Two oxen ahead : pre-mechanized farming in the Mediterranean

386 Pages·2014·6.36 MB·English

by  Paul Halstead

P a u l H a l s t e a d
H
a
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Paul Halstead is Professor of archaeology at s Two oxen this revealing study of farming practices in
the university of sheffield, uK. He has edited t societies around the Mediterranean draws out
and contributed to numerous publications, e the valuable contribution that knowledge of
including Food, Cuisine and Society in a recent practices can make to our understanding
“In this pioneering and delightfully written account of traditional
Prehistoric Greece (with John Barrett, 2004), d of husbandry in prehistoric and Greco-Roman
AheAd
Mediterranean farming, Halstead draws on first-hand experience of
Neolithic Society in Greece (1999), and Bad Year times. It reflects increased academic interest in
peasant practice and culture to bridge the gap between the
Economics (with John O’shea, 1989). the formative influence of farming regimes on
ancient and recent past.” the societies they were designed to feed. the
Peter Garnsey, Jesus College, University of Cambridge author’s intensive research took him to farming
PT Pre-Mechanized Farming
communities around the Mediterranean, where
r
e he recorded observational and interview data
“A major achievement, the result of a lifetime’s devotion to study of -w in the Mediterranean
M on differing farming strategies and practices,
the author’s twin passions: arable cultivation and animal husbandry.
e many of which can be traced back to classical
A very human book, one pervaded at every turn by an appreciation c
ho antiquity or earlier.
for the skills and rationality of common people, even when these
a
the book documents these variables, through
may be denied by the sometimes self-deprecating n
i the annual chaîne opératoire (from ploughing
subjects he interviews.” z
eo and sowing to harvesting and threshing),
Jack davis, University of Cincinnati d
interannual schemes of crop rotation and

F husbandry, and the generational cycle
ax
“This landmark study is as much ethnography as archaeological r of household development. It traces the
m
treatise, a feat of listening and ingenuity. In constructing a new e interdependence of these successive stages and
i
dialogue between farming of the present and remote past, n explores how cultural tradition, ecological
gn conditions, and access to resources shape
Paul Halstead shows how deeply anthropology and
i variability in husbandry practice. each chapter
archaeology can inform one another.” n
identifies ways in which heuristic use of data
amy Bogaard, Oxford University t
hA on recent farming can shed light on ancient
e practices and societies.

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ISBN 978-1-4051-9283-5
90000
9 781405 192835

