permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

The Lost Forest Gardens of Europe
https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe?fbclid=IwAR3ZiyhD6-ivjIuDHKuS0hwKw5YYd2Icw4z7G0Xd-2ThmqgmJQ2g27hrUKg
Max Paschall
July 22, 2020
The Lost Forest Gardens of Europe
[image: europe hazelnut orchard mossy shade forest garden filbert farm]

*Contents*

   -

   People of the Hazel
   
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe#People-of-the-Hazel>:
   Europe’s indigenous cultures return after the glaciers retreat, bringing
   their most cherished tree with them
   -

   The Continent-Wide Orchard
   
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe#The-Continent-Wide-Orchard>:
   Mesolithic people create Europe’s post-glacial ecosystems as vast forest
   gardens
   -

   A Changing Climate
   
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe#A-Changing-Climate>:
   millennia of drastic fluctuations in the climate lead to the creation and
   spread of grain-based agriculture
   -

   Strength in Diversity
   
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe#Strength-in-Diversity>:
   early farmers innovate resilient crop mixes and companion planting to guard
   against climate change
   -

   Hybrid Cultures
   
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe#Hybrid-Cultures>:
   Europe’s new creolized societies mix the best of hunter-gatherer and farmer
   cultures, practices, livestock, and crops to create entirely new ways to
   grow food
   -

   The Domesticated Forest Garden
   
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe#The-Domesticated-Forest-Garden>:
   farmers in the Mediterranean adapt their region’s hunter-gatherer forest
   gardens into diverse multi-story farms, creating resilient agricultural
   forests of domesticated crops that exist to this day
   -

   Towards a New Culture
   
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe#Towards-a-New-Culture>:
   imperialist monoculture farming systems take precedence in Europe, but the
   indigenous forest garden methods survive in the margins. These ancient
   methods are nearly forgotten, but they can provide a framework for
   rethinking the way we live and grow food in a changing climate.

[image: 32e4472dcbfe51145223c14d4d693aea-1024x757.jpg]
Introduction

In the hills above the Po river in northern Italy, there are a handful of
farms that look almost the same today as they would have three thousand
years ago.

There are rows of short pruned trees, with fruit-laden grape vines
festooned between them. The trees are common natives in the area that
produce fruit, firewood, basketmaking materials, and fodder for farm
animals. The grapes are ancient cultivars that have been grown here for
millennia. Between these rows of grapes and trees are diverse plots of
cereals, hayfields, vegetables, and herbs. In a single field, one can find
all of the staples needed to live and support the farmstead, and more to
sell at a high premium. This is a resilient system - a farm modeled on a
forest. Unlike monocultures of grapes or grain, diversity is the strength
here. Disease outbreaks and unseasonable weather have a limited impact. If
one crop has a bad year, there are a dozen others to pick up the slack.
These are agricultural ecosystems designed to last millennia - and that is
exactly what they have done.
[image: A row of field maples ( Acer campestre ) trellis grape vines, and
are pollarded to harvest ‘tree hay’ fodder for livestock. Maize grows
beside the row. The grapes are harvested to make wine. Source .]

A row of field maples (*Acer campestre*) trellis grape vines, and are
pollarded to harvest ‘tree hay’ fodder for livestock. Maize grows beside
the row. The grapes are harvested to make wine. Source
<https://www.venetoagricoltura.org/upload/pubblicazioni/E491%20PAESAGGI%20AGRARI/Parte%20seconda%202.2%20.pdf>
.

This style of growing is called *coltura promiscua* - “mixed cultivation” -
a practice with roots that run deep in these hills. It is one of a handful
of truly indigenous systems of farming remaining throughout Europe, adapted
and perfected over thousands of years from the earliest hunter-gatherers
through to the present day. It has shrugged off extreme climate change
events, countless wars and invasions, pestilence and plagues, cultural
erasure and colonization. This is the kind of farming system that is needed
in the 21st century: a fully-integrated three-dimensional farm ecosystem
that supports people and animals, provides staples and specialty products,
increases local biodiversity, and does not require chemicals or elaborate
technology.
[image: grape harvest vines trees coltura promiscua italy veneto ancient
farming methods]

Whereas modern industrial agriculture is descended from a distinctly
imperialist
Roman plantation system <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latifundium> based
on slave labor, systems like *coltura promiscua* are the direct descendants
of the indigenous forest gardens of pre-agricultural Europe. Since the
Neolithic
Revolution <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution>, an
assortment of farming systems in Europe that relied heavily on monocultures
and a handful of finicky staple crops often ended abruptly and violently.
The diverse forest gardens of peasants, however, have quietly shrugged off
ten thousand years of turbulent changes. When This article is a look at the
little-known history of these systems and their innovative strategies for
survival.

As we search for ways to remake the way we garden, farm, and live in a time
of climate change, extreme inequality, and political disarray, looking back
at the innovations of Europe’s hidden agroecological past can provide
invaluable lessons on how we might collectively move forward.
People of the Hazel
[image: A Mesolithic shaman’s deer headdress from Star Carr in Scotland.
Source .]

