page_title: Threshing floor
section_title: Use
hierarchical_section_title: Threshing floor / Use
context_page_description: Threshing was originally "...'to tramp or stamp heavily with the feet'..." and was later applied to the act of separating out grain by the feet of people or oxen and still later with the use of a flail.
  A threshing floor is of two main types: 1 a specially flattened outdoor surface, usually circular and paved, or 2 inside a building with a smooth floor of earth, stone or wood where a farmer would thresh the grain harvest and then winnow it. Animal and steam powered threshing machines from the nineteenth century onward made threshing floors obsolete. The outdoor threshing floor was either owned by the entire village or by a single family, and it was usually located outside the village in a place exposed to the wind.
context_section_description: Sheaves of grain would be opened up and the stalks spread across the threshing floor. Pairs of donkeys or oxen (or sometimes cattle, or horses) would then be walked round and round, often dragging a heavy threshing board behind them, to tear the ears of grain from the stalks, and loosen the grain itself from the husks.  
  After this threshing process, the broken stalks and grain were collected and then thrown up into the air with a wooden winnowing fork or a winnowing fan. The chaff would be blown away by the wind; the short torn straw would fall some distance away; while the heavier grain would fall at the winnower's feet. The grain could then be further cleansed by sieving.
caption: A horse pulling a threshing-board on a threshing floor
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