[Go to Parent Session] [Previous Page] [SEARCH] [DAILY OUTLINES]

An integrated landscape approach to prehistoric sheep husbandry and wool production in Northern Europe

Jane Downes (Orkney College UHI)
Antonia Thomas (Orkney College UHI)

Abstract

Animal husbandry is under-researched in the way practices are framed around landscape and make dramatic changes to landscape. Research is evidencing prehistoric sheep husbandry in southern Britain, and other parts of Northern Europe, on a scale not previously imagined and which has been compared to medieval sheep husbandry. Questions regarding the direct relationship of this increase in sheep rearing to the production of wool can be addressed through a multi-faceted approach which considers visible changes in landscape relating to husbandry combined with geoarchaeology and modelling, together with the zooarchaeological investigation of aspects such as biometrics, microwear and stable isotopes. The approach outlined in this paper also identifies the social and symbolic aspects of sheep, wool and textile production recoverable archaeologically through the material culture, agricultural and domestic architecture, and burial evidence, as being key to the investigation of landscape, domestication and sustainability.