Abstract

This paper uses interdisciplinary methods to investigate responses to the Little Ice Age in regions where livestock farming was dominant, a neglected subject due to the scarcity of detailed written records regarding pastoral land use. It argues that landscape-level histories which include pollen evidence and archaeology can address this challenge and reveal local processes of climate adaptation. Here we focus on Ireland and Scotland and a fascinating rise in small-scale cereal cultivation on upland pastures during the Little Ice Age. Bayesian modeling is used to test the chronological resolution of field evidence and compare it with climate reconstructions. We can see that the cultivation emerged in late medieval times, when cattle were facing climate-related stresses, and increased in early modern times during the Little Ice Age’s main phase. We suggest that it started in an indirect adaptation to climate change, supplementing supplies of food and fodder for pastoralists, but increased as rural populations and external market demands grew. There is a need for finer temporal resolution in pollen records and archaeology, as well as greater integration with socio-economic history, if we are to be more certain about changes in the relative significance of climate in pastoral land use.

摘要

本文采用跨学科方法来调查畜牧业占主导地位的地区对小冰河时代的反应，由于缺乏有关牧区土地利用的详细书面记录，这一主题被忽视。它认为，包括花粉证据和考古学在内的景观水平历史可以应对这一挑战并揭示当地的历史。气候适应过程。在这里，我们重点关注爱尔兰和苏格兰，以及小冰河时期高地牧场小规模谷物种植的惊人增长。贝叶斯模型用于测试现场证据的时间分辨率，并将其与气候重建进行比较。我们可以看到，这种养殖出现在中世纪晚期，当时牛面临着与气候相关的压力，并在近代早期的小冰河时期的主要阶段有所增加。我们认为，这一举措最初是为了间接适应气候变化，补充牧民的粮食和饲料供应，但随着农村人口和外部市场需求的增长而增加。花粉记录和考古学需要更精细的时间分辨率，以及与社会经济历史的更大整合，