Water as a Problem and a Solution in Arid Landscapes: Resilient Practices and Adapted Land Use in the Eastern Marmarica (NW-Egypt) between the 2nd Millennium BCE and the 1st Millennium CE

Abstract

Arid environments are suitable for researching the resilience of landscapes, since their ecological conditions pose continuous water stress to plants, animals, and humans living there. It is not only water, but also soil that is a limited resource. The arid landscape of the Eastern Marmarica (NW-Egypt) serves as an example for studying the resilience in and of a past landscape and its inhabitants from the 2nd millennium BCE to the 1st millennium CE, which is conceptualised as a ‘social arid landscape’. The adapted life strategies and resilient practices to make a living in the arid environment are reconstructed from (geo-) archaeological evidence, discussing the applicability of the concept of resilience for ancient (landscape) studies. Resilience is an etic concept, depending on the perspective on and scale of a system. With the categories of ‘event’, ‘practice’ and ‘knowledge’, however, various scales can be bridged; life strategies can be defined as communities of practice and dichotomies be solved. Niche dwellings in the ancient Marmarica, where exposure to stress was normal, functioned because of an elaborate water management and the mobility of the people living there. The resilience of the arid social landscape is based on mixed life strategies, where only a multi-factored crisis (economic and climatic) or a series of smaller shocks (many dry years) could have destructive impacts.