Farming in the First Millennium AD: British Agriculture between Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror

Description

Peter Fowler has written an authoritative account of farming in Britain in the first millennium AD. This is the first synthesis of our knowledge on this topic for a generation. Successive chapters assemble and analyse the latest evidence on farms, fields, technology, food, diet and society. New interpretations are offered on subjects ranging from implements to illuminated manuscripts, and evidence drawn from Northern England, Scotland and Wales contributes significantly to the story. The book concludes with a magisterial review of the ways in which agriculture shaped early Britain's societies and landscapes. It also proposes a chronological model of British agriculture for the whole millennium.

Peter Fowler absorbed the elements of field archaeology informally from several gifted teachers before he graduated in History at Oxford. Later he came under the inspiring influence of Colin Bowen, field archaeologist par excellence, who helped develop what became the author's lifelong interest in fields, farming and landscape. His principal career moves took him from the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England) into Adult Education at Bristol University - where he became Reader in Archaeology - back to the Royal Commission as Secretary, and then to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne as Professor of Archaeology. He eventually resigned his Chair to pursue full-time writing and research. This book is a sequel to The Farming of Prehistoric Britain (1983), also published by Cambridge University Press.

'... a welcome sequel to Peter Fowler's (1983) classic earlier work, The Farming of Prehistoric Britain ... A particular strength is the discussion of hunter-gatherer strategies in a world of farmers, with effective case studies ...' Antiquity '... the read becomes compulsory ... the author succeeds in his intention to provide a survey, especially welcome for its British perspective, aimed at general readers and students, and it is written in a way that should stimulate further reading ... The book will continue to be used and argued about for a considerable time.' Landscape History