Geoarchaeology at Aksum: Differential diagnosis

Diversified agricultural strategies have sustained human settlement in the northern Ethiopian highlands since ancient times. But, where there were once great kingdoms, there is now inadequate socio-economic development and a recent history of political instability. It is widely accepted that the environmental history of this region lies at the heart of explaining the wider economic, political, and social developments. However, the complex history on which that understanding is based is controversial. A succession of cultures flourished in the region from the early first millennium BC, culminating in the Aksumite kingdom (50 BC–AD 800), known for its sophisticated, literate culture, its long-distance overseas diplomacy and commerce. Aksum’s economy was fed by an indigenous agriculture combining cereal and plough farming. Indeed, the degradation of this agricultural base has been linked to its collapse and subsequent depopulation. A pioneering geoarchaeological study in the early 1970s indicated accelerated soil erosion as a direct result of population pressure and increased precipitation. Subsequently, wider scale environmental studies provided support for deforestation, ultimately
sponsoring an idea of an ecological breakdown due to human pressure in the past as well as today. However, recent research has revealed a different picture. By eliciting and integrating environmental, archaeological and historical records, it can instead be shown that Aksum’s countryside enjoyed both prolonged settlement and dynamic stability from the mid-fourth millennium BC until the early modern period. Given that modern interventions in landscape management by the state and external agencies continue to rely on degradation narratives, these results have implications for the definition of primary issues concerning past legacies and present-day conditions of African environments. This paper shows that, by reconciling the particulars of specialist research with generalities of the longue durée, a site-specific approach that integrates diverse and complementary techniques is effective in addressing human-environment interaction over extended periods.