A Year On The Field
Project Blog

Flax-growing and linen production in medieval iconography: tools, techniques and gestures

In the Middle Ages, textile plants such as flax and hemp provided not only comestibles for humans and animals, most especially in the...

Linum usitatissimum. An archaeobotanical view on a preserved seed of ‘the most common one’

Year On The Field “Wheat Year” Completion

The Year On The Field project looks back on a successful first crop year from preparation to processing. We learned about diverse...

Grain Harvesting Technology at The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan, USA

Museum collections contain material culture documenting grain harvesting tools and equipment. The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, USA,...

The harvest by painters

Benjamin Ulmann. Entering sheep in the mobile pen for manuring the land. Photo: Georges Carantino The harvest, a moment of strong...

Baking the past – the Iron Age bread buns from Niederkaina

The Archäotechnisches Zentrum Welzow e.V. contributes to the Year On The Field with an experimental project about Early Iron Age food,...

Equipment in focus: A 1930s McCormick Deering Type E-M-4 grain binder at Carter Historic Farm (USA)

In 2020, the Carter Historic Farm planted our first field crops, buckwheat and corn. That summer, just in time for our first harvest, we...

Niederkaina, an Overview of the Burials with Food Remains made of or containing Wheat

The Archäotechnisches Zentrum Welzow e.V. contributes to the Year On The Field with an experimental project about Early Iron Age food,...

Beehive Art in Slovenia - an unexpected insight in 19th century agricultural practice

To conclude our coverage of wheat sowing, we would like to present a very special exhibit from the Slovene Ethnographic Museum (SEM) that...

Equipment in focus: the Bickford & Huffman Grain Drill (ca. 1890), The Henry Ford (USA)

As an official grower with the “A Year on the Field” project, staff at the Firestone Farm in Greenfield Village (The Henry Ford, Dearborn...

"To take on responsibility in times of crisis" A thought from the field

As part of the experiments on medieval agriculture and the `A Year On The Field" project, also food is produced at the Lauresham Open-Air...

A weedy window on medieval wheat farming

Abstract We have exceedingly little historical evidence for crop husbandry practices in Anglo-Saxon and medieval England, prior to the...

Wheat breeding - a contested practice

Growing grain and breeding grain were for a long time inseparable activities. Until the end of the 19th century, grain producers were...

Wheat in early medieval England: an archaeological view

Abstract What can we learn about cereal farming in early medieval England? While the subject benefits from the emergence a rich written...

The diversity of common wheat within 19th century grain cultivation

The collection of the Lauresham Open-Air laboratory includes a "Handbuch des Getreideanbaus" published by Friedrich Körnicke and Hugo...