Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food

Joshua Zeunert, Tim Waterman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317298779
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Since the turn of the millennium, there has been a burgeoning interest in, and literature of, both landscape studies and food studies. Landscape describes places as relationships and processes. Landscapes create people's identities and guide their actions and their preferences, while at the same time are shaped by the actions and forces of people. Food, as currency, medium, and sustenance, is a fundamental part of those landscape relationships.

This volume brings together over fifty contributors from around the world in forty profoundly interdisciplinary chapters. Chapter authors represent an astonishing range of disciplines, from agronomy, anthropology, archaeology, conservation, countryside management, cultural studies, ecology, ethics, geography, heritage studies, landscape architecture, landscape management and planning, literature, urban design and architecture. Both food studies and landscape studies defy comprehension from the perspective of a single discipline, and thus such a range is both necessary and enriching.

The Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food is intended as a first port of call for scholars and researchers seeking to undertake new work at the many intersections of landscape and food. Each chapter provides an authoritative overview, a broad range of pertinent readings and references, and seeks to identify areas where new research is needed—though these may also be identified in the many fertile areas in which subjects and chapters overlap within the book.

Part I
From hunting and gathering to agriculture

1
Transformation of the landscape

The relationships between food and land use in prehistoric British and European societies

Saruhan Mosler and Peter R. Hobson

Introduction

The following account describes the changes in land use patterns and practices that occurred across Europe between the late Mesolithic period, beginning around 10,000 BCE through the Neolithic times and the Bronze Age, ca. 6000 to 800 BCE, and up to the end of the Iron Age in 43 CE with the Roman invasion of the British Isles. The unique relationship between humans and nature, driven by the quest for food and the compulsion to establish territorial boundaries, is charted through the chronological changes to the European landscape. However rudimentary it may appear to our common understanding of land use practices, the use of burning by post-Ice Age settlers in order to clear vegetation signalled a shift in the forces dominating landscapes in north-western Europe and marked the beginnings of what was eventually to become the agricultural revolution. The switch from wilderness to ‘culture-scape’ was irreversible and uniquely defining for Europe. It was the genesis of wood pastures, heathlands, and grasslands that most Europeans identify as the vernacular landscape (Blackford, 2003).

Early human exploitation of natural resources for food, and the evolution of food cultures across the world have transformed the landscapes we inhabit today. Kareiva et al. (2007) state that the domestication of plants and animals may be the single most defining characteristic of human domination of the planet. During the late Mesolithic period, between 13,000 and 30,000 years ago, apart from the domestication of wolves there is little evidence that European cultures had begun the process of systematically cultivating plants or the husbandry of livestock (Driscoll et al., 2009). It was not until around 11,000 BCE that formalised practices of breeding other species of animal for consumption and the growing and harvesting of plants became widespread and defined as the ‘Neolithic’ (or agricultural) revolution.

Ethno-botanical studies reveal an estimated 7,000 species of plant have contributed, at some point in history, to the diet of humans (Grivetti and Ogle, 2000). Wild plants were the first harvested plants for food and medicine. The upper Palaeolithic site of Ohalo II, near the Sea of Galilee in Israel’s Rift Valley, dated ca. 23,000 BCE, offers good evidence for the use of wild grasses both for food and for a grass bedding on the floor in a dwelling hut which consists of bunches of Puccinellia (alkali grass) stems and leaves, covered by a thin layer of clay arranged in a repeated pattern (Zapata, 2014: 15, cited in Nadel et al., 2004: 6821). For prehistoric hunter-gatherers cereals were seasonal plant foods, but agriculture made them permanent staples dating back to 8000 BCE in the Middle East region.

The substantial transformation of landscapes in relation to food and humans’ way of living starts with human ability to control fire and use it in cooking (Wrangham and Carmody, 2010). Fernández-Armesto (2003) argues that the origin of cooking sets humans apart from other species. By the Mesolithic period the procurement and consumption of food had developed a level of sophistication that could possibly be described as a food culture (Milner, 2009), and is where we start the story of people, food, and landscape.

Hunter-gatherers of the Holocene-Atlantic period: the early ‘shape-shifters’ of Europe

About 11,000 BCE, at the tail end of the last ice age, small bands of hunter-gathers moved quickly into more northern parts of Europe, using fire to clear vegetation and open up grazing lands for species of wild herbivore frequently hunted for food. For many communities life consisted of seasonal movements between coasts and inland valleys and uplands to ensure a ready supply of food (Tolan-Smith, 1998: 146). We now know there were also semi-permanent settlements around lakes, rivers, and coastal plains where food was more accessible (Flandrin et al., 1999; Fischer, 2007).

