A1luviation
New crops
Settlement on clay
Eleocharis palustris
Metal ard-share tips
Rotary quems
Eared ploughs
Ard-marks on clay
Improved drainage
Anthemis cotula
Bread-wheat dominated sam
Balanced sickles
Grain exports
Exotic plants
Large granaries
Mechanical mills
Com-drying ovens
Plough coulters
Asymmetrical ploughshares
Tribulum flints
1b scythes
Long balanced sickles
Wheeled ploughs
- --
- --
---piesChapter Eight ---
--
~Roman
occupation--
.-
- Century BC 9th 8th 7th 6th 5th 4th 3rd 2nd 1st 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th AD
Figure 8.6 Comparative evidence for the date of significant introductions and innovations in
British agriculture. Few major changes in agricultural practice can be identified in the period
immediately after the Roman conquest. (After Jones 1981.)in design. Indeed, Jones has argued forcibly for the early Roman period being one
of 'stagnation' in agriculture, a term which is perhaps a little too derogatory;
presumably the key point is that the agricultural system was sufficiently well-
developed in its surplus potential to support the emergence of a romanized society
based on towns and villas without any further need for innovation. Some longer term
changes have been noted in animal husbandry, including the appearance of larger
breeds of cattle, sheep and horse and distinctive changes in the composition of the
diet, to which we will return later (King 1984; Grant 1989).
A similar consensus is beginning to emerge regarding the Roman contribution in
the economic sphere, though much here depends upon one's position in the debate
over the extent to which the economy remained embedded (i.e. socially articulated)
or disembedded (i.e. money-using), especially in the Late Iron Age of south-east
Britain (Hodder 1979; Greene 1986: 45-66; Fulford 1989)' Although it is commonly130