A Mesolithic shaman’s deer headdress from Star Carr in Scotland. Source
<https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/review-a-survival-story-prehistoric-life-at-star-carr.htm>
.

Our story begins with the last retreat of the glaciers from Europe around
15,000 years ago, a period known as the Mesolithic (‘middle stone age’)
which ended with the introduction of farming from the Near East five to ten
thousand years later. Mesolithic Europe, populated entirely by
hunter-gatherer tribes, was an incredibly diverse place in terms of
ethnicity, culture, land management, religion, and food. Societies across
the continent innovated unique ways to thrive in their respective
landscapes for millennia.
[image: Mesolithic people constructed their houses from locally-available
materials. Hazel poles often comprised the skeleton of the structure, and
reeds like Phragmites australis (now endangered in Europe, but a common
invasive in North America) were used as thatching. Mesolithic societies
were experts at creating thriving societies whose only traces were stone
tools and a more diverse landscape. Source .]

Mesolithic people constructed their houses from locally-available
materials. Hazel poles often comprised the skeleton of the structure, and
reeds like *Phragmites australis* (now endangered in Europe, but a common
invasive in North America) were used as thatching. Mesolithic societies
were experts at creating thriving societies whose only traces were stone
tools and a more diverse landscape. Source
<https://exarc.net/issue-2020-1/ea/mesolithic-hut-reconstructions-netherlands>
.

After the glaciers retreated, the continent was a cold tundra of lichens,
mugwort, dwarf willow, and sea buckthorn - populated by prehistoric
megafauna and migratory bands of humans returning from their Ice Age
refugia in the mountains. Around 9,600 BCE, global temperatures rose 7°C in
less than a decade
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/After_the_Ice/NVygmardAA4C?gbpv=1&hl=en&pg=PA54&printsec=frontcover>,
allowing for temperate deciduous forests to return. Populations of
Mesolithic humans expanded rapidly across Europe, bringing their most
prized plant with them: hazel.
[image: tundra europe norway ice age lichen dwarf willow birch stone]

Much as peaches, once introduced, were spread across North America
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/2018/9/5/peaches-were-americas-first-invasive-species>
by indigenous people in a matter of decades, the pollen record shows that
hazel (*Corylus avellana*) suddenly becomes ubiquitous across Europe as
soon as the climate warmed, brought to every corner of the continent by
hunter-gatherers. Hazel was the original Tree of Life for Mesolithic
Europeans. The nuts are about 60% fat and 20% carbohydrates, and contain a
wide range of proteins, vitamins and minerals
<https://www.nomadseed.com/2019/04/the-american-hazelnut/> - a few handfuls
can cover most of a person’s daily energy needs. Its branches, tall and
flexible but slender enough to cut with a flint axe, were used for tools
and firewood. Mesolithic thatched huts were often made with hazelwood
beams. From cradle to grave, the people of Mesolithic Europe relied on
hazel more than any other single plant. Excavations of habitation sites
from this period can turn up hundreds of thousands of roasted hazelnut
shells. For over five thousand years, this single plant was the lifegiver
to nearly all of Europe’s people.
[image: hazelnuts filberts nuts shelled mesolithic staple crop food native
indigenous hunter gatherer europe]
The Continent-Wide Orchard

In addition to hazel, Mesolithic people utilized up to 450 different
species of edible plants - many of which were common plants of forest edge
habitats. Wild vegetables (many of which are considered weeds today) like
nettle, knotweed, lesser celandine, dock, lambs quarters, fruits like sloe
plum, rowan, hawthorn, crabapple, pear, cherry, grape, raspberry, and
tubers of aquatic plants were all part of the Mesolithic diet
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/Hunters-Fishers-and-Foragers-in-Wales-Towards-a-Social-Narrative-of-Mesolithic-Lifeways-by-Malcolm-L.pdf>.
These European native plants were likely utilized by Mesolithic hunter
gatherers for the same reason they are often seen as weeds today: they’re
extremely resilient, aggressive, and adaptive species that can be
encouraged to grow with minimal effort.
[image: nettles nettle urtica dioica food medicine native europe]

These were not bands of starving cavemen constantly on the precipice of
death, but rich and resilient societies that had a much more diverse diet
than most present-day Europeans. Researchers found that a young girl who
died 5,700 years ago in southern Denmark ate duck and hazelnuts
<https://dnascience.plos.org/2019/12/19/5700-year-old-lola-her-genome-sequenced-from-gum-joins-other-named-forebears/>
- a far richer (and tastier) diet than most kindergarteners in Western
countries have today.

