Missing Link

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A lynchet is a bank of earth that builds up on the downslope of a field ploughed over a long period of time.[1] The disturbed soil slips down the hillside to create a positive lynchet while the area reduced in level becomes a negative lynchet. They are also referred to as strip lynchets.

Link.....early 15c., "one of a series of rings or loops which form a chain; section of a cord," probably from Old Norse *hlenkr or a similar Scandinavian source (compare Old Norse hlekkr "link," Old Swedish lænker "chain, link," Norwegian lenke, Danish lænke), from Proto-Germanic *khlink- (cognates: German lenken "to bend, turn, lead," gelenk "articulation, joint, link," Old English hlencan (plural) "armor"), from PIE root *kleng- "to bend, turn." Missing link between man and apes dates to 1880.

If you have ever traveled by Helicopter, you will, if you look very carefully, see sometimes hard to trace lines on the ground, that orthodoxy considers to represent the communal efforts of medieval peasant farmers to bring marginal hilly ground into cultivation.......................you might have even wondered what was the evidence for this assertion?

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In fact, these lynchets were originally thought to be evidence of (yep) Roman vineyards..........of course the Romans!

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These lynchets are now mostly associated with the Anglo Saxons, first as vineyards (difficult to ditch a idea) then as an example of over-ploughed agricultural land. Probably the most well-known example of medieval lynchets are the terraces that adorn the steep slopes of Glastonbury Tor..............

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Up North, your lynchets are known as raines......


Which sort of reminds me of Rain, but also Ring.........both hmmn?

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Your average joe on seeing these features tends to think of the terraced slopes of exotic South America, Asia or even of a pyramid........

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There is very little evidence for Anglo Saxon ploughing...Err we have one possible coulter http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12997877. Yep that is it (if it is). He was certainly busy, our AS ploughman as he criss crossed the countryside......Still. Who Knows?

We know the Anglo Saxons must have been busy, because we have the lines on the aerial photographs......?

We also have the linguistic evidence..........

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The Linguistic evidence.

Oh dear......the AS "hlinc" occurs but has nothing to do with agriculture...it's a point in a boundary, these boundaries are made up of streams, footpaths, important stones, etc and hlink marks them out. Even orthodoxy (pre THOBR) was forced to admit a problem.

It could be simply stated..."There is nothing to link, hlinc with AS ploughed, cultivated fields," err bit of a nuisance that.

Still we have what we have.... so strip lynchet from AS hlinc it is.

It is a bit like saying A=B, but it was the dark ages after all, so maybe the visibility was impaired. Maybe they were so knackered from all the ploughing with their one plough, they didn't give a toss about linguistics.....

[Mick Harper]

The assumption in The Megalithic Empire is that lynchets are way pre-historic. The general view in that astounding tome is that Neolithic farmers lived in villages and farmed the land communally, mainly using strips in vast fields. In other words, the 'medieval open field system' was not in the least medieval. The reason TME argued this was for the usual reason: that it is the only way (or at any rate far and away the best way) to farm before true capitalist methods were available first in the twelfth century under the Cistercians, then in the sixteenth century with the proceeds of the monasteries but mainly in the nineteenth century with joint-stock finance available.

When you try to communally farm any kind of hilly terrain (i e when you try to grow crops rather than animals) then you cannot use ordinary, straight strips because of soil erosion. So you use strip lynchets. The best place to see this general methodology is in a) the Incan Andes and b) present day south-east Asia. In both places, either the steepness of the terrain or the force of monsoon rainfall, requires actual contour terracing. In mild old, flat old, England, strip lynchets are all that is necessary.

[Mick Harper]

That said, I'm not sure they are necessarily exactly man-made. As is well known (there's one still left in Nottinghamshire) when you open-farm using strips, then ridge and furrows come into existence quite naturally. If you arrange for your strips to follow the lie of the land, ie contouring, and you do this for thousands of years (ie since the Neolithic rather than since the Middle Ages) then strip lynchets will likely be the result.

[macausland]

Farmed landscape features I would imagine would depend on the kind of farming being employed and the terrain itself.

Pastoral farming could exist anywhere and would be useful on uplands and areas difficult to plough.

Crop growing could be done in small plots or larger units if the land suited. What sort of crops would be grown at this particular time?

We are told that wheat was invented in the Middle East. And we are also told that the 'early farmers' came from there spreading into Europe and into Britain. Farmers tend to spread and push out the early hunter gatherers and pastoralists. So we are told. A recent example is to be seen in the United States where the indigenous people were pushed off their land by cattle ranchers who were in their turn pushed out by farmers.

According to the Guardian most male dna in Britain came in via the Middle East and this farming expansion.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010 ... nt-farmers

So much for Iberia and the Basques. Apparently female dna is not from their proving to the Guardian's satisfaction that British women preferred farmer Giles to Rawhide or Hern the Hunter.

If Stonehenge etc and Orkney were built before the pyramids as we are told what did the people live on before the farmers arrived to show them how to plough?

Did the natives do ploughing at the time planting peas and parsnips if not wheat? Perhaps barley and oats were planted. What kind of plough and what kind of animals would be pulling the plough?

Assuming thousands were busy cutting rocks everywhere to build Stonehenge, Silbury Hill etc. how many people were involved in producing the food the rock people needed?

Most sites on the internet seem to skip the subject with a brief glance at the neolithic, straight into the Bronze Age and then onto Roman terra firma (farmer?)

We are told that wheat was a necessary cheap food invented to feed the pyramid builders. What did our megalithics have on such a large scale? Or was Britain one large cattle ranch with the occasional onion field?