Attending to Place and Time: Seasonality in Early Modern Scotland and Cyprus

Abstract

Far from being a simple annual round determined by the calendar, seasonality in human societies is a complex system of interdependence between humans and non-humans. It requires close attentiveness to the variability of soils, weather, topography, plants, and animals across both time and space. In this article, the author investigates mobile systems of interdependence that take advantage of topographical and seasonal variation. He uses a range of case studies from early modern Scotland and Cyprus, focusing on summer grazing in the uplands and lowland agriculture carried out by mountain communities. After a comparative discussion of seasonality, the article examines the role of topography and movement, and then puts the ‘margins at the centre’ in order to highlight the central role played by seasonal activity and movement in rural society.