DRAFT in progress 18 February 2026
An invitation last year to contribute to a series of online discussions about Stone [1] rekindled some lines of previous enquiry to trace the long history between corn and the stone tools used for cutting and grinding [2].
That history goes back much longer than the origin of corn crops we know and eat today – wheat, rice, maize, oats, among others. They were domesticated from wild plants a little over 10,000 years ago, but plants had been wild-harvested or cultivated long before then, and like corn today, those plants had structures, mainly of the seed and upper root, that could be dried and stored. But when dried, they became hard, and the only material that could grind them into meal or flour was stone.
So began a very long period of human existence that relied on this combination of corn and carved stone. Yet that period, and the pairing of corn and stone, recently came to an end in many parts of the world. In the last few hundred years, large areas of natural ecosystems haven been replaced by corn farming, and the high intensity of much of it causes widespread pollution and degradation of soil. Corn seed is now mostly processed in efficient high-tech mills from which stone is absent. People no longer know corn, yet eat its bounty in many disguises.
Despite this, corn is still with us and will continue to be the main source of carbohydrate in the global diet. So its resurrection has to happen. It’s not optional.
What would John Barleycorn do?
Corn and stone had become embedded in the culture and traditions of many peoples, not least in our own songs where the words barley, bearded, rye, mill, miller, and corn, re-occur as a background to tales of love, deceit, treachery, murder and revenge.
Several of these songs tell of the fall and resurrection, the death and rebirth, of John Barleycorn [3] – a mythical embodiment of corn that’s been through it, had a hard time, but ultimately prevailed. And so after the further information below and links pertaining to the online discussion, we ask John B to give us a vision for the future.
To be completed. In progress (18 February 2026): the Pairing of corn and stone in antiquity, the Migration of corn to Scotland, the main Uses of corn today for alcohol and livestock feed.
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Sources
[1] Thanks to Magdalena Blazusiak of Robert Gordon University (RGU) for the invitation to contribute to Stone Futures 4 – Stone Stories, held online 2 February 2026 as part of a series of talks titled Stone Futures, organised by the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists (CIAT), Scottish Ecological Design Association (SEDA), and Historic Environment Scotland. Geoff Squire joined Amy Wilson (RGU) and Magdalena Blazusiak to give presentations and discussion at lunchtime on 2 February. Further information on the session is given at the CIAT and SEDA web sites, where there are also links to the recording.
[2] The author of this article, Geoff Squire, has a long interest in various forms of corn and their influences on the world’s managed ecosystems. He worked in the 1970s and 1980s on the tropical corn crops – millet and sorghum – and also our local wheat, then continued from the mid-1990s to investigate barley, oats and wheat mainly in Scotland but also in other parts of the UK and Europe. Recent open-access papers covering corn crops in the ecosystem include: Squire, Hawes (2024) Biodiversity for agriculture: the role of integrated farm management in supporting agricultural production through biodiversity. Book Chapter BDS Publishing: link to free download; and Squire, Young, Banks (2023). Post-intensification Poaceae cropping: declining soil, unfilled grain potential, time to act.
[3] Continued …..