Ancient Farming

Subsistence is the term archaeologists use to describe the way a particular society or group gets food—whether that method is gardening, full fledged farming or trade and exchange.

As they had done in Scandinavia, the Vikings established both summer and winter pasturages and hayfields in Iceland and Greenland. Sheep and other livestock were taken to summer pastures from May to September, but for the remainder of the year were brought to the estate boundaries of individual farms.

A midden is, basically, a garbage dump: archaeologists love middens, because they often hold information about diets and the plants and animals that fed the people who used them that is not available in any other way.

The shieling system is a type of animal husbandry developed in the Scandinavian countries, and part of the Viking system called landnam. Shielings were summer animal farms, established in forested areas at some distance from the residential farmsteads.

Although the pinon tree was never properly domesticated, its succulent pine nuts were harvested at least as long ago as 10,000 years. As a substantial source of protein, and now a commercial product, the ancient farming technique of harvesting pinon walks the line between gathering and horticulture.

Researchers studying the Tiwanaku culture in Bolivia and Peru conducted experimental archaeology to recreate the ancient farming technique of raised field agriculture. Archaeologist Clark Erickson talks about the project and what he and his colleagues learned in the process.

A photo essay on recent research on the Linearbandkeramik and how types of farming—both planting crops and raising livestock—was brought to Europe from the Near East.

Most of the crops domesticated in the North American continent were created in Mexico and central America beginning with corn as long ago as 10,000 years. These crops began appearing in the northeastern North American by about 3000 years ago.