ENGARUKA

Engaruka is an abandoned system of ruins in the Great Rift Valley of northern Tanzania, famed for its irrigation and cultivation system. It is considered one of the most important Tanzanian archaeological sites.

The Site Sometime in the 15th century, an Iron Age farmer community with a large continuous village area on the footslopes of the Rift Valley escarpment, housing several thousand people developed an intricate irrigation and cultivation system, involving a stone-block canal channeling water from the "Crater Highlands" rift escarpment to stonelined cultivation terraces. Measures were taken to prevent soil erosion and the fertility of the plots was increased by using the manure of stall fed cattle. For an unknown reason Engaruka was abandoned at latest in mid 1800s. The site still poses many questions, including the identity of the founders, how they developed such an ingenious farming system, and why they left. The site has been linked to the Sonjo, a people living some 60 miles to the northwest known for their use of irrigation systems in agriculture and similar terraced village sites. New studies have revealed lot of unknown perspectives of the past of Engaruka, for example the Middle Stone Age and Neolithic Stone Age occupation history of the area.