An ard is the earliest form of plough, which cuts a furrow through the soil, but, unlike the plough, does not turn the soil. The ard first appeared in the Middle East around 4000BC. Early farmers used ards to prepare the land for sowing wheat and barley. The ard was a simple, wooden blade, a lightweight tool that was little more than a pick hauled through the soil by a pair of oxen, the farmer using its handle to keep the drill straight. It created a groove through the soil only, unlike the true plough, which acted as three tools in one.
The plough is made up of three components - the coulter, the share and the mould-board. The coulter is a knife, fixed below the beam of the plough, which makes a cut deep enough for the desired furrow. The share, a horizontal blade which undercuts the sod, acts on the soil after it has been cut by the coulter. The mould-board is the true ploughing component in that it acts in the cuts previously made by the other two components to lift up the soil and turn it over. Any weeds that have grown on the surface are now smothered.
The Archaeological Record of the Ard
There are various forms of evidence of the prehistoric ard in Britain and Northwest Europe. Remains of actual wooden ards have been discovered in Denmark, preserved in water-logged ground. More incomplete remains have been found in Shetland. Stone ard points have been discovered in Orkney, Shetland and Caithness, in the far north of Scotland. These are unique in that the ard was finished with a stone point instead of a wooden one, perhaps because of treeless landscapes, whereas elsewhere in Europe wooden points were used.
Physical Evidence of the Ard
Ard marks are the most immediate source of evidence of ard construction. These are marks made in the soil during cultivation. The simple ard was a wooden, symmetrical construction, yoked to two oxen, the point being attached to a crossbeam with a handle, which was held steady by the farmer. The oxen would have been led at the front, the handle operator would have steadied the point and kept the drill straight.
The most likely explanation of ard marks in the soil is the movement of the oxen's heads as the ground was tilled, creating the heavier indentations in the ground. These marks can be seen where the cultivated soil was shallow and overlay a subsoil of a contrasting colour. They were preserved when the land had been sealed in some way, such as building construction on a formerly cultivated field or buried by wind blown sand.
Other evidence for the construction of the ard is found on prehistoric fields, usually in high uninhabited locations, their size, nature and layout giving clues to the characteristics of the implements with which they were cultivated.
Art as Archaeological Evidence
Art also accounts for archaeological evidence. Swedish rock engravings interpret ards being used. These are shallow carvings executed on glacially smoothed rock outcrops in proximity to arable land. These carvings portray land cultivation as a fertility ritual, one which has arisen from the planting of seed and the procreation and sustenance of life.
Bringing the Past to Life
A modern day experiment of ard construction and usage is already in place in the county of Hampshire, in the south of England. The Butser Ancient Farm Project was set up in 1972 by the late Peter Reynolds. This is a working farm and open-air research centre, implemented purely by trials in prehistoric husbandry. Twenty-first century improvisation has to be embraced, obviously, when actively researching such an ancient period in history. These days, the oxen-pulled ard has given way to the implement being pulled by cows, oxen no longer being part of agricultural life in the UK.
The Butser Project is open to the public, a working interpretation of the past.
Sources
Colin Renfrew, Paul Bahn. Archaeology. Theories, Methods and Practice. 2nd ed. 1996
geocities.com
butser.org.uk
Doreen Taylor - Conscientious and committed to good writing, I will endeavour to do my best for all my writers. I adore reading and learning new things ...
