Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (6.1988/1991)

4

FRANQOIS SIGAUT

back to the highest antiquity. But this
method, which seemingly ought to have been
adopted by all agricultural peoples, was con-
centrated in certain areas and could not ex-
tend farther, in spite of the advantages it pre-
sents and of the preference it deserves.”
To this day, this excerpt is perhaps one of
the best available statements of the problem
of grain storage in a historical perspective.
Grains are not easy to keep in storage, and no
amount of thrift alone can ensure that they
will be. Specific techniques (methods, equip-
ment and skills) have to be resorted to. And
these techniques, like all other cultural traits,
show a distribution through time and space
that cannot be explained away with the help
of simple assumptions about climate, wars,
traditions, or whatever more or less logical
idea happens to be available.
Such, at least, was our starting point. The
air-tight fosses a ble, vigorously advocated by
Lasteyrie, contrasted so sharply with the tra-
ditional European granaries, where it was
thought indispensable to ventilate the grain
by frequent shovelings, that their function-
ing, and even their very existence, was open
to question (most Europeans refuse to believe
it possible today). To settle this question
meant to ascertain the technology, not only
of grain-pits, but also of the traditional grana-
ries themselves - which is much less evident
than we are inclined to believe - and finally of
all the methods of grain storage that are
known to have been used somewhere some-
time. But it soon became obvious to us that
such a task was beyond the means of one or a
few researchers. As many colleagues as pos-
sible had to be called in for help. To that end,
a conference was organized at the former ab-
bey of Senanque (Provence) in March 1978.
The response was such that it was followed
by two others, at Arudy (Bearn) in June 1978
and at Levroux (Berri) in November 1980.
The proceedings of the conferences have been

fully published: 76 communications by au-
thors from 14 countries were gathered.5
This paper does not propose to summarize
this, and the other publications on grain stor-
age that have appeared before and after. The
problems are so many and have so many as-
pects that just to list them would make a long
and tedious paper.6 Instead, what is intended
here is to give an idea of the kind of details
that must be taken into account together for
unequivocally identifying grain conservation
techniques, and to present some results of
this approach for a better understanding of
the agricultural past of Europe.
Identifying grain conservation techniques
To identify a thing is to learn how to differ-
entiate it from other things that look more or
less like it, Or in other words, to find out not
only what the thing is, but also what it is not.
Techniques are no exception. A technique
cannot be described by itself, in isolation as it
were, because to describe it requires the
knowledge of relevant criteria, which cannot
be identified other than by comparison with
other techniques. What I call identification is
the specific task of finding out such criteria.
For grain storage, as for many other tech-
niques, it proves convenient to proceed by
addressing the two following questions: ex-
actly what is stored, and how is it kept in
storage, i.e. what specific means and methods
are used to ensure its conservation during
that time?7
What is stored? '
To answer this question is to tell the stage in
the processing of grain between harvest and
the final product (bread, porridge) when stor-
age takes place.
Porridge, of course, cannot be kept more
than a few hours. But dried bread was impor-
tant locally, and for the use of armies and
navies (biscuit de mer) in French. Noodles
and other pasta products are also conve-