Furrows in Africa — canals in the Americas

Bibliographic Data

ID6041394
AuthorsMats Widgren (Stockholm University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume49
Issue4
Pages524-529
Publication date2014-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAzania Archaeological Research in Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0067-270X • E-ISSN: 1945-5534
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0067270x.2014.968389
OpenAlexW2000530931
LanguageEN
References cited8

This brief comment argues that the use of the term furrow system for locally developed irrigation in Eastern Africa is misleading in an international comparative perspective. It is at odds with the terminology in irrigation engineering and also with the archaeological terminology used outside Eastern Africa. Internationally, the term canal is used for the artificial watercourses that bring water from the source to the field, while furrow irrigation refers to one specific way of applying water to the individual field.Ce bref commentaire fait valoir que l'utilisation du terme furrow system en anglais pour les systèmes d'irrigation développée localement en Afrique de l'Est est trompeuse dans une perspective comparative internationale. Il est en contradiction à la fois avec des termes d'ingénierie d'irrigation et à la terminologie archéologique utilisée en dehors de l'Afrique orientale. Avec le terme canal on entend généralement le cours d'eau construit, à partir de la source vers le bord du champ tandis que le terme furrow irrigation (irrigation par sillon) se réfère á une façon particulière d'appliquer de l'eau sur le champ.Keywords: irrigationcanalsfurrows AcknowledgementsThis comment was first published as a blog post in June 2013 related to ongoing work with an index for a volume on landesque capital (Håkansson and Widgren Citation2014). I have greatly benefited from field experience with Bill Doolittle and Jim Neely in Arizona and from correspondence with Bill Adams, Bill Doolittle, Matt Davies, Kathleen Morrison, Wilhelm Östberg, Michael Sheridan, Daryl Stump, John Sutton and Matthias Tagseth. Indeed, I have included many of their comments in this text.Notes on contributorMats Widgren is Professor of Human Geography at Stockholm University. He researches the historical geography of agricultural landscapes in a global perspective and is the co-editor of Islands of Intensive Agriculture in Eastern Africa (2004 with John Sutton) and of Landesque Capital: The Historical Ecology of Enduring Landscape Modifications (2014 with Thomas Håkansson).Notes1. Merriam Webster online: canal: '3: an artificial waterway for navigation or for draining or irrigating land'; furrow: '1 a: a trench in the earth made by a plow' (www.britannica.com, accessed 21 August 2014).2. Hennings was not, however, the first to use the term furrows. John Sutton has pointed out to me that Massam (Citation1927: 20, 134) writes about furrows on the Elgeyo Escarpment

Geography · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Cuban History and Society

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