During Michaelmas Term, OxTalks will be moving to a new platform (full details are available on the Staff Gateway).
For now, continue using the current page and event submission process (freeze period dates to be advised).
If you have any questions, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
In this talk I survey recent bioarchaeological methods and case studies in the investigation of past land use and biodiversity. Recent work on early farming in western Asia and Europe is revealing its remarkably biodiversity, including a form of wheat (Timopheev’s wheat, Triticum timopheevii group) that has since largely disappeared.
As well as rediscovering such ‘lost crops’, bioarchaeology also offers means of characterising land use patterns over long time periods.
In this context I present recent work on the ‘Feeding Anglo-Saxon England’ ERC project in the School of Archaeology, which situates historic patterns of early medieval land use – including in Oxfordshire – in a longue durée pattern of expansive, low-input arable farming.