DOI Artikel:
Editorial
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49000#0147
EDITORIAL
The contributors to this issue represent four
widely-dispersed areas of the world. Almost
without exception, the articles are expansions
of material that has appeared previously in
Tools and Tillage, and has given a stimulus to
further activity. In this issue, the spade and
plough articles are concerned mainly with the
tools as they are in themselves. However, we
also regard it as important that they should be
seen as functioning entities within the fields
they cultivate, and as parts of sets of tools that
together fulfil the needs of the season’s work.
We should welcome contributions based on
this wider perspective, including questions of
terminology, and making full use of both
documentary sources and field observation.
In shaping Tools and Tillage, the Editors are
well aware that they are maintaining a high
standard of presentation of basic data, incor-
porating a variety of methods of approach, in
such a way that the journal may appeal mainly
to specialists. It is all too easy these days to
lower standards in trying to give a journal
wider appeal, but if we do so, how are the
specialists then to be served? Tools and Tillage
could not survive apart from its specialist
function. In fact it works over a very wide
spectrum in time and space, and has broad
viewpoints, even though the range of subjects
is relatively restricted.
At the same time, the Editors are not inflex-
ible. The scope has already been widened
from the primary tools and techniques of cul-
tivation to those of harvesting the crops, and
now we are also ranging into the question of
processing cereals for food, though excluding,
for example, mills, which are covered by other
journals. We would, however, consider grain
storage, pits, baking ovens, and the like, espe-
cially where some element of interpretation is
involved. What exactly is a pit for? It is pos-
sible to make experiments to find out, and also
to bring together more recent information to
complement the archaeological record.
We would also like'to consider topics like
manuring, the use of composts, the effects of
drainage - anything, in other words, that af-
fects the crops, and thereby the living stan-
dards of human beings.
Subjects need not in themselves be mutually
exclusive, and can benefit from co-operation
with other subjects. Archaeologists need the
later material for contextualising their finds;
historians could benefit by moving out of
their archives sometimes. It does not follow
that a widening of the range of a subject leads
to shallower work, but often just the oppo-
site. If Tools and Tillage can be a forum for the
cross-fertilisation of subjects, it will be serv-
ing its purpose; and if you support the Journal
by subscribing to it, you will become one of
the growing band of specialists too.
The contributors to this issue represent four
widely-dispersed areas of the world. Almost
without exception, the articles are expansions
of material that has appeared previously in
Tools and Tillage, and has given a stimulus to
further activity. In this issue, the spade and
plough articles are concerned mainly with the
tools as they are in themselves. However, we
also regard it as important that they should be
seen as functioning entities within the fields
they cultivate, and as parts of sets of tools that
together fulfil the needs of the season’s work.
We should welcome contributions based on
this wider perspective, including questions of
terminology, and making full use of both
documentary sources and field observation.
In shaping Tools and Tillage, the Editors are
well aware that they are maintaining a high
standard of presentation of basic data, incor-
porating a variety of methods of approach, in
such a way that the journal may appeal mainly
to specialists. It is all too easy these days to
lower standards in trying to give a journal
wider appeal, but if we do so, how are the
specialists then to be served? Tools and Tillage
could not survive apart from its specialist
function. In fact it works over a very wide
spectrum in time and space, and has broad
viewpoints, even though the range of subjects
is relatively restricted.
At the same time, the Editors are not inflex-
ible. The scope has already been widened
from the primary tools and techniques of cul-
tivation to those of harvesting the crops, and
now we are also ranging into the question of
processing cereals for food, though excluding,
for example, mills, which are covered by other
journals. We would, however, consider grain
storage, pits, baking ovens, and the like, espe-
cially where some element of interpretation is
involved. What exactly is a pit for? It is pos-
sible to make experiments to find out, and also
to bring together more recent information to
complement the archaeological record.
We would also like'to consider topics like
manuring, the use of composts, the effects of
drainage - anything, in other words, that af-
fects the crops, and thereby the living stan-
dards of human beings.
Subjects need not in themselves be mutually
exclusive, and can benefit from co-operation
with other subjects. Archaeologists need the
later material for contextualising their finds;
historians could benefit by moving out of
their archives sometimes. It does not follow
that a widening of the range of a subject leads
to shallower work, but often just the oppo-
site. If Tools and Tillage can be a forum for the
cross-fertilisation of subjects, it will be serv-
ing its purpose; and if you support the Journal
by subscribing to it, you will become one of
the growing band of specialists too.