revolution'.     

The extent of farm desertion in central Sweden during the late medieval agrarian crisis: landscape as a source

The effects of medieval agrarian crisis on settlement and population were considered in a major interdisciplinary research project in Scandinavia during the 1960s and 1970s. Within this project, there were significant differences in methods used to calculate the extent of farm desertion between historians in the participating countries. The reliance on written source material within the Swedish team reflected the dominant approach amongst historians who made less use of map and landscape evidence than others. In this renewed investigation of the magnitude of farm desertion in the Late Middle Ages, focussing on the province of Jämtland in central Sweden, field survey of the physical landscape and some three thousand historical maps are used as evidence, alongside conventional written sources, such as official letters and taxation documents. The results indicate that the extent of farm desertion in medieval Sweden has been underestimated because Swedish scholars generally eschewed the use of the retrogressive method, which their Norwegian counterparts had been using since the 1940s. There is therefore good reason to reassess the desertion rates of medieval farms in other parts of Sweden as well, using traditional geographical source materials together with the documentary sources usually favoured by historians This may also hold for other parts of Europe as well. The rate of desertion is discussed in a wider context of settlement contraction and expansion in central and peripheral areas of Sweden, including the long drawn-out process of reclamation of the deserted farms (ödesbölen).     

PINE BARRENS AND POSSUM’S RATIONS: EARLY ARCHAIC SETTLEMENT IN THE NORTH CAROLINA SANDHILLS

Abstract

Competing models of Early Archaic settlement in the Southeast propose broad-scale organization conditioned by either lithic raw material availability or seasonal exploitation of biotic resources and social interaction. We offer a view from beyond the quarries and away from the river with data from the North Carolina Sandhills, a unique physiographic zone of the interior Coastal Plain. Analysis of the distribution of Early Archaic sites at Fort Bragg, including posited upland base camps, raw material use, and application of GIS least-cost path analysis, suggests intensive interriverine settlement, with watershed divides serving as conveyance corridors between high-quality toolstone areas in the Piedmont and resource blooms in the Coastal Plain. Some settlement changes are evident within the Early Archaic sequence, including a gradual shift from logistical to residential mobility and infilling of the local landscape. In the proposed Sandhills model, biocultural needs, social interaction, and requirements for high-quality toolstone are identified at the local band level. Mobility and settlement are considered to be broadly structured by networks of interriverine trails between the major resource areas of the Piedmont and Coastal Plain. Aspects of both the bandmacroband model and Uwharrie-Allendale model apply to the Early Archaic record of the Sandhills, but with closer affinities to the latter.     

Husbandry practices and livestock dung at the Numidian site of Althiburos (el Médéina,Kef Governorate,northern Tunisia): the phytolith and spherulite evidence

Recent excavations at Althiburos, northern Tunisia, have shown the existence of permanent pre-roman occupations in the central area of the urban settlement. Significantly, the site has been found to contain one of the most complete Numidian sequences, spanning from the Early Numidian (at least from the 10th–9th century BC) to its final stage. Research at the site addresses questions related to the identification of settlement patterns at this time.The combined study of phytoliths and spherulites recovered from well defined archeological contexts at the site have provided new data for identifying husbandry activities carried out by the ancient Numidian populations. The results show that there is abundant evidence for both cooking and processing cereals, primarily from common or bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). Also significantly, was the abundance of faecal spherulites in certain areas of the site, indicative of dung accumulation. The correlation between large amounts of spherulites and rich phytolith sediments in specific contexts, suggested that grasses were brought to the site or consumed offsite and deposited onsite as livestock dung or dung-products. The identification of dung accumulations in the site raises questions about the diversity of economic practices developed by Protohistoric communities in northern Africa. Future research questions regarding such dung rich layers will also be examined.     

Living on the Edge? Transformation of a Marginal Pleistocene Landscape Into a Settlement Area in the Northeastern Part of the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

This paper will examine settlement location during the Iron Age in the northeast part of the Netherlands, an area shaped by Pleistocene geology. In recent years, a number of Late Iron Age/Early Roman settlements situated on the low lying slopes of sand ridges and nearby stream ridges revealed traces of an earlier Iron Age occupation. Palynological data revealed that this part of the landscape was used by humans before it was transformed into an area of settlement. An analysis of excavation data from two key sites at Denekamp-De Borchert and Groningen-Helpermaar, as well as other known sites, lead to the conclusion that the transformation of ‘peripheral landscapes’ into permanent settlement locations was preceded by a phase of arable cultivation which left no trace of permanent habitation. It is also suggested that the impact of human behaviour on the natural landscape in the Early and Middle Iron Age was much bigger than previously anticipated. When excavating this type of settlement areas dating to the Late Iron Age, archaeologists must be aware that only of a small group of archaeological features exist. The proposed model for the choice of settlement location may be more widespread, because of similarities in landscape between the study area presented here and other landscapes in Northwest-Europe (e.g. parts of Germany and Denmark).     

