ABSTRACT

Modelling Neolithic farming practice hinges on relevant comparisons between present-day crop husbandry regimes and fragmentary evidence of past cultivation methods. Such comparisons need to incorporate the wide range of farming scenarios featured in debate surrounding the transition to agriculture but also, crucially, to be framed in terms of characteristics that relate directly to key ecological variables distinguishing these regimes. This chapter considers a series of comparisons used in Bogaard (2004) to eliminate implausible Neolithic farming scenarios based on the ecological configuration of arable weed flora, which provide a detailed reflection of crop growing conditions and hence farming practices. The study made the case that the crop husbandry practices of Neolithic farmers more closely resembled ‘intensive garden cultivation’ – labour-intensive management of long-established arable plots – than it did shifting (or slash-and-burn) cultivation, extensive cultivation with the ard plough or floodplain cultivation.