Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (2.1972/1975)

REVIEW

63

men, soweit sie noch im Original erhalten sind.
Mit Hilfe von schriftlichen Uberlieferungen muB
versucht werden, ihre Funktion im einzelnen so
eingehend wie moglich zu klaren. Dartiber hinaus
ist die Entwicklungsgeschichte der gartenbaulichen
Gerate so exakt wie moglich aufzuzeichnen.
Die damit zusammenhangenden Einzelfragen
konnten am besten von einer Arbeitgruppe nach
dem Muster der Weinbaukommission im SIEF
aufgegriffen und ihre Bearbeitung koordiniert wer-
den. Alle an der Klarung der vielen offenen Fra-
gen interessierten Wissenschaftler sollten sich mog-
lichst bald an folgende Anschrift wenden: Garten-

bauingenieur Jutta Sockel, I Berlin 12, StraBe des
17. Juni 135, Dokumentationsstelle Gartenbau-
biicherei, Technische Universitat Berlin, und sich
in eine Liste eintragen lassen, um durch ihre Zu-
sage fur die Mitarbeit die Griindung einer »Gar-
tenbaukommission« zu ermoglichen.
“This is a proposal to set up a commission for the
investigation of horticultural equipment, which has
both lay and specialist interest, as a complement
to the extensive work on bigger scale cultivating
equipment that is in progress. Anyone interested
should write to the address given.”
Dr. Friedrich Stockey, Wiesbaden

Review/Buchbesprechung

YU. A. KRASNOV: Rannee zemledelie i zhivot-
novodstvo v lesnoi polose vostochnoi Evropy.
(Early agriculture and livestock husbandry in
the forest zone of Eastern Europe). Nauka,
Moscow. 1971. pp. 168. (In Russian, no sum-
maries). [Available at Nat. Lending Library, Bo-
ston Spa, Yorkshire. Accession no. R. 72412],
This monograph is No. 174 in the series ‘Materials
on the Archaeology of the USSR’, and its sub-title
indicates that it covers the period from the 2nd
millennium B. C. to the first half of the 1st
millennium A. D. Its main title is somewhat mis-
leading in that the forest zone covered is not that
of Eastern Europe as commonly understood, but
the European part of the USSR, extending from
the Baltic in the west to the Urals foothills in the
east, and from the margins of the tundra in the
north to the middle reaches of the Dnieper and
Volga in the south.
The monograph sets out to bring together infor-
mation scattered in many sources (there are over
thousand references), and to systematise it.
After a short survey of the physical geography
of the forest zone of the European part of the
USSR, the book is divided into two main sec-
tions dealing with Agriculture and Livestock Hus-
bandry respectively. The Agriculture section, which
is the section of most interest to readers of
Tools and Tillage, covers crops, tillage implements
and techniques, systems of agriculture, harvesting,
processing and storage of the produce, and local
differences in agriculture in the territory. The
Livestock Husbandry section deals with the main

types of livestock, forms of husbandry, local dif-
ferences, etc. Finally there is a small section deal-
ing with the origin of the various productive types
of husbandry in the territory.
Much of the interest of the book lies in its
world-wide comparative approach, employing il-
lustrative examples and information from every
continent. This applies particularly to the chapter
on tillage implements and techniques (pp. 21-53),
which describes a wide range of primitive imple-
ments of wood, bone, and iron: digging sticks,
spades, forks, ards, ploughs, rakes, hoes, hammers,
and harrows. Distribution maps show the extent
of arable agriculture at the end of the Bronze
Age, the start of the Iron Age, and in the first and
second halves of the first millennium A. D.
In his systematic summing up, Krasnov divides
the history of agriculture into two stages: the
ploughless or pre-arable stage, and the arable
stage. The history of livestock husbandry is also
divided into two stages: the primitive stage, in
which livestock husbandry was subordinate to
hunting, and the developed stage in which live-
stock husbandry was of greater importance than
hunting. Similarly, the forest tribes acquainted with
agriculture and livestock husbandry are divided
into four economic/culture types:
1. hunting and fishing tribes with embryonic agri-
culture and livestock husbandry;
2. tribes practising livestock husbandry and some
agriculture, plus well developed hunting and
fishing;
3. tribes practising agriculture and some livestock