Table Of ContentTHE ARCHAEOLOGY OF DRYLANDS
The One World Archaeology (OWA) series stems from conferences organized by the
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which provides a forum of debate for anyone who is genuinely interested in or has a
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ONE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY
Series Editor: (Volumes 1–37): Peter J.Ucko
Academic Series Editors (Volume 38 onwards): Martin Hall and Julian Thomas
Executive Series Editor (Volume 38 onwards): Peter Stone
1. What is an Animal?, T.Ingold (ed.)
2. The Walking Larder: Patterns of domestication, pastoralism and predation, J.Clutton-
Brock
3. Domination and Resistance, D.Miller, M.J.Rowlands and C.Tilley (eds)
4. State and Society: The emergence and development of social hierarchy and political
centralization, J.Gledhill, B.Bender and M.T.Larsen (eds)
5. Who Needs the Past? Indigenous values and archaeology, R.Layton (ed.)
6. The Meaning of Things: Material culture and symbolic expression, I.Hodder (ed.)
7. Animals into Art, H.Morphy (ed.)
8. Conflict in the Archaeology of Living Traditions, R.Layton (ed.)
9. Archaeological Heritage Management in the Modern World, H.F.Cleere (ed.)
10. Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity, S.J.Shennan (ed.)
11. Centre and Periphery: Comparative studies in archaeology, T.C.Champion (ed.)
12. The Politics of the Past, P.Gathercole and D.Lowenthal (eds)
13. Foraging and Farming: The evolution of plant exploitation, D.R.Harris and
G.C.Hillman (eds)
14. What’s New? A closer look at the process of innovation, S.E. van der Leeuw and
R.Torrence (eds)
15. Hunters of the Recent Past, L.B.Davis and B.O.K.Reeves (eds)
16. Signifying Animals: Human meaning in the natural world, R.G.Willis (ed.)
17. The Excluded Past: Archaeology in education, P.G.Stone and R.MacKenzie (eds)
18. From the Baltic to the Black Sea: Studies in medieval archaeology, D.Austin and
L.Alcock (eds)
19. The Origins of Human Behaviour, R.A.Foley (ed.)
20. The Archaeology of Africa: Food, metals and towns, T.Shaw, P.Sinclair, B.Andah
and A.Okpoko (eds)
21. Archaeology and the Information Age: A global perspective, P.Reilly and S.Rahtz
(eds)
22. Tropical Archaeobotany: Applications and developments, J.G.Hather (ed.)
23. Sacred, Sites, Sacred Places, D.L. Carmichael, J.Hubert, B.Reeves and A.Schanche
(eds)
24. Social Construction of the Past: Representation as power, G.C.Bond and A.Gilliam
(eds)
25. The Presented Past: Heritage, museums and education, P.G.Stone and
B.L.Molyneaux (eds)
26. Time, Process and Structural Transformation in Archaeology, S.E.van der Leeuw and
J.McGlade (eds)
27. Archaeology and Language I: Theoretical and methodological orientations, R.Blench
and M.Spriggs (eds)
28. Early Human Behaviour in the Global Context, M.Petraglia and R.Korisettar (eds)
29. Archaeology and Language II: Archaeological data and linguistic hypotheses,
R.Blench and M.Spriggs (eds)
30. Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape: Shaping your landscape, P.J.Ucko and
R.Layton (eds)
31. The Prehistory of Food: Appetites for Change, C.Gosden and J.G.Hather (eds)
32. Historical Archaeology: Back from the edge, P.P.A.Funari, M.Hall and S.Jones (eds)
33. Cultural Resource Management in Contemporary Society: Perspectives on managing
and presenting the past, F.P. MacManamon and A.Hatton (eds)
34. Archaeology and Language III: Artefacts, languages and texts, R.Blench and M.
Spriggs (eds)
35. Archaeology and Language IV: Language change and cultural transformation,
R.Blench and M.Spriggs (eds)
36. The Constructed Past: Experimental archaeology, education and the public,
P.G.Stone and P.Planel (eds)
37. Time and Archaeology, T.Murray (ed.)
38. The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating cross-cultural engagements in Oceania,
R.Torrence and A.Clarke (eds)
39. The Archaeology of Drylands: Living at the margin, G.Barker and D.Gilbertson (eds)
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF DRYLANDS
Living at the margin
Edited by
Graeme Barker and David Gilbertson
London and New York
First published 2000 by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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© 2000 Selection and editorial matter, Graeme Barker and David Gilbertson;
individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The archaeology of drylands: living at the margin/[edited by]
Graeme Barker and David Gilbertson.
p. cm. (One world archaeology; 39)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Social archaeology. 2. Landscape archaeology.
3. Human ecology. 4. Deserts—History. 5. Land settlement
—History. 6. Land settlement patterns, Prehistoric—History.
