Exploring and Explaining Diversity in Agricultural Technology [Hardback]

This volume is the outcome of a collaborative research programme combining archaeologists, archaeobotanists, ethnographers, historians and agronomists, based around experiments in archaeology and aimed at establishing new common ground for integrating different approaches, viewing agriculture from the standpoint of the human actors involved. Each chapter is a collaborative, interdisciplinary overview of the tools and processes involved in various stages and technologies involved in the pursuit of agriculture from land clearance to cereal processing and cooking, and of the skills and social context of agricultural practice. This is the second of three volumes in the EARTH series on the developmental history of world agriculture.

Part I: Introduction
1. The dimension of tools, skills and processes

Part II: The agricultural process: tools and techniques in cultural context
2. From Land Clearance and Preparation to Sowing
3. Tending the Crops
4. Diversity in Harvesting Techniques
5. Threshing Processes and Tools
6. Storage and Preservation
7. Cereal Processing and Cooking: Techniques, Tools, and Gestures

Part III: The social context of agricultural technology
8. Acquiring skills and the transmission of knowledge
9. Symbolic and legal aspects of agrarian life
10. Agricultural practices: change and stability