I am researching the Roman timber economy using both dendrochronological and archaeological material and methods. An important part of my research is the determination of the provenance of wood that was used in the delta of the Rhine, Meuse & Scheldt. This is combined with a study of various processes (i.e. historical, economical, etc.) related to the Roman timber supply, tackling questions related to production, transport & consumption of this important resource.
At Saxion I am teaching various courses relating to computer applications in archaeology and Roman material culture. I am also supervisor and examinator of various bachelor theses.
Supplying the Roman Empire (LIMES XXV volume 4). Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 4, 2024
Wood was maybe the most important resource in the Roman period. The importance of wood along the ... more Wood was maybe the most important resource in the Roman period. The importance of wood along the limes has been shown in various studies, and was even more expressed along the Lower Rhine, since other building materials are virtually absent. This paper addresses the following research questions: How much wood was transported over longer distances? and How was wood/timber transported over water? An interdisciplinary approach is followed making use of various methods from multiple disciplines, mostly from archaeology, history, dendrochronology and computer science. Combining the dendrochronological networks from an earlier study (Visser 2021b) with the spatial attributes of the find locations (nodes in the networks), an estimate of the proportion of wood that was procured far away in relation to regional/local wood supply could be obtained. While local wood procurement is standard, roughly between 10 to 30 % of the wood in the Rhine region was most likely moved over long distances in the Roman period. Transport of wood over long distances most likely took place over water using the Rhine, Meusse and Scheldt. For this purpose the use of barges of the Zwammerdam-type is more likely than the use of rafts, since fresh oak sinks in water.
"Driessen, M., Heeren, S., Hendriks, J., Kemmers, F. & Visser, R. (eds.), 2009: TRAC 2008: Procee... more "Driessen, M., Heeren, S., Hendriks, J., Kemmers, F. & Visser, R. (eds.), 2009: TRAC 2008: Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Amsterdam 2008, Oxford.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84217-351-0
ISBN-10: 1-84217-351-0
Table of Contents
Preface
Forced labour, mines, and space: exploring the control of mining communities (Hannah Friedman)
Feeling like home: Romanised rural landscape from a Gallo-Roman point of view (Cecilia Courbot-Dewerdt)
Centrality in its place: Defining urban space in the city of Rome (David J. Newsome)
Finding your way in the Subura (Simon Malmberg)
Amateur metal detector finds and Romano-British settlement: A methodological case study from Wiltshire (Tom Brindle)
Meat consumption in Roman Britain: The evidence from stable isotopes (Colleen Cummings)
Barley and horsesL Surplus and demand in the civitas Batavorum (Ivo Vossen and Maaike Groot)
The way to a Roman soldier's heart: A post-medieval model for cattle droving to the Hadrian's Wall area (Sue Stallibrass)
Creating a community: The symbolic role of tumuli in the villa landscape of the civitas Tungrorum (Laura Crowley)
'Montani atque agrestes' or women of substance? Dichotomies of gender and role in ancient Samnium (Amy Richardson)
Native ServiceL 'Batavian' pottery in 'Roman' military context (Eef Stoffels)
The natural will: Community in Roman archaeology (Robert Wanner)
The social world of Roman fullonicae (Miko Flohr)
The dichotomy in Romano-Celtic syncretism: Some preliminary thoughts on vernacular religion (D. Martin Goldberg)"
Around 15 years ago, a problem in Dutch archaeology started to become more and more apparent. Owi... more Around 15 years ago, a problem in Dutch archaeology started to become more and more apparent. Owing to the new Malta legislation, the number of archaeological fieldwork projects being conducted by commercial archaeology units in the Netherlands rose precipitously. The units were obliged to deposit their finds and documentation at the designated archaeological depot in the province or municipality within two years after finishing a project. Many of these units operated nationally and were confronted with a wide variety of rules and regulations connected to this deposit process. For each and every depot, they were required to provide different documents. Attempts in the early 2000s to promote the use of a single data management system at all depots had failed (Boogert 2006, 26; Taayke 2003). An exploratory study (Sueur et al. 2008) suggested the introduction of a single standardised XML data exchange format for the intermediate collection of data about the items delivered by any archaeology unit to any depot. This delivery slip (‘pakbon’), also known as the SIKB0102 protocol, was introduced in around 2011 but was not widely adopted for a long time following its introduction. Only a few early adopters among the commercial units had prepared their excavation management software for the export of an XML exchange document. Based on these experiences, this article tries to answer a few questions: • Were there any mistakes made during the introduction of SIKB0102? • What is the exact nature of the problem(s)? • What are possible solutions? • Which components are still needed in order to make the pakbon a success?
