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Notes on Early Agriculture in Scotland

Notes on Early Agriculture in Scotland

Stevenson, Robert B.K.

Agricultural History Review, Volume 8 part 1 (1960)

Abstract

The archaeological evidence for the cultivation of grain in Scotland covers the grain itself, fields, and ploughs, besides grinding-querns which, though frequent, will not be considered now. The pollen from weeds of cultivation may ultimately come to be added. Hans Helbaek from Denmark has shown from impressions in pottery that barley was already cultivated in neolithic Orkney and Morayshire, and for the early and middle bronze age he got similar evidence from most parts of Scotland except the west Highlands and far north. ~ Wheat, though known in neolithic southern England, does not seem to have been eaten here until Roman times, which was when oats began to be cultivated in Britain.

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