And for their rich and diverse diet, Mesolithic people worked less than
anyone who came after. Hunting and gathering requires just a few hours of
work each day - far easier than farming, much less modern work schedules.
After helping to create Europe’s forests by bringing favored plants like
hazel with them, they continued to manage their landscape with hand tools
and fire. Europe was not a pristine wilderness, but a continent of
handcrafted nut orchards and semi-wild forest gardens carefully managed for
thousands of years. This tracks with common themes around the world:
indigenous people in Australia
<https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-first-farmers-20110930-1l1gv.html>,
North
<https://www.esperanzaproject.com/2019/native-american-culture/lyla-june-on-the-forest-as-farm/>
and South
<https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/its-now-clear-that-ancient-humans-helped-enrich-the-amazon/518439/>
America, and elsewhere have used fire and specialized hand tools to achieve
unprecedented levels of environmental stewardship and management for
millennia. Nor was this anything new: humans (and their Neanderthal and *Homo
heidelbergensis *ancestors) have been shaping Europe’s ecology for over
800,000 years. These Mesolithic forest gardens were simply the most recent
and nuanced manifestation of an ancient ecological relationship.
[image: Controlled burns of the forest and savannah allowed Mesolithic
Europeans to alter and diversify their environment on a large scale,
creating new habitats that fed people and supported more wildlife. Source .]

Controlled burns of the forest and savannah allowed Mesolithic Europeans to
alter and diversify their environment on a large scale, creating new
habitats that fed people and supported more wildlife. Source
<https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/controlled-burning/>.

Areas around settlements and camp sites were regularly burned
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/zvelebil1994.pdf> to limit the
encroachment of the forest, and to favor food-producing forest edge trees
species. These controlled burns established open park-like habitats, which
could lead to a tenfold increase
<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/595ca91bebbd1a1d0aaab285/t/596da1671b631b29938857d1/1500356987168/Grazing+Ecology+and+Forest+History+-+%282000%29.pdf#page=105>
in the amount of wild game animals present, creating greater opportunities
for hunting red deer, wild boar, and aurochs
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs>. In some places, people created
forest openings to encourage the growth of English ivy
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/simmons1974.pdf> (*Hedera helix*)
- a favorite food of red deer. These ivy patches essentially served as
semi-wild feedlots in the wintertime, allowing people to hunt deer, or
possibly even to establish semi-domesticated herds (much as the indigenous
Sami people in northern Scandinavia have today with semi-domesticated herds
of reindeer).
[image: red deer english ivy forest landscape management mesolithic hedera
helix]

Coppicing <https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/zvelebil1994.pdf> was
another important strategy for managing the Mesolithic forest garden.
Certain trees and shrubs, like hazel, can be cut to the ground every few
years. Instead of hurting the tree, this effectively rejuvenates it,
allowing the plant to live far longer than it would if unmanaged. Hazel in
a wild state generally lives around 70 or 80 years, but with regular
coppicing it can thrive and produce wood and nuts for centuries
<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/595ca91bebbd1a1d0aaab285/t/596da1671b631b29938857d1/1500356987168/Grazing+Ecology+and+Forest+History+-+%282000%29.pdf#page=153>.
Willow, another plant with many uses and benefits
<https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2012/02/basketry-the-art-of-producing-sustainable-consumer-goods.html>,
is managed in this way as well. Coppicing lent itself perfectly to
Mesolithic technology: without saws or metal tools, it was far easier to
harvest small-diameter trees and branches than large trunks. For
cultivating or regenerating patches of wild vegetables or semi-domesticated
grains, Mesolithic Europeans also had a wide range of hand tools
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/zvelebil1994.pdf> at their
disposal, including flint axes, wooden and antler hoes, mattocks, and
digging sticks. The open forest gardens that surrounded Mesolithic camp
sites and settlements could be managed this way for millennia.
[image: Hazel coppice woods are still maintained throughout northern Europe
and Turkey] <https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5009406>
[image: By cutting the hazel shrub down to the base every few years, the
plant regenerates and can be kept productive for centuries or more]
<https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5656440>
[image: Hazel shrubs can grow in dark woods or open field settings.
Management with fire likely kept hazel orchards sunny during the Mesolithic]
<https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/280228>
[image: A wide range of woodland perennials naturally grow in coppice woods
- including wild foraged delicacies like ramson (wild leeks)]
<https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/179124>
A wide range of woodland perennials naturally grow in coppice woods -
including wild foraged delicacies like ramson (wild leeks)
[image: Oftentimes hazel coppices include 'standards', or uncoppiced trees.
These oak standards around coppiced hazels in England show what Mesolithic
nut orchards may have looked like]
<https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/276247>
[image: Because coppices can let in sunlight, weed management is key.
Mesolithic hunter gatherers periodically burned or hoed their wild forest
gardens to maintain an open parklike environment]
<https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1416764>
[image: Coppicing hazel shrubs every 5-10 years provides extremely useful
poles that can be used for stakes, firewood, construction, tools and tool
handles, weapons, fences, and crafts]
<https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1750489>
A Changing Climate

For thousands of years, Mesolithic people across Eurasia had lived by their
covenant with the web of life: a sacred pact that was defined by reciprocal
relationships with their human and non-human neighbors. Unbeknownst to
them, however, major events half a globe away were about to change this way
of life forever.

