|
Development of the Habitat
- Neolithic farmers began to clear early woodland from about 4000BC.
- From the Bronze Age cereals were increasingly grown on the chalk.
Livestock were grazed when the soil became too impoverished to grow
crops.
- From the Middle Ages until the First World War sheep farming was
the major activity. Only in times of national emergency was the land
ploughed temporarily.
- Evidence from the pollen record shows the sudden appearance of
grasses, grassland herbs and cereals.
- Intensive cultivation of these early periods is visible today as
strip lynchets and Celtic fields.
- With the repeal of the Corn Laws in the 19th century wheat growing
became unprofitable and much of Porton Down reverted to the downland
present today.
|
|
