Sense of Soil

This thesis works to address the following proposed obstacle to researchers: potential nuances of small-scale farming in prehistory are likely lost to archaeologists who are personally inexperienced with subsistence living. Without a breadth of agricultural knowledge, it is challenging to understand the extensive possibilities for and reasons behind regional differentiation in food production, farmyard organization, animal husbandry, and local ecological constraints. My aim is to propose an interdisciplinary approach to why regional differentiation occurred and how farmers dealt with the necessity of small-scale adaptation to their immediate environment. This thesis assumes that farming skill relies on an intelligent interaction with the environment and an ability to respond to constant fluctuations in material composition and behavior. I approach the question, ‘how can one formulate a scientific approach to subjective experience?’, by asking ‘Why is perception, defined as any...Show moreThis thesis works to address the following proposed obstacle to researchers: potential nuances of small-scale farming in prehistory are likely lost to archaeologists who are personally inexperienced with subsistence living. Without a breadth of agricultural knowledge, it is challenging to understand the extensive possibilities for and reasons behind regional differentiation in food production, farmyard organization, animal husbandry, and local ecological constraints. My aim is to propose an interdisciplinary approach to why regional differentiation occurred and how farmers dealt with the necessity of small-scale adaptation to their immediate environment. This thesis assumes that farming skill relies on an intelligent interaction with the environment and an ability to respond to constant fluctuations in material composition and behavior. I approach the question, ‘how can one formulate a scientific approach to subjective experience?’, by asking ‘Why is perception, defined as any sensory input, relevant to agricultural soil identification as used in archaeology, and can perception be incorporated into soil typologies within the context of the ecological and archaeological record of the Middle Bronze Age of West Frisia, Netherlands?’ To answer these questions, this thesis reinterprets agriculture in Middle Bronze Age West Frisia within the framework of craft theory. Craft theory is used as a methodological framework to propose perceptive categories that work explore the agricultural relevance of soil composition and identification strategies. These categories, contextualized within the format of a farming chaîne opératoire, work to show the how of skilled soil identification as relevant to agricultural craft. By ethnographic examples of agriculturally relevant perceptive land categorization, a chemical understanding of taste, and empirical findings into the relationship between a subject’s taste experience and a soil’s chemical pH, the feasibility of perceptive categorization is presented.Show less

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Sense of Soil