ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the value of organic manure during the Agricultural Revolution and agrarian reforms. Environmental determinants in the development of particular manuring regimes could be better understood, upland/lowland, arid/wet, tropical/periglacial oppositions, for example, as well as the impact of, and reaction to, climatic change in the past. The tensions created when imported ideas meet indigenous practices deserve more attention, particularly in the context of European colonization and imperial dominance. Methods and sources complementary to those addressed directly here could have been given equal prominence, inter alia: the archaeological interpretation of pottery scatters; the analysis of prosaic texts such as manorial accounts and farmers' diaries; art historical perspectives on depictions of manure and the dung heap across time; manure in literary tradition; or more recent developments such as the use of soil DNA.