Agricultural Systems of Eurasia AD 1000, 1500, 1800

People of the large Eurasian landmass have been connected by long distance trade with an ongoing exchange of commodities and ideas for millennia. Nevertheless, different agricultural systems emerged in different places and at different times. In the far north hunters and foragers gradually, and certainly from the 16^th and 17^th centuries, developed a large scale pastoralism based on reindeer. In Europe the totally dominant system became a mixed farming in the sense that cattle-breeding and crop growing were combined on every single farm. In East Asia wet-rice cultivation went through a transformation and expansion from the 11^th century and onwards. In Central Asia extensive pastoralism developed in symbiosis with intensive oasis agriculture, but with set-backs after destructive wars. South East Asia was mainly characterized by slash and burn agriculture, with islands of wet-rice cultivation, which later would expand into larger regions of intensive agriculture advancing into the deltas. A Mediterranean system developed to maturity already in antiquity, adapted to winter rainfall and summer drought. South Asia was a meeting place for different agricultural systems, with wet-rice in the east, waves of pastoralism coming in from the north-west and for a long time large tracts of forests with slash and burn over much of the subcontinent. All these systems changed and were refined with introduction of new technology (crops and implements) but also in interaction with socio-economical structures and not to forget, with food habits. This paper discusses problems in defining and demarking different systems, and provides cartographic representations for three time periods.