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Two Oxen Ahead: Pre-Mechanized Farming in the Mediterranean
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.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
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November 4, 2014
Paul rocked back in his chair and fixed me with a level stare.
‘That gives you a big advantage over many zooarchaeologists,’ he said.
We’d been talking about how I grew up on a farm; later he was to encourage me to undertake ethnoarchaeological fieldwork in Ethiopia. At that time, a book presenting Paul Halstead’s own ethnoarchaeological research had taken on mythic status – some of us thought it only a little more likely to be seen than a dragon. Several years later, however, here it is – each section beginning with a little scene-setting anecdote. After a gestation of more than thirty years though, the question ‘was it worth the wait?’ has to be asked.
Halstead has written a book which is filled with characters and stories as much as with perspicacity and knowledge. It’s rare to find a book that can both be enjoyable to read and satisfy academic enquiry. This is one and it’s an important book for archaeobotanists, for zooarchaeologists, for environmental archaeologists and for Mediterraneanists. Arguably an archaeologist with none of those specific interests could still find something useful here and it should be acquired by all university libraries. Was it worth the wait? It’s certainly valuable now it’s here and could be a valuable resource for as many years as its primary research was undertaken.
*Please note that the full copy of this review is to be published in the journal Environmental Archaeology, so most of the text has been removed from here. For a full copy, please see the journal or else contact me.
‘That gives you a big advantage over many zooarchaeologists,’ he said.
We’d been talking about how I grew up on a farm; later he was to encourage me to undertake ethnoarchaeological fieldwork in Ethiopia. At that time, a book presenting Paul Halstead’s own ethnoarchaeological research had taken on mythic status – some of us thought it only a little more likely to be seen than a dragon. Several years later, however, here it is – each section beginning with a little scene-setting anecdote. After a gestation of more than thirty years though, the question ‘was it worth the wait?’ has to be asked.
Halstead has written a book which is filled with characters and stories as much as with perspicacity and knowledge. It’s rare to find a book that can both be enjoyable to read and satisfy academic enquiry. This is one and it’s an important book for archaeobotanists, for zooarchaeologists, for environmental archaeologists and for Mediterraneanists. Arguably an archaeologist with none of those specific interests could still find something useful here and it should be acquired by all university libraries. Was it worth the wait? It’s certainly valuable now it’s here and could be a valuable resource for as many years as its primary research was undertaken.
*Please note that the full copy of this review is to be published in the journal Environmental Archaeology, so most of the text has been removed from here. For a full copy, please see the journal or else contact me.
Displaying 1 of 1 review