DOI issue:
Vol. VI : 2 1989
DOI article:Sigaut, François: Storage and threshing in preindustrial Europe: additional notes
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49003#0129
STORAGE AND THRESHING. NOTES
123
tective-archaeologist will excavate them again
from museum dust some time.4
5. Rat-guards
Rat-guards are stone or wooden discs in-
serted horizontally between the posts and the
supporting beams of elevated buildings, in
order to prevent the climbing of rodents.
Since rat-guards were lacking in the descrip-
tions and pictures of elevated granaries
known to me in Africa and Southern Asia, I
had accepted their absence from those regions
as a working hypothesis.
Eastern Timor (formerly a Portuguese col-
ony, now in Indonesia) is an important coun-
ter-example. Many of the numerous photo-
graphs of elevated houses and granaries pub-
lished by Ruy Cinatti et al. (1987) show large
and conspicuous rat-guards. The Timorese
example is probably not unique. Other exam-
ples are to be expected from the Asian Archi-
pelago. Pending further information it shows
at least that rat-guards, if they are a detail, are
a detail well worth studying.
Notes
1 I am indebted to M. Francois de Beaulieu for
these details. It seems pretty certain that horse-
treading was totally unknown in continental
Brittany, except for the Penmarc’h peninsula.
2 This development of animal-drawn threshing
contrivances occurred both in Northern and in
Southern Europe, but it has been extensively
studied in Northern Europe only: see Berg 1981
for the case of Sweden and the relevant literature
on other countries. In France, the use of thresh-
ing rollers developed at the expense of both
horse-treading (Mediterranean system) and im-
mediate flail-threshing in the open (Atlantic
Coast system); see Parain 1937, and Aubin &
Eches 1985.
3 Information on the bat-ble has been gathered by
Michele Bachelet (1985, pp. 111-112). The instru-
ment itself is described in 1820, but its name is
not explicitly recorded before 1922.
4 I have presented General Pitt-Rivers’ find at a
symposium on “L’exploitation des plantes en
prehistoire, documents et techniques”, orga-
nised by Patricia Anderson-Gerfaud at the Jales
experimental farm (Ardeche, France), 14 to 18
June 1988. The occasion was a paper presented
by Kathryn Ataman on “Threshing sledges and
Archaeology”. A modern tribulum from the
Near East decorating the meeting room made
the discussion quite lively.
References
Aubin, Marie-Christine, & Raymond Eches (1985)
Le depiquage des cereales dans la commune de
Vidauban (Var) au siecle dernier et au debut de
ce siecle, in: M. Gast & F. Sigaut (eds): Les tech-
niques de conservation des grains a long terme
III (l):81-100.
Bachelet, Michele (1985) Techniques de labour et
instruments aratoires, 1780-1880: Seine-Infe-
rieure, Somme, Oise. Paris, Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales, unpubl. diss.
Berg, Gosta (1981) The Swedish threshing wagon,
in: Ethnologia Europaea, 12, 2:174-186.
Betts, Edwin Morris (1944) Thomas Jefferson’s
Garden Book, 1766-1824. Philadelphia, The
American Philosophical Society. Reprint 1966.
Betts, Edwin Morris (1953) Thomas Jefferson’s
Farm Book. Princeton, The American Philo-
sophical Society & Princeton University Press.
Cinatti, Ruy et al. (1987): Arquitectura timorense.
Museu de Ethnologia, Lisboa.
Golte, Winfried (1973) Das siidchilenische Seenge-
biet. Besiedlung und wirtschaftliche Erschlies-
sung seit dem 18.Jahrhundert. Bonn, Ferd.
Diimmler (Bonner Geographische Abhandlun-
gen, Heft 47).
P ala di-Kovacs, Attila (1987) A nyomtatas helye
1900 kortil (Platz fur das Auftreten von Ge-
treide durch Tiere um 1900) Map 61 from: Ma-
gyar Neprajzi Atlasz (Atlas der ungarischen
Volkskultur), I. Budapest, Akademiai Kiado.
Parain, Charles (1937) Les anciens procedes de
battage et de depiquage en France, in: Travaux
du Premier Congres international de Folklore,
Paris 1937. (Reprinted in Outils, ethnics et de-
veloppement historique, Paris, Editions So-
ciales, 1979, pp. 17-27).