The Early Romanesque ‘Great West’ Towers of St Peter,Stambourne, Essex and St Nicholas,Leeds, Kent: ‘Clerical’ Towers for a Lay Lord?

Abstract

A small group of early Romanesque west towers in southern and eastern England are of unusually large size and are here termed ‘great west’ towers. The majority were commissioned by senior clergy, but there is evidence that those at Stambourne (Essex) and Leeds (Kent) were the work of Haimo II Dapifer, Sheriff of Kent. Haimo’s adoption of what is usually seen as a clerical form of monument is reflected by his position and associations in royal charters. The towers of St Peter, Stambourne and St Nicholas, Leeds have similarities with St Leonard’s Tower, West Malling (Kent) and the west gate of Lincoln castle respectively. Both illustrate the fluidity of forms that high-status buildings of the late 11th and early 12th centuries could take.     

A new Jungle-fowl from the Pleistocene of Europe

The domesticated Red Jungle-fowl G. gallus is believed to have been dispersed by man from India during the Holocene. The distal end of a radius from the Ipswichian Interglacial deposits at Crayford, Kent, was indistinguishable from that of the wild form of Red Jungle-folw. A coracoid from the early Middle Pleistocene of N Norfolk was also very similar to that species but showed differences comparable with those found between different species of Gallus. At least one species referable to Gallus is known from the Pliocene of South-eastern Europe. Extrapolating from zoogeographical speciation patterns it would be possible for a Gallus species to have evolved through Pleistocene speciation in the European region. The species might have become extinct during a glaciation or have been exterminated by early man. A new species Gallus europaeus is described with the coracoid as a holotype, and the radius from Kent is tentatively referred to it.     

Monks and Local Communities: The Late-medieval Landscape of Troed y Rhiw,Caron Uwch Clawdd,Ceredigion

Abstract

In a zone of improved upland pasture some 2 km east of the Cistercian monastery of Strata Florida (Ystrad Fflur), Ceredigion, are the earthwork remains of a 'sheepcote' and four abandoned medieval farms, one probably originating as a monastic sheep-handling station. Documentary evidence and field observation suggest that these farms have preserved their late-medieval forms in a relatively unmodified state. Three were apparently situated along a contemporary ffridd boundary (head dyke) that separated a zone of pasture and perhaps arable land from mountain pasture. We cannot establish the relationship between the 'sheepcote' and the 'farms' through field observation alone, nor do we know the absolute age of the ffridd boundary. Our paper describes and briefly discusses the character and local context of the area defined by the latter. The pattern of land-use is comparable to that in Swaledale (North Yorkshire), an area that has been discussed on the one hand in terms of patterns of townships (hamlets) and their land-use zones, and on the other in terms of monastic enterprise and the identification of 'vaccaries'. In the study of 'monastic landscapes', we risk becoming preoccupied with estate economies and the identification of 'tool-kits', at the expense of dealing with the complexity of relationships between monasteries and local communities.     

Farm Development in the Malangen Area,Northern Norway – A Pollen-Analytical Case Study

Abstract

The present farms Engenes and Bakkejord constitute the sites of this investigation. The eastern limit of the historical Greipstad farm – Engenes – had a small permanent settlement from during the period c. AD 750–950. Bakkejord had a permanent settlement from about AD 1200–1250. Four different periods since the Birth of Christ with farm abandonment or very low anthropogenic activity are recorded, and the two youngest ones are discussed on the basis of historical information.     

The Viking Age settlement pattern of Langholt,North Iceland: Results of the Skagafjörður Archaeological Settlement Survey

An archaeological survey of the Viking Age settlement pattern in the Langholt region of North Iceland suggests that being early in this sequence conferred tremendous advantages to the settlers of this previously uninhabited landscape. Many of the farms established during the settlement of Iceland (which began about a.d. 870) are in use today. However, accessing the Viking Age landscape is difficult. In Langholt the earliest layers of most farmsteads are buried under a thousand years of occupational debris, while the abandoned sites have been covered by extensive soil deposition. Here we report on our coring and test excavation results that outline Viking Age farmstead location, establishment date, and maximum size by the end of the Viking Age. There is a strong correlation between farmstead size and establishment date. This correlation suggests that during the rapid settlement of Iceland, the farmsteads established by earlier settlers were wealthier and that wealth endured.