Understanding the Chronologies of England’s Field Systems

Johnston, R J; May, Rowan; McOmish, David

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-71652-3_13

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Like Laikipia and Mara, these landscapes were used as extensive grazing land for centuries prior to enclosure. These extensive grid-like landscapes already covered 70-75% of the available land in the Early Iron Age [138,139]. The boundaries were allotted so that they incorporated previous landscape markers.…”

Section: Perspective: From Current Fences To Prehistoric Fieldscapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

De-/Fencing Grasslands: Ongoing Boundary Making and Unmaking in Postcolonial Kenya

Løvschal

Gravesen

2021

Land

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Across contemporary East Africa, fencing is spreading with incredible speed over hundreds of thousands of hectares of rangelands, fundamentally reconfiguring land tenure dynamics. But why is this happening now, what are the precursors, and what will happen in the years to come? In this article, we ask how pre- and post-colonial landscape gridding perpetuate a slow violence across the landscape through processes of de-/fencing. Fencing, we argue, is embedded in a landscape logic that favours exclusive rights and conditioned access. In two case studies from grazing lands in Kenya, we explore how people engage with the tension of an imposed landscape logic of fencing by either asserting or challenging its very physicality. We propose that de-/fencing are ways of anticipating long-standing land tenure uncertainties. Moreover, we use our cases to explore different points of reference along the mattering of land tenure boundaries as well as the sort of horizons to which fencing leads. We also use this knowledge to improve our understanding of parallel prehistoric cases of large-scale land tenure boundaries. By unfolding the intertwined socio-political and material nature of gridded landscapes, we seek to bring the study of fencing out of conservation literature and into its wider culture-historical context.

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Section: Perspective: From Current Fences To Prehistoric Fieldscapesmentioning

confidence: 99%

De-/Fencing Grasslands: Ongoing Boundary Making and Unmaking in Postcolonial Kenya

Løvschal

Gravesen

2021

Land

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“…More recently, geomorphological research in these areas has made it possible to date soils, given the presence of windblown silts (loess) which are highly fertile and can be accurately dated by sediment luminescence (Stevens et al, 2020: 3-4), in turn allowing for a better understanding of the historic formation of lynchets and increased potential of soil erosion (Evans et al, 2017: 49-51;Verhegge & Delvoie, 2021: 1-2). A greater understanding of formation processes and prehistoric land use across the chalklands of southern Britain (Bell, 1986: 72-73;Johnston et al, 2020Johnston et al, , 2021) and continental Europe (Rommens et al, 2007: 784-87;Fuchs & Lang, 2009: 22-24;Turner et al, 2021: 784-87), mapping, and morphological assessments of buried soils and lynchets have documented the progressive development, erosion, and redeposition of brown earth soils, calcareous colluvium, and agricultural horizons across these landscapes (Ford et al, 1990: 44-51;Macphail et al, 1990: 53-69;Allen, 1992: 37-52;Bell et al, 2020: 1-8).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lynchet-Type Terraces, Loess, and Agricultural Resilience on Chalk Landscapes in the UK and Belgium

Pears,

Lang,

Fallu

et al. 2024

Eur. j. archaeol

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Lynchets, often the defining component of historic agricultural landscapes in northern Europe, are generally associated with soft-limestone geologies and are particularly well developed on loess-mantled landscapes. To understand their formation and chronology, the authors present their geoarchaeological analyses of lynchet soils and loess deposits at Blick Mead and Charlton Forest in southern England, and Sint Martens-Voeren in Belgium. The lynchets date from the late prehistoric to the medieval periods and were constructed by plough action at the English sites, and by both cut-and-fill and ploughing in Belgium. This has resulted in the preservation of highly fertile loessic soils across chalk slopes, lost elsewhere. Although each example is associated with local/regional agricultural histories, the lynchets’ effective soil-retention capacities allowed them to survive as important heritage features with environmental benefits over millennia.

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Understanding the Chronologies of England’s Field Systems

Cited by 2 publications

References 35 publications

De-/Fencing Grasslands: Ongoing Boundary Making and Unmaking in Postcolonial Kenya

De-/Fencing Grasslands: Ongoing Boundary Making and Unmaking in Postcolonial Kenya

Lynchet-Type Terraces, Loess, and Agricultural Resilience on Chalk Landscapes in the UK and Belgium

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