This study combines standard dendrochronological analyses with network science and spatial analys... more This study combines standard dendrochronological analyses with network science and spatial analysis to determine the provenance of wood used to build river barges in the Roman period. The river barges studied were found in the Lower Rhine region and would have carried bulk goods, such as grain, military supplies, and building materials. The importance of these vessels in the supply of the local economy and military units is evident since many were found in the area, including some in the vicinity of military complexes. However, it remains unknown where these ships were built and how and where the raw materials for their construction were obtained. To better understand the provenance of the wood, network science was applied to visualise and understand the complex patterns of similarity between the tree-ring curves. For the interpretation of the networks we have studied the context, the position of the trees in the network and the use of these trees in shipbuilding. In addition, the shape of the converted timber was used to visualise the wood use patterns in this type of Roman-period shipbuilding. For the river barges, we were able to determine several possible regions for wood procurement. Based on the analysed material, we assume that there was at least Visser and Vorst International Journal of Wood Culture (2023) 1-29 one shipyard in the Lower Rhine region where two ships, found in separate excavations, were most likely produced at the same time.
In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and little devices sign... more In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and little devices significantly help us to get work done. These little helpers often reduce our workload or optimize our workflows, although they are not often presented to the outside world. Instead, we generally focus on presenting the results of our research and silently use our small tools during our research. This session will focus on these small helpers ("little minions",) and we invite researchers to share their tools so that the scientific community may benefit and - perhaps - create spontaneously special interest groups. This session aims at short presentations - "minion talks" (max. 10 minutes including discussion) - of small software or hardware solutions, not only focusing on field work / excavation technology, associated evaluation or methodical approaches in data driven archaeology. Each "minion talk" should explain the innovative character and mode of operation of...
In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and small hardware devi... more In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and small hardware devices significantly help us to get work done. These little helpers - "little minions" - often reduce our workload or optimise our workflows, although they are not often presented to the outside world and the research community. Instead, we generally focus on presenting the results of our research and silently use our small tools to generate these, without not even pointing to them, especially to the source code or building instructions. In archaeology, research software is underrepresented in conference talks as well as in research publications. We have to promote these little minions in the RSE community and make them visible. That is why we created a Working Group for Little Minions at the CAA (https://caa-international.org) conference for digital archaeological research and created a session that focus on these "little minions" and invite researchers to share their l...
Onderzoek naar herkomst, gebruik en productie van hout dat gebruikt is voor de aanleg van de lime... more Onderzoek naar herkomst, gebruik en productie van hout dat gebruikt is voor de aanleg van de limes-weg van 124/125 AD te Leidsche Rijn.
Key issue in re-using data from excavations is the need to understand the meaning of the contents... more Key issue in re-using data from excavations is the need to understand the meaning of the contents. Integrating studies have a hard time using old datasets, for obvious reasons like finding the right data in the first place, understanding unknown codes, and the inherent difficulty of combining data from different excavations. These problems are commonly addressed by archiving and publishing harmonized data, which enables searching through combined datasets, but at the price of losing important detail.Despite hesitation, an interchange format for digital archaeological data was needed. We played a major role in the drafting group for what would later become the 'SIKB0102' interchange standard, where we ultimately focused on: 1) keeping the original level of detail while providing a harmonized view; 2) serving archiving as well as data interchange in active projects; 3) control of versions and 4) making sure that relations, key to solving archaeological mysteries, are central. ...
In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and small hardware devi... more In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and small hardware devices significantly help us to get work done. These little helpers – "little minions" – often reduce our workload or optimise our workflows, although they are not often presented to the outside world and the research community. Instead, we generally focus on presenting the results of our research and silently use our small tools during our research, without even pointing to them, and especially not to the source code or building instructions. This session will focus on these small helpers – "little minions" – and we invite researchers to share their tools, so that the scientific community may benefit and – perhaps – spontaneously create "special minion interest groups". As we have seen in previous year's "minion talks" there are a wide range of tools to be shared. These may be perfect examples for your own minion creation. A constantly expanding ...
Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 2021
Over the last decades, Roman wood in various shapes and sizes has been excavated in the region of... more Over the last decades, Roman wood in various shapes and sizes has been excavated in the region of the continental northwestern provinces of the Roman empire. However, it is often unclear whether wood has been transported. Most dendrochronological provenance studies rely on simple comparisons between tree-ring series based on a single similarity measure. In addition, most fail to consider the complex system of relations that is the result of the variables that influence tree-ring patterns. Network analysis is a solution to this problem, because it allows to both visualize and analyze the complex (provenance) relations of tree-ring series as a whole. A network makes it impossible to ignore existing (statistical) relations between tree-ring series. Although networks can be build using any (combination of) similarity measure(s), in this study a combination of the Synchronous Growth Changes (SGC), its related probability of exceedance (p), correlation (r) and overlap define the edges. This paper focusses on networks with site chronologies as nodes, although networks can also be constructed using individual tree-ring series or a combination with site chronologies. A combination of these can also help to refine the (archaeological) interpretation. The location of any tree-ring series in a network reflects its provenance. Material that is placed closer together in the network has similar growth patterns and is generally from the same region. Therefore, network communities reflect wood that has a similar provenance. If tree-ring material was found on different spatial locations, but in close proximity in the network, this indicates that wood has been moved. To determine which wood has been transported, a combination of archaeological and spatial arguments is used. The method is sound, simple and gives insight in the complexity of all tree-ring relations in a simple diagram. The resulting patterns show that most wood was obtained in the region where it was used, but that transport of wood in the Roman period did take place. Three scales are defined to describe the Roman wood economy: local, provincial and imperial. While transport of wood over long distances is attested for both military and civilian sites (provincial and imperial scale), it seems that wood that was transported beyond the provincial borders was only used in civilian sites (imperial scale). The combination of network science, dendrochronology and archaeology is a powerful method to understand patterns in the Roman timber economy.
The Gleichläufigkeitskoeffizient (GLK) or the percentage of Parallel Variation (%PV) is an often ... more The Gleichläufigkeitskoeffizient (GLK) or the percentage of Parallel Variation (%PV) is an often used non parametric similarity measure in dendrochronological research. However, when analysing big data sets using the GLK, this measure has some issues. The main problem is that the GLK includes not only synchronous, but also semi‐synchronous growth changes. These are years in which the growth in one of the compared series does not change in two subsequent years. This influences the GLK, often only slightly, but the larger the dataset the stronger the effect. The similarity between tree‐ring series can be more objectively expressed by replacing the GLK by the synchronous (SGC) and semi‐synchronous growth changes (SSGC). The calculation is similar, since GLK = SGC + SSGC/2. Large values of the SSGC are indicative of possible anomalies or even errors. The SGC is much better suited than the GLK to describe similarity. The SGC should therefore be used to analyse big data sets, for clustering and/or dendroprovenance studies. It is recommendable to combine the SGC with parametric measures
Supplying the Roman Empire (LIMES XXV volume 4). Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 4, 2024
Wood was maybe the most important resource in the Roman period. The importance of wood along the ... more Wood was maybe the most important resource in the Roman period. The importance of wood along the limes has been shown in various studies, and was even more expressed along the Lower Rhine, since other building materials are virtually absent. This paper addresses the following research questions: How much wood was transported over longer distances? and How was wood/timber transported over water? An interdisciplinary approach is followed making use of various methods from multiple disciplines, mostly from archaeology, history, dendrochronology and computer science. Combining the dendrochronological networks from an earlier study (Visser 2021b) with the spatial attributes of the find locations (nodes in the networks), an estimate of the proportion of wood that was procured far away in relation to regional/local wood supply could be obtained. While local wood procurement is standard, roughly between 10 to 30 % of the wood in the Rhine region was most likely moved over long distances in the Roman period. Transport of wood over long distances most likely took place over water using the Rhine, Meusse and Scheldt. For this purpose the use of barges of the Zwammerdam-type is more likely than the use of rafts, since fresh oak sinks in water.
