Plough

SUBTOPIC: Parts
– Beam
– Hitch (British English: hake)
– Vertical regulator
– Coulter (knife coulter pictured, but disk coulter common)
– Chisel (foreshare)
– Share (mainshare)
– Mouldboard
– Frog (or frame)
– Runner
– Landside
– Shin
– Trashboard
– Stilts (handles)

SUBTOPIC: History
– Ploughing peasant depicted in the 13th century
– Development of agriculture using hand-held digging sticks and hoes
– Hoe-farming in highly fertile areas like the banks of the Nile
– Hoe cultivation being common in all agricultural regions
– Hoe-agriculture best suited to tropical or sub-tropical regions

SUBTOPIC: Hoeing
– Hoe-farming as the traditional tillage method in tropical or sub-tropical regions
– Hoe-agriculture used in regions with stony soils, steep slope gradients, and predominant root crops
– Hoe-farming common in areas with coarse grains grown at wide intervals
– Hoe cultivation being a widespread practice
– Hoe-agriculture being adaptable to various agricultural regions

SUBTOPIC: Ard
– Ancient Egyptian ard used for clearing rocky soil and making seed drills
– Domestication of oxen leading to the development of the animal-drawn true ard
– Earliest evidence of ploughing dated back to 3500–3800 BCE
– Discovery of a ploughed field from c. 2800 BCE in Kalibangan, India
– Evolution of the ard from bow ard to more efficient designs

SUBTOPIC: Ard (plough)
– Ancient hoes like the Egyptian hand-ards used for clearing rocky soil and making seed drills
– Domestication of oxen in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilisation enabling the development of the true ard
– Earliest evidence of ploughing dated back to 3500–3800 BCE in Bubeneč, Czech Republic
– Terracotta model of early ards found at Banawali, India
– Evolution of the ard from the bow ard design to more advanced versions