Soil cultures - the adaptive cycle of agrarian soil use in Central Europe: an interdisciplinary study using soil scientific and archaeological research

Abstract

Today's global challenges (e.g., food security) are not unprecedented in human history. Starting with the Neolithic transition, the agricultural sector and society underwent several cultural and technological changes and endured natural challenges. These challenges and changes are analyzed by using the adaptive cycle metaphor and the social-ecological system as tools to show the complexity of human-environment interactions and their development. The analysis relies on archaeological, pedological, and botanical research, and demonstrates the importance of interdisciplinary work. Agrarian soil use as a social-ecological system persisted in Central Europe for 7000 years and underwent an adaptive cycle from the Neolithic transition to industrialization. With agriculture's mechanization, a second adaptive cycle started. The resilience of agrarian soil use for thousands of years shows that agriculture, as a human-environmental interaction, is adaptive to change. Understanding past agricultural challenges and changes using archaeological and soil scientific data puts the present development into a new perspective. A cultural perspective on soils might trigger soil protection and sustainable land use in a technical as well as political domain. Applying social-ecological system and adaptive cycle concepts to this interdisciplinary reconstruction of agrarian soil use illustrates their usefulness for archaeology and soil science.

Keywords

• archaeobotany
• archaeology
• adaptive cycle
• agriculture
• historical overview
• social-ecological system
• soil science