"Driessen, M., Heeren, S., Hendriks, J., Kemmers, F. & Visser, R. (eds.), 2009: TRAC 2008: Procee... more "Driessen, M., Heeren, S., Hendriks, J., Kemmers, F. & Visser, R. (eds.), 2009: TRAC 2008: Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Amsterdam 2008, Oxford.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84217-351-0
ISBN-10: 1-84217-351-0
Table of Contents
Preface
Forced labour, mines, and space: exploring the control of mining communities (Hannah Friedman)
Feeling like home: Romanised rural landscape from a Gallo-Roman point of view (Cecilia Courbot-Dewerdt)
Centrality in its place: Defining urban space in the city of Rome (David J. Newsome)
Finding your way in the Subura (Simon Malmberg)
Amateur metal detector finds and Romano-British settlement: A methodological case study from Wiltshire (Tom Brindle)
Meat consumption in Roman Britain: The evidence from stable isotopes (Colleen Cummings)
Barley and horsesL Surplus and demand in the civitas Batavorum (Ivo Vossen and Maaike Groot)
The way to a Roman soldier's heart: A post-medieval model for cattle droving to the Hadrian's Wall area (Sue Stallibrass)
Creating a community: The symbolic role of tumuli in the villa landscape of the civitas Tungrorum (Laura Crowley)
'Montani atque agrestes' or women of substance? Dichotomies of gender and role in ancient Samnium (Amy Richardson)
Native ServiceL 'Batavian' pottery in 'Roman' military context (Eef Stoffels)
The natural will: Community in Roman archaeology (Robert Wanner)
The social world of Roman fullonicae (Miko Flohr)
The dichotomy in Romano-Celtic syncretism: Some preliminary thoughts on vernacular religion (D. Martin Goldberg)"
Around 15 years ago, a problem in Dutch archaeology started to become more and more apparent. Owi... more Around 15 years ago, a problem in Dutch archaeology started to become more and more apparent. Owing to the new Malta legislation, the number of archaeological fieldwork projects being conducted by commercial archaeology units in the Netherlands rose precipitously. The units were obliged to deposit their finds and documentation at the designated archaeological depot in the province or municipality within two years after finishing a project. Many of these units operated nationally and were confronted with a wide variety of rules and regulations connected to this deposit process. For each and every depot, they were required to provide different documents. Attempts in the early 2000s to promote the use of a single data management system at all depots had failed (Boogert 2006, 26; Taayke 2003). An exploratory study (Sueur et al. 2008) suggested the introduction of a single standardised XML data exchange format for the intermediate collection of data about the items delivered by any archaeology unit to any depot. This delivery slip (‘pakbon’), also known as the SIKB0102 protocol, was introduced in around 2011 but was not widely adopted for a long time following its introduction. Only a few early adopters among the commercial units had prepared their excavation management software for the export of an XML exchange document. Based on these experiences, this article tries to answer a few questions: • Were there any mistakes made during the introduction of SIKB0102? • What is the exact nature of the problem(s)? • What are possible solutions? • Which components are still needed in order to make the pakbon a success?
This study combines standard dendrochronological analyses with network science and spatial analys... more This study combines standard dendrochronological analyses with network science and spatial analysis to determine the provenance of wood used to build river barges in the Roman period. The river barges studied were found in the Lower Rhine region and would have carried bulk goods, such as grain, military supplies, and building materials. The importance of these vessels in the supply of the local economy and military units is evident since many were found in the area, including some in the vicinity of military complexes. However, it remains unknown where these ships were built and how and where the raw materials for their construction were obtained. To better understand the provenance of the wood, network science was applied to visualise and understand the complex patterns of similarity between the tree-ring curves. For the interpretation of the networks we have studied the context, the position of the trees in the network and the use of these trees in shipbuilding. In addition, the shape of the converted timber was used to visualise the wood use patterns in this type of Roman-period shipbuilding. For the river barges, we were able to determine several possible regions for wood procurement. Based on the analysed material, we assume that there was at least Visser and Vorst International Journal of Wood Culture (2023) 1-29 one shipyard in the Lower Rhine region where two ships, found in separate excavations, were most likely produced at the same time.
In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and little devices sign... more In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and little devices significantly help us to get work done. These little helpers often reduce our workload or optimize our workflows, although they are not often presented to the outside world. Instead, we generally focus on presenting the results of our research and silently use our small tools during our research. This session will focus on these small helpers ("little minions",) and we invite researchers to share their tools so that the scientific community may benefit and - perhaps - create spontaneously special interest groups. This session aims at short presentations - "minion talks" (max. 10 minutes including discussion) - of small software or hardware solutions, not only focusing on field work / excavation technology, associated evaluation or methodical approaches in data driven archaeology. Each "minion talk" should explain the innovative character and mode of operation of...
