Late Neolithic Agriculture in Temperate Europe—A Long-Term Experimental Approach

Manfred Rösch, Harald Biester, Arno Bogenrieder, Eileen Eckmeier, Otto Ehrmann, Renate Gerlach, Mathias Hall, Christoph Hartkopf-Fröder, Ludger Herrmann, Birgit Kury, Jutta Lechterbeck, Wolfram Schier and Erhard Schulz
Additional contact information
Manfred Rösch: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege im Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart, Fischersteig 9, 78343 Gaienhofen-Hemmenhofen, Germany
Harald Biester: TU Braunschweig, Abt. Umweltgeochemie, Institut für Geoökologie, Langer Kamp 19c, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
Arno Bogenrieder: Institut für Biologie/Geobotanik, Universität Freiburg, Schänzlestr. 1, 79104 Freiburg i. Br., Germany
Eileen Eckmeier: Department für Geographie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Luisenstraße 37, 80333 Munich, Germany
Otto Ehrmann: Büro für Bodenmikromorphologie und Bodenbiologie, Münster 12, 97993 Creglingen, Germany
Renate Gerlach: Geographisches Institut Universität Köln, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-50923 Köln, Germany
Mathias Hall: Forstamt Hohenlohekreis, Stuttgarter Str. 21, 74653 Künzelsau, Germany
Christoph Hartkopf-Fröder: Geologischer Dienst Nordrhein-Westfalen, Postfach 100763, 47707 Krefeld, Germany
Ludger Herrmann: Institut für Bodenkunde und Standortslehre, Universität Hohenheim, Emil-Wolff-Str. 27, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany
Birgit Kury: Büro für Bodenmikromorphologie und Bodenbiologie, Münster 12, 97993 Creglingen, Germany
Jutta Lechterbeck: Arkeologisk Museum i Stavanger, Peder Klows gate 30A, 4010 Stavanger, Norway
Wolfram Schier: Institut für prähistorische Archäologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Fabeckstr. 23-25, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Erhard Schulz: Institut für Geographie und Geologie, Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany

Land, 2017, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Long-term slash-and-burn experiments, when compared with intensive tillage without manuring, resulted in a huge data set relating to potential crop yields, depending on soil quality, crop type, and agricultural measures. Cultivation without manuring or fallow phases did not produce satisfying yields, and mono-season cropping on freshly cleared and burned plots resulted in rather high yields, comparable to those produced during modern industrial agriculture - at least ten-fold the ones estimated for the medieval period. Continuous cultivation on the same plot, using imported wood from adjacent areas as fuel, causes decreasing yields over several years. The high yield of the first harvest of a slash-and-burn agriculture is caused by nutrient input through the ash produced and mobilization from the organic matter of the topsoil, due to high soil temperatures during the burning process and higher topsoil temperatures due to the soil’s black surface. The harvested crops are pure, without contamination of any weeds. Considering the amount of work required to fight weeds without burning, the slash-and-burn technique yields much better results than any other tested agricultural approach. Therefore, in dense woodland, without optimal soils and climate, slash-and-burn agriculture seems to be the best, if not the only, feasible method to start agriculture, for example, during the Late Neolithic, when agriculture expanded from the loess belt into landscapes less suitable for agriculture. Extensive and cultivation with manuring is more practical in an already-open landscape and with a denser population, but its efficiency in terms of the ratio of the manpower input to food output, is worse. Slash-and-burn agriculture is not only a phenomenon of temperate European agriculture during the Neolithic, but played a major role in land-use in forested regions worldwide, creating anthromes on a huge spatial scale.

Keywords: Neolithic agriculture; experimental archaeology; slash-and-burn; temperate Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/6/1/11/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/6/1/11/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:6:y:2017:i:1:p:11-:d:89510

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().