4.2 Article

Scotland's first farmers: new insights into early farming practices in North-west Europe

Journal

ANTIQUITY
Volume 96, Issue 389, Pages 1087-1104

Publisher

CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2022.107

Keywords

Scotland; Neolithic; stable isotopes; cereal cultivation; archaeobotany; agriculture

Funding

  1. Department of Archaeology and Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry Laboratory (SIBL) at Durham University
  2. Universitetet i Stavanger, Norway

Ask authors/readers for more resources

New analysis of an Early Neolithic timber hall at Balbridie in Scotland reveals different manuring strategies were implemented in other sites, while cereals were successfully cultivated in well-established plots without manuring at Balbridie. This discovery highlights the variability in cultivation practices across Neolithic North-west Europe.
Thirty years after the discovery of an Early Neolithic timber hall at Balbridie in Scotland was reported in Antiquity, new analysis of the site's archaeobotanical assemblage, featuring 20 000 cereal grains preserved when the building burnt down in the early fourth millennium BC, provide new insights into early farming practices. The results of stable isotope analyses of cereals from Balbridie, alongside archaeobotanical and stable isotope results from three other sites, indicate that while cereals were successfully cultivated in well-established plots without manuring at Balbridie, a variety of manuring strategies was implemented at the other sites. These differences reinforce the picture of variability in cultivation practices across Neolithic North-west Europe.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.2
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available