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Rain-fed cultivation in drylands--especially in arid and hyper-arid areas--is often considered to play a minor role in human subsistence. Drawing upon the results of ethnoarchaeological research in North Africa, this paper reviews non-irrigated agricultural practices in the absence of anthropogenic water-harvesting structures, and presents a proposal for how such practices can be identified in the drylands of the past. An improved understanding of the long-term development of rain fed cultivation augments our knowledge of past land-use strategies and can inform future models of sustainable agriculture in some of the world's driest regions. Keywords: Sahara, Al Khiday, rain-fed cultivation, drylands, resilience, phytoliths, Introduction Today, drylands cover approximately 40 per cent of the world's land area and host around 40 per cent of the world's population. The United Nations Environment Programme defines drylands [...]

Between 2003-2011, a research programme in southwest Fazzan (Libya) aimed at understanding the resilience of the Kel Tadrart Tuareg, currently inhabiting the Acacus Mts. Using a multi-pronged approach featuring oral interviews, participant observation, mapping of settlements and localisation of natural resources, the Kel Tadrarts' interaction with the landscape was investigated, and traditional (local) ecological knowledge turned out to be a key factor in the successful adaptation of the Kel Tadrart to erratic rainfall and meagre pastures. The study of Kel Tadrart resilience has fostered new interpretation of the recent past of the region, developed under the framework of the Theory of Resilience. KEYWORDS: Kel Tadrart Tuareg, Tadrart Acacus, pastoralism, arid lands, resilience, Introduction The Sahara hosts a variety of human communities that have been successfully shaping their lifestyles to extreme environmental conditions since the onset of present day aridity (c. 3,000 years [...]

It is likely that no other socio-economic system has been the subject of so many attempts of classification as pastoralism. Since the first systematic encounters with nomadic societies in Africa [...]

The earliest evidence of agriculture in the Horn of Africa dates to the Pre- Aksumite period (ca. 1600 BCE). Domesticated C3 cereals are considered to have been introduced from the Near East, whereas the origin (local or not) and time of domestication of various African C4 species such as sorghum, finger millet, or t'ef remain unknown. In this paper, we present the results of the analysis of microbotanical residues (starch and phytoliths) from grinding stones recovered from two archaeological sites in northeastern Tigrai (Ethiopia), namely Mezber and Ona Adi. Together, both sites cover a time period that encompasses the earliest evidence of agriculture in the region (ca. 1600 BCE) to the fall of the Kingdom of Aksum (ca. 700 CE). Our data indicate that these communities featured complex mixed economies which included the consumption of both domestic and wild plant products since the Initial Pre- Aksumite Phase (ca. 1600 to 900 BCE), including C3 crops and legumes, but also C4 cereals and geophytes. These new data expand the record of C4 plant use in the Horn of Africa to over 1,000 y. It also represents the first evidence for the consumption of starchy products in the region. These results have parallels in the wider northeastern African region where complex food systems have been documented. Altogether, our data represent a significant challenge to our current knowledge of Pre- Aksumite and Aksumite economies, forcing us to rethink the way we define these cultural horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]