In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and small hardware devi... more In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and small hardware devices significantly help us to get work done. These little helpers - "little minions" - often reduce our workload or optimise our workflows, although they are not often presented to the outside world and the research community. Instead, we generally focus on presenting the results of our research and silently use our small tools to generate these, without not even pointing to them, especially to the source code or building instructions. In archaeology, research software is underrepresented in conference talks as well as in research publications. We have to promote these little minions in the RSE community and make them visible. That is why we created a Working Group for Little Minions at the CAA (https://caa-international.org) conference for digital archaeological research and created a session that focus on these "little minions" and invite researchers to share their l...
Onderzoek naar herkomst, gebruik en productie van hout dat gebruikt is voor de aanleg van de lime... more Onderzoek naar herkomst, gebruik en productie van hout dat gebruikt is voor de aanleg van de limes-weg van 124/125 AD te Leidsche Rijn.
Key issue in re-using data from excavations is the need to understand the meaning of the contents... more Key issue in re-using data from excavations is the need to understand the meaning of the contents. Integrating studies have a hard time using old datasets, for obvious reasons like finding the right data in the first place, understanding unknown codes, and the inherent difficulty of combining data from different excavations. These problems are commonly addressed by archiving and publishing harmonized data, which enables searching through combined datasets, but at the price of losing important detail.Despite hesitation, an interchange format for digital archaeological data was needed. We played a major role in the drafting group for what would later become the 'SIKB0102' interchange standard, where we ultimately focused on: 1) keeping the original level of detail while providing a harmonized view; 2) serving archiving as well as data interchange in active projects; 3) control of versions and 4) making sure that relations, key to solving archaeological mysteries, are central. ...
In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and small hardware devi... more In our daily work, small self-made scripts, home-grown small applications and small hardware devices significantly help us to get work done. These little helpers – "little minions" – often reduce our workload or optimise our workflows, although they are not often presented to the outside world and the research community. Instead, we generally focus on presenting the results of our research and silently use our small tools during our research, without even pointing to them, and especially not to the source code or building instructions. This session will focus on these small helpers – "little minions" – and we invite researchers to share their tools, so that the scientific community may benefit and – perhaps – spontaneously create "special minion interest groups". As we have seen in previous year's "minion talks" there are a wide range of tools to be shared. These may be perfect examples for your own minion creation. A constantly expanding ...
Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 2021
Over the last decades, Roman wood in various shapes and sizes has been excavated in the region of... more Over the last decades, Roman wood in various shapes and sizes has been excavated in the region of the continental northwestern provinces of the Roman empire. However, it is often unclear whether wood has been transported. Most dendrochronological provenance studies rely on simple comparisons between tree-ring series based on a single similarity measure. In addition, most fail to consider the complex system of relations that is the result of the variables that influence tree-ring patterns. Network analysis is a solution to this problem, because it allows to both visualize and analyze the complex (provenance) relations of tree-ring series as a whole. A network makes it impossible to ignore existing (statistical) relations between tree-ring series. Although networks can be build using any (combination of) similarity measure(s), in this study a combination of the Synchronous Growth Changes (SGC), its related probability of exceedance (p), correlation (r) and overlap define the edges. This paper focusses on networks with site chronologies as nodes, although networks can also be constructed using individual tree-ring series or a combination with site chronologies. A combination of these can also help to refine the (archaeological) interpretation. The location of any tree-ring series in a network reflects its provenance. Material that is placed closer together in the network has similar growth patterns and is generally from the same region. Therefore, network communities reflect wood that has a similar provenance. If tree-ring material was found on different spatial locations, but in close proximity in the network, this indicates that wood has been moved. To determine which wood has been transported, a combination of archaeological and spatial arguments is used. The method is sound, simple and gives insight in the complexity of all tree-ring relations in a simple diagram. The resulting patterns show that most wood was obtained in the region where it was used, but that transport of wood in the Roman period did take place. Three scales are defined to describe the Roman wood economy: local, provincial and imperial. While transport of wood over long distances is attested for both military and civilian sites (provincial and imperial scale), it seems that wood that was transported beyond the provincial borders was only used in civilian sites (imperial scale). The combination of network science, dendrochronology and archaeology is a powerful method to understand patterns in the Roman timber economy.
