Origin and Development of Managed Meadows in Sweden: A Review

Abstract

This review concerns when and why infield meadows developed, i.e. enclosed land, constructed and managed for production of livestock fodder. Meadows have been associated with 'stalling' of livestock, in turn associated with, for example, protection from adverse weather conditions, increasing efficiency of milk and manure production, or changing human-animal relationships. The suggested timing for origin of meadows ranges from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Meadows are embedded in a complex of interactions, including aspects of culture, material conditions and the environment, and these were treated as different components, unfolding over time: harvesting fodder, stalling livestock, milk production, use of manure, crops and permanent fields, fencing systems, tools, and settlements and land ownership. The interpretation is based on Hodder's entanglement theory. It is concluded that these component's appearance is distributed over a very long time, from the Neolithic to the first centuries AD, when meadows, viewed as a 'complete' system, appeared. People most likely for long knew the advantages of feeding livestock, and the means to achieve this: collecting additional fodder, keep livestock in close quarters, eventually indoors, and collect and distribute manure on crop fields, but the introduction of iron tools during the centuries around AD was the key to develop meadows. Stalling livestock and construction of infield meadows may have been partly decoupled. Although climate change was not a driver behind development of meadows, the agricultural system with meadows and livestock stalling was adaptive during later periods of climate deterioration, and for colonization of northern forests in Sweden.

Historical Ecology of Scandinavian Infield Systems

“…An infield system is a farming system where the essential features relate to the management of land and the spatial structuring of different land use [16,18,47,48]. Figure 1 shows the major components of infield systems, and the background of these components are summarized in Table 1.…”

“…Various fencing systems, ditches, and wooden fences, were used long before infield systems appeared [18]. Depending on availability of material, fences could be wooden or made of stone.…”

“…The importance of boundaries manifested in the landscape developed before infield systems [51]. Semi-natural haymeadows Collection of additional fodder for livestock has occurred since the Neolithic, but land specifically constructed and managed for this purpose developed during the centuries around 1 BC/AD 1 [18].…”

“…Collection of additional fodder for livestock has occurred since the Neolithic, but land specifically constructed and managed for this purpose developed during the centuries around 1 BC/AD 1 [18].…”

“…Several previous studies have dealt with different aspects of the remains of old cultural landscapes in Scandinavia, for example the origin of infield systems, e.g., [16,17], the origin of meadow management [18], land-use changes during the last century [19], and historical perspectives on species-pools and species richness in semi-natural grasslands, e.g., [14,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”