Two Oxen Ahead: Pre–Mechanized Farming in the Mediterranean

This revealing study of farming practices in societies clustered around the Mediterranean draws out the valuable contribution that knowledge of recent farming practices can make to our understanding of husbandry in prehistoric and Greco–Roman times. It reflects increased academic interest in the formative influence of farming regimes on the societies they were designed to feed. The author’s intensive research took him to farming communities around the Mediterranean, where he recorded observational and interview data on differing farming practices, many of which can be traced back to classical antiquity or earlier. The book explores these variables, detailing the divergent traditions of the annual chaîne opératoire (from ploughing and sowing to harvest and threshing), as well as the generational cycle of household development. It traces the interdependence of these successive stages and provides a detailed comparative analysis attributing interregional variations to localized ecologies and cultures. Each chapter isolates what can be inferred about ancient practice from the data on recent agronomy and animal husbandry, while emphasizing the inevitably heuristic nature of such linkages.

Paul Halstead is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. He has edited and contributed to numerous publications, including Bad Year Economics (with John O’Shea), Neolithic Society in Greece (1999), and Food, Cuisine and Society in Prehistoric Greece (with John Barrett, 2004).

B = Standard Review List NA review list: American Journal of Archaeology Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Bryn Mawr Classical Review Classical Journal Classical Bulletin Classical World UK review list: Antiquity Journal of Hellenic Studies Journal of Roman Studies Environmental Archaeology Rural History Agricultural History Review Reference Reviews