Mark,
You must be intensely interested at Kew in environment so hope you
don't mind my asking you a question. I'm looking at the need for salt
for preserving food in the Bronze and Iron Age as populations increased
and surplus food was very seasonal. Clearly with greater food supplies
(but less variety in food products regionally) populations didn't suffer
famines as frequently - but from a farming point of view how long do you
think were periods between surplus food supplies.
Hope I've posed that question correctly?
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>This might be of interest to some. Queries to the organisers, please - not
>to me! Mark
>
>Weather, Climate Change, and British Farming in Historical Perspective
>Saturday 6 December 2008
>
>This year's British Agricultural History Society winter conference is on
>'Weather, Climate Change, and British Farming'. It runs from 10.30-4.30
>and includes four papers: Steve Rippon on 'Agriculture in the late Roman
>and early medieval landscape: environmental or social change?' Bruce
>Campbell on 'Harvest failure and harvest success: three centuries of
>English grain yields, 1211-1491' Mary Young, Karen Cullen and Chris
>Whatley on ' "Depauperat, dead or fled": the social and psychological
>impact on Scottish rural communities of the turbulent weather suffered in
>the later seventeenth century.' And John Martin on 'The bleak midwinter of
>1947: causes and consequences'.
>
>Venue: Wolfson and Pollard Rooms, Institute of Historical Research, Malet
>St, London.
>Contact: Dr Jane Whittle [log in to unmask]
>Website: http://www.bahs.org.uk/
>
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