Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (5.1984/1987)

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REVIEWS

R. PERINI: L’aratro del Bronzo di Lavagnone
(Desenzano del Garda) (Studi Trentini di Scienze
Storiche, II, n. 61, 1982).
R. PERINI: Der friihbronzezeitliche Pflug von
Lavagnone (Archaol. Korrespondenzblatt 13,
1983, Heft 2, Mainz).
In Tools and Tillage IV:1, 1980, 60, we learned
that R. Perini, of the “ Assessorato alle Attivita
Cultural! della Provincia Autonoma di Trento”,
had discovered a wooden crook ard of Early
Bronze Age date in the Southern Alps (Polada
Culture), during the excavations at Lavagnone
pond (Desenzano, Garda Lake) (1974-1979). The
excavations were promoted by the “Soprinten-
denza alia Preistoria ed Etnografia” of Roma, and
the “Sopritendenza alle Antichita della Lom-
bardia”.
Now Perini has published a first report on this
discovery. The measurement of the ard compo-
nents confirm that reported in T&T 1980, apart
from minor variations. The ard consists of an ard-
head (sole + beam) and stilt. It is of oak, and is
2.20 m long. The length of the stock is 0.90 m. In
the lower face that presses through the soil, there
is a longitudinal split. Evidently, the long, nar-
row sole-share was inserted in it. This sole-share
was probably of fire-hardened wood, and would
often have been changed, because of its rapid
wear.
In the excavation, this sole share has not been
found. Perhaps it appeared as a scorched wooden
piece, since Dias (in “Os arados Portugueses”,
Coimbra 1949) points out that until recent times,
in backward countries - e.g. in the Western Alps
- shares were not of iron or stone, but of
scorched wood. This appears evident from the
“cist” of Montebelluna (Treviso), of Iron Age
date, around the middle of the first millennium
B.C., where the long sole-share appears to be
connected to the stock by means of cords (Bal-
dacci, Frediani, Forni “Le due grandi epoche dell’
agricoltura Lombarda”, Milano 1982).
In the sole, at the mid-point of the bifurcation,

a quadrangular hole appears for the insertion of
the stilt.
The beam is the longest part (1.80 m) of the
bifurcation. It forms an angle of 45° with the
stock. At the outer end, it shows a crescent-like
thickening in the ventral face, and a notch a few
cm more inside, in the dorsal face. This allowed
the insertion of a movable extension of the beam,
that is a pole, and permitted the beam to be
hooked directly on to the yoke.
The handled stilt was inserted in the stock at
the time of discovery. The stilt, of oak also, sticks
0.85 m out of the stock. The stilt base is squared
for insertion in the stock, and an oak wedge was
used for strengthening.
In the excavation three other stilts with squared
bases have been found, near the ard. It means that
the replacement of the stilt was perhaps foreseen.
Three metres from the ard, an almost complete
yoke was found, still bearing in the central part a
protuberance (one of the original four) for the
linkage to the pole, and a lateral, lightly curved
part, to be put on the neck of an ox. The corres-
ponding part, to be put on the neck of the second
ox, is missing.
Gaetano Forni
S.TUSA: Distribuzione delle ricchezze ed ag-
ricoltura ad Aligrama (Swat Pakistan) nel II mil-
lennio a.C. (L’interpretazione di tracce di solchi
fossili), in: Atti I. Convegno Naz. Ecologia
Umana “Uomo e agricoltura”, Firenze 6-7 Die.
1983.
The Author, member of the Italian Archaeologi-
cal Mission at Aligrama (North Pakistan), in-
forms us about the discovery of fossil ploughing
traces dated to the second half of the II millen-
nium B.C., as one of the results of research into
North-Western Culture (Gandhara Grave Cul-
ture).
Previous evidence of prehistoric ploughing had
been discovered near Kalibagan, a Haraggan Me-
tropolis beyond the Indus Valley, as B.K.Thagar