AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Agricultural Terracing South of the Sahara |
| Authors: | Grove, Alfred T. Sutton, John E.G.  |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Periodical: | Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa |
| Volume: | 24 |
| Pages: | 113-122 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs., ills. |
| Geographic terms: | Subsaharan Africa Africa |
| Subjects: | agricultural history land use agricultural land Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Agriculture, Agronomy, Forestry Soil conservation |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/00672708909511402 |
| Abstract: | In many parts of the world, including Africa, hillsides are terraced for agriculture. Drawing on existing and defunct examples of local agricultural communities whose systems have combined terracing and other specialized features in different parts of Africa, the authors argue that the tendency of such systems towards cultural and physical introversion imposes limits to their potential for technical progress. However, such an impression of stone terracing as not progressive, or antimodernizing in the broad sense, cannot be applied universally. In northern Ethiopia, terraced agriculture appears to belong now, and to have belonged over the centuries, within the broad and dominant tradition of its region. Elsewhere in Africa in the present century the virtues of terracing and contouring have been sung by agricultural departments and enthusiastic officials. The authors stress the importance of research into 'indigenous' terracing systems, both existing and archaeological. In conclusion, they present a brief survey of present and past agricultural terracing in Nigeria and West Africa, Darfur and Kordofan (Sudan), Ethiopia, the East African highlands and the eastern Rift Valley, the Lakes Region and western Rift Valley, and Nyanga (eastern Zimbabwe). |
