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This study questions whether archaeological techniques and perspectives can be applied to aid in the assessment of rural development practices in Africa, and is a response to a gradual paradigm shift that rejects large-scale, top-down modernisation programmes in favour of small-scale projects that are managed locally and employ 'indigenous' systems of knowledge. In Africa, as in other parts of the developing world, the projects that have adopted this alternative approach have tended to focus on rural economies and have drawn upon recent research that has emphasised the unique contexts of individual communities' approaches to resource exploitation, and which have demonstrated the ability of many societies to maintain modes of economy that various western derived models would expect to be unsustainable. Although these studies have originated from a variety of disciplinary standpoints and have, in general, stressed the need for a multidisciplinary approach, archaeological data is rarely employed. Superficially, however, the case for an archaeological contribution seems self-evident, since any appraisal of sustainability clearly requires an assessment of how long a particular agronomy has been in operation, and whether or not the practices that have sustained it have changed through time. The current study explores the implications of increased archaeological involvement in this area of research by questioning whether an 'applied archaeology' of African agriculture would be theoretically desirable and pragmatically feasible. The question of desirability includes a discussion of the inevitable political implications of contributing to contemporary developmental debates, but focuses primarily on the more overtly theoretical issue of inter-epistemological translation: arguing for a return to the level of relativism espoused by early post-processualism, and adopting a shift in emphasis that incorporates the construction of plausible pasts alongside a functional approach that may offer insights of value to contemporary communities. In order to assess the feasibility of an archaeological contribution, this paper presents the findings of recent fieldwork at the late precolonial site of Engaruka, in north-eastern Tanzania. These results show that the system of terraces and irrigation features formerly employed at the site were completely integrated to produce a unique and sophisticated response to the problems of farming in this area, and demonstrate that relatively simple, and readily taught, archaeological techniques have the potential to model precisely the development and expansion of agricultural systems, and can do so over a longer period than the methods available to other disciplines. The thesis concludes, therefore, that there is a real need for a truly interdisciplinary approach to this area of study, and that such an approach should include an archaeological component.

The research conducted explored the dynamics of the historical water-management system that was in use at Engaruka, Tanzania, between the 15th to 18th centuries CE, the aim being to model the primary human and environmental factors and their interactions, and to assess how these influenced the development of the system at several spatial and temporal scales. The ABMs developed in this research represent first steps in the integration of archaeological evidence with ABM techniques in order to understand the Engaruka site. This research shows how the integration of data from different sources and disciplines can help in our understanding of how the system could have developed by integrating a multitude of factors and showing how these interactions influenced the development of the system.

The site of Engaruka in northern Tanzania has been the focus of decades of archaeological research regarding the development of terraced field systems in East Africa. Engaruka is a vast agricultural landscape, occupied from the 14th century and abandoned in 18th century. The abandonment of such a large and intensively cultivated area has been interpreted by some policy makers as a response to a failure of the agronomy, as has been argued elsewhere. This PhD research represents the archaeobotanical component of the AAREA (Archaeology of Agricultural Resilience in East Africa) Project, which was focused on establishing the efficacy of applying archaeological results that are in a dynamic state of development to policy decisions regarding agricultural resilience and sustainability. This study focuses on the identification of crops in cultivation at Engaruka during its occupation based on the analysis of archaeobotanical residues (e.g. charred plant remains), as well as historic and ethnographic observations of cultivation throughout the region. The results confirm the presence of sorghum and other millets as well as several pulses, disproving the argument that ancient Engarukans were practicing sorghum monoculture. These data have been queried to address questions about the presence and preservation of millets and pulses and non-crop taxa in both expected and unlikely contexts, providing information on a range of issues including cultivation strategy and practice, specifically relating to harvesting techniques, the role of wild and weedy taxa, and differential use of space. Discussion is based upon detailed investigations of plant cultivation, collection/harvest, and exploitation through quantification of charred plant macrofossils, gathered weeds/wild taxa, and interview data relating to farming practices, thus highlighting the strengths of a multi-disciplinary approach for understanding resilience, sustainability, and, more generally, what it means to subsist in a challenging and dynamic agricultural landscape.