Around 10,800 BCE the North American ice sheets collapsed, causing glacial
melt waters to cool the North Atlantic and kickstarting a global drop in
temperatures. Within a few centuries, conditions in Europe and the Near
East were almost as cold as the previous Ice Age. This period, known
as the Younger
Dryas <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas>, lasted for over a
thousand years. In the Near East, hunter-gatherer cultures saw their entire
way of life collapse. Their Edenic landscape of fruit and nut trees
withered in the cold, the large herds of wild game disappeared. They had
always grown and eaten the seeds of native grasses as a supplemental part
of their diet. During the Younger Dryas, however, these grasses (and some
legumes) became the only crops they could reasonably rely on. A thousand
years of planting and harvesting had the effect of fully domesticating
these species
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/After_the_Ice/NVygmardAA4C?gbpv=1&hl=en&pg=PA54&printsec=frontcover>.
When the climate finally warmed again in 9,600 BCE, they had a crop that
had never been seen before: grain. Wheat, barley, peas, beans, and flax had
gone from wild survival foods to domesticated staples. A period of dramatic
climate change had brought about a new class of food that would forever
change the world. This new age, defined not by hunting and gathering, but
by the cultivation of grains, is known as the Neolithic (“new stone age”).
[image: grain field farming neolithic first cereal agriculture younger
dryas natufians]

The traditional narrative states that the ‘Neolithization’ of Europe (the
replacement of hunting-gathering with grain farming) occurred as a wave
from ~6,500 BCE in Greece to ~2500 BCE in Scandinavia, with farming
cultures from the Near East bringing grain and livestock, leading to the
end of the inferior Mesolithic hunter-gatherer way of life. A wealth of
recent archaeological evidence, however, points to a very different story.

Every dramatic change or fluctuation in climate, from the Neolithic to the
present day, precipitates major changes in agriculture
<http://www.ehes.org/EHES_75.pdf>. As we’ve seen, people created productive
environments by spreading hazelnuts across Europe when the climate warmed
after the Younger Dryas. The Little Ice Age
<https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47063973> of the 17th century
led to massive failures in Europe’s grain harvest, prompting the
widespread adoption
of the potato
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/Climate-crises-and-the-neolithisation-of-Central-Europe-between-IRD-events-6-and-4.pdf>
and other New World crops. Similarly, the adoption of cereal farming in
Europe did not happen at a continuous pace, but occurred in surges
associated with severe climate fluctuations over the course of thousands of
years.
[image: Some of the oldest landraces of grain are still grown on the
fringes of Europe. This ‘Bere’ barley has been grown in the Hebrides
islands of Scotland for around 6,000 years. It is so old that its name is
from a pre-Indo-European language that is now extinct. This barley has been
preserved by small crofters for millennia and, like many ancestral crop
landraces, has unique adaptations and qualities that are missing in modern
barley varieties.]

Some of the oldest landraces of grain are still grown on the fringes of
Europe. This ‘Bere’ barley has been grown in the Hebrides islands of
Scotland for around 6,000 years. It is so old that its name is from a
pre-Indo-European language that is now extinct. This barley has been
preserved by small crofters for millennia and, like many ancestral crop
landraces, has unique adaptations and qualities
<https://www.facebook.com/shelterwoodforestfarm/photos/a.1611294505639692/2549779838457816/>
that are missing in modern barley varieties.

Grain was a radically new type of food for Europeans. Unlike tree crops
that take years to mature, cereals provide immediate food security in a
pinch as they can be grown and harvested in a single season. With each
period of climate-induced chaos in Europe’s prehistory, cereal farming
communities expanded ever deeper into Mesolithic Europe. When conditions
improved, these farming communities grew in population far more quickly
than the relatively stable hunter-gatherer tribes. Mesolithic people were
not unaware of grain growing - they had been experimenting with it for
millennia before Near Eastern farming cultures entered the scene. The
spread of farming, therefore, was not due to the supposed superiority of
grains, but because repeated periods of climate change and the resulting
social chaos pushed Mesolithic Europeans to adopt new ways of life
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/Climate-crises-and-the-neolithisation-of-Central-Europe-between-IRD-events-6-and-4.pdf>
to survive.

Indeed, Mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities continued to live peaceably
side-by-side with Neolithic farming communities for thousands of years
<https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/sites/biosciences/files/Bollongino_Sci13_parallel_societies.pdf>
before adopting agriculture. As in many parts of Europe, the cultures of
Mesolithic Sweden had depended on hazelnuts for millennia - with some
scholars even dubbing this period the “Nut Age.”
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/FULLTEXT02.pdf> When Neolithic
grain-farming communities entered southern Sweden around 5,500 BCE, the
native hazel-based cultures continued to practice their traditional ways
for another 1,600 years. It was only when a period of dramatic cooling
began that hazel populations in the region plummeted and Mesolithic
communities, now without their sacred life-giving tree, adopted grain
farming by 3,900 BCE. This was a story repeated throughout Europe.
Eventually, however, nearly all of Europe adopted grain farming.
Strength in Diversity

For the first few millennia of farming in Europe, before the advent of 
traction
ploughing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ard_%28plough%29#History>,
families cultivated the land with digging sticks, hoes, mattocks, and
footploughs. This was human-scale agriculture, unable to expand past the
limits of a person’s energy. As a result, Neolithic farming communities
generally did not overexploit their environment, but instead cultivated
small plots of land for vast lengths of time with hand tools, crop
rotations, and fertilization from livestock manure, compost, and night soil
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil> - leaving the land they tended
more fertile than when they found it. These ancient farmsteads were the
original “regenerative farming” innovators, and in many ways resembled
today’s small organic farms and homesteads of a few acres. Monocultures did
not yet exist as a concept.

