Engaruka

An Iron Age site on the western side of the Eastern Rift Valley in northern Tanzania with the remains of an Iron Age irrigation system of the 14th century AD. It was an important and concentrated agricultural settlement, occupied for over a thousand years. Water from streams flowing into the valley was dispersed through an elaborate network of stone-lined furrows to serve a large number of small stone-terraced fields. Sorghum was one of the crops that was cultivated. However, its pottery does not seem to have been related to those that became widespread in the 1st millennium AD. It is assumed that its inhabitants were Cushitic speakers.

Located on the western side of the Eastern Rift Valley between Lake Manyara and Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, Engaruka preserves the remains of an Iron Age irrigation system covering more than 20 square kilometres. There are indications that settlement of the area began by the mid-1st millennium ad, but the major irrigation developments are probably subsequent to the 14th century. Water from streams flowing into the valley was dispersed through an elaborate network of stone-lined furrows to serve a large number of small stone-terraced fields. Sorghum was one of the crops that was cultivated. The affinities of the Engaruka people to any contemporary later Iron Age populations in East Africa remain to be demonstrated satisfactorily.