7. Arid regions agriculture—Social aspects—History.
8. Climatic changes—History. I. Barker, Graeme.
II. Gilbertson, D.D. III. Series.
CC72.4.A735 2000
930.1–dc21 00–038257
ISBN 0-203-16573-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-26029-5 (Adobe e-Reader Format)
ISBN 0-415-23001-2 (Print Edition)
Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables xiii
List of contributors xv
Series editors’ foreword xxv
Preface xxvii
Part I
Introduction
1 Living at the margin: themes in the archaeology of drylands
Graeme Barker and David Gilbertson 3
2 The dynamic climatology of drylands
Greg Spellman 18
Part II
Southwest and Central Asia
3 The decline of desert agriculture: a view from the classical period
Negev
Steven A.Rosen 44
4 Farmers, herders and miners in the Wadi Faynan, southern Jordan: a
10,000-year landscape archaeology
Graeme Barker 62
5 Differing strategies for water supply and farming in the Syrian Black
Desert
Paul Newson 85
6 Irrigation agriculture in Central Asia: a long-term perspective from
Turkmenistan
Mark Nesbitt and Sarah O’Hara 101
Part III
Sahara and Sahel
7 Conquests and land degradation in the eastern Maghreb during
classical antiquity and the Middle Ages
Jean-Louis Ballais 121
8 Success, longevity, and failure of arid-land agriculture: Romano-Libyan
floodwater farming in the Tripolitanian pre-desert
David Gilbertson, Chris Hunt and Gavin Gillmore 133
9 Twelve thousand years of human adaptation in Fezzan (Libyan Sahara)
David Mattingly 156
10 Farming and famine: subsistence strategies in Highland Ethiopia
Ann Butler and A.Catherine D’Andrea 174
Part IV
Eastern and southern Africa
11 Engaruka: farming by irrigation in Maasailand, c.AD 1400–1700
John E.G.Sutton 195
12 The agricultural landscape of the Nyanga area of Zimbabwe
Robert Soper 214
13 Fifteenth-century agropastoral responses to a disequilibrial ecosystem
in southeastern Botswana
John Kinahan 227
14 Islands of intensive agriculture in African drylands: towards an
explanatory framework
Mats Widgren 246
Part
V North and Central America
15 Prehistoric agriculture and anthropogenic ecology of the North
American Southwest
Paul E.Minnis 264
16 The role of maguey in the Mesoamerican tierra fría: ethnographic,
historic and archaeological perspectives
Jeffrey R.Parsons and J.Andrew Darling 280
Part VI
Europe
17 Traditional irrigation systems in dryland Switzerland
Anne Jones and Darren Crook 307
18 Desertification, land degradation and land abandonment in the Rhône
valley, France
Sander van der Leeuw 327
Index 346
Figures
1.1 The world map of drylands 3
1.2 A Roman-period fortified farm, northwest Libya 4
1.3 The location of the case studies in this volume 5
1.4 Drowning in drylands?—two vehicles sunk in a flash-flood 7
2.1 Thermal regimes in two dryland locations: Aswan, Egypt and Jacobabad,
Pakistan 22
2.2 Mean monthly relative humidity at four locations 24
2.3 The rainshadow effect leading to aridity 25
2.4 The Hadley Cell circulation of the tropical northern hemisphere 26
2.5 The structure of the trade wind atmosphere 28
2.6 The interaction between the subtropical westerly flow and the tropical
easterlies leading to the creation of Saharan depressions 30
2.7 The monthly progression of the East African Low-Level Jet Core 32
2.8 The tracks of Sudano-Saharan depressions over the Sahara 34
3.1 Terraced dam system in the central Negev 45
3.2 The wine press at Shivta (Subeita) 46
3.3 Sketch of the Byzantine town of Shivta (Esbeita or Subeita) 47
3.4 Map of the general settlement system of the central Negev during the
Late Byzantine and Early Islamic periods 48
3.5 View of the Byzantine town of Avdat (looking north) 49
3.6 Elaborate raised field and dam system on Nahal Lavan 50
3.7 The early Islamic village of Sede Boqer in the central Negev 52
4.1 The location of Wadi Faynan within its region 63
4.2 Looking northeast across part of the ancient field system to Khirbet
Faynan 64
4.3 The survey area of the Wadi Faynan Landscape Survey 65
4.4 Ethnoarchaeological survey: the typical site of a winter bedouin tent in
Wadi Faynan 67
4.5 The settlement locations of the first farmers in the Wadi Faynan 70
4.6 Part of the Wadi Faynan field system WF4, showing the early bronze age
and the classical landscapes 72
4.7 A field system on the northern side of the Wadi Faynan 73
4.8 A field map of part of the field system WF4 76
4.9 The distribution of copper through sediments accumulated behind the
Khirbet Faynan barrage 77
4.10 Section through a Roman-period water conduit channel 79
5.1 The Hauran and the Harra regions of Syria
