DOI Artikel:
Editorial
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49004#0009
EDITORIAL
This first issue of Volume VII has longer arti-
cles in order to accommodate three important
contributions. They are presentations of new
material, or else have a revisionist quality. In
each case the writer, whether archaeologist,
ethnologist or economist, is dealing with his
own geographical area and for that reason is
able to exercise considerable insight. The
range is wide in place and time, from the
Stone Age to the present day, and from South
West and South East Europe to India.
In a real sense, Tools and Tillage - or rather
those who write in it - are forging new links
between scholars and scholarship in different
parts of the world. That ideological bounda-
ries, which have inhibited straightforward in-
teraction in the past, are breaking down, is
shown by Boris Shramko in his presentation
of new finds from recent excavations. He
»dares« to revise older interpretations of, for
example, the well-known Sergejewsk and
Tokary ards, adding further detail also to his
previous brief report on the Polessje ard
(c. 1390 BC) (Tools and Tillage 1:4, 1971). His
data relate to a part of Europe that had high
importance for the diffusion of agriculture
during the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age.
Jose Luis Mingote Calderon is rapidly
making a name for himself as a leading Span-
ish ethnologist. Spain is, in effect, a new area
for Tools and Tillage. It has a rich surviving
traditional culture and as a result much fresh
information can still be gained from field re-
search. Though he discusses a specialised
form of yoke, nevertheless he provides tech-
nical details on the whole question of yoking
and harnessing, combining these with view-
points on the social implications, and making
use of a wide international literature. He
deals with animal draught power, means of
yoking and yoke sizes in relation to function.
He extends earlier research on the history of
agricultural tools and equipment by going
deeply into functions and working processes.
He also sees implements as part of a whole
assemblage that includes means of harnessing
and yoking, and the draught requirements.
Tools and Tillage hopes to present more ma-
terial on this subject area and with such view-
points in the future.
Minoti Chakravarty Kaul stems from
Delhi, and has worked and lectured as a social
scientist at Indiana, Oxford, Oslo etc. His ar-
ticle distils 10 years of research into a fasci-
nating study of how people fed their stock,
including draught animals. The complicated
movements of stock in search of pasture and
the use of the Punjabi commons are on a mas-
sive scale as compared with the transhumance
systems of Northern and Eastern Europe.
Use of resources was allied with conservation
of resources in fairly extreme environmental
conditions. When such balances are achieved,
largely empirically, and are shown to func-
tion well, how is it that modern industrialised
man is often so ready to ignore such tradi-
tional knowledge and pursue new machine-
based ways that can break natural balances
irretrievably? No one should be ashamed to
learn from the ways of the past, and where
marginal land is being utilised, all human
skills should be harnessed to their functional
maintenance. If Tools and Tillage can encour-
age scholars and planners to think about such
things, the Editors will feel they have been
doing their job properly.
This first issue of Volume VII has longer arti-
cles in order to accommodate three important
contributions. They are presentations of new
material, or else have a revisionist quality. In
each case the writer, whether archaeologist,
ethnologist or economist, is dealing with his
own geographical area and for that reason is
able to exercise considerable insight. The
range is wide in place and time, from the
Stone Age to the present day, and from South
West and South East Europe to India.
In a real sense, Tools and Tillage - or rather
those who write in it - are forging new links
between scholars and scholarship in different
parts of the world. That ideological bounda-
ries, which have inhibited straightforward in-
teraction in the past, are breaking down, is
shown by Boris Shramko in his presentation
of new finds from recent excavations. He
»dares« to revise older interpretations of, for
example, the well-known Sergejewsk and
Tokary ards, adding further detail also to his
previous brief report on the Polessje ard
(c. 1390 BC) (Tools and Tillage 1:4, 1971). His
data relate to a part of Europe that had high
importance for the diffusion of agriculture
during the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age.
Jose Luis Mingote Calderon is rapidly
making a name for himself as a leading Span-
ish ethnologist. Spain is, in effect, a new area
for Tools and Tillage. It has a rich surviving
traditional culture and as a result much fresh
information can still be gained from field re-
search. Though he discusses a specialised
form of yoke, nevertheless he provides tech-
nical details on the whole question of yoking
and harnessing, combining these with view-
points on the social implications, and making
use of a wide international literature. He
deals with animal draught power, means of
yoking and yoke sizes in relation to function.
He extends earlier research on the history of
agricultural tools and equipment by going
deeply into functions and working processes.
He also sees implements as part of a whole
assemblage that includes means of harnessing
and yoking, and the draught requirements.
Tools and Tillage hopes to present more ma-
terial on this subject area and with such view-
points in the future.
Minoti Chakravarty Kaul stems from
Delhi, and has worked and lectured as a social
scientist at Indiana, Oxford, Oslo etc. His ar-
ticle distils 10 years of research into a fasci-
nating study of how people fed their stock,
including draught animals. The complicated
movements of stock in search of pasture and
the use of the Punjabi commons are on a mas-
sive scale as compared with the transhumance
systems of Northern and Eastern Europe.
Use of resources was allied with conservation
of resources in fairly extreme environmental
conditions. When such balances are achieved,
largely empirically, and are shown to func-
tion well, how is it that modern industrialised
man is often so ready to ignore such tradi-
tional knowledge and pursue new machine-
based ways that can break natural balances
irretrievably? No one should be ashamed to
learn from the ways of the past, and where
marginal land is being utilised, all human
skills should be harnessed to their functional
maintenance. If Tools and Tillage can encour-
age scholars and planners to think about such
things, the Editors will feel they have been
doing their job properly.