EAA WORKING GROUP ON SUSTAINING THE HISTORIC 
ENVIRONMENT WITHIN FARMED LANDSCAPES IN EUROPE 
 

Background

Agricultural intensification and the restructuring of farming are recognised as significant threats to the archaeological resource in a number of European states, both within the European Union and beyond its boundaries.  Indeed, erosion as a result of intensifying or changing agricultural processes may now represent the single greatest threat to the continued survival of archaeological remains in many of these countries, particularly where impact assessment and mitigation measures have been established as a part of spatial planning and development control procedures. 

Intensive agricultural processes threaten not only archaeological and palaeoenvironmental remains, but also the cultural landscapes and historic buildings associated with traditional farming systems.  Pressures arise from:

• the use of bigger and more powerful farm machinery;
• adoption of more invasive cultivation methods;
• the drainage of wetland areas;
• the continued use of artificial fertilisers and pesticides;
• the cultivation of permanent pasture and other semi-natural areas;
• the removal of historic boundary features; 
• the abandonment of traditional extensive grazing regimes; and
• the increasing functional redundancy of historic farm buildings.. 

These processes are mirrored in a comparable degradation of fundamental natural resources such as water and soil and in a decline in the biodiversity of farmed landscapes.

These are not new processes, but they have been exacerbated during the last half century by a European agricultural policy geared towards ever greater production through intensification.  The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union has been particularly influential in this respect, although global pressures have resulted in similar pressures to intensify outside the EU.

Successive attempts to reform the CAP since the 1980’s have included measures intended to reduce production and, increasingly, to direct resources to environmental land management measures (so-called agri-environment schemes).  In some EU member states, most notably in the the UK and Eire, agri-environment measures extend to the positive management of the cultural heritage, including selected traditional buildings, historic landscapes and archaeological sites.

At the 10th Annual Meeting of the EAA held in September 2004 at Lyon, a session was held to consider the impacts of agriculture on the cultural heritage and to explore approaches towards the mitigation of these pressures.  At the conclusion of the session, a proposal was made to the EAA Executive Board that a working group be established to exchange information on this topic and consider how further work might be taken forward in order to address the problem.  This proposal was agreed by the EAA Board at its meeting in March 2005.  The first meeting of the group will take place in September 2005.

Membership

The Working Group membership, agreed by EAA Board, is as follows:

Steve Trow (England)    Chair 
steve.trow@english-heritage.org.uk

Jon Humble (England) Vice-chair 
jon.humble@english-heritage.org.uk

Dingeman Boogert (Netherlands) 
d.boogert@archis.nl

Karl Cordemans (Belgium) 
Karl.Cordemans@vlm.be

Leif Gren (Sweden) 
leif.gren@raa.se

Anne Nørgård Jørgensen (Denmark) 
ANJ@kuas.dk

Robert Middleton (England) 
bob.middleton-official@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Birgitte Skar (Norway) 
birgitte.skar@niku.no

Jonathan Wordsworth (Scotland) 
j.wordsworth@scottisharchaeology.org.uk
 

In addition, several colleagues have requested to be copied into Working Group correspondence and papers, as follows:

Christian Runeby 
Christian.Runeby@i.lst.se

Vince Holyoak 
Vince.holyoak@english-heritage.org.uk

Vicky Hunns 
victoria.hunns@naturalengland.org.uk

Mike Yates 
mike.yates@wales.gsi.gov.uk
 

Terms of reference

The Working Group’s terms of reference are as follows:

The EAA Working Group on Sustaining the Historic Environment within Farmed Landscapes in Europe, working closely with other relevant EAA Standing Committees and Working Groups, will:

1a. Monitor the implications for the conservation of the historic environment of developments in farming and rural environmental policy and organization in Europe;

1b. Collate information on the activities of international organizations and nation states which will have an impact on the historic environment component (including buried archaeological remains) of farmed landscapes; 

1c.   By encouraging the development of specific projects, contribute to assessing the impacts of agriculture on the historic environment in Europe, and the responses to these impacts by archaeologists and other managers of the historic environment;

1d. Seek to inform and influence international agendas and organizations (eg the    European Union, Council of Europe, UNESCO, EAC) in order to promote enhanced conservation of the historic environment within farmed landscapes, with the approval of the Board;

1e. Encourage European governments to establish or support arrangements to engage farmers in the positive management of the historic environment; with the approval of the Board and

1f.    Identify and disseminate guidance on research and best practice.

2. Advise and assist the EAA Executive Board on these matters.

3. Establish an e-mail discussion group and convene an appropriate forum at least once a year (e.g. a Round Table at the EAA annual conference)

4. Brief the EAA membership on issues discussed at the working group forums and also on other relevant matters
 

Useful links

Further information on the Common Agricultural Policy and measures to secure its reform are available at:

www.europa.eu.int (select Agriculture) 
www.defra.gov.uk (select Farming>Farming Policy).

Research on the agricultural impacts is available on a number of websites  including:

www.english-heritage.org.uk/farmadvice
www.defra.gov.uk/science/project_data/Documentlibrary/BD1701/BD1701_513_frp.pdf

Information on archaeology and agri-environment schemes and on advice to farmers and other land managers is available on: 

www.english-heritage.org.uk/farmadvice and 
www.scottisharchaeology.org.uk/advice/farming.html
 

At Arbury Banks Northamptonshire, ploughing has destroyed medieval ridge
and furrow earthworks overlying an Iron Age fortification and is eroding
the underlying site.

Romano-British mosaic at Stanwick in Northamptonshire, England under
excavation in 1989.  Arable cultivation has seriously damaged the
mosaic.

Padbury, Buckinghamshire, England in 2004 and 1953.  In the last half
century intensive agriculture has destroyed medieval field systems as
well as the loss of hedgerows and field trees.