Agro-pastoral potentials and peri-urban agricultural constructions in the micro-region of Al-Rawda (original) (raw)

Abstract

The city of Al-Rawda is situated in the Fertile Croissant’s margins, in the transition area between the mediterranean bioclimatic zone and the hyperarid steppe. The region is characterized by low and irregular rainfall. The constraints linked to the climatic aridity and seasonality, regarding settlement patterns and agro-pastoral strategies, can however be compensated, or on the contrary accentuated, by local geomorphologic, hydrologic and edaphic conditions. Besides, those conditions sometimes require adapted constructions and practices. The diversified milieus composing the microregion of Al-Rawda are no exception to this rule. Some of these milieus, such as the faydas, are for example favourable to farming and Al-Rawda is ideally situated in one of them. But today’s conditions sometimes reflect only partially past conditions. Topography and hydrography of the fayda seem to have been quite different at the time of the foundation of the city than today, and their modifications, at least in part, due to the presence of the city. Those changes may have encouraged farming of which we have probably pieces of evidence like constructions in the fayda. Other similar constructions (plot’s walls, dikes, etc.) have been also discovered elsewhere in the microregion. Their dating is more delicate but tend to be Early Bronze.

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