"This revealing study shows how careful analysis of recent farming practices, and related cultural traditions, in communities around the Mediterranean can enhance our understanding of prehistoric and Greco-Roman societies. Includes a wealth of original interview material and data from field observation Provides original approaches to understanding past farming practices and their social contexts Offers a revealing comparative perspective on Mediterranean societies' agronomy Identifies a number of previously unrecorded climate-related contrasts in farming practices, which have important socio-economic significance Explores annual tasks, such as tillage and harvest; inter-annual land management techniques, such as rotation; and intergenerational issues, including capital accumulation "-- Provided by publisher.

"Explores annual tasks, such as tillage and harvest; inter-annual land management techniques, such as rotation; and intergenerational issues, including capital accumulation"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher.

Two Oxen Ahead: Pre-Mechanized Farming in the Mediterranean; Copyright; Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; 1 Introduction: Mediterranean Farming between Longue Durée and Contingency; 1.1 Fieldwork; 1.2 Scales of Analysis; References; 2 Working the Earth: Tillage and Sowing; 2.1 Two-Oxen Households in Paliambela; 2.2 Scratching a Living in the Hills of Messenia; 2.3 Tillage Time and Sowing Season from Assiros to Asturias; 2.4 Juggling with Seedcorn; 2.5 Flexible Farmers; 2.6 Ard, Hoe, and Scale of Cultivation; 2.6.1 Ard versus hoe: Benefits; 2.6.2 Ard versus hoe: Costs.

2.6.3 On balance: Hoe or ard, cows or oxen?2.7 Tillage and Sowing in the Past; References; 3 Harvest Time; 3.1 Amorgos: From Field to Threshing Floor; 3.2 When to Reap; 3.3 What and How to Reap; 3.4 After Reaping: Binding, Drying, and Transporting the Harvest; 3.5 Who and How many to Reap; 3.6 Harvest Ceremonies; 3.7 Reaping in the Past; References; 4 Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff; 4.1 Amorgos: On and After the Threshing Floor; 4.2 Ways of Threshing; 4.3 Ways of Winnowing and Coarse Sieving; 4.4 Cleaning for Storage and Consumption; 4.5 Storage; 4.6 Consumption.

4.7 Questions of Scale: Labor and Time Stress4.8 Threshing Floor Customs; 4.9 Crop Processing in the Past; References; 5 Managing the Land: Coping with Failure and Planning for Success; 5.1 Watching the Corn Grow; 5.2 Planning for Success: Fallowing and Rotation; 5.2.1 Fallowing; 5.2.2 Crop rotation; 5.2.3 Fallowing and rotation in space; 5.2.4 Hedging bets: Mixed cropping; 5.3 Planning for success: Manuring; 5.3.1 Stall manure; 5.3.2 Manuring by folded livestock; 5.3.3 Manuring by grazing livestock; 5.4 Planning for success, Mitigating Failure: Irrigation; 5.5 Averting Failure: Weeding.

5.6 Crop Husbandry and Crop Yields5.7 Crop Husbandry and Yields in the Past; References; 6 Family Planning: Land, Labor, and Livestock; 6.1 Clearance; 6.1.1 Uprooting deciduous woodland in lowland northern Greece; 6.1.2 Opening up the maquis in southern Greece; 6.1.3 Shifting cultivation: From Crete to Asturias; 6.1.4 Slashing, burning, and shifting; 6.2 Long-term Improvement: Deep Tillage, Terracing, and Enclosure; 6.3 Extending and Improving Cultivable Land: Drainage and Irrigation; 6.4 Counting the Cost of Extension and Improvement; 6.5 Subsistence and Cash Crops.

6.6 Mixed Farming: Livestock6.7 Labor, Land, and Livestock: The Domestic Cycle; 6.8 Household and Community; 6.9 Land, Labor, and Livestock in the Past; References; 7 Homo agronomicus? Mediterranean Farming, Present and Past; 7.1 Analogies for the past: "Matters of fact" and "Matters of Interest"; 7.2 Cultural Reason; 7.3 Environmental and Technological Constraints; 7.4 Practical Reason: Costs, Benefits, and Knowledgeable Farmers; 7.5 Ancient Farmers: Knowledgeable and Rational?; 7.6 Farming in the Mediterranean: Analogy and Change; References; Glossary; Index.