Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (4.1980/1983)

LINDHOLM - COMMENTS

in

holm Hoje was ploughed by a mouldboard
plough. The very long furrows run between
the ridges in an uneven way, which is natural
for ploughed furrows. Furthermore, some
of the furrows between the ridges ended in a
point (fig. i and fig. 2) which must be the
result of ploughing. Here the plough-share
slipped out at the end of the furrow, as well
as here the plough-share started cutting the
furrow. There is also the evidence of hooves
and human footprints (fig. 12 p. 107) at the
north end of some of the strips, surely to be
interpreted as evidence that an animal-drawn
implement had turned here.
The strips lie across the contours with a
difference of 2 m. from north to south of the
field. This way of arranging the ridges and
furrows in a field system was quite normal in
Denmark from the Middle Ages till the
period of the reallotment of fields about
1800. It facilitated the quick drainage of
water during wet periods.
But can the Lindholm field just be de-
scribed as one of many preserved examples
of the ridge and furrow field system? The



Fig. 2. Detail of a furrow which ended in a light
point presumably the result of ploughing. Photo
Ahm.

Detail vom Ende eines der Raine zwischen den
Beeten. Die helle spitze Figur ist wahrscheinlich
die Spur einer Pflugschar.

Fig. 1. The end of the strips shown in fig. 12
p. 107, but here seen from the west. As furrow
no. 3 is seen the point also shown on fig. 2. Photo
Ahm.
Der Rand der in Abb. 12 S. 107 wiedergegebenen
Ackerbeete. Hier von Westen gesehen. Als
3. Rain sieht man das spitze Ende der in Abb. 2
wiedergegebenen Spur.