Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T17:00:51.969Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Attending to Place and Time: Seasonality in Early Modern Scotland and Cyprus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2020

Michael Given Open the ORCID record for Michael Given [Opens in a new window]
Michael Given*
Affiliation:
School of Humanities, University of Glasgow, Scotland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Far from being a simple annual round determined by the calendar, seasonality in human societies is a complex system of interdependence between humans and non-humans. It requires close attentiveness to the variability of soils, weather, topography, plants, and animals across both time and space. In this article, the author investigates mobile systems of interdependence that take advantage of topographical and seasonal variation. He uses a range of case studies from early modern Scotland and Cyprus, focusing on summer grazing in the uplands and lowland agriculture carried out by mountain communities. After a comparative discussion of seasonality, the article examines the role of topography and movement, and then puts the ‘margins at the centre’ in order to highlight the central role played by seasonal activity and movement in rural society.

Loin d’être une simple ronde annuelle fixée par le calendrier, la saisonnalité au sein des sociétés humaines est un système complexe reliant les humains aux non-humains. Elle demande une attention soutenue qui prend en compte la diversité des sols, des conditions météorologiques, de la topographie, des plantes et des animaux à travers l'espace et le temps. L'auteur de cet article examine les systèmes mobiles d'interdépendance qui exploitent cette variabilité topographique et saisonnière dans une série d’études de cas en Ecosse et à Chypre au début des temps modernes en étudiant les pâturages d’été en altitude et l'agriculture dans les basses terres exploitées par les communautés de montagne. Après une discussion comparative de la saisonnalité, l'auteur examine le rôle que jouent la topographie et les déplacements afin de « mettre les marges au centre » et ainsi souligner la fonction centrale qu'occupaient les mouvements saisonniers et de la mobilité dans les sociétés rurale. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

In menschlichen Gesellschaften ist die Saisonalität keineswegs eine einfache vom Kalender bestimmte jährliche Runde, sondern ein komplexes System von Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Menschen und Nichtmenschen. Sie erfordert viel Aufmerksamkeit, wobei die Bodenveränderlichkeit, das Wetter, die Topografie, die Pflanzen und die Tiere alle eine wesentliche Rolle sowohl zeitlich als auch räumlich spielen. In diesem Artikel untersucht der Autor diese verflochtenen Bewegungssysteme, welche diese topografische und saisonbedingte Vielfalt ausnutzen. Verschiedene Fallstudien aus der frühen Neuzeit in Schottland und Zypern legen den Schwerpunkt auf die Sommerweiden im Hochland und auf die von den Berggemeinden betriebene Landwirtschaft im Tiefland. Nach einer vergleichenden Diskussion der Saisonalität untersucht der Autor die Rolle der Topografie und der Bewegungen und stellt sie im Mittelpunkt, um die zentrale Funktion der saisonabhängigen Tätigkeiten und der Mobilität in der ländlichen Gesellschaft zu betonen. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Keywords

seasonalitymobilityagriculturepastoralismshielingScotlandCyprussaisonnalitémobilitéagriculturepastoralismeshielingEcosseChypreSaisonalitätMobilitätLandwirtschaftWeidewirtschaftshielingSchottlandZypern
Type
Article
Information
European Journal of Archaeology , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , August 2020 , pp. 451 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © European Association of Archaeologists 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aldred, O. 2012. Mobile Communities: The Gathering and Sorting of Sheep in Skútustaðarhreppur, Northeast Iceland. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 16: 488–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aldred, O. 2014. Past Movements, Tomorrow's Anchors: On the Relational Entanglements between Archaeological Mobilities. In: Leary, J., ed. Past Mobilities: Archaeological Approaches to Movement and Mobility. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 21–47.Google Scholar
Aldred, O. 2018. Legs, Feet and Hooves: The Seasonal Roundup in Iceland. In: Pilaar Birch, S.E., ed. Multispecies Archaeology. London: Routledge, pp. 273–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, J.A., Dalglish, C., Dixon, N.T., Donnelly, M., Harrison, J.G., Lelong, O. et al. 2016. Ben Lawers: An Archaeological Landscape in Time: Results from the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project, 1996–2005 (Scottish Internet Archaeological Reports, 62). Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. https://doi.org/10.9750/issn.1473-3803.2016.62Google Scholar
Barth, F. 1959. The Land Use Pattern of Migratory Tribes of South Persia. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift, 17: 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/00291955908551758CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bil, A. 1990. The Shieling 1600–1840: The Case of the Central Scottish Highlands. Edinburgh: John Donald.Google Scholar
Binford, L.R. 1983. In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, S. 2003. Ben Lawers: An Improvement-period Landscape on Lochtayside, Perthshire. In: Govan, S., ed. Medieval or Later Rural Settlement in Scotland: 10 Years on. Edinburgh: Historic Scotland, pp. 17–29.Google Scholar
