97
votes
Accepted
How much smaller were medieval farm animals in England than today?
I think both sources copied Early European History by Hutton Webster, published about a century ago. The underlying claim is true: Medieval animals were much smaller than today's. However, it is ...
- 96.9k
96
votes
Was hay invented only in the Middle Ages in Europe?
The Roman writer on agriculture Columella, who died around AD 70, gives a detailed description of the manufacture of hay (Latin: faenum) in his de re rustica 2.18, which reads as follows in the Loeb ...
- 9,588
84
votes
Why did it take so long for Europeans to adopt the moldboard plow?
It did not take the Europeans that long…
We see a couple of misunderstandings/misreadings here.
Question: What is a mould-board plough Wikipedia: Plough?
Answer: From a purely functional perspective: ...
79
votes
Accepted
How could it be that 80% of townspeople were farmers during the Edo period in Japan?
The total land area of Japan is around 146,000 square miles. 20% of that works out around 29,000 square miles or 18.6 million acres.
The population of Tokugawa japan was around 30 million people. ...
- 8,256
67
votes
Accepted
Why are cereal grains so important to agriculture and civilization?
Let's look at the walnut, since it's been cultivated for a long time.
If you start with the seed, it will take you 10 years (roughly) to have a tree mature enough to produce fruit, assuming you plant ...
- 774
58
votes
Did cows in Medieval times have calves in spring or all year round?
All highlighting is mine
Concerning calving in the middle ages,
Cows...would calve in the
early spring. Calves would nurse for about a month and then be
separated from their mothers and fed by ...
- 107k
37
votes
Why are cereal grains so important to agriculture and civilization?
As Keith points out, versatility and yield are a major factor.
So is storage. Grains can be stored for months longer than root vegetables and still be edible (potatoes and such go off much quicker, ...
- 11.2k
33
votes
Why was sugar cultivation more profitable in the Caribbean/Brazil than West Africa?
In short, Brazil and Caribbean Isles were easy to colonize and suited to the culture of the sugar cane.
This related question will provide most of the explanation why Africa was harder to colonize, ...
- 1,171
26
votes
How much smaller were medieval farm animals in England than today?
There is some research on the medieval cattle topic here which lists many cattle sizes throughout the history of cattle usage. This shows the following figures for medieval times (numbers are the ...
- 37.2k
23
votes
Was hay invented only in the Middle Ages in Europe?
I think Freeman Dyson may have a point, but his facts seem to lack foundation. One only needs hay for horses that lack sufficient winter pasture for forage.
Cattle were domesticated by 6,000 BC, and ...
- 6,779
23
votes
Why were there no agricultural, city-state forming civilizations in the Ice Age?
(Most of what I'm writing is a summary of "After the Ice: A global human history 20,000-5,000 BC" by Steven Mithen - published 2003 so it's pretty up to date as an overview of what is known)....
- 3,155
21
votes
Why was sugar cultivation more profitable in the Caribbean/Brazil than West Africa?
Many Native Americans had died of Old World disease, Africans did not
When the Europeans showed up in the New World, they brought disease that killed a large portion of the local people (60%? 80%? 90%?...
- 7,441
20
votes
What caused women to lose their access to resources and become a part of men's possessions with the start of the agriculture era?
Most likely because they never had it to start with.
There are two big problems with this portion of the book's thesis:
I see no evidence whatsoever put forth in the above text supporting the ...
- 115k
20
votes
Kurds and their relation to the start of civilization?
That seems highly unlikely.
The invention of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent was roughly 10,000 years ago, principally in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley system. The people living there when ...
- 115k
18
votes
What is the significance of 4200 BCE in context of farming replacing foraging in Europe?
Farming societies typically support 60 to 100 times the population of hunter-gatherer societies. Given that kind of population difference, what that one person wants/needs vs. the 100 simply doesn't ...
- 115k
17
votes
Accepted
What was the staple food of the natives of South East Asia before rice?
From Pakistan to Japan is indeed a big region and "before rice" a long and varied time frame. But this question seems to imply that it is concerned with the early neolithic centers of agriculture in ...
- 80.2k
17
votes
Why are cereal grains so important to agriculture and civilization?
Two main considerations:
Even without knowledge of evolution or plant breeding, it is natural for agricultural people to replant the best, most vigorous, tastiest, most productive seeds from last ...
- 279
16
votes
Why require every ploughman to make his own plough?
It looks like there was a church tax ("plough-alms") levied on farmers at the start of the season ("Plough Sunday"). This involved everyone bringing out their ploughshares to ...
- 115k
15
votes
Accepted
Was there a president that wanted to "Make America Farm Again"?
I don't know about "make America farm again" since it happened so early in American history, however Thomas Jefferson was a fan of having a primarily agrarian economy, seeing urbanization as a threat ...
- 333
15
votes
What is the significance of 4200 BCE in context of farming replacing foraging in Europe?
The time period from roughly 7500 BP (years Before Present) to 4000 BP (5500 BCE to 2000 BCE), known as the Holocene Maximum (or Optimum) saw global temperatures:
rapidly increase from slightly (~0.5°...
- 71.3k
15
votes
Accepted
Why was silage only invented in the 19th century?
Judging by History of Silage by Wilkinson et al (2003), the premise behind the question is somewhat inaccurate.
Silage making is probably more than 3000 yr old. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks ...
- 23.1k
14
votes
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What are "the unconscious first steps of plant domestication" in "Guns, Germs, and Steel"?
The start of the sentence, which you have excluded from your quotation reads 'All these techniques, though developed for the exploitation of wild cereals,' I think this is important context.
The ...
- 266
13
votes
Why were there no agricultural, city-state forming civilizations in the Ice Age?
Blame the weather.
Larger version
The reason it took so long for agriculture to develop can be summed up in this chart which shows variation in global temperature against time. The analysis in the ...
- 589
12
votes
Accepted
Did the food economy of the late Roman republic rely on foreign imports, or was it more localized?
Before the Romans took over Egypt, Sicily and Africa were the primary sources of grain. ("Africa" in the Roman context means just the Northwest portion of the continent.) These areas continued to be ...
- 8,256
12
votes
Why was sugar cultivation more profitable in the Caribbean/Brazil than West Africa?
The cultivation of sugar was more profitable on islands. The plantations in the "Caribbean" were on islands. Until the mid-16th century at least, production from "Brazil," largely came from Santa ...
- 104k
12
votes
What did European people of the 5th century AD eat during spring and what was the availability?
Salting, brining, smoking and fermenting were all common methods of Medieval food preservation used in autumn in preparation for the lean winter months. Note that in Northern Europe it would still be ...
- 71.3k
11
votes
Accepted
What crops were part of the medieval spring harvest?
Well, I found a fairly good description of the Medieval Farming Year, and it does not support a 'spring harvest' as you suspected.
From the above source, Concerning winter crops specifically in ...
- 37.2k
10
votes
Accepted
Were shipboard gardens ever typical?
Since the question specifies the Age-of-Sail, we're concerned with the period between 1650 and 1850. The link between nutrition and health on long voyages was only really established in the last half ...
- 18.8k
10
votes
Accepted
Kurds and their relation to the start of civilization?
It is certainly true that many of the foundations for later civilisations, like the development of agriculture, the development of writing, and even an invention of the wheel, can be traced to The ...
- 77k
10
votes
What did European people of the 5th century AD eat during spring and what was the availability?
In addition to preserving, there were various techniques to start the growing season very early.
Some vegetables can be planted very early and harvested within a month or two. Radishes are ...
- 54.5k
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