An integrated economy: the exploitation of diverse pays in South-West England
Keywords:
medieval, transhumance, Dartmoor, Exe estuary, moorland, saltmarsh, Devon, EnglandAbstract
This paper presents recent research into contrasting physically marginal landscapes in South-West England: the granite upland of Dartmoor and intertidal saltmarshes beside the Exe Estuary, both in Devon. In a seminal study, Harold Fox (2012) revealed documentary evidence showing the importance of Dartmoor’s rich summer pasture along with a network of droveways that linked settlements in the lowlands with this seasonal grazing land. This paper reports on some new isotopic analysis of animal bones from the city of Exeter, revealing that some of the animals consumed by the urban population had indeed been grazed on Dartmoor (and that this small-scale transhumance had been practiced in the Roman period as well). Attention then turns to the extensive intertidal saltmarshes beside the Exe estuary whose reclamation reflects another expansion of agriculture into the South-West’s marginal landscapes.
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