Historical Ecology: An Approach to the Investigation of Ancient Human-Environmental Interactions in the Horn of Africa

Summary

Recent archaeological survey, excavation, ethnoarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental research conducted in northeastern Tigrai by the Eastern Tigrai Archaeological Project (ETAP) has produced new insights into the Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite periods (>800 BCE-CE 700). The principal ETAP excavations thus far include the Pre-Aksumite site of Mezber (1600 BCE-1CE) and Ona Adi (c. early 1st millennium CE) which was inhabited during the Pre-Aksumite to Aksumite transition. Both sites were occupied during times of widely ranging cultural developments. This paper will provide the archaeological and palaeoenvironmental context for a new ETAP interdisciplinary partnership which is investigating what role, if any, environment and human-environmental interaction had in the: 1) origins of social complexity during the Pre-Aksumite period; and 2) the Pre-Aksumite to Aksumite transition. Archaeological, palaeoenvironmental and traditional knowledge studies are being integrated within a framework of historical ecology. By coupling environmental and archaeological records for more than one time period and polity with traditional agricultural knowledge, we are investigating alternate pathways of societal interactions with the environment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• An Historical Ecological Approach to the Investigation of Early Social Complexity in the Horn of Africa: First Steps

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14358