View article

Archaeological, paleobotanical, and ethnographic research have contributed over the last three decades to a deep-time perspective on the ecological history the Kagera Region of northwestern Tanzania (Figure 7.1). The development of iron technology and of settled agricultural life are fundamental to understanding the environmental changes that arose in the region over the last two millennia or more. This chapter provides an overview of the most salient observations derived from this research program and it addresses how documented changes in settlement and environment during the mid-first millennium AD in Kagera Region could be linked to a global event in AD 536cal. I will begin with a short review of the history of Iron Age settlement, technology, and the major environmental changes that form the backdrop to a concluding discussion of the role of global climate i nfluences.

The second part of the chapter addresses what I see as possible parallel and complementary changes that occurred during the same period of time to the north in the northeastern Africa. This region was then in the Empire of Axum, which was located in what is today northern Ethiopia, Eritrea and parts of the Arabian peninsula. One of the most powerful states of eastern Africa and the Middle East in the first millennium AD, the Axumite state depended on agricultural production of grain in the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea. As is readily evident from recent experience, the grain crops of highland Ethiopia are particularly susceptible to climatic variations. Environmental research at Axum shows that the first period of occupation (AD 1 to 350) is marked by very wet and …