No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Marks of ploughing preserved under burial mounds in northern Europe, and depictions from Mesopotamia, are dated by context. The first use could be older.
About credit
The plough, in the form of the scratch plough or ard, probably spread and evolved over many generations of farmers.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before the Plough
Fields were prepared by hand with digging sticks and hoes, which limited how much land a household could plant.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
Farmers attached a pointed wooden beam, an ard, to a frame and pulled it with oxen. It scratched a groove rather than turning the soil over. Much later, iron ploughshares and mouldboards that turn the soil appeared, especially in northern Europe.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
The Plough, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Pulling replaces digging
Harnessed animals supply far more power than a person bending over a hoe.
Pulling replaces digging
Opening the soil
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Food supply
Larger harvests supported larger populations and people who did not farm.
Land and property
Because ploughing needs animals and open fields, ownership and the organisation of land changed.
One farmer with draught animals could cultivate far more land. This produced surplus grain, and with it towns, trade and specialised crafts.
V
Before and after
Life before and after The Plough
Before
Hand digging, a few hundred square metres a day at best.
After
An ox team ploughing several times as much.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
Tractor-drawn ploughs apply the same principle using engines.
VII
Human stories
The people and the moments
The heavy plough
In wetter northern Europe, heavy clay soils needed stronger ploughs with wheels and a mouldboard. Historians debate how much these changed medieval settlement.
Where accounts differ, this museum follows the documented record and says so.