The picture of European Mesolithic landscapes is not entirely clear although it is generally accepted there was a gradual transformation from steppe to woodland as the climate warmed. As the steppe retreated so too its ‘megafauna’, a vital source of food for an essentially Mesolithic ‘steppe peoples’ (Kunz, 2016). Forests and wetlands replaced much of the tundra and cold steppes across central and northern Europe, providing new and varied sources of plant and animal foods (Whittle, 1996; Flandrin et al., 1999). It is not clear how extensive the spread of forest across Europe was during this period and whether fire in all its forms, together with wild grazing, kept in check the complete transformation to Urwald (closed forest landscape). Recent advances in palaeoecological science have made it possible to attempt a pictorial reconstruction of early forest landscapes and to move the baseline of understanding much further back from the earliest written historical accounts (Hodder et al., 2009). With the evidence from these new discoveries, long-held views of a primeval Europe clothed in closed forest have been challenged and an alternative picture offered of a forested landscape interrupted by variable-sized patches of mixed grassland, scrub and fen, and in some cases extensive wood pasture (Vera, 2000; Kreuz, 2008; Whitehouse and Smith, 2010). All the evidence suggests that the characterisation of early European forested landscapes within the context of the ‘Urwald-culture-steppe’ has still to be resolved. Instead, it invites a more sophisticated interpretation of the growing scientific evidence and a considered debate about the theory of a landscape subject to complex patterns of diachronic phases of early forest succession, complicated by the erratic colonisation by early human settlements (Kreuz, 2008). The impacts from the movements and behaviour of large fauna cannot be ignored in the argument. At present there is not enough understanding of primeval European forests to construct a detailed modern analogue of old growth forests for the region: a ‘one model fits all’.

In the UK there is evidence from pollen records that Dartmoor in south-west England was heathland and transitioned to woodland around 10,000 BCE. By 7000 BCE most of Dartmoor was wooded with hazel, oak, and elm, and it remained relatively undisturbed for the next 2,000 years (White, 2000).

The activities of Mesolithic cultures played an important part in the evolutionary development of early-Holocene Atlantic wooded landscapes (Aaby, 1986; Latalowa, 1992; Latalowa et al., 2004; Simmons, 2003). Fire had been mastered as a means of sculpting landscapes to favour conditions for hunting, and what started to emerge out of the original forest and scrub was a more complex mosaic of wood pasture, often referred to as the ‘culture-steppe’ – a landform pattern described by Edwards in 1975 and Simmons in 1996 (Whitehouse and Smith, 2004). Hunters would make clearings in woodland around sources of drinking water to attract large herbivores. Such practices around ‘watering holes’, that is to say, ponds, lakes, and rivers where animals regularly drank, would have encouraged certain communities to establish more permanent settlements, as suggested by Pryor (2010: 29). He describes sedentary lifestyles involving the building of substantial dwellings, mostly for seasonal usage in carefully selected landscape settings, including at Star Carr in North Yorkshire and other strategic positions on river banks and the shores of lakes (Conneller, 2003; Conneller et al., 2011). A number of the seasonally used houses excavated at Star Carr were occupied around 8700 BCE for 300 years and were made from planks that had been split or hewn from a much larger piece of wood, such as a tree trunk or a large branch, suggesting skills and tools capable of felling trees and opening up the forest to create clearings. At Howick, in Northumberland, evidence of a large circular building dating to around 7600 BCE suggests not merely a seasonal but a permanent dwelling (Warren, 2017; Tolan-Smith, 2002). In north Germany, at Duven Lake, Mesolithic seasonal settlements – special ‘task’ camps – were discovered, dating back to the period between 11,000 BCE and 8500 BCE. The sites were used as food processing and storage camps with structures constructed specifically to process hazelnuts, including nut cracking implements, roasting hearths, and oil pressing and grinding facilities (Holst, 2010).

The picture painted here of a ‘proto-sophisticated’ culture runs contrary to earlier perceptions of Mesolithic life. A study by Childe (1925), describes the early Asturians as poverty-stricken and miserable populations of food gatherers who lived largely on shellfish, and this view persisted till more recent work by Clark (1975), in which he describes hunter-gatherers as maximising their resources to the extent that fishing was carried out from boats and included the hunting of seal, whale, eels, and crabs (see also Fischer, 2007; Milner, 2009). Small communities on coastal shores and along floodplains would in summer switch from shellfish camps to deer-hunting camps stationed inland (Clark, 1972; Pitts, 1979). The main meat hunted was red and roe deer, elk, auroch, and wild boar. Other fur animals were also trapped (Milner, 2009). Notwithstanding, despite the lower calorific value of aquatic animals, extensive fish traps were deployed to catch eels, and large quantities of shellfish were consumed (Fischer, 2007).

