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Introduction. The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century
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This paper reviews the results of more than a hundred small archaeological “test pit” excavations carried out in 2013 within four rural communities in eastern England. Each excavation used standardized protocols in a different location within the host village, with the finds dated and mapped to create a series of maps spanning more than 3500 years, in order to advance understanding of the spatial development of settlements and landscapes over time. The excavations were all carried out by local volunteers working physically within their own communities, supported and advised by professional archaeologists, with most test pits sited in volunteers’ own gardens or those of their friends, family or neighbors. Site-by-site, the results provided glimpses of the use made by humans of each of the excavated sites spanning prehistory to the present day; while in aggregate the mapped data show how settlement and land-use developed and changed over time. Feedback from participants also demonstrates the diverse positive impacts the project had on individuals and communities. The results are presented and reviewed here in order to highlight the contribution archaeological test pit excavation can make to deep mapping, and the contribution that deep mapping can make to rural communities.
In this paper, a terminology for the description of the movement of animal bone in archaeological stratigraphy is proposed and discussed. It is suggested that the terms ‘re-deposition’ and ‘residuality’ are adopted to describe movement of bone from earlier to later levels, and ‘intrusion’ and ‘contamination’ to describe movement from later to earlier levels. While re-deposition and intrusion generically indicate movement of bones between different places and layers, residuality and contamination more specifically imply that the bones were found in a phase that was different from the one they were originally deposited in. Consequently, while re-deposition and intrusion describe actual physical events, residuality and contamination represent analytical constructs, entirely dependent on the way archaeological phasing is designed. It is suggested that, whether such terminology is adopted or not, zooarchaeologists should be more explicit about the meaning of the concepts they use to describe animal bone movement and that they also make them as relevant as possible to broader archaeological concerns, rather than merely borrowing from the palaeontological tradition.
The view of the commons as archaic, ‘backward’ and ‘irrational’ institutions for the management of resources has now been revised in favour of a more positive one, for both past and present societies. Indeed, it is clear that the commons had multifarious ecological and economic benefits for both medieval and early modern rural societies in Western Europe. That being the case, many scholars have seen the increasing expropriation of the commons in the transition to the early modern period as a sign of increasing inequality characterizing pre-industrial Europe, and many have lamented the loss of communal grazing privileges connected to processes such as land enclosure – pushing poor peasants into the ‘abyss’ with the removal of their final form of welfare. However, in this paper it is argued that the social distribution of the benefits to the commons were rarely, if ever, entirely equitable. In fact, in many historical contexts the benefits of the commons could also be highly restricted – crystallizing and entrenching stratifications themselves, and even serving as the ‘vehicle’ of further inequality. The expropriation of the commons did not necessarily make Western European rural societies any more unequal.
This paper calls attention to the discovery of what is believed to be the earliest archaeological evidence for land tortoise in Britain. The specimen derived from a late 19th-century context at Stafford Castle and was associated with bones of cats and dogs, which may have been kept as pets by the castle's caretakers. The date accords with the historically attested rise in tortoise importation and with changes in attitudes towards pet animals.
This paper provides an overview of the long-term impacts of the Columbian Exchange -- that is, the exchange of diseases, ideas, food crops, technologies, populations, and cultures between the New World and the Old World after Christopher Columbus' voyage to the Americas in 1492. We focus on the aspects of the exchange that have been most neglected by economic studies; namely the transfer of diseases, food crops, and knowledge between the two Worlds. We pay particular attention to the effects of the exchange on the Old World.
Post-medieval archaeology is currently going through a critical phase of consolidation and disciplinary redefinition across Europe, where mere proposals or ambitions are becoming tangible scientific and disciplinary realities. This renovation is most evident in Southern Europe, where, until recently, these studies have been treated as somewhat marginal. The convergence of new actors and disciplines (historical archaeology, archaeology of the post-medieval centuries, professional archaeology, ethnoarchaeology or archaeological sciences), the promotion of new patrimonialization initiatives, and the creation of new action frameworks as a result of the deep economic crisis of the years 2007-2008 are some of the factors that have shaped current approaches to the archaeology of the Modern Age. Focussing on archaeological studies of the Modern Age located in the Basque Country, Arqueología de la Edad Moderna en el País Vasco y su entorno recognises the main themes investigated (cities, rural spaces, funeral spaces, consumption and production, communications systems, maritime archaeology), detects some of the strengths and weaknesses, and proposes new lines of action and disciplinary consolidation. In short, this volume aims to provide a summary of the current archaeological framework for investigations of the Modern Age in the Basque Country, and to make proposals for developing these practices in the future.
