An Integrated Bioarchaeological Approach to the Medieval 'Agricultural Revolution': a Case Study from Stafford, England, C
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European Journal of Archaeology 23 (4) 2020, 585–609 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work. An Integrated Bioarchaeological Approach to the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’: A Case Study from Stafford, England, c. AD 800–1200 1 1 1 HELENA HAMEROW ,AMY BOGAARD ,MICHAEL CHARLES , 1 2 1 EMILY FORSTER ,MATILDA HOLMES ,MARK MCKERRACHER , 1 1 1 SAMANTHA NEIL ,CHRISTOPHER BRONK RAMSEY ,ELIZABETH STROUD 2 AND RICHARD THOMAS 1School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK 2School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, UK In much of Europe, the advent of low-input cereal farming regimes between c. AD 800 and 1200 enabled landowners—lords—to amass wealth by greatly expanding the amount of land under cultivation and exploiting the labour of others. Scientific analysis of plant remains and animal bones from archaeological contexts is generating the first direct evidence for the development of such low-input regimes. This article outlines the methods used by the FeedSax project to resolve key questions regarding the ‘cerealization’ of the medieval countryside and presents preliminary results using the town of Stafford as a worked example. These indicate an increase in the scale of cultivation in the Mid-Saxon period, while the Late Saxon period saw a shift to a low-input cultivation regime and probably an expansion onto heavier soils. Crop rotation appears to have been practised from at least the mid-tenth century. Keywords: medieval farming, Anglo-Saxon England, crop stable isotopes, functional weed ecology, Stafford, open fields INTRODUCTION three-field crop rotation, which enabled a larger proportion of arable land to be culti- The period between c. AD 800 and 1200 vated; widespread adoption of the mould- saw dramatic changes in farming practices board plough, allowing farmers to cultivate across large parts of Europe. These sus- heavier, more fertile soils; and low-input tained an increase in cereal production so cultivation regimes, in which fertility was greatthatithasbeendescribedasan‘agri- maintained by regular, short fallow periods cultural revolution’ which fuelled population during which sheep grazed on stubble and growth and underpinned the expansion of weeds, rather than by intensive manuring. townsandmarketsaswellastheriseof This enabled farmers to extend the area of lordship (White, 1940; Duby, 1954;Dyer land under cultivation by decreasing input, et al., 2018). Three key innovations made i.e. labour and manure, per unit area, a this increase in yields possible: two- and process referred to here as ‘extensification’. © European Association of Archaeologists 2020 doi:10.1017/eaa.2020.6 Manuscript received 18 July 2019, accepted 31 January 2020, revised 4 December 2019 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 30 Sep 2021 at 00:15:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2020.6 586 European Journal of Archaeology 23 (4) 2020 The result was much larger overall yields, productivity was boosted by manuring, and despite a decline in yield per land unit. In whether crop rotation was practised. many regions (including around one-third Analysis of the associated weed flora is pro- of England and much of Europe), these viding further indications of soil fertility and innovations culminated in the introduction disturbance, reflecting the extent to which of ‘open fields’, in which the holdings of fields were manured and tilled, as well as individual farmers took the form of strips likely sowing times. The lower limb bones dispersed across several large, unenclosed of cattle are being examined for the kinds of areas of arable land, intermingled with pathologies that can be caused by pulling a those of their neighbours. heavy plough, while other zooarchaeological To operate this more productive system, data are providing evidence of changing pat- farmers shared expensive resources such as terns of animal husbandry. Pollen data are teams of oxen and mouldboard ploughs, being analysed to gauge the impact of cereal and the cultivation of the open fields had to farming on the medieval landscape more be agreed and managed communally. The widely, for example, on the ratio of arable to need to coordinate cultivation activities is pasture, and on the overall scale of agricul- widely thought to lie behind the formation of turallanduse.Patternsemergingfromthese the nucleated villages that still characterize bioarchaeological data are being compared many parts of the countryside today. In this with evidence from excavated settlements— way, innovations in farming transformed not buildings, enclosures, droveways, etc.