The Gleichläufigkeitskoeffizient (GLK) or the percentage of Parallel Variation (%PV) is an often ... more The Gleichläufigkeitskoeffizient (GLK) or the percentage of Parallel Variation (%PV) is an often used non parametric similarity measure in dendrochronological research. However, when analysing big data sets using the GLK, this measure has some issues. The main problem is that the GLK includes not only synchronous, but also semi‐synchronous growth changes. These are years in which the growth in one of the compared series does not change in two subsequent years. This influences the GLK, often only slightly, but the larger the dataset the stronger the effect. The similarity between tree‐ring series can be more objectively expressed by replacing the GLK by the synchronous (SGC) and semi‐synchronous growth changes (SSGC). The calculation is similar, since GLK = SGC + SSGC/2. Large values of the SSGC are indicative of possible anomalies or even errors. The SGC is much better suited than the GLK to describe similarity. The SGC should therefore be used to analyse big data sets, for clustering and/or dendroprovenance studies. It is recommendable to combine the SGC with parametric measures
Abstracts der Session der AG Römerzeit auf dem 9ten Deutschen Archäologiekongress der vom 03. - 0... more Abstracts der Session der AG Römerzeit auf dem 9ten Deutschen Archäologiekongress der vom 03. - 08.07.2017 in Mainz stattfinden wird.
Urban farming and ruralisation in The Netherlands (1250-1850) Unravelling farming practice and the use of (open) space by synthesising archaeological reports using text mining, 2021
Urban farming is about food production for and by town dwellers. Small-scale farming is known to ... more Urban farming is about food production for and by town dwellers. Small-scale farming is known to have been a feature of medieval and later towns from documentary evidence. An historical and geographical framework for urban farming in the Netherlands is offered in Chapter 2.
The topic of urban farming has nevertheless remained relatively underexposed in terms of archaeological research. This study surveys archaeological reports from commercially funded urban excavations in the Netherlands carried out in the period from 1997 up to and including 2017.
The volume presents evidence for urban farming in Dutch towns between 1250 up to 1850. The data has been assembled and analysed using text mining. This digital technique has been used to search for keywords that describe archaeological correlates of urban agriculture, such as ‘layer of arable soil’, ‘orchard’, ‘animal grave’ or ‘fruit tree’. A total of 1380 reports were examined, generating data on historic farming in 84 towns (Chapter 3).
Most of the data relate to animal husbandry (31%), closely followed by horticulture (27%) and more general or unspecified rural activities (21%). Arable farming is less represented in the data (16%). Surprisingly, orchards are not much in evidence, and fish farming is a rarity. The scale and extent of commercial urban excavations in different regions has influenced the amount of data that is available. For towns in Zeeland, Limburg, Friesland and Drenthe comparatively little archaeological data is available and this makes comparisons with patterns of farming in other regions difficult (Chapter 4).
Most indications of local animal husbandry are small-scale and incidental (Chapter 5). Primary evidence of animal husbandry within towns can nevertheless be found in the form of complete skeletons of stillborn, new born or diseased animals. There is abundant evidence for arable farming and horticulture but this fluctuates over time (Chapter 6). When the indicators for arable farming decrease in the late Middle Ages a corresponding increase can be seen in evidence for horticulture in peripheral urban areas. The presence of former fields that have been built over can be seen in fossilized urban boundaries, ditches and fences. Buried soil horizons often contain evidence for soil improvement. The most common indicator for urban livestock farming is the presence of manure in soil layers and pits. The reports that we examined also contained evidence for stables, barns, and animal cages (Chapter 7).
There were numerous farms in towns between 1250 and 1850. It is often not possible to reconstruct what agricultural activities took place on such urban farms. However, our study shows that urban farming activities evolved over time (Chapter 8): • Indicators for urban farming increased during the period of urban development (up to 1450) and remained in evidence thereafter. • Prior to the sixteenth century, town dwellers were mostly engaged in arable and livestock farming, but in later stages arable farming declined and horticulture increased. • In terms of evidence for urban farming, the sixteenth century is the least represented in the available archaeological indicators. In this century more food was imported from outside the town walls. • In the period of de-urbanisation (1650-1850) the indicators for urban farming once again increased. The patterns that have been found by text mining archaeological reports are broadly in line with known historical and demographic trends. Thus, the historical differences that are often noted between coastal and inland towns are also clearly visible in the archaeological evidence.