Las arqueologías postmedievales atraviesan en la actualidad una fase critica de consolidación y redefinición disciplinar en casi toda Europa, donde han pasado de ser meras propuestas o ambiciones para convertirse en realidades científicas y disciplinares tangibles. Esta renovación es más evidente en el sur de Europa, donde estos estudios han tenido hasta ahora un peso más bien marginal. La convergencia de nuevos actores y disciplinas (arqueología histórica, arqueología de los siglos postmedievales, arqueología profesional, etnoarqueología o las ciencias arqueológicas), el impulso de nuevas iniciativas de patrimonialización, y la creación de nuevos marcos de actuación como consecuencia de la profunda crisis económica de los años 2007-2008, son algunas de las causas que explican por qué se han ido definiendo con mayor claridad los contornos de la Arqueología de la Edad Moderna. A partir del ejemplo del País Vasco, este volumen realiza un diagnóstico sobre las principales temáticas indagadas (ciudades, espacios rurales, espacios funerarios, consumo y producción, sistemas de comunicaciones, arqueología marítima), detecta algunas de las fortalezas y debilidades de la arqueología de la Edad Moderna y propone nuevas líneas de actuación y de consolidación disciplinar. En definitiva, este libro pretende mostrar qué es la Arqueología de la Edad Moderna en el País Vasco en la actualidad y qué puede llegar a ser.
Cambridge Core - Economic History - Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe - by Robert S. DuPlessis
A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art provides a diverse, fresh collection of accessible, comprehensive essays addressing key issues for European art produced between 1300 and 1700, a period that might be termed the beginning of modern history. •Presents a collection of original, in-depth essays from art experts that address various aspects of European visual arts produced from circa 1300 to 1700. •Divided into five broad conceptual headings: Social-Historical Factors in Artistic Production; Creative Process and Social Stature of the Artist; The Object: Art as Material Culture; The Message: Subjects and Meanings; and The Viewer, the Critic, and the Historian: Reception and Interpretation as Cultural Discourse. •Covers many topics not typically included in collections of this nature, such as Judaism and the arts, architectural treatises, the global Renaissance in arts, the new natural sciences and the arts, art and religion, and gender and sexuality. •Features essays on the arts of the domestic life, sexuality and gender, and the art and production of tapestries, conservation/technology, and the metaphor of theater. •Focuses on Western and Central Europe and that territory's interactions with neighboring civilizations and distant discoveries. •Includes illustrations as well as links to images not included in the book.
Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe - by Charles G. Nauert May 2006
The introduction of the turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) to Britain is documented during the first half of the 16th century. These birds initially featured on the tables of the powerful and served as living garden ornaments or pets. Shifting human perceptions, driven in part by the 'ethic of improvement', affected turkey husbandry methods and animal-human relationships as well as the bird's symbolic role. This transition was complicated; the turkey remained a palimpsest of attributes throughout 1500-1900, with different associations assuming prominence over time.
Although measurable climatic fluctuation in temperature and wetness has occurred between A.D. 1700 and 1984, lack of earlier records and the complicating effects of human influence militate against detection of vegetational response in Britain. Vegetational change during this period is thus regarded as almost entirely the result of anthropogenic factors.
Agriculture, now affecting c. 80% of Britain's surface, is overwhelmingly the most important such factor. Original vegetation had been mostly destroyed or heavily modified by a.d. 1700, notably through removal of the former forest cover and draining of lowland wetlands. The last 300 years have seen continuing development of farming and other land uses, to the point where very little natural vegetation now remains, and the main extent of semi-natural types is located in the uplands.
Many distinctive semi-natural vegetation types actually created by man over several centuries of low input-low output management have decreased greatly since A.D. 1700, and rate of loss has even accelerated since 1940-1950. Only 5% of permanent lowland grasslands now remain agriculturally unimproved neutral grassland and only an estimated 20% of the extent of pre-1940 calcareous grassland is now assignable to that category floristically. Lowland acidic heath has declined by 78% in area since A.D. 1830, and by 40% of the 1950 level. Lowland rich fens are reduced to scattered remnants, the largest expanse (the East Anglian Fenland) having decreased from 3380 km2 in ad 1630 to 10 km2 in 1984.
