The Swamps of Home: Marsh Formation and Settlement in the Early Medieval Near East
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- A. Asa Eger, Full Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: In studies of settlement and landscape archaeology
in the Near East, marshes have only recently featured
in discussions, having often been relegated to the
liminalized frontiers of settlement: the uninhabitable
wildernesses occupying the edges of both town
and countryside. This is in contrast to the larger role
played by marshes and bogs in Europe and Central
and South America for settlement and land use. However,
evidence from archaeological survey, coring and
excavation, primary sources, and ethnographic studies
has suggested that marsh wetlands in the Near
East featured prominently in the human landscape.
They were areas that were rich in renewable natural
resources and provided transportation corridors and
zones of settlement. In pursuing the evidence for wetland
formation, a noticeable pattern arises during the
Early Medieval period (the end of the Late Roman
period through the beginning of the Early Islamic
period, sixth to eighth centuries) when marshes form
and develop consistently, encompassing significant
parts of otherwise prime lowland areas for cultivation.
1 While low-lying regions, where marshes appear,
have in all cases been susceptible to becoming periodic
and seasonal wetlands, the Late Roman/Early Islamic
marshes characteristically (a) became permanent all
year round rather than seasonal, and often contained
a body of standing water or lake; (b) continued to
expand; and (c) all formed concurrently (roughly between
the fifth and eighth centuries) throughout the
Near East. In examples from both the Near East and Pre-Columbian civilizations,2 the causes for this have
been debated as either natural (due to climatic shifts
and seasonal inundations) or anthropogenic (due to
increased land exploitation and intensive cultivation).
With respect to the latter, a strong link is established
between the potential human-induced factors for
marsh formation and its use as a mode of subsistence.
The Swamps of Home: Marsh Formation and Settlement in the Early Medieval Near East
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Language: English
- Date: 2011
- Keywords
- near eastern studies, archaeology, human settlement, marsh formation, landscape archaeology