Scotland’s first farmers: new insights into early farming practices in north-west Europe

Bishop, R.R.; Gröcke, D.R.; Ralston, I.B.M.; Clarke, D.V.; Lee, D.; Shepherd, A.; Thomas, A.; Rowley-Conwy, P.A.; Church, M.J.

doi:10.15184/aqy.2022.107

Scotland’s first farmers: new insights into early farming practices in north-west Europe

Bishop, R.R.; Gröcke, D.R.; Ralston, I.B.M.; Clarke, D.V.; Lee, D.; Shepherd, A.; Thomas, A.; Rowley-Conwy, P.A.; Church, M.J.

Authors

R.R. Bishop

Professor Darren Grocke d.r.grocke@durham.ac.uk
Professor

I.B.M. Ralston

D.V. Clarke

D. Lee

A. Shepherd

A. Thomas

Professor Peter Rowley-Conwy p.a.rowley-conwy@durham.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor

Professor Mike Church m.j.church@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Thirty years after the discovery of an Early Neolithic timber hall at Balbridie in Scotland was reported in Antiquity, new analysis of the site's archaeobotanical assemblage, featuring 20 000 cereal grains preserved when the building burnt down in the early fourth millennium BC, provides new insights into early farming practices. The results of stable isotope analyses of cereals from Balbridie, alongside archaeobotanical and stable isotope results from three other sites, indicate that while cereals were successfully cultivated in well-established plots without manuring at Balbridie, a variety of manuring strategies was implemented at the other sites. These differences reinforce the picture of variability in cultivation practices across Neolithic North-west Europe.

Citation

Bishop, R., Gröcke, D., Ralston, I., Clarke, D., Lee, D., Shepherd, A., …Church, M. (2022). Scotland’s first farmers: new insights into early farming practices in north-west Europe. Antiquity, 96(389), https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.107

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jan 21, 2022
Online Publication Date	Sep 14, 2022
Publication Date	2022
Deposit Date	Mar 1, 2022
Publicly Available Date	Dec 5, 2022
Journal	Antiquity
Print ISSN	0003-598X
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	96
Issue	389
DOI	https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.107

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