- Rural Life and Farming -
To isolate an annual event in the archaeological data is virtually impossible. It is
also true to say that climatically each year is a unique event having quite specific
challenges and responses which normally defy clear identification. The data range
from pollen grains, impressions of seeds fired into pottery, carbonized seed more
often than not the result of an accident, desiccated and waterlogged plant remains,
the former virtually non-existent in Europe, traces of ploughing left in underlying
rock or subsoil of soil layers identified to the period, ancient fields surviving as
monuments in the landscape, occasional tools and implements or fragments thereof
and a limited range of iconography. In fact, it is this last type of data which gives
some of our best source evidence for agricultural practice in north-west Europe, but
the majority of it is to be found in Scandinavia rather than in the limited 'Celtic'
zone. However, the close similarity of the other surviving data suggests that the
agricultural responses were the same then and it would be foolish to deny such useful
evidence simply because it falls marginally beyond the Celtic lands.
In any approach to understanding the remote past it is critically important that
the argument or interpretation is directly driven by the archaeological evidence.
Where there is an assumption of a practice which must have occurred to sustain the
existing data, every effort must be made to identify such a practice by exploring
the processes which might have left physical traces previously unrecognized or
not linked with such a practice. The provision of winter feed for livestock is such an
example and is examined below. The following discussion will demonstrate how little
is known for this period and how much there is yet to discover.
Agriculture is traditionally divided into two general categories of arable and
pastoral farming. There seems little doubt that the great majority of farms, with
minor exceptions, practised a mixture of these two categories, any emphasis on
one or the other being dictated by soil and climate. In broad terms Britain can be
divided into two agricultural zones; the region south-east of a line from the Bristol
Channel to north Yorkshire but including south-east Scotland is primarily devoted
to arable farming while north-west of that line pastoral farming is the norm. Given
the minimal change in climate between the present day and two thousand years ago,
the same constraints would have obtained for the Celtic farmers.
The single most significant element of arable farming is the plough itself. A full
understanding of the technology of tillage is regarded as an indicator of successful
arable farming. The normal appreciation of Celtic or iron age farming falls somewhat
short of this state, the plough being discussed simply as a stick ard which does little
more than scratch the surface of the soil; hence the farmers merely scratched a living
from the soil.
To compound the issue the assumption has normally been that the soil must also
be light and therefore relatively poor. From the peat bogs of Denmark a number of
these so-called stick ploughs have been recovered which, on close examination,
rather belie their dismissive description. One typical example is referred to as the
Donneruplund ard, named after its find location. The reason for its deposition in
the bog is generally thought to be ritualistic but, since the tool was actually worn out
and broken, it was most probably dumped there with a curse rather than a blessing.
The simple difference between an ard and a plough is that the latter is fitted with a
curved mouldboard which inverts the soil. Its probable introduction occurs in the