Major historical events can also be seen to have influenced the behaviour of town dwellers. Most towns were given new defences during the Eighty Years War, leading to an upsurge of farming in peripheral areas.
The urban functions of twenty towns were analysed on the basis of Jacob van Deventer’s maps, where we examined the ratio of built-up and undeveloped space. Towns had an average of 70 to 75% of their area built-up during this period. Gardens made up about 15 to 16% of the urban plan.
The future study of urban farming requires a strategic approach, with a detailed sampling strategy (Chapter 9). Traces of agricultural activity are often hidden in unspectacular archaeological layers and features which are often not selected for sampling during commercially funded interventions. In order to unlock the potential for new insights into urban farming practices we suggest that new guidelines are needed to investigate the archaeology of urban backyards. Our study also concludes that more archaeological attention should be paid to farming activities in the near outskirts of towns, and that land use in general deserves more attention during archaeological investigations. The importance of soil sampling to detect the presence of manure or other evidence for urban farming must be underlined.
In terms of a national overview it is clear that some catching up is needed in the towns and regions that have been under-represented in commercial archaeological interventions in the last twenty years. Only then will it be possible to make better comparisons through time between the various regions of the Netherlands.
Uploads
Conference proceedings by Ronald Visser
ISBN-13: 978-1-84217-351-0
ISBN-10: 1-84217-351-0
Table of Contents
Preface
Forced labour, mines, and space: exploring the control of mining communities (Hannah Friedman)
Feeling like home: Romanised rural landscape from a Gallo-Roman point of view (Cecilia Courbot-Dewerdt)
Centrality in its place: Defining urban space in the city of Rome (David J. Newsome)
Finding your way in the Subura (Simon Malmberg)
Amateur metal detector finds and Romano-British settlement: A methodological case study from Wiltshire (Tom Brindle)
Meat consumption in Roman Britain: The evidence from stable isotopes (Colleen Cummings)
Barley and horsesL Surplus and demand in the civitas Batavorum (Ivo Vossen and Maaike Groot)
The way to a Roman soldier's heart: A post-medieval model for cattle droving to the Hadrian's Wall area (Sue Stallibrass)
Creating a community: The symbolic role of tumuli in the villa landscape of the civitas Tungrorum (Laura Crowley)
'Montani atque agrestes' or women of substance? Dichotomies of gender and role in ancient Samnium (Amy Richardson)
Native ServiceL 'Batavian' pottery in 'Roman' military context (Eef Stoffels)
The natural will: Community in Roman archaeology (Robert Wanner)
The social world of Roman fullonicae (Miko Flohr)
The dichotomy in Romano-Celtic syncretism: Some preliminary thoughts on vernacular religion (D. Martin Goldberg)"
Papers by Ronald Visser
• Were there any mistakes made during the introduction of SIKB0102?
• What is the exact nature of the problem(s)?
• What are possible solutions?
• Which components are still needed in order to make the pakbon a success?
ISBN-13: 978-1-84217-351-0
ISBN-10: 1-84217-351-0
Table of Contents
Preface
Forced labour, mines, and space: exploring the control of mining communities (Hannah Friedman)
Feeling like home: Romanised rural landscape from a Gallo-Roman point of view (Cecilia Courbot-Dewerdt)
Centrality in its place: Defining urban space in the city of Rome (David J. Newsome)
Finding your way in the Subura (Simon Malmberg)
Amateur metal detector finds and Romano-British settlement: A methodological case study from Wiltshire (Tom Brindle)
Meat consumption in Roman Britain: The evidence from stable isotopes (Colleen Cummings)
Barley and horsesL Surplus and demand in the civitas Batavorum (Ivo Vossen and Maaike Groot)
The way to a Roman soldier's heart: A post-medieval model for cattle droving to the Hadrian's Wall area (Sue Stallibrass)
Creating a community: The symbolic role of tumuli in the villa landscape of the civitas Tungrorum (Laura Crowley)
'Montani atque agrestes' or women of substance? Dichotomies of gender and role in ancient Samnium (Amy Richardson)
Native ServiceL 'Batavian' pottery in 'Roman' military context (Eef Stoffels)
The natural will: Community in Roman archaeology (Robert Wanner)
The social world of Roman fullonicae (Miko Flohr)
The dichotomy in Romano-Celtic syncretism: Some preliminary thoughts on vernacular religion (D. Martin Goldberg)"
• Were there any mistakes made during the introduction of SIKB0102?
