Agricultural History Review, Volume 68 Part 1 (2020), pp. 1–21

Farming societies in large parts of northern Europe until the last century were founded on a close integration between livestock breeding and the cultivation of arable land. The emergence of this mixed farming economy represented a fundamental change in the history of the region. The main aim of this paper is to study this process of transformation in greater detail by using statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates and results from excavations in eastern Norway. The article discusses the details of a clear shift in farming traditions 1000–500 BC, including a large-scale expansion of farming land into areas of stone-rich moraine. It concludes that this represents the emergence of farming systems practised until recently in eastern Norway and that this change was an important part of the social and cultural developments that took place in the last part of the Bronze Age in Northern Europe. 

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