In its simplest form, it involves throwing the mixture into the air so that the wind blows away the lighter chaff, while the heavier grains fall back down for recovery.
[1] Dionysus Liknites ("Dionysus of the winnowing fan") was wakened by the Dionysian women, in this instance called Thyiades, in a cave on Parnassus high above Delphi; the winnowing-fan links the god connected with the mystery religions to the agricultural cycle, but mortal Greek babies too were laid in a winnowing-fan.
In Saxon settlements such as one identified in Northumberland as Bede's Ad Gefrin [4] (now called Yeavering) the buildings were shown by an excavator's reconstruction to have opposed entries.
[7] The development of the winnowing barn allowed rice plantations in South Carolina to increase their yields dramatically.
In 1737 Andrew Rodger, a farmer on the estate of Cavers in Roxburghshire, developed a winnowing machine for corn, called a 'Fanner'.