Grains were not grown as fields of a single variety, but as diverse mixes
of cereals and legumes called ‘maslins’ (or ‘mashlum’
<http://www.livingfield.co.uk/crop/mashlum-a-traditional-mix-of-oats-and-beans/>
in Scots). Ancient grains like emmer, einkorn, and barley were grown
together with peas and lentils. Hemp, flax, and poppies were common
supplemental crops as well. These diverse mixed fields were far more
resilient than monocultures - in some parts of Europe, they’ve existed
unchanged for 4,000 years
<https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1601-5223.1966.tb02087.x>.

[image: Grain]
[image: Peas]
[image: Hemp]
[image: Flax]
[image: Poppies]
Poppies

In modern grain farming, a single variety of wheat is planted over hundreds
of acres. If a season is unfavorable, the farmer will lose the entire crop.
Ancient maslins, however, protected against this. Seasonal weather
differences might benefit einkorn one year, and barley the next. Whether
the year was cold or hot, wet or dry, there would always be a crop to
harvest. Unlike modern varieties, ancient grain landraces were bred to have
a long harvest window that protected them against total crop failure in
case of a freak weather event. Maslins of crop landraces were a simple but
effective way for small farmers to hedge their bets against variable
seasonality and climate change. Newer research
<https://www.agricology.co.uk/field/blog/plant-teams-field-intercropping-practice-uk-and-sweden>
into growing mixes of cereals and legumes has confirmed what Neolithic
farmers always knew: that these intercrop mixes of grain and legumes are
superior to monocultures by nearly every metric.
Hybrid Cultures

Along with grains and legumes, Neolithic farmers brought domesticated
livestock like cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep. Because these Near Eastern
landraces of farm animals were not always well-adapted to Europe’s climate
and conditions, farmers often intentionally cross-bred
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/Farmers_at_the_Frontier/x3LSDwAAQBAJ?gbpv=1&hl=en&pg=PA12&printsec=frontcover>
their domestic cows and pigs with native aurochs and wild boar in Europe,
resulting in offspring that were domesticated but far better adapted to
local conditions. Many of the oldest European landraces of cattle and pigs
today are the direct descendants of these Neolithic hybrids of wild and
domesticated animals. The Iberian pig, a Spanish landrace that is made into
the world-famous *jamón ibérico*, is very similar to its Neolithic
ancestors - a mix of swine and wild boar genetics.
[image: Iberian pigs forage below oak trees in a Spanish dehesa . Source .]

Iberian pigs forage below oak trees in a Spanish *dehesa*. Source
<https://www.moniberic.com/blog/en/what-is-a-dehesa/>.

In Spain the Iberian pig is a central component of the *dehesa* system
<http://www.doctorrange.com/PDF/Dehesa.pdf> - an ancient agroecological
masterpiece. The *dehesas* are man-made oak savannahs throughout Spain and
Portugal, populated with traditional landraces of livestock on grassland,
with holm oak (*Quercus ilex*) and cork oak (*Quercus suber*) dotting the
landscape. *Jamón ibérico*, wild game, and non-meat products like truffles,
mushrooms, honey, fighting bulls, and cork are valuable yields in this
system.
[image: Cattle graze in a cork oak savannah - a classic dehesa ecosystem
that produces much of the cork used in Europe’s wine industry. The cork is
in the bark of the tree and is periodically removed, as can be seen here.
Source .]

Cattle graze in a cork oak savannah - a classic *dehesa* ecosystem that
produces much of the cork used in Europe’s wine industry. The cork is in
the bark of the tree and is periodically removed, as can be seen here.
Source <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehesa>.

As an agroecosystem it has existed in its basic form for at least 4,500
years <https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/joffre1999.pdf>, and in
essence is a domesticated form of the fire-managed Mesolithic nut tree
savannahs - replacing aurochs and wild boar with cattle and pigs. Not only
is the *dehesa* a low-input silvopasture system, it has existed for so many
millennia that it is now an important ecosystem in its region, allowing it
to support an enormous range of biodiversity (including endangered species
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/13/pigs-radical-farming-system-trees-climate-crisis>
like the Iberian lynx, imperial eagle, and black vulture). These systems
challenge the very definition of farming, and show us what agriculture can
be when people create it as a fully-fledged ecosystem, rather than simply a
way to mine nutrients from the soil.