Brice, J. 2014. Attending to Grape Vines: Perceptual Practices, Planty Agencies and Multiple Temporalities in Australian Viticulture. Social & Cultural Geography, 15: 942–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brumfield, A. 2000. Agriculture and Rural Settlement in Ottoman Crete, 1669–1898: A Modern Site Survey. In: Baram, U. & Carroll, L., eds. A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire: Breaking New Ground. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, pp. 37–78.Google Scholar
Burri, S. 2014. Reflections on the Concept of Marginal Landscape through a Study of Late Medieval incultum in Provence (South-Eastern France). European Journal of Post-Classical Archaeologies, 4: 7–38.Google Scholar
Caird, J.B. 1979. Land Use in the Uists Since 1800. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Section B. Biological Sciences, 77: 505–26. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0269727000012884CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carmichael, A. 1884. Grazing and Agrestic Customs of the Outer Hebrides. In: Napier, F.B., ed. Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners of Inquiry into the Condition of the Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Edinburgh: Neill, pp. 451–82.Google Scholar
Carrer, F. 2015. Herding Strategies, Dairy Economy and Seasonal Sites in the Southern Alps: Ethnoarchaeological Inferences and Archaeological Implications. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 28: 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, O.M. 1937. Across Cyprus. London: John Lane.Google Scholar
Conneller, C. 2005. Moving Beyond Sites: Mesolithic Technology in the Landscape. In: Milner, N. & Woodman, P.C., eds. Mesolithic Studies at the Beginning of the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxbow, pp. 42–55.Google Scholar
Costello, E. 2017. Liminal Learning: Social Practice in Seasonal Settlements of Western Ireland. Journal of Social Archaeology, 17: 188–209. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605317708378CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costello, E. 2018. Temporary Freedoms? Ethnoarchaeology of Female Herders at Seasonal Sites in Northern Europe. World Archaeology, 50: 165–84. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2018.1472633CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummings, V. 2003. The Origins of Monumentality? Mesolithic World-views of the Landscape in Western Britain. In: Larsson, L., Kindgren, H., Knutsson, K., Loeffer, D. & Akerlund, A., eds. Mesolithic on the Move. Oxford: Oxbow, pp. 74–81.Google Scholar
Dodgshon, R.A. and Olsson, G.A. 2006. Heather Moorland in the Scottish Highlands: The History of a Cultural Landscape, 1600–1880. Journal of Historical Geography, 32: 21–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2005.01.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyson-Hudson, R. & Dyson-Hudson, N. 1980. Nomadic Pastoralism. Annual Review of Anthropology, 9: 15–61. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.09.100180.000311CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgeworth, M. 2011. Fluid Pasts: Archaeology of Flow. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.Google Scholar
Fenton, A. 1999. Scottish Country Life. East Linton: Tuckwell Press.Google Scholar
Forbes, H. 2000. The Agrarian Economy of the Ermionidha Around 1700: An Ethnohistorical Reconstruction. In: Sutton, S.B., eds. Contingent Countryside: Settlement, Economy and Land Use in The Southern Argolid since 1700. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press, pp. 41–70.Google Scholar
Gibson, E. 2007. The Archaeology of Movement in a Mediterranean Landscape. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 20: 61–87. https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/JMA/article/view/3758CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Given, M. 2000. Agriculture, Settlement and Landscape in Ottoman Cyprus. Levant, 32: 215–36. https://doi.org/10.1179/lev.2000.32.1.209CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Given, M. 2004. The Archaeology of the Colonized. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Given, M. 2013. Commotion, Collaboration, Conviviality: Mediterranean Survey and the Interpretation of Landscape. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 26: 3–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Given, M. 2017. Global Peasant, Local Elite: Mobility and Interaction in Ottoman Cyprus. Journal of Islamic Archaeology, 4: 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1558/jia.32963CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Given, M. 2018. Conviviality and the Life of Soil. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 28: 127–43. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774317000609CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Given, M., Sollars, L., Boutin, A., Digney, S., Evans, I., Floridou, S. et al. 2013. The Plains. In: Given, M., Knapp, A.B., Sollars, L., Noller, J. & Kassianidou, V., eds. Landscape and Interaction: The Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project, Cyprus. Volume 2: The TAESP Landscape. London: Council for British Research in the Levant, pp. 6–50.Google Scholar
Given, M., Aldred, O., Grant, K.J., McNiven, P. & Poller, T. 2019. Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Connected Landscape: Upland Survey in the Northern Ochils. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 148: 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