—to only large parts of England’s landscape, but explore the inter-relationship between also its social geography. When, where, and arable production, stock management, and how this unprecedented form of agriculture settlement forms (see Hamerow, 2012). A emerged, however, and whether it had suite of radiocarbon dates on charred a significant impact before the Norman cereals, bones, and pollen cores is being Conquest, remain contentious issues, largely used to locate the spread of low-input because scholars have been forced to rely on farming practices in time as well as space. a limited range of indirect evidence, written A national database of charred plant and archaeological (Banham & Faith, 2014; remains from this period is being compiled Hall, 2014; Dyer et al., 2018). The aim of as part of the project, while plant and the ‘Feeding Anglo-Saxon England’ project faunal remains from a series of case studies (hereafter FeedSax) is to break this impasse are being examined in more detail. These by generating the first direct evidence for the case studies span several ecological zones, conditions in which medieval cereals were within and beyond the core area of open grown by subjecting plant and animal fields and nucleated villages, sometimes remains from archaeological contexts to a referred to as the ‘central province’ (Roberts range of scientific analyses, allowing the asso- & Wrathmell, 2000). The purpose of this ciated farming regimes to be reconstructed. article is to present one of these case FeedSax is deploying a range of analyses studies, that of Stafford, as a ‘worked in conjunction to trace the development of example’ to illustrate how results from farming regimes involving crop rotation, use these various analyses can be integrated. of the mouldboard plough and low-input cultivation. Analysis of stable isotopes in preserved cereal grains is being used to ANGLO-SAXON AND MEDIEVAL STAFFORD establish the conditions in which crops were grown, whether in light, dry soils or heavy, Stafford provides a particularly useful case wetter soils, the degree to which study: modern, well recorded excavations Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.40, on 30 Sep 2021 at 00:15:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2020.6 Hamerow et al. – An Integrated Bioarchaeological Approach to the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’ 587 at several locations in the present-day The place-name Stafford, meaning town have produced plant remains span- ‘landing-place ford’, refers to the town’s ning the late ninth to thirteenth centuries, location at the intersection of land-based and local pollen data are relatively abun- and riverine transport routes, on what is dant. The faunal remains, on the other effectively a peninsula surrounded by hand, are poorly preserved; it has, there- marshy land (Dodd et al., 2014). It also fore, not been possible to conduct statistic- lies at the interface of light soils associated ally meaningful analysis of lower limb with the river terraces and heavier clays. bones and other pathologies. Stafford’s Stafford’s immediate hinterland is thus early history is comparatively well docu- well suited for crop husbandry and there is mented. According to the Anglo-Saxon good evidence for its history as an arable Chronicle,aburh (fortified settlement) was landscape. Several sites of (undated) ridge- established at Stafford in AD 913 by and-furrow earthworks formed by mould- Aethelflaed of Mercia. Stafford’s earlier board plough cultivation and marking the history is not recorded and excavations in location of medieval fields have been iden- the 1980s at several sites within the medi- tified in aerial photographs (Cotswold eval town revealed no conclusive evidence Archaeology, 2010)(Figure 1). As one for Mid-Saxon (seventh- to ninth-century) would expect, given the likely role of occupation (Carver, 2010: 31, 39). ridge-and-furrow in improving drainage, Evidence was similarly lacking for post- nearly all are on heavier soils. A concen- Conquest activity, and it was argued that tration of ridge-and-furrow lay less than 2 Stafford must have been virtually aban- km north of the burh, near the deserted doned until a revival of activity in the late medieval village of Marston (the place- twelfth century (Carver, 2010: 107–08). name suggesting a settlement near wet This view was revised following excava- ground; Cotswold Archaeology, 2010). tions at Tipping Street in the south- Indeed, Speed’s 1610 map of Stafford eastern part of the medieval town in 2009. depicts a farmer and plough team at work These uncovered three pottery kilns that in fields apparently to the north of the produced substantial quantities of charred town (Figure 2). The ready availability of plant remains, probably representing crop chaff, seemingly used as fuel, suggests fur- processing waste used as fuel (Dodd et al., thermore that crops were threshed and 2014: 72).