Forest cover was reduced to 5·4% by 1924, but has increased to 9·4%, largely through planting of alien conifers in upland districts. Since 1930 an overall 46 % of ancient semi-natural broadleaved woodland has been lost, largely by conversion to conifer plantation but also through grubbing out. An estimated 300000 ha of ancient semi-natural woodland remains, representing 14% of existing woodland and 1·3% of Britain's land surface. The total extent of hedges in England and Wales was reduced by an estimated 140000 miles (28%) between 1946-1947 and 1974.
Urban–industrial growth, including roads, railways, water-use, mineral extraction and energy generation, has directly obliterated large areas of vegetation and caused chemical pollution. Waste ground associated with these activities often develops semi-natural plant communities through spontaneous succession, and may become floristically rich. Pollution affects especially fresh water through both toxic residues and eutrophication from nutrient enrichment (including run-off of agricultural fertilizers). Atmospheric pollution causes acid deposition especially damaging locally to the lichen flora, and induces biological changes in lakes and rivers in districts of acidic rocks.
Recreational pressures have caused increasing disturbance to vegetation locally, and less directly through working of Sphagnum bogs for horticultural moss litter and surface mining of limestone pavements for rockery stone. Collecting of plants as a hobby has also brought some species, notably rare ferns, orchids and‘alpines’to dangerously low population levels, or even local extinction.
The British flora has been profoundly modified by human influence. Only 19 vascular species are known to have become extinct, but many have declined greatly during the last 300 years and, for species in some habitats, especially semi-natural grasslands, rate of decrease has accelerated since 1940. Of 317 nationally rare species 117 (37%) have declined by at least 33 % since 1930. Human agency has also introduced to Britain at least 239 plant species which now grow wild, and extended the distribution of at least 363 others. Some are still increasing but others, notably weeds of arable land, are decreasing again.
Conservation measures include setting up nature reserves to contain adequate representation of all semi-natural and natural vegetation types, and of populations of all native plant species. The aim is to give protected area status to c. 10% of Britain's surface through appropriate control and management designed to maintain or enhance the nature conservation interest. At present c. 1% is managed as nature reserve of one or other category and another 6% has been designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Wild plants are now legally protected against unauthorized picking and uprooting, and 61 rare species are protected by special measures. Wider environmental conservation measures to reduce damaging human impact on vegetation and flora include inputs to and by local authorities and their planning system, persuasion of landowners and resource managers, and pollution control; supported by an educational and publicity programme, and by relevant research and information.
The nature of international law as a legal system which, on the one hand, responds to the need for interaction between states
inherent to international society and, on the other hand, is based on agreement between states, categorically excludes viewing
international law as the product of a specific regional, i.e., European, tradition. Yet it is still asserted that international
law is a European tradition. Such assertions are not only conceptually flawed, but are also unsupported by evidence. The origins
of international law lie outside Europe, and at no stage of its development has international law been a truly European system.
This holds true not only in terms of general international law, but also in relation to certain ideas developed at the European
level, including the ‘public law of Europe’, and of modern European projects that appear to be based on ideas of a regional
solidarity in Europe.
The Age of Discovery
- David Arnold
Arnold, David, The Age of Discovery, 1400-1600 (London: Routledge, 2002)
- John Beckett
- Vincent
Beckett, John Vincent, The Agricultural Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990)
The Scientific Revolution in Global Perspective
- William E Burns
Burns, William E., The Scientific Revolution in Global Perspective (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2015)
- Carlo M Cipolla
Cipolla, Carlo M., European Culture and Overseas Expansion (London: Penguin,
1970)
---, Historia económica de Europa, siglos XVI y XVII (Barcelona: Ariel, 1987)
La Europa rural (1550-1750)' , in Historia económica de Europa, siglos XVI y XVII
- De Maddalena
De Maddalena, Aldo, 'La Europa rural (1550-1750)', in Historia económica de
Europa, siglos XVI y XVII, ed. by Carlo M. Cipolla (Barcelona: Ariel, 1987),
pp. 214-76
La agricultura viajera: cultivos y manufacturas de plantas industriales y alimentarias en España y en la América virreinal
- Fernández Pérez
- Ignacio González Tascón
Fernández Pérez, Joaquín, and Ignacio González Tascón, La agricultura viajera:
cultivos y manufacturas de plantas industriales y alimentarias en España y en la
América virreinal (Madrid: Real Jardín Botánico CSIC, 1990)
- Renée Jeffery
Jeffery, Renée, Hugo Grotius in International Thought (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006)