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Accepted Paper:
Livestock foraging and foddering in early modern uplands: a balance between landscape, climate and economy?
Eugene Costello
(University College Cork - Stockholm University)
This paper is concerned with cattle, sheep and goats and where and how they were grazed in north-west European uplands from late medieval times up to the 19th century. I will discuss the various sources of evidence for livestock foraging and I will assess its long-term impacts on upland habitats.
Paper long abstract:
This paper will discuss where cattle, sheep and goats were grazed in uplands from the late medieval period up to the 19th century. My focus will be on Ireland and Sweden, but I will be citing examples from elsewhere in Europe as well. I will consider the various kinds of pasture that livestock found forage in, be it woodland, lower pastures in foothills or higher mountain pastures, and I will discuss potential environmental reasons for supplementing forage with fodder that had been collected or grown by livestock owners and herders. I will ask what role climatic and economic factors played in decisions to alter foraging strategies over the medieval-to-modern transition and I will mention the long-term impacts of foraging on upland habitats over time. The paper will argue that in many so-called 'peripheral' regions we can only broach the subject of pre-modern livestock foraging by using a complex mixture of documentary, archaeological, toponymic and palaeoecological evidence. But the holistic picture of change that this interdisciplinary approach can give is highly rewarding.