Engaruka is an abandoned system of ruins located in northwest

Monduli District Monduli is one of the seven districts of the Arusha Region of Tanzania. The District covers an area of . It is bordered to the north by Longido District, to the east by Arusha Rural District, to the south by the Manyara Region and to the west b ...

in central

Arusha Region Arusha City is a Tanzanian city and the regional capital of the Arusha Region, with a population of 416,442 plus 323,198 in the surrounding Arusha District Council (2012 census). Located below Mount Meru (Tanzania), Mount Meru on the eastern e ...

. The site is in geographical range of the

Great Rift Valley The Great Rift Valley is a series of contiguous geographic trenches, approximately in total length, that runs from Lebanon in Asia to Mozambique in Southeast Africa. While the name continues in some usages, it is rarely used in geology as it i ...

of northern

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

. Situated in the

, it is famed for its

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...

and cultivation structures. It is considered one of the most important

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

s in Tanzania. The site is located in the ward of

Engaruka Engaruka is an abandoned system of ruins located in northwest Monduli District in central Arusha Region. The site is in geographical range of the Great Rift Valley of northern Tanzania. Situated in the Monduli District, it is famed for its irriga ...

. The site is registered as one of the

National Historic Sites of Tanzania National Historic Sites of Tanzania is an official list of places in Tanzania that have been designated as National Historic Sites as per the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism of Tanzania under the Antiquities Division. The list is not co ...

The site

Sometime in the 15th century, an Iron Age farming community built a large continuous village area on the footslopes of the Rift Valley escarpment, housing several thousand people. They developed an intricate irrigation and cultivation system, involving a stone-block canal channeling water from the

Crater Highlands The Crater Highlands (Ngorongoro Highlands) are a geological region along the East African Rift in the Arusha Region and parts of northern Manyara Region in north Tanzania. Geology The highlands are located in a spreading zone at the intersec ...

rift escarpment to stone-lined cultivation terraces. Measures were taken to prevent

soil erosion Soil erosion is the denudation or wearing away of the upper layer of soil. It is a form of soil degradation. This natural process is caused by the dynamic activity of erosive agents, that is, water, ice (glaciers), snow, air (wind), plants, and ...

and the

fertility Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertili ...

of the plots was increased by using the

manure Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nutri ...

of stall fed

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

. For an unknown reason Engaruka was abandoned at latest in the mid-

18th century The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 ( MDCCI) to December 31, 1800 ( MDCCC). During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions. During the century, slave trad ...

. The site still poses many questions, including the identity of the founders, how they developed their farming system, and why they left. Construction of Engaruka has traditionally been credited to the ancestors of the Iraqw, a

Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...

-speaking group of cultivators residing in the

Mbulu Highlands The Mbulu Highlands is a plateau in north-central Tanzania. The Mbulu Highlands lie between the basins of Lake Eyasi to the west and Lake Manyara to the east. The highlands extend northeast-southwest. A steep northeast-southwest-running escarpme ...

of northern Tanzania. The modern Iraqw practice an intensive form of self-contained agriculture that bears a remarkable similarity to the ruins of stone-walled

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, a ...

s and furrows that are found at Engaruka. Iraqw historical traditions likewise relate that their last significant migration to their present area of inhabitation occurred about two or three centuries ago after conflicts with the Barbaig sub-group of the Datoga, herders who are known to have occupied the Crater Highlands above Engaruka prior to the arrival of the

Maasai Maasai may refer to: * Maasai people *Maasai language * Maasai mythology * MAASAI (band) See also * Masai (disambiguation) * Massai Massai (also known as: Masai, Massey, Massi, Mah–sii, Massa, Wasse, Wassil or by the nickname "Big Foot" Mas ...

. This population movement is reportedly consistent with the date of the Engaruka site's desertion, which is estimated at somewhere between

1700 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 19), where then Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 11 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 17 ...

and

1750 Various sources, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, use the year 1750 as a baseline year for the end of the pre-industrial era. Events January–March * January 13 – The Treaty of Madrid between Spain ...

. It also roughly coincides with the start of the diminishment of the Engaruka River's flow as well as those of other streams descending from the

Ngorongoro highlands The Crater Highlands (Ngorongoro Highlands) are a geological region along the East African Rift in the Arusha Region Arusha City is a Tanzanian city and the regional capital of the Arusha Region, with a population of 416,442 plus 323,198 ...

; water sources around which Engaruka's irrigation practices were centered. According to the Maasai, who are the present-day occupants of Engaruka, the Iraqw also already inhabited the site when their own ancestors first entered the region during the 18th century. Engaruka has also been linked to the Sonjo, a numerically small

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...

-speaking living some 60 miles to the northwest. Like the Iraqw, they are known for their use of irrigation systems in agriculture. The Sonjo also maintain terraced village sites, albeit of considerably more rudimentary form than what is found at Engaruka. New studies have also revealed new information about the

Middle Stone Age The Middle Stone Age (or MSA) was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago. The beginnings of pa ...

and Pastoral

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

occupational histories of the area.Seitsonen, Oula. 2005. ‘Stone Age observations in the Engaruka area’, i
''Nyame Akuma''
63, 27-32.

History of archaeological research

The first European to record the existence of these ruins was Gustav Fischer, who passed them on July 5, 1883, and compared them to the tumbled-down walls of ancient castles. Scoeller and Kaiser mentioned the ruins of "Ngaruku" including great stone circles and dams in 1896-97. The first detailed and archaeological investigation was by

Hans Reck Hans Gottfried Reck (24 January 1886 – 4 August 1937) was a German volcanologist and paleontologist. In 1913 he was the first to discover an ancient skeleton of a human in the Olduvai Gorge, in what is now Tanzania. He collaborated with Lo ...

, in 1913.

Louis Leakey Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (7 August 1903 – 1 October 1972) was a Kenyan-British palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai ...

and

Mary Leakey Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA (née Nicol, 6 February 1913 – 9 December 1996) was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised ''Proconsul A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a consul. A pro ...

investigated the site in 1935, but were disappointed by the lack of burial sites. They estimated a population of 30,000, but this figure is now considered exaggerated. John Sutton of the

British Institute in Eastern Africa The British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, and is dedicated to supporting historical, archaeological, and other social science and humanities research in eastern Africa. The BIEA is sponsored by the British A ...

later conducted excavations at Engaruka, and in 2002–2005 Ari Siiriainen led a research team from the Department of Archaeology at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

. In 2001-2004, studies were conducted by Daryl Stump of University College London as part of his PhD thesis work. In 2006, the University of Helsinki resumed Siiriainen's work, concentrating on the connections between Engaruka and the Sonjo area.

Modern Engaruka

Engaruka is also the name of a modern village not far from the archaeological site. The Maasai conduct tourist tours of the site.

References

{{National Historic Sites of Tanzania