Drawing Conclusions From Analysis of Field Systems
Fields were organised for the convenience of the farmer - both arable and pastoral. Therefore the size of fields often gives an indication of the type of agriculture and agricultural implements in use when they were established. The shape and orientation of collections of fields provides clues about the date they were established. Field systems can give an indication of land ownership and social structure. The extent to which the field system respects other features (or not) can be used as dating evidence for the other features or the field system itself. For example, a field system that doesn't respect a Roman road is likely to predate it. Similarly, a feature that respects medieval ridge and furrow is likely to post date it.
The Rodings (the largest group of parishes in England to bear a common name) was investigated by Steven Basset. Basset showed that a broadly rectilinear field system (and other features such as roads) continued across parish boundaries thus showing that the field system pre-dated the formation of parishes. He therefore concluded that they had originally been a single estate.
Read more about this topic: Field System
Famous quotes containing the words drawing, conclusions, analysis, field and/or systems:
“What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don’t deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don’t we just as often draw the wrong ones?”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“That which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence of the Beautiful is nothing more than earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Ask anyone committed to Marxist analysis how many angels on the head of a pin, and you will be asked in return to never mind the angels, tell me who controls the production of pins.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)
“There is a call to life a little sterner,
And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.
Less criticism of the field and court
And more preoccupation with the sport.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“We have done scant justice to the reasonableness of cannibalism. There are in fact so many and such excellent motives possible to it that mankind has never been able to fit all of them into one universal scheme, and has accordingly contrived various diverse and contradictory systems the better to display its virtues.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)