Farming began about 11,000 years ago in the Near East where local communities gradually ‘domesticated’ a range of animals and plants. When farming reached Britain in around 4000 BC, it was a well-established way of living in many other parts of the world.

The animals and plants associated with early farming are not native to England. As elsewhere, they were introduced along with the idea of farming. Animal bones have been found which show that a variety of livestock were kept; sheep, cattle, pigs and goats, cattle being more numerous during the earlier Neolithic. From plant remains which have survived when burnt or preserved in wet environments or occasionally impressed into pottery we know that wheat and barley were grown.

Neolithic farming was not intensive. It did not completely replace existing methods of obtaining food such as hunting or gathering. Neolithic farmers seem to have cleared small areas for cultivation but unlike modern farming these were not permanent but were periodically abandoned in favour of new land. Archaeologists have found the marks of light ploughs dateable to the Neolithic and it has been suggested that towards the end of the period cattle might have been used to pull ploughs.