Advances made in tool technology gave hunter-gatherer communities greater access to ‘nature’s larder’, and also improved techniques for processing harvested food. At Star Carr archaeological evidence revealed barbed antler points for use as harpoons for hunting beaver, fish, deer, or elk, and flints shaped for use as the tips of spears, arrows, or javelins, which in turn implies the manufacture of wooden handles and hafts. Ample bone evidence testifies to the range of food species consumed at the site: large mammals, such as brown bear, red and roe deer, elk, wild pig and cattle, as well as smaller species, including a variety of birds, badger, and hare (Conneller, 2003).

The commonly held view of early land use change across Europe maintains the major transition from wild lands to culture-scape occurred once hunter-gatherers abandoned their practices and became cultivators. At a site in the UK, pollen, charcoal, and fungal spore analysis of a peat profile at North Gill, North York Moors in north-east England, provides detailed evidence for an episode of fire-disturbance of woodland around 6300 BCE, which marks a turning point in late Mesolithic – early Neolithic culture (Innes and Blackford, 2003).

A profound shift in lifestyle patterns would have triggered social, technological, and economic changes, thus providing sling-shot shifts towards a new paradigm and relationship with the natural world (Bar-Yosef, 1998: 141–143). According to Rowley-Conwy (2011) full sedentary agricultural lifestyles emerged rapidly, marking the beginning of the Neolithic revolution. There remains very little evidence of transformational communities during the latter period of the Mesolithic.

Early signs of the harvesting of wild cereals and other plant species by hunter-gatherers during the late Mesolithic period have been observed in studies of the Natufian culture of the Levant, which flourished in the Near East between 12,000 and 10,000 BCE (Flandrin et al., 1999). As the practice became more sophisticated it started to spread throughout Europe at an estimated average rate of 0.6–1.3 km/year.

Hayden (2001) presents the case for Mesolithic domestication of the first animals and plants, and the eventual transition to a farming lifestyle as an emergent property of ritualised ‘competitive feasting’. The significance of ‘feasting’ on the livelihoods of late Mesolithic communities would have presented challenges in the procurement, storage, and distribution of food for festivities. Special structures and implements were created to meet demands for the occasions (Hayden, 1990; Hayden, 2006).

Taming the land: the Neolithic revolution

The Neolithic revolution was the beginning of irreversible change in Europe’s landscapes, from ‘Urwald’ to the new ‘culture-steppe’ that provided the footprint to modern-day agriculture in this part of the world. Landscapes came to represent a place of permanency and a place to possess. It marked a paradigm shift in the human–nature relationship, from one of ‘working with the grain of nature’ – synchronising behaviour with the structures and dynamics of the natural world – to one of carving out new forms and of controlling processes where possible in order to maintain the status quo. A field system was created with forms of order and symmetry not seen before. Fire–fallow cultivation enabled early farmers to colonise new ground whilst allowing spent soils to recover under fallow and pasture.

The Neolithic revolution marks the profound transition from a hunting-foraging way of life to a more sedentary lifestyle centred on a culture of agriculture that took place across Europe about 10,000 BCE. The new wave of ‘maritime immigrants’ into Europe island-hopped their way across the Mediterranean from the Near East about 9,000 years ago (Paschou et al., 2014), and brought with them fresh, innovative ideas and technology, leading to a radical transformation of society and landscape. The term ‘revolution’ implies a radical and abrupt change, but a more correct interpretation of the transition period was of a gradual process over time, in some cases involving co-existence between communities (Bocquet-Appel, 2011; Bellwood, 2004; Barker, 2006; Brown et al., 2009), built on the reciprocal trading of goods and food. Early forms of growing and harvesting plants are believed to originate from practices of seeding and growing (Figure 1.1), a carefully selected group of species that were naturally less bitter and toxic (Fuller, 2007), and with the advancement of farming techniques, growers learned the process of ‘genetic selection’, favouring plants that produced higher yields and also showed greater resistance to pests and extreme weather conditions (ibid.).

A more formalised and ordered relationship with nature required the investment of time and resources to carefully plan and manage the necessary growing conditions for crops. Sites with fertile soil and protected from bouts of bad weather were favoured as were areas with less d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I From hunting and gathering to agriculture
• Part II Agricultures
• Part III Ecology, resources, sustainability, and climate change
• Part IV Developing worlds
• Part V Intellectual, political, and economic realms
• Part VI Social practices and meanings
• Part VII Food cultures and foodways
• Index