This documentary is an excellent introduction to the *dehesa *system

In other areas, the adaptation of the Mesolithic forest garden took the
form of fruit-chestnut silvopastures created as semi-natural open forests.
These included diverse nut and fruit assemblages
<https://edepot.wur.nl/119324> (such as chestnut, carob, almond, fig,
olive, hazel, cork oak) that allowed for livestock grazing beneath them. A
culture of chestnut forest management in Corsica
<https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss2/art5/> shows how the use of
perennial nut crops as a staple has never left Europe.
[image: Annually coppiced willow beds are a source of fine materials for
wickerwork and other crafts. Source .]

Annually coppiced willow beds are a source of fine materials for wickerwork
and other crafts. Source
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/travel/artisan-joe-hogan-irelands-master-basket-maker/>
.

The practice of coppicing trees did not end in the Mesolithic either. The
wild willow-thick streambanks became managed willow beds that were planted
with cuttings of the best plants. These willow beds were coppiced every
year for crafts and toolmaking. Wicker basketry became such an elevated
artform in the British Isles that fine Celtic baskets were imported by
Roman aristocrats. The word ‘basket’ itself (originally ‘*bascauda*’) is
one of the only words of Celtic origin in the deeply colonized
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1XQx9pGGd0> English language. Coppice
woods of chestnut, linden, hazel, and other useful species have remained an
essential and ancient part of the British landscape, providing materials
for housing, tools and crafts, charcoal production, mushroom cultivation,
and even rich pockets of endangered biodiversity
<https://www.conservationhandbooks.com/coppicing-cut-trees-conservation/>.
[image: Old coppice woods are irreplaceable habitats for rare species,
including these bluebells - a species associated with ancient woodlands]

Old coppice woods are irreplaceable habitats for rare species, including
these bluebells - a species associated with ancient woodlands

One of the most recognizable evolutions of Mesolithic forest gardens,
however, is the hedgerow. The most common forest edge species of fruits and
nuts that were cultivated by Mesolithic people - sloe plum, rowan,
hawthorn, crabapple, wild cherry, brambles, etc. - also happen to be the
most common hedge plants in northern Europe. During the Neolithic
Revolution, new farming cultures discovered an innovative way to manage and
integrate these species by planting them thickly in rows around their farms
and cereal fields, and periodically rejuvenating them with strategic
pruning. The native forest edge ecosystem - in essence, the plant
supermarket of Mesolithic people - was compressed into an architectural
feature of the new agrarian landscape as a multifunctional barrier that
demarcated land, kept livestock in or out of certain areas, and provided
food <http://www.hedgerowharvest.org.uk/Foraging>, fodder, firewood, tool
handles, medicine
<http://www.hedgerowharvest.org.uk/Oral-History/Tag/Herbalism>, and other
materials.
[image: Hedgerows are living boundaries with enormous functionality and
ecological benefit. Source .]

Hedgerows are living boundaries with enormous functionality and ecological
benefit. Source
<https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/sinn-fein-call-for-extension-to-glas-hedgerow-period/>
.

Hedgerows were sometimes used as defensive barriers as well: the Nervii
tribe of northern Gaul nearly wiped out Caesar’s invading legions in 57 BCE
by using their hedgerows to limit Roman maneuvering. In the present day,
Europe’s hedgerows provide a new benefit in serving as a repository for
biodiversity. In highly deforested areas like Ireland, hedgerows are often
the largest gene bank of native tree biodiversity that has otherwise been
lost. They also serve as a crucial corridor for wildlife
<https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/hedging-biodiversity/>,
connecting the few remaining patches of natural space that remain. The wild
fruit orchards of indigenous hunter-gatherers exist to this day in the form
of these living barriers that crisscross the old fields of central Europe.
[image: hedegrows crisscrossing landscape old fields and farms europe
england hedge biodiversity national geographic patchwork quilts of english
countryside]
The Domesticated Forest Garden

The new creole societies that arose in Europe were fantastically diverse,
mixing Mesolithic hunter-gatherer cultures and the newer farming
communities. Cultures that strayed too far from their hunter-gatherer roots
and relied too heavily on a handful of grain crops, like the Linear Pottery
culture <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Pottery_culture> of central
Europe, were able to expand rapidly but could not maintain a sustainable
existence. As soon as the climate began to deteriorate, the Linear Pottery
culture collapsed in on itself with unprecedented violence
<https://bit.ly/388U2Wi>.

