ABSTRACT
The decline in Growing Degree Days in the vicinity of Inverness, Scotland defines a northern, temperature-driven limit to the agricultural productivity of Europe. Europe’s bioproductive isolation meant that trade in agricultural products remained intra-regional for centuries before and after the Black Death. As an island of relatively high bioproductivity, prehistoric Europe should have supported a relatively diverse, endemic flora offering a wide variety of progenitor crop plants compared to the adjoining regions. The growth of the tropical trade – particularly within the colonial system – was a boon for public finance in Europe, at least on the surface. Disliking or even refuting the notion of European global dominance up to the twentieth century has become something of a cause celebre. Alterations to tariff duties on tea and coffee during the eighteenth century made tea more profitable for import and coffee more favourable to re-export to Europe.
