A social archaeology of garden plots in the Bronze Age of northern and western Britain

Abstract

This article examines the evidence for gardens in the Bronze Age landscapes of northern and western Britain. It offers an alternative perspective on the small field plots and unbounded areas of cultivated land by treating them as spaces that people inhabited with plants and animals, where environmental knowledge was learnt and controlled, and where social roles and identities were defined, maintained and contested. The excavated evidence shows that the biographies of houses are closely associated with those of the adjacent field plots. It also highlights the need to consider the ‘in-between places’ around the edges of buildings, along boundaries and in unkempt corners of fields. The coexistence of both domesticated and other plants demonstrates that gardens were not spaces dedicated to economic production in the terms that we understand today; rather they were places where people engaged closely with the botanical world and so gave it cultural value. The occupations of gardens and settlements were long-lived, if not necessarily continuous, and so provided the conditions in which more intensive strategies could be adopted, developing towards a more permanent and long-lasting commitment to place and landscape. Relations between people were structured through the contribution of gardening to activities such as the preparation and consumption of food, the provision of plants for medicinal and ritual purposes and the use of plots for keeping animals and as disposal areas for household refuse. These activities were closely controlled and, because of their cultural value, gardens were defined and their link to houses expressed as a means of negotiating social roles and identities within co-resident groups.

Keywords:

• Garden agriculture
• environmental knowledge
• social identity

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to John Roberts and three anonymous referees for reading the article and helping me to improve its main arguments and to the Leverhulme Trust for funding a period of study leave without which I could not have undertaken the research.

Notes

Robert Johnston is a lecturer in landscape archaeology at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on the social and cultural conditions of land enclosure in north-west Europe during later prehistory and the settlement of upland landscapes in Britain. He is currently co-directing field projects in North Wales and on Dartmoor, south-west England.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Johnston

Robert Johnston is a lecturer in landscape archaeology at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on the social and cultural conditions of land enclosure in north-west Europe during later prehistory and the settlement of upland landscapes in Britain. He is currently co-directing field projects in North Wales and on Dartmoor, south-west England.