Other hybrid cultures that emerged from this time, however, found ways to
marry the best of both worlds. These societies relied on the new cereals
for their staples, but supplemented them with a broad range of indigenous
foods and growing systems. Some places saw hunter-gatherers adopt
domesticated livestock but eschew grain
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/After_the_Ice/NVygmardAA4C?gbpv=1&hl=en&pg=PA189&printsec=frontcover>,
while in others Neolithic farmers embraced local land management techniques
and native tree crops. The two radically different societies rarely came
into conflict, and intermarriage between them was common throughout Europe.
Many Mesolithic practices, beliefs, and systems were blended into the new
European societies as a result of this peaceful intermingling.
[image: nut tree in field]

In the Euganean hills above the Po river in northeastern Italy, a Neolithic
culture combined the cereal crops of the Near East with Mesolithic forest
garden management. Farmers performed controlled burns of their landscape,
radically changing the local ecosystem from a linden-fir forest to a
chestnut-walnut
grain savannah
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/kaltenrieder20101.pdf>. For 5,000
years, these farmers regularly set low-level fires that cleared out weeds
and small trees, and sowed cereals, flax, and hemp in the fresh soil. They
planted chestnut and walnut trees in these cereal fields, along with
olives, grapes, and willows, creating a diverse multistory agrarian
landscape that provided a wide range of products and crops from a single
area. This type of farming is reminiscent of the famous indigenous *milpas*
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Maya_Forest_Garden/XVyTDAAAQBAJ?dq=milpa%20polyculture&gbpv=1&hl=en&pg=PT43&printsec=frontcover>
of the Americas - to this day, some of the most advanced agricultural
systems in the world.

The introduction of agriculture in Tuscany also saw the managed forests of
the Mesolithic <https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/bellini2008.pdf>
reorganized into a more domesticated form on the farm. Unlike most places
in Europe, Tuscany maintained a great deal of its ancestral culture,
avoiding the worst of the Indo-European invasions that wiped out
<https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/10/03/inenglish/1538568010_930565.html>
much of the continent’s indigenous cultures during the Bronze Age. As such,
the region maintained an unbroken link to its prehistoric past even up
through the Etruscan civilization in the Iron Age.

The Etruscans enjoyed a highly diversified diet that consisted of many
different annual grains and legumes, along with perennials like cultivated
grapes, wild cherries, hazelnuts, acorns, olives, pears, and figs. The
first wine here was made with native Cornelian cherries
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornus_mas> (*Cornus mas*), before superior
grape varieties were introduced through trade. The Etruscans developed a
diverse forest garden system that has become known in Italian as *coltura
promiscua*, or “mixed cultivation.” Like the extensive forest gardens of
the Euganean hills, these farms were a creolization of local Mesolithic
agroecology - tree crops and native perennials - with Near Eastern cereal
farming. It is a system that has survived to the modern day.
[image: On this farm, mulberries trellising grape vines are pollarded in
alternate years.]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
[image: Pollarding trees in this system allows grapes and field crops to
get more light, keep the trees at a manageable size, and provides leaf
fodder for farm animals and bundles of sticks]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
Pollarding trees in this system allows grapes and field crops to get more
light, keep the trees at a manageable size, and provides leaf fodder for
farm animals and bundles of sticks
[image: A grape vine is trellised in a mulberry tree]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
[image: Over millennia, many styles of trellising grapes into trees have
been created]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
[image: These trellising styles are almost forgotten, but represent an
entire class of knowledge that is thousands of years old]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
[image: The interplay of pollarding trees and trellising grapes requires
specific tools and expertise]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
[image: Fortunately, this knowledge was recorded in a handful of books
centuries ago]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
[image: These agroecological systems are ancient, but can be revived once
again]

The practice of trellising grapes into trees is one of the most ancient
parts of this system
<http://www.guadoalmelo.it/en/wine-and-the-etruscan-ii-the-married-vine-three-thousand-and-more-years-of-viticulture-and-art/>,
known as *alberata*, *vite maritata*, or *arbustum gallicum*. Roman authors
wrote extensively about its use: Pliny claimed that vines grown on
trees produce
better wine <https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/lelle1994.pdf> (a
claim that is also echoed in American viticulturist T.V. Munson’s
observation that these vines also avoid rot and mildew
<https://www.google.com/books/edition/Foundations_of_American_Grape_Culture/apklAAAAMAAJ?gbpv=1&hl=en&pg=PA242&printsec=frontcover>).
The tree to which the grapevine is “married” changes based on local
environmental and economic factors. In some areas of Italy, the mulberry
has been used as grape trellis in order to provide fruit, livestock fodder,
and silk worm rearing. In wet areas, willow or poplar was used. In the
hills, cherries were often the trellis. Everything from field maple and
chestnut to olive and elm
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf> can be
utilized in this system.

*Coltura promiscua* is, at its core, a domesticated facsimile of the
prehistoric forest garden. Whereas their Mesolithic ancestors had gathered
wild grains, fruits and nuts, medicine, and wood from the managed forest
surrounding their villages, Etruscans and their descendants created a
complex polycultural <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyculture> system
that maintained these elements in a controlled and linear setting:
domesticated grapes climbing rows of (usually native) trees that are
pollarded for fodder or materials for basketry and firewood, or harvested
for fruit and oil, all enclosing small fields of diverse grains, legumes,
hay, and vegetables that are rotated to maintain fertility. This system
allows for the production of staple crops and specialty products for
market, and expands the ability to farm to a wider range of soils and
conditions <https://archive.org/details/etruscans00grae/page/193/mode/1up>.
[image: A strip of maize between rows of mulberry and grape.]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
[image: Hay is harvested and collected in some strips.]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
[image: Coltura promiscua is highly diverse in spacing, crop assemblages,
and trellising styles. Here, rows of trees and grapes are widely spaced to
allow for maximum field crop production.]
<https://www.reterurale.it/downloads/Dossier_Piantata_veneta.pdf>
Coltura promiscua is highly diverse in spacing, crop assemblages, and
trellising styles. Here, rows of trees and grapes are widely spaced to
allow for maximum field crop production.