• What is the exact nature of the problem(s)?
• What are possible solutions?
• Which components are still needed in order to make the pakbon a success?
The topic of urban farming has nevertheless remained relatively underexposed in terms of archaeological research. This study surveys archaeological reports from commercially funded urban excavations in the Netherlands carried out in the period from 1997 up to and including 2017.
The volume presents evidence for urban farming in Dutch towns between 1250 up to 1850. The data has been assembled and analysed using text mining. This digital technique has been used to search for keywords that describe archaeological correlates of urban agriculture, such as ‘layer of arable soil’, ‘orchard’, ‘animal grave’ or ‘fruit tree’. A total of 1380 reports were examined, generating data on historic farming in 84 towns (Chapter 3).
Most of the data relate to animal husbandry (31%), closely followed by horticulture (27%) and more general or unspecified rural activities (21%). Arable farming is less represented in the data (16%). Surprisingly, orchards are not much in evidence, and fish farming is a rarity. The scale and extent of commercial urban excavations in different regions has influenced the amount of data that is available. For towns in Zeeland, Limburg, Friesland and Drenthe comparatively little archaeological data is available and this makes comparisons with patterns of farming in other regions difficult (Chapter 4).
Most indications of local animal husbandry are small-scale and incidental (Chapter 5). Primary evidence of animal husbandry within towns can nevertheless be found in the form of complete skeletons of stillborn, new born or diseased animals. There is abundant evidence for arable farming and horticulture but this fluctuates over time (Chapter 6). When the indicators for arable farming decrease in the late Middle Ages a corresponding increase can be seen in evidence for horticulture in peripheral urban areas. The presence of former fields that have been built over can be seen in fossilized urban boundaries, ditches and fences. Buried soil horizons often contain evidence for soil improvement. The most common indicator for urban livestock farming is the presence of manure in soil layers and pits. The reports that we examined also contained evidence for stables, barns, and animal cages (Chapter 7).
There were numerous farms in towns between 1250 and 1850. It is often not possible to reconstruct what agricultural activities took place on such urban farms. However, our study shows that urban farming activities evolved over time (Chapter 8):
• Indicators for urban farming increased during the period of urban development (up to 1450) and remained in evidence thereafter.
• Prior to the sixteenth century, town dwellers were mostly engaged in arable and livestock farming, but in later stages arable farming declined and horticulture increased.
• In terms of evidence for urban farming, the sixteenth century is the least represented in the available archaeological indicators. In this century more food was imported from outside the town walls.
• In the period of de-urbanisation (1650-1850) the indicators for urban farming once again increased.
The patterns that have been found by text mining archaeological reports are broadly in line with known historical and demographic trends. Thus, the historical differences that are often noted between coastal and inland towns are also clearly visible in the archaeological evidence.
Major historical events can also be seen to have influenced the behaviour of town dwellers. Most towns were given new defences during the Eighty Years War, leading to an upsurge of farming in peripheral areas.
The urban functions of twenty towns were analysed on the basis of Jacob van Deventer’s maps, where we examined the ratio of built-up and undeveloped space. Towns had an average of 70 to 75% of their area built-up during this period. Gardens made up about 15 to 16% of the urban plan.
The future study of urban farming requires a strategic approach, with a detailed sampling strategy (Chapter 9). Traces of agricultural activity are often hidden in unspectacular archaeological layers and features which are often not selected for sampling during commercially funded interventions. In order to unlock the potential for new insights into urban farming practices we suggest that new guidelines are needed to investigate the archaeology of urban backyards. Our study also concludes that more archaeological attention should be paid to farming activities in the near outskirts of towns, and that land use in general deserves more attention during archaeological investigations. The importance of soil sampling to detect the presence of manure or other evidence for urban farming must be underlined.
In terms of a national overview it is clear that some catching up is needed in the towns and regions that have been under-represented in commercial archaeological interventions in the last twenty years. Only then will it be possible to make better comparisons through time between the various regions of the Netherlands.