Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Environmental Versus Social Contingencies and the Origins of Irrigation Farming in Highland Southwest Arabia

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Under the supervision of Dr. Joy McCorriston, Michael Harrower will gather and analyze data on the archaeological remains of irrigation in Yemen's remote southern highlands. Archaeologists and historians know well the great Arabian city states that flourished on the caravan traffic in frankincense and myrrh. But the small-scale communities that preceded these incense kingdoms did so with the help of water management technologies that remain poorly known. In order for the southern Arabians to adopt agriculture from adjacent regions, they required a means of harnessing scarce water sources, and they drew on substantive knowledge of local conditions to do so. As we learn more about the development of irrigation technologies in Arabia, we can better understand the mix of environmental and social factors that propelled ancient societies toward the high Arabian civilizations out of which Islam and its charismatic leadership expanded.This research investigates the logistical and organizational requirements of southwest Arabian small-scale spate irrigation, which occurs when farmers concentrate the infrequent flash floods of modest water catchments onto a small patch of arable ground and raise a crop. Such technology-its introduction, adaption, and development-can be examined in the archaeological record by using several strategies in the highlands where catchments are small. First, the researchers will conduct archaeological survey assisted by Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and image maps generated from satellite images. Such images can be digitally manipulated to highlight differences in ground conditions (soil, vegetation, slope, for example), and these differences point archaeologists toward the most promising locations to find irrigation structures. Where irrigation structures can be found, environmental variables also offer a means of comparing and compiling the factors critical in ancient farmers' decisions to build and operate them. For this purpose, the project will construct a multivariate GIS model of irrigation structure locations. Archaeologists assume that by comparing site locations with non site locations, one can identify the environmental variables that attracted (and repelled) human farmers. Non-environmental reasons (social behavior) also played a role in early farming, and one expects that these social behaviors contribute to the factors unidentified by GIS analysis. Finally, to better understand social behavior, Harrower will conduct ethnoarchaeological studies of traditional small-scale irrigation in Yemen today, emphasizing the decisions and social constraints in innovating, building, maintaining, and operating particular types of water-management structures.Tony Allen, a leading economic specialist in the Middle East, has said that contemporary conflicts in the Middle East are fights for water. There are therefore significant lessons to be drawn from ancient challenges and solutions embedded in the unique histories of the region, lessons that may prove useful in proposing and evaluating future solutions to water crisis, and by extension, some political crises. The research also fosters positive working relationships among Canadian, American and Yemeni researchers at a time when research cooperation can help bridge cultural and political divides. Further, by providing graduate training and a classroom model of ongoing research, this project strengthens US education in the Middle East.