These domesticated landscapes are fully integrated into the local
ecosystem, forming networks of connectivity between local woodlands. As
mosaics of trees, grains, stone features, and waterways, they create oases
<https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/s/barbera20141.pdf> of profound
biological, hydrological, and geological diversity in the landscape. The
diversity and strength of this system made it resistant to invasion
<https://ladonaira.com/in-praise-of-promiscuous-cultures/> by the deadly
Phylloxera <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_French_Wine_Blight> that
obliterated the weaker grape monocultures of France. Crop introductions,
through invasions or trade routes, are the only major change this system
has seen in two millennia. Species from Asia and the Americas (citrus,
maize, etc.) have seamlessly entered *coltura promiscua* and are now staple
crops in these systems.
[image: Diverse, well-integrated farms like coltura promiscua support
significantly more native biodiversity than modern monocultures. Source:
BUNDESAMT, F. U., &amp; LANDSCHAFT, W. U. (1997). Umwelt in der Schweiz
1997. Berna, Buwal.]

Diverse, well-integrated farms like *coltura promiscua* support
significantly more native biodiversity than modern monocultures. Source:
BUNDESAMT, F. U., & LANDSCHAFT, W. U. (1997). Umwelt in der Schweiz 1997.
Berna, Buwal.
Towards a New Culture

The ancient peasant farmers who fashioned this forest garden system
continued to hunt wild game and harvest wild foods, just as their
descendants in Tuscany do today. The culture and cuisine of Tuscany - from
truffle hunting to winemaking - is part of a 30,000-year-old unbroken
tradition and relationship with the land. The elegance and near-perfection
of these temperate forest gardens is shown in how they have thrived for
millennia on some of the most contested land in Europe, surviving climate
change, war, pestilence, drought, and economic upheaval.

Only the proliferation of postwar neoliberal economic policy in the 20th
century has managed to drive this peerless system to the brink of
extinction. Indeed, *coltura promiscua* has nearly vanished in its native
land for the same reasons that other European agroecological systems have
disappeared. Urbanization and rural depopulation in the modern period have
virtually eliminated traditional environmental knowledge and the labor base
for maintenance and harvest. The intensification of the modern capitalist
paradigm has incentivized extractive cash crop monocultures over
self-sufficiency or regenerative methods. Postwar mechanization, which is
built for monocultures and economies of scale, is not suited to the small,
hand-tended agroecosystems that require a high degree of expertise in
shaping and working with the natural world.

Medieval manorial feudalism, the American plantation system and Jim Crow,
and modern industrialized farming are all descendants of the slavery-based
monocrop agricultural systems
<https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1544&context=nchcjournal#page=5&zoom=auto,-193,149>
that the Roman empire forced on the land in their effort to subdue and
replace Europe’s tribal societies. Oppressive systems like these have
always flown the banner of efficiency and profit without regard for human
well-being or ecological destruction. This essential struggle between
extractive imperialist systems, and indigenous land-based lifeways, is
still ongoing across Europe and its former colonies - particularly the
Americas. The rapid disappearance of the *dehesas*, coppice woods, willow
beds, hedgerows, and Mediterranean forest gardens are all connected in this
fight. What’s at stake in their survival is not the preservation of a
bygone relic, but the protection and expansion of relationships with the
land that can feed our communities, preserve biodiversity through climate
change, and create productive ecosystems that last for millennia.

Despite what we’ve been told, the indigenous Mesolithic societies of Europe
never disappeared: they adapted, and survived in new ways. Their cultures,
values, spiritual beliefs, and relationships with the land are encoded in
the folk traditions and regional agroecological systems that persist
throughout Europe. These are an essential piece of an antidote to the toxic
empire-based culture that currently holds sway over our society.

They are an example of what we might lose if we forget too much, but also
of what we can create again. Our present crises of climate change, extreme
inequality, imperialism run amok, and endemic violence eerily mirror the
downfalls of previous cultures that relied too heavily on a handful of
finicky crops and an expansionist ethos. But this time of chaos can also be
an opportunity, a chance to emulate the older cultures that replaced them:
those who planted trees in the ruins of empire, who remade the Commons on
abandoned plantations, and quietly continued to tend their small forest
garden as their ancestors had before them. We may have inherited the most
destructive systems of extraction and exploitation ever seen, but we have
also inherited the seeds for a better way to live: a way that our oldest
ancestors knew and cherished.

Perhaps it is time that we plant those seeds once again.