The Layout and Internal Development of Celtic Fields: Structural and Relative Chronological Analyses of Three Danish Field Systems

Abstract

The layout and development of field systems may reflect significant aspects of prehistoric societies such as agricultural strategies, use rights and inheritance practices. This article presents a method for analysing the developments of field systems in their entirety, based on a hierarchical sorting of field boundaries whose intersections have been used to define relations of equivalence and subordination. The formalized relational expression of the field system is analysed using a stochastic optimization algorithm. The method was successfully applied to three Danish Celtic fields from the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age, making it possible to identify five principles behind the layout: primary boundaries (probably established at community level), major parcels (administered at a household level), structured subdivisions (presumably related to inheritance), irregular subdivisions, and small-scale expansions of the field systems. The initial degree of regularity of the field systems seems to have influenced later modifications.

Dividing the Land: Time and Land Division in the English North Midlands and Yorkshire

“…For example, terms such as ‘Celtic fields’ refer to quite different land divisions in across north-western Europe (e.g. Whitfield, 2017, Neilsen et al 2018).…”

ALS-Based Detection of Past Human Activities in the Białowieża Forest—New Evidence of Unknown Remains of Past Agricultural Systems

“…The archaeological objects that could be identified were based on their own landscape sculpture (linear or point) with different widths of elevation, ridges or faults. We assume (based on analogies from the literature [51,55,56,72]) that they represent the remains of ancient field systems (especially as an irregular accreted field or coaxial fields). The linear deformations and ridges are probably the remains of field boundaries, banks and lynchets demarcating the fields or fences, field roads, clearing cairns, ridges or plough headlands.…”

“…Among these, clusters-groups of linear ridges-were specified, defining the polygonal (usually irregular quadrilateral) surfaces (Figure 4). Similar arrangements are known from the literature and are identified with ancient agricultural systems-"field systems", "lynchets" or "Celtic fields" [53][54][55][56]-whose existence has also been confirmed by other research teams for the Białowieża Forest [57]. A similar diagnosis of old agricultural systems (and similar elements of this type of construction, e.g., copper) is shown in numerous studies, including those that use ALS data [58][59][60][61][62][63].…”

Archeologický výzkum plužin a zemědělských teras jako fenoménu historické krajiny České republiky

“…Především se jedná o kumulativní efekt dlouhodobého pravěkého až novověkého zemědělství v úrodných oblastech nížin a o dopad moderní extenzivní orby na případné relikty pravěkých až raně středověkých polních systémů (Dreslerová 2016). Na rozdíl od jiných evropských krajin, kde se dochovaly pravěké polní systémy ve velkém měřítku (Nielsen et al 2018), nedisponují české země tímto typem agrárních památek. Ty jsou datovány v severozápadní Evropě do mladší doby bronzové a doby železné a jsou souhrnně nazývané celtic fields.…”