123
tective-archaeologist will excavate them again
from museum dust some time.4
5. Rat-guards
Rat-guards are stone or wooden discs in-
serted horizontally between the posts and the
supporting beams of elevated buildings, in
order to prevent the climbing of rodents.
Since rat-guards were lacking in the descrip-
tions and pictures of elevated granaries
known to me in Africa and Southern Asia, I
had accepted their absence from those regions
as a working hypothesis.
Eastern Timor (formerly a Portuguese col-
ony, now in Indonesia) is an important coun-
ter-example. Many of the numerous photo-
graphs of elevated houses and granaries pub-
lished by Ruy Cinatti et al. (1987) show large
and conspicuous rat-guards. The Timorese
example is probably not unique. Other exam-
ples are to be expected from the Asian Archi-
pelago. Pending further information it shows
at least that rat-guards, if they are a detail, are
a detail well worth studying.
Notes
1 I am indebted to M. Francois de Beaulieu for
these details. It seems pretty certain that horse-
treading was totally unknown in continental
Brittany, except for the Penmarc’h peninsula.
2 This development of animal-drawn threshing
contrivances occurred both in Northern and in
Southern Europe, but it has been extensively
studied in Northern Europe only: see Berg 1981
for the case of Sweden and the relevant literature
on other countries. In France, the use of thresh-
ing rollers developed at the expense of both
horse-treading (Mediterranean system) and im-
mediate flail-threshing in the open (Atlantic
Coast system); see Parain 1937, and Aubin &
Eches 1985.
3 Information on the bat-ble has been gathered by
Michele Bachelet (1985, pp. 111-112). The instru-
ment itself is described in 1820, but its name is
not explicitly recorded before 1922.
4 I have presented General Pitt-Rivers’ find at a
symposium on “L’exploitation des plantes en
prehistoire, documents et techniques”, orga-
nised by Patricia Anderson-Gerfaud at the Jales
experimental farm (Ardeche, France), 14 to 18
June 1988. The occasion was a paper presented
by Kathryn Ataman on “Threshing sledges and
Archaeology”. A modern tribulum from the
Near East decorating the meeting room made
the discussion quite lively.
References
Aubin, Marie-Christine, & Raymond Eches (1985)
Le depiquage des cereales dans la commune de
Vidauban (Var) au siecle dernier et au debut de
ce siecle, in: M. Gast & F. Sigaut (eds): Les tech-
niques de conservation des grains a long terme
III (l):81-100.
Bachelet, Michele (1985) Techniques de labour et
instruments aratoires, 1780-1880: Seine-Infe-
rieure, Somme, Oise. Paris, Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales, unpubl. diss.
Berg, Gosta (1981) The Swedish threshing wagon,
in: Ethnologia Europaea, 12, 2:174-186.
Betts, Edwin Morris (1944) Thomas Jefferson’s
Garden Book, 1766-1824. Philadelphia, The
American Philosophical Society. Reprint 1966.
Betts, Edwin Morris (1953) Thomas Jefferson’s
Farm Book. Princeton, The American Philo-
sophical Society & Princeton University Press.
Cinatti, Ruy et al. (1987): Arquitectura timorense.
Museu de Ethnologia, Lisboa.
Golte, Winfried (1973) Das siidchilenische Seenge-
biet. Besiedlung und wirtschaftliche Erschlies-
sung seit dem 18.Jahrhundert. Bonn, Ferd.
Diimmler (Bonner Geographische Abhandlun-
gen, Heft 47).
P ala di-Kovacs, Attila (1987) A nyomtatas helye
1900 kortil (Platz fur das Auftreten von Ge-
treide durch Tiere um 1900) Map 61 from: Ma-
gyar Neprajzi Atlasz (Atlas der ungarischen
Volkskultur), I. Budapest, Akademiai Kiado.
Parain, Charles (1937) Les anciens procedes de
battage et de depiquage en France, in: Travaux
du Premier Congres international de Folklore,
Paris 1937. (Reprinted in Outils, ethnics et de-
veloppement historique, Paris, Editions So-
ciales, 1979, pp. 17-27).