DOI Artikel:
Editorial
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49001#0071
EDITORIAL
One of the habits of the Tools and Tillage
editors is the writing of an Editorial for each
issue. Even after fourteen years we still find
the new material and new approaches that
our contributors present very much worth
drawing attention to. Sometimes the mate-
rial cause a sparkle of astonishment to even
the most hardened of editors. In this issue,
we have Th. Ramskou’s paper on the Danish
field from the Viking period and Grith
Lerche’s supplementary notes on the same
subject. Who would have seriously thought,
before now, that these corrugations were
made by a mould-board plough rather than
with mattock or spade? A reconsidering of
cultivation systems based on solid data in
other countries, following the Danish lead in
recording the field data, and in examining its
historical background puts us a step forward
in the understanding of early tillage practice.
We stell have to work out such relationships
in detail, and we still have to assemble far
more data, internationally, for a fuller
understanding of the mechanics of ridges
and furrows and of the reasons for their
making, which are not always exclusively to
do with drainage.
Lamb and Rees jointly contribute further
data to the subject of ard cultivation i Shet-
land, an area where stone ard-heads have
been found in great numbers. Nowadays
almost any excavation will produce cultiva-
tion marks, and we cannot fail to be im-
pressed with the speed at which agriculture
progressed to the use of sophisticated ani-
mal-drawn equipment in the Bronze Age
and even earlier. Perhaps the main difference
between human intelligence then and now is
that now we have easy access to an enor-
mous range of data, whereas our distant
ancestors had to depend on a build-up of
experience - and this wise observation is
further upheld by Steensberg’s notes on
tools from Western Java, where the environ-
mental conditions closely affect tools and the
ways of using them, and impose restrictions
that give scope for helping us to interpret
better the more distant past of our own
countries.
With Kuuse’s contribution we put on
view the broad-brush canvas of the econom-
ist. It seems to us that our kind of work
needs this approach, as an accompaniment
and follow-up to the patient accumulation of
tiny details with which we are often con-
cerned. One is a basis for the other. When
sufficient detail has been gathered for broad
patterns to appear, reflecting social and
economic factors, then we can begin to feel
that as scholars and interpreters, we are be-
ginning to get somewhere.
Finally, we would draw the attention of
readers to our notes on recent books. Space
and time are short, so regretfully, we cannot
review all the books that reach the Sec-
retariat. We shall, however, try to develop
this new section, to try to keep things up-to-
date in the Tools and Tillage world.
One of the habits of the Tools and Tillage
editors is the writing of an Editorial for each
issue. Even after fourteen years we still find
the new material and new approaches that
our contributors present very much worth
drawing attention to. Sometimes the mate-
rial cause a sparkle of astonishment to even
the most hardened of editors. In this issue,
we have Th. Ramskou’s paper on the Danish
field from the Viking period and Grith
Lerche’s supplementary notes on the same
subject. Who would have seriously thought,
before now, that these corrugations were
made by a mould-board plough rather than
with mattock or spade? A reconsidering of
cultivation systems based on solid data in
other countries, following the Danish lead in
recording the field data, and in examining its
historical background puts us a step forward
in the understanding of early tillage practice.
We stell have to work out such relationships
in detail, and we still have to assemble far
more data, internationally, for a fuller
understanding of the mechanics of ridges
and furrows and of the reasons for their
making, which are not always exclusively to
do with drainage.
Lamb and Rees jointly contribute further
data to the subject of ard cultivation i Shet-
land, an area where stone ard-heads have
been found in great numbers. Nowadays
almost any excavation will produce cultiva-
tion marks, and we cannot fail to be im-
pressed with the speed at which agriculture
progressed to the use of sophisticated ani-
mal-drawn equipment in the Bronze Age
and even earlier. Perhaps the main difference
between human intelligence then and now is
that now we have easy access to an enor-
mous range of data, whereas our distant
ancestors had to depend on a build-up of
experience - and this wise observation is
further upheld by Steensberg’s notes on
tools from Western Java, where the environ-
mental conditions closely affect tools and the
ways of using them, and impose restrictions
that give scope for helping us to interpret
better the more distant past of our own
countries.
With Kuuse’s contribution we put on
view the broad-brush canvas of the econom-
ist. It seems to us that our kind of work
needs this approach, as an accompaniment
and follow-up to the patient accumulation of
tiny details with which we are often con-
cerned. One is a basis for the other. When
sufficient detail has been gathered for broad
patterns to appear, reflecting social and
economic factors, then we can begin to feel
that as scholars and interpreters, we are be-
ginning to get somewhere.
Finally, we would draw the attention of
readers to our notes on recent books. Space
and time are short, so regretfully, we cannot
review all the books that reach the Sec-
retariat. We shall, however, try to develop
this new section, to try to keep things up-to-
date in the Tools and Tillage world.