INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: PEASANTS, AGRICULTURE AND THE ‘LONG SHADOW’ OF WATSON
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-11-09

The impact of the medieval Arab expansion on agricultural practice in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Mediterranean was famously coined as a ‘revolution’ by Andrew M. Watson (1974, 1983), although the use of this term and the nature of the impact are debated. Previous research in this area has targeted specific aspects of this topic (e.g. spatial organization of the settlements, land parcel structures, irrigation systems), but studies focusing on agricultural practices themselves remain relatively scarce. Archaeological approaches to understanding medieval agriculture have undergone development over the last few decades, providing direct means to investigate the agricultural regimes in the early Islamic world and the spread of vegetal species and farming practices from new perspectives. This paper situates the archaeological study of the medieval ‘Islamic Green Revolution’ within the theoretical framework and current perspectives regarding the archaeological study of the agrarian regime(s) in the medieval Dar al-Islam. We delineate the significance of Watson’s thesis –as well as its weaknesses–, outline the potential of archaeology to explore some of the criticisms and limitations of his arguments and introduce the main issues at stake with respect to the understanding from an archaeological perspective of the consequences of the medieval Islamic conquests on farming systems.


Author(s): Garcia, Marcos (Department of Medieval History, University of Granada) - Ros, Jérôme (UMR7209, CNRS-MNHN-SU) - Alexander, Michelle (Department of Archaeology, BioArCh, University of York)