In article ,
Martin wrote:

Who cleared land of stones and trees and cultivated the soil fine
enough to sow the grain in?

Slash and burners?

Not in the UK. Except in the most extreme summers, and the pine
domain (which was small, and mainly in the north), the woodland
will not burn. See Rackham again, though he exaggerates.

Assuming that there was never a dry warm spell in prehistoric times.

Don't be ridiculous - I said "the most extreme summers", and I do
not regard mere dry warm spells as that. On the few occasions that
the woods would have burnt, they would have regenerated before the
next extreme event. At MOST, a tiny patch could have been converted
to farmland.

Did they fell the trees with their little bronze hatches?

Flint - it cuts better than steel, anyway. But I don't think that
they DID fell them - my guess is that they ring-barked them, and
then grazed the area intensively. That will turn woodland into
grassland in under a century, and that is easy to cultivate.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.