Project Details
Projekt
Cultivated Landscapes - Land use and cultural landscape development in north-hemispheric African savannas
Applicant
Dr. Alexa Höhn
Subject Area
Prehistory and World Archaeology
Term
since 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 404318292
African savannas have a long history of anthropogenic disturbance. With intentional fires, pastoralism and eventually plant food-production, human agents have shaped this space in such a manner that today cultivated landscapes constitute large areas of this biome, characterized by the co-occurrence of trees and grasses. When fields are cleared, useful trees are spared and trees and shrubs grow back and rejuvenate in the fallow phases intercalated between cultivation cycles. Appearance and composition of the resulting landscapes reflect different land-use practices: cattle herders prefer other tree species than farmers, and near-permanent cultivation has other effects than long fallow cycles. Information about the temporal depth of these cultivated landscapes is limited. When did they first develop, and which type developed where? How did they spread, and have they been propagated by movements of people, ideas or perceptions? Which types of cultivated landscapes are latecomers? And, are changes associated with developments such as land degradation or climatic shifts? How do socio-economic choices influence the composition of the woody vegetation? And, to what extend do particular environments with their possibilities and restrictions influence the development of cultivated landscapes?“Cultivated Landscapes” is addressing these issues, based on the analyses of charcoal from archaeological sites between the Senegal River and the Nile Valley dating between 1000 BCE and 1500 CE. Archaeological macro-charcoal is particularly suitable, since it directly represents the exploited space around settlements and often is the by-product of field clearance and preparation. The project moves from an often site-centered approach in the past to a new supra-regional perspective and links the anthracological data to land-use practices evidenced from other archaeobotanical, archaeological and palaeoenvironmental archives, against the background of climatic shifts, of vulnerability, and resilience of the environment. The project aims to develop a model, which relates formation, propagation, and development of cultivated landscapes to socio-economic changes, such as the adoption of certain livelihoods and innovations, as well as to the environmental settings.Within “Entangled Africa”, the significance of the project is twofold as people acted within landscapes as well as on landscapes: Landscapes set the stage for movement, communication and trade; landscapes are thus the space where people are entangled with one another. Simultaneously, the landscapes themselves are entangled with people, as they are shaped through human land-use in all its forms. The project thus ties in with questions and evidence from other projects within “Entangled Africa” by integrating data related to environment, socio-economic systems and human impact.
DFG Programme
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