Farming by numbers: multi-proxy analyses of Anglo-Saxon agriculture

Open field systems characterised much of the agricultural landscape in medieval Europe, feeding population growth and leaving a profound impression on the countryside across England and beyond. However, after more than a century of documentary and landscape research, scholars have not yet reached any consensus as to when, where and how these distinctive agricultural regimes emerged and developed. The Feeding Anglo-Saxon England project (FeedSax), based at the Universities of Oxford and Leicester, is bringing a fresh new perspective to this debate, by applying a suite of quantitative, bioarchaeological methods to track the development of ploughing technology, crop rotation and arable expansion across England between the 8th and 13th centuries AD. Zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical, palynological and biomolecular (stable isotope) analyses are all being brought to bear on these issues, in a series of localised case studies as well as in a broader national picture. This paper will introduce the project and some early results from sites in the West Midlands and Upper Thames valley.