- Chapter Eleven -
There are alternatives to hazel which were also exploited and in a probably similar
manner. Osier beds and pollarded willows also provided materials for wattling.
There are, too, the myriad baskets and mats for which materials like reeds, rushes
and sedges as well as young osiers and willow wands had to be collected.
One further winter harvest evidenced in the archaeological record as river reeds,
which were used as a better alternative to straw for thatching rooves. A roof thatched
with reed has a life span approximately three times that of wheat straw. Given that
the river valleys were considerably wetter than they are today, the water fringes
would have naturally sustained considerable reed beds providing, in the sense
that the farmer had neither to plant it nor to manage it, a free harvest. However, a
regularly cut reed bed invariably provides a better harvest. The normal time for
harvesting reed is the most unpleasant months of January and February. Again, it is
significant to consider the quantities of material required to thatch a roof. A modest
round-house of 7 m in diameter needs well over a tonne of reed to thatch the roof.
Increase the diameter and the weight increases proportionally. A round-house of
15m in diameter needs nearly I 5 tonnes.
Timber, wattle, fuel and reed, all attested in the archaeological record, spell a long
hard winter of toil. Far from the settlement being idle, by the arrival of spring,
the ploughing and sowing of the fields would have seemed a welcome release. As a
final postcript to this winter work, not the least of the tasks was the loading and
hauling of the materials back to the settlement. The ephemeral traces recovered in the
archaeological record do little justice to what must have been a harsh reality.
The spring is a time of gradual awakening of the plant world. By the time one
actually realizes it has arrived, it is too late for the farmer. Cereals sown late barely
cope with the vigorous and hostile growth of the arable weeds. How exactly
the prehistoric farmer recognized the time to plant, whether he used the stars in the
night sky or measured the lengthening days, we have no certain knowledge.
Nevertheless, the real gamble of farming lies in the springtime, the recognition of the
moment when the soil conditions and weather are right. Every spring there is such
a moment, followed by the decision to plough the land and prepare the seedbed. The
ploughs or ards he had were ideally suited to the preparation of the soil and it
must be assumed that on a settled farm the fields would have been well worked and
therefore tractable. The actual process of ploughing does depend upon the ground
being neither too wet nor too dry. The evidence suggests that fields were cross-
ploughed (hence their square rather than rectangular shape) and that the fields were
ploughed in lands, the most economical method of manoeuvring cattle around the
headlands. Field sizes range from about a quarter to half an acre, the sort of area on
which all agricultural operations can be completed within a working day. Again we
have no real insight into the number of fields a farmer might cultivate but, given that
experimental results of approximately one tonne per acre achieved from cropping
trials, a planned yield of between 7 and 10 tonnes would not be an unreasonable
estimate. Given capacities of storage pits and four-post granaries, a total expected
yield of 14 tonnes from both autumn and spring sowing would allow for food
supplies for human and animal, seed resources and trade surplus. If these suppo-
sitions are correct, an area of 7 or 14 acres would need to have been ploughed and
cultivated in the spring: two weeks of solid work followed by a further week of
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