Two Oxen Ahead

Two Oxen Ahead
Pre-Mechanized Farming
in the Mediterranean
Paul Halstead
This edition first published 2014
© 2014 Paul Halstead
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Halstead, Paul.
Two oxen ahead : pre-mechanized farming in the Mediterranean / Paul Halstead.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-9283-5 (hardback)
1. Agriculture–Economic aspects–Mediterranean Region. 2. Farm management–
Mediterranean Region. 3. Land use, Rural–Mediterranean Region. I. Title.
HD2055.7.H35 2014
630.937–dc23
2013036924
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Threshing with oxen in Crete, c. 1927–30, photograph by Nelly’s
(Elli Souyioultzoglou-Seraidari) © Photographic Archive of the Benaki Museum, Athens.
Cover design by Simon Levy
Set in 10.5/13.5pt Palatino by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
1 2014
Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgments x
1 Introduction: Mediterranean Farming between
Longue Durée and Contingency 1
1.1 Fieldwork 3
1.2 Scales of Analysis 8
2 Working the Earth: Tillage and Sowing 11
2.1 Two-Oxen Households in Paliambela 14
2.2 Scratching a Living in the Hills of Messenia 19
2.3 Tillage Time and Sowing Season from
Assiros to Asturias 21
2.4 Juggling with Seedcorn 28
2.5 Flexible Farmers 31
2.6 Ard, Hoe, and Scale of Cultivation 33
2.6.1 Ard versus hoe: Benefits 33
2.6.2 Ard versus hoe: Costs 47
2.6.3 On balance: Hoe or ard, cows or oxen? 55
2.7 Tillage and Sowing in the Past 57
v
Contents
3 Harvest Time 67
3.1 Amorgos: From Field to Threshing Floor 68
3.2 When to Reap 71
3.3 What and How to Reap 77
3.4 After Reaping: Binding, Drying, and Transporting
the Harvest 89
3.5 Who and How Many to Reap 102
3.6 Harvest Ceremonies 112
3.7 Reaping in the Past 113
4 Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff 127
4.1 Amorgos: On and After the Threshing Floor 127
4.2 Ways of Threshing 136
4.3 Ways of Winnowing and Coarse Sieving 151
4.4 Cleaning for Storage and Consumption 154
4.5 Storage 157
4.6 Consumption 163
4.7 Questions of Scale: Labor and Time Stress 166
4.8 Threshing Floor Customs 173
4.9 Crop Processing in the Past 174
5 Managing the Land: Coping with Failure and Planning
for Success 191
5.1 Watching the Corn Grow 191
5.2 Planning for Success: Fallowing and Rotation 199
5.2.1 Fallowing 199
5.2.2 Crop rotation 201
5.2.3 Fallowing and rotation in space 206
5.2.4 Hedging bets: Mixed cropping 210
5.3 Planning for Success: Manuring 212
5.3.1 Stall manure 213
5.3.2 Manuring by folded livestock 226
5.3.3 Manuring by grazing livestock 229
5.4 Planning for Success, Mitigating Failure: Irrigation 230
5.5 Averting Failure: Weeding 233
5.6 Crop Husbandry and Crop yields 238
5.7 Crop Husbandry and yields in the Past 244
vi
Contents
6 Family Planning: Land, Labor and Livestock 259
6.1 Clearance 260
6.1.1 Uprooting deciduous woodland
in lowland northern Greece 260
6.1.2 Opening up the maquis in southern Greece 264
6.1.3 Shifting cultivation: From Crete to Asturias 267
6.1.4 Slashing, burning, and shifting 269
6.2 Long-Term Improvement: Deep Tillage,
Terracing, and Enclosure 271
6.3 Extending and Improving Cultivable Land: Drainage
and Irrigation 277
6.4 Counting the Cost of Extension and Improvement 281
6.5 Subsistence and Cash Crops 283
6.6 Mixed Farming: Livestock 289
6.7 Labor, Land, and Livestock: The Domestic Cycle 295
6.8 Household and Community 304
6.9 Land, Labor, and Livestock in the Past 311
7 Homo agronomicus? Mediterranean Farming,
Present and Past 329
7.1 Analogies for the Past: “Matters of Fact”
and “Matters of Interest” 330
7.2 Cultural Reason 332
7.3 Environmental and Technological Constraints 336
7.4 Practical Reason: Costs, Benefits, and Knowledgeable
Farmers 338
7.5 Ancient Farmers: Knowledgeable and Rational? 346
7.6 Farming in the Mediterranean: Analogy and Change 347
Glossary 360
Index 362
vii
Preface
This is a study of how Mediterranean farmers grew crops and
raised families before mechanization and industrialization. With
the ultimate aim of enriching ancient historians’ and prehistorians’
understanding of Mediterranean farming societies in the distant
past, it explores pattern and diversity in the practices and decision-
making of twentieth-century premechanized farmers. Much of this
book is based, therefore, on first-hand observation of and interviews
with residents of the Mediterranean countryside (Chapter 1).
Anthropologists often disguise the identity of informants and host
communities, but real toponyms are used here to place agricultural
practices and decisions in their ecological and social context. Info-
rmants were not asked deeply personal questions, although some
volunteered sensitive information about themselves or neighbors.
Many would happily have been named in print, but most have been
more or less anonymized, occasionally out of discretion, but mainly
because it would be confusing to name them all. Those named are
identified by first names, for brevity, and sometimes by pseudonyms
to differentiate between homonymous neighbors. A few informants
are named frequently, because they were important sources and to
place what they said in the context of their particular circumstances
viii