González-Ruibal, A. & de Torres, J. 2018. The Fair and the Sanctuary: Gathering Places in a Nomadic Landscape (Somaliland, 1000–1850 ad). World Archaeology, 50: 23–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2018.1489735CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, K.J. 2018. Hebridean Gaels and the Sea in the Early 19th Century: ‘The Streaming Ocean of the Roadways’. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 147: 261–84. https://doi.org/10.9750/PSAS.147.1249CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadjikoumis, A. 2017. Age-at-death in Traditional Cypriot Sheep and Goat Husbandry: Implications for Zooarchaeology. In: Rowley-Conwy, P., Serjeantson, D. & Halstead, P., eds. Economic Zooarchaeology: Studies in Hunting, Herding and Early Agriculture. Oxford: Oxbow, pp. 126–34.Google Scholar
Harris, K. & Hamilakis, Y. 2014. Beyond the Wild, the Feral, and the Domestic: Lessons from Prehistoric Crete. In: Marvin, G. & McHugh, S., eds. Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies. London: Routledge, pp. 97–113.Google Scholar
Hayes, P.P. & Thomsen, O. 1995. On the Archaeological Usefulness of Local Knowledge. In: Fejfer, J., eds. Ancient Akamas: Settlement and Environment. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, pp. 49–62.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. 2007. Earth, Sky, Wind, and Weather. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 13: S19–S38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2007.00401.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ionas, I. 1992. De la maison traditionelle à la maison contemporaine à Chypre. Epitiris tou Kendron Epistimonikon Erevnon, 19: 737–57.Google Scholar
Jones, O. 2011. Lunar–Solar Rhythmpatterns: Towards the Material Cultures of Tides. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 43: 2285–303. https://doi.org/10.1068/a4468CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kupiec, P. & Milek, K.B. 2018. Ethno-geoarchaeological Study of Seasonal Occupation: Biliscleitir, the Isle of Lewis. In: Costello, E. & Svensson, E., eds. Historical Archaeologies of Transhumance across Europe. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 75–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, G. 2008. Pálstóftir: A Viking Age Shieling in Iceland. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 41: 85–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/00293650802069193CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milner, N. 2005. Seasonal Consumption Practices in the Mesolithic: Economic, Environmental, Social or Ritual? In: Milner, N. & Woodman, P.C., eds. Mesolithic Studies at the Beginning of the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxbow, pp. 56–68.Google Scholar
Neville, C.J. 1983. The Earls of Strathearn from the Twelfth to the Mid-fourteenth Century, with an Edition of their Written Acts (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Aberdeen).Google Scholar
Overton, N.J. 2018. The Rhythm of Life: Exploring the Role of Daily and Seasonal Rhythms in the Development of Human–non-human Relationships in the British Early Mesolithic. In: Pilaar Birch, S.E., ed. Multispecies Archaeology. London: Routledge, pp. 295–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raven, J. 2012. The Shielings Survey: Central South Uist. In: Parker Pearson, M., Sharples, N. & Symonds, J., eds. South Uist: Archaeology and History of a Hebridean Island. Stroud: Tempus, pp. 160–79.Google Scholar
Rodger, N.A.M. 2004. The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649–1815. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Schlanger, S.H. 1992. Recognizing Persistent Places in Anasazi Settlement Systems. In: Rossignol, J. & Wandsnider, L., eds. Space, Time and Archaeological Landscapes. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 91–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheller, M. & Urry, J. 2006. The New Mobilities Paradigm. Environment and Planning A, 38: 207–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, H. 2012. The Ethnohistory of Hebridean Agriculture. In: Parker Pearson, M., Sharples, N. & Symonds, J., eds. South Uist: Archaeology and History of a Hebridean Island. Stroud: Tempus, pp. 379–400.Google Scholar
Thompson, F. 1976. Victorian and Edwardian Highlands from Old Photographs. Edinburgh: Tantallon Books.Google Scholar
Tsing, A. 2014. More-than-human Sociality: A Call for Critical Description. In: Hastrup, K., ed. Anthropology and Nature. New York: Routledge, pp. 27–42.Google Scholar
Walsh, K. & Mocci, F. 2011. Mobility in the Mountains: Late Third and Second Millennia Alpine Societies' Engagements with the High-altitude Zones in the Southern French Alps. European Journal of Archaeology, 14: 88–115. https://doi.org/10.1179/146195711798369427CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whatmore, S.J. 2013. Earthly Powers and Affective Environments: An Ontological Politics of Flood Risk. Theory, Culture & Society, 30: 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276413480949CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witmore, C.L. 2006. Vision, Media, Noise and the Percolation of Time: Symmetrical Approaches to the Mediation of the Material World. Journal of Material Culture, 11: 267–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witmore, C.L. 2007. Landscape, Time, Topology: An Archaeological Account of the Southern Argolid, Greece. In: Hicks, D., McAtackney, L. & Fairclough, G., eds. Envisioning Landscape: Situations and Standpoints in Archaeology and Heritage. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press, pp. 194–225.Google Scholar
Wright, A.D. 2012. The Archaeology of Variation: A Case Study of Repetition, Difference and Becoming in the Mesolithic of West Central Scotland (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Glasgow).Google Scholar