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

EDITORAL

After four years of existence during which
TOOLS AND TILLAGE has proved itself as
a specialist journal catering for a wide demand,
it is now being given the full institutional back-
ing of the National Museum of Denmark. From
this issue onwards it is being published by the
National Museum. In welcoming this change,
the editors look forward to a long and fruitful
collaboration with the National Museum, and
also wish to express their best thanks to the
previous publisher, G. E. C. Gad, Copenhagen,
without whose early co-operation TOOLS
AND TILLAGE would have been impossible,


conformity in shape and size (contrasting with
the widely varying sizes and shapes of the
Scottish and Irish yokes). On the analogy of
the Lundgardshede yoke, radiocarbon dated to
330 B.C., TOOLS AND TILLAGE vol. I: 1,
1968, they appear to fall into the Pre-Roman
Iron Age bracket. A report will appear in a
later issue of TOOLS AND TILLAGE.
Since the last number of TOOLS AND
TILLAGE was edited two important books
have been published: Kustaa Vilkuna’s “Die
Pfluggerate Finnlands” (The Ploughing Imple-
ments of Finland) and “Getreidebau in Ost-
und Mittel-Europa” (Corn-growing in East and
Middle-Europe) edited by Ivan Balassa. Pro-
fessor Vilkuna’s discussion of the origin and
early spread of the Sokha is valuable because
of the author’s wide practical and scientific
knowledge especially in philology and ethno-
graphy. He suggests that the sokha originated
in a very ancient implement for tilling, some-
times made of natural bifurcated branches with
three working points like harrows, and indeed
some connection with the Chinese three-
pointed tilling implement of the 5th Century
A. D. seems possible.
The book edited by Dr. Balassa is interesting
especially because it includes material on tilling
implements from Aserbaidshan and Armenia, a
border region between Europe and the Near
East where many relics have been preserved
which possibly may throw light on the most
ancient development of tilling, and from where
no detailed descriptions have hitherto been
available. Besides this, the philologist Ymar
Daher has published a book in the Finnish Se-
ries Studia Orientalia “Agricultura Anatolica I,
Die volkstiimlichen Landwirtschaftlichen Ge-
rate” (Helsinki 1970), which elucidates the
problem from another point. These books will
be reviewed in future issues of TOOLS AND
TILLAGE.