DOI Artikel:
Szabó, Mátyás: Clearing of stony ground and cultivation in Sweden: an interplay between expertise, organisation and technique
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49001#0005
CLEARING OF STONY GROUND AND
CULTIVATION IN SWEDEN
An Interplay Between Expertise, Organisation and Technique
By
Mdtyds Szabo
Among the main features due to the ac-
tivities of man, which characterise the culti-
vated landscape, are the effect on the forest,
control of rivers, changes in level through
excavation and the making of cultivation
terraces. There is well documented evidence
of all these activities from various places in
the world. We know much less of the most
common and everyday activities which have
given the face of the land ever new charac-
teristics, e.g. those linked to the clearing of
stones which were in the way of the work of
the farmer. The presence of stone character-
ises to a high degree both the cultural and
natural environment. When man had started
to clear ground on a large scale many areas
acquired quite a new character, partly by
having stone-free fields, partly by new stone
features such as paved roads, stone walls and
perhaps most of all cairns, whose size varies
from small mounds to lesser pyramids (fig.
1, 2, 3). The enormous effort which in Swe-
den is linked with this kind of cultivation is
in one way quite well documented through
the thousands of miles of stone walls in most
landscapes and perhaps millions of stone
cairns in various parts of the country. There
has never been any systematic investigation
of how this stone-cleared type of landscape
arose. The struggle with stone is several
thousand years old in this country. The
Stone Age farmers were very skilled in hand-
ling stone, even if their intention was not
mainly to produce fields for cultivation, but
to raise stone monuments. From the Middle
Ages there is much clear evidence, in the
form of stone cairns, of the cultivation ac-
tivities which included clearing a lot of
stone. Here, however, I am going to concen-
trate on the period after 1700 when the
sources increase in number year by year,
which makes it possible to investigate this
phenomenon from various aspects. The
starting point for the survey lies in the mid-
dle parts of Sweden, especially Smaland
(fig. 5), where the abundance of stone in the
ground is still today one of the most charac-
teristic features of the landscape. It has been
said that the minds of the people in Smaland
have been affected by this superfluity of
stone.1
The areas that this survey deals with, are,
however, not special as regards the clearing
of stony ground. There are environments
with far more stone all over the world,
which in spite of this have been cultivated.
In the technical agricultural literature are
many statements that indicate a manner of
CULTIVATION IN SWEDEN
An Interplay Between Expertise, Organisation and Technique
By
Mdtyds Szabo
Among the main features due to the ac-
tivities of man, which characterise the culti-
vated landscape, are the effect on the forest,
control of rivers, changes in level through
excavation and the making of cultivation
terraces. There is well documented evidence
of all these activities from various places in
the world. We know much less of the most
common and everyday activities which have
given the face of the land ever new charac-
teristics, e.g. those linked to the clearing of
stones which were in the way of the work of
the farmer. The presence of stone character-
ises to a high degree both the cultural and
natural environment. When man had started
to clear ground on a large scale many areas
acquired quite a new character, partly by
having stone-free fields, partly by new stone
features such as paved roads, stone walls and
perhaps most of all cairns, whose size varies
from small mounds to lesser pyramids (fig.
1, 2, 3). The enormous effort which in Swe-
den is linked with this kind of cultivation is
in one way quite well documented through
the thousands of miles of stone walls in most
landscapes and perhaps millions of stone
cairns in various parts of the country. There
has never been any systematic investigation
of how this stone-cleared type of landscape
arose. The struggle with stone is several
thousand years old in this country. The
Stone Age farmers were very skilled in hand-
ling stone, even if their intention was not
mainly to produce fields for cultivation, but
to raise stone monuments. From the Middle
Ages there is much clear evidence, in the
form of stone cairns, of the cultivation ac-
tivities which included clearing a lot of
stone. Here, however, I am going to concen-
trate on the period after 1700 when the
sources increase in number year by year,
which makes it possible to investigate this
phenomenon from various aspects. The
starting point for the survey lies in the mid-
dle parts of Sweden, especially Smaland
(fig. 5), where the abundance of stone in the
ground is still today one of the most charac-
teristic features of the landscape. It has been
said that the minds of the people in Smaland
have been affected by this superfluity of
stone.1
The areas that this survey deals with, are,
however, not special as regards the clearing
of stony ground. There are environments
with far more stone all over the world,
which in spite of this have been cultivated.
In the technical agricultural literature are
many statements that indicate a manner of