Antiquity Journal
Posted on 09/19/2022 5:50:03 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
According to a study published in the journal Antiquity, researchers analysed grains recovered from the 6,000-year-old Neolithic site at Balbridie in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Balbridie is the site of a Neolithic long house situated on the south bank of the River Dee. The site is one of the earliest known permanent Neolithic settlements in Scotland, dating from 3400 to 4000 BC.
Balbridie was first excavated between 1977 and 1981 following aerial photography carried out by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland that identified cropmarks during a dry summer in 1976.
A large quantity of ancient grain was also recovered, which a team of researchers have now studied with stable isotope analysis. A plant’s growing conditions impact the ratios of its carbon and nitrogen isotopes, indicating that the prehistoric farmers at Balbridie didn’t use manure to fertilise their fields...
Conversely, previous research on early farms in England, as well as on mainland Europe, has almost always found evidence that crops were grown in manured fields. This shows that during the initial phase of farming in the Neolithic, parts of Scotland were well suited for farming.
However, not all early farmers got to avoid dung duty. The team also analysed the contemporary site of Dubton Farm, Angus, and found manure was used there.
Indeed, manuring eventually became the norm in Scotland. Dr Bishop and the team also analysed later Neolithic farms on Orkney, at the sites of Skara Brae and the Braes of Ha’Breck from c. 3300-2400 BC, and found they were using manure. The team also found the Orkney farmers were using permanent plots in a wider landscape than expected.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritagedaily.com ...
BS
Well played.
I see what some livestock did there.
/rimshot
The same old story: Everything starts out sweet and rosy and then eventually goes to s...
Clearly the reason all the ancient Scots died out
What’s the issue? I’ve always slept in a manured bed.
So does Joe Biden.
First of all, there were no Scots in Scotland in 6000 BC. In fact there was no Scotland yet either.
Second, it would have been more to the point to say "early farmers in (what today is Scotland) didn't fertilize their crops." Because saying "they didn't fertilize with manure" implies they did fertilize with something, it just wasn't manure.
It bears mention that the source article (as opposed to the parasite article linked to in the OP) avoided both those mistakes.
There’s no way to know what the lands were called, if anything, so, yes, it makes perfect sense to call it by what it is now.
Second, quit complaining to me about headlines that I don’t write, and just in general try to post anything in the GGG topics that isn’t a complaint.
:^) In the Neolithic, when the pipes were calling, they were really playing prehistoric pull-my-finger.
https://soils.environment.gov.scot/soils-in-scotland/guide-to-soil-types/
Maybe they didn’t even need fertilizer.
Something these researchers/writers dodge is that if you tried to grow similar crops in the Orkney Islands today, with or without nitrogen fertilizer, you would have a problem. It’s too cold.
No sh*t.
The Gulf Stream is the moderating influence on that part of the world; palm trees survive in the inner hebrides. But it doesn’t get hot, or even warm (if ya ask me) in the Orkneys. You’re going to enjoy a lot of colder bean crops, asparagus, short-season varieties of other things, fish, and meat.
http://www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/climate.htm
OTOH, they still have this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twatt,_Orkney
So does the Shetlands, where the sign is funnier:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twatt,_Shetland
lol
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