Human and Landscape
Text by Adam Montefiore & Dan Sheinman
based on the original text by Z. Ron and conversation with Prof. Yuval Gadot
Agricultural terraces found in the Judean Hills region exemplify the human-landscape relationship. The Judean Hills are remarkable for their great continuity of agriculture-based settlement and, as is well known, agricultural regions of the Mediterranean mountains cannot exist without terracing.
The concept of dry farming terraces came into vogue during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, about 2,400 to 2,200 years ago. Though the hills were settled well before then, it appears that agriculture in the Middle Bronze Age (second millennium BCE) was not dependent on terraced agriculture.
Pre-terraces, vines were planted in pockets of earth in suitable places between trees and the solid rock formation, which could not be easily penetrated. The vine is naturally a climber or crawler. If left alone, it will climb trees, or sprawl along the ground. The vines were not trellised or laid out like manicured gardens as they are today. Most likely they covered the ground in the areas where they were cultivated. Agriculture was based in riverbeds, on moderate slopes and high plains.
The agricultural advancement that would come to define the Judean Hills is the introduction of bench terraces for the purposes of dry farming. The use of man-made terraces was a major technological innovation. These were either built on slopes where agriculture was previously sporadic, or they enabled new hilly areas to be used for agriculture for the first time. These terraces eventually covered the Judean Hills. Archaeologists say that up to 60% of the land was terraced with “precisely engineered, stone-tiered terraces built by man.” This totally transformed the look of the countryside.
The function of the agricultural terrace in mountain areas is to establish favorable conditions for the steady cultivation of the land. The terrace surface and stone wall which supports it, contribute towards this end by fulfilling three main functions that define the terrace:
1. Transforming a continuous slope into a series of level surfaces or terrace planes.
2. Preventing run-off erosion and enhancing the accumulation of soil and water.
3. Removing the stones and forming a flat upper layer of cultivable soil.
The terrace-wall thus serves as a regulator for drainage. It is always built of rough, unhewn stones, with its base neither cemented nor cut into the bedrock. It serves, therefore, as a depository for the stones cleared
from the terrace surface and allows the passage of surplus water through the gaps in the stone wall and between the wall base and the bedrock. This is well seen after periods of heavy rain and occasionally during thaw, when water drips from the stones in the wall, having passed through the gaps, and seeps between wall base and bedrock as well. This drainage outlet prevents the deterioration of agricultural conditions in the terraces and the collapse of the wall under the pressure of accumulated surplus water.
Not all cultivable areas in the mountain region are in fact terraces, though they may resemble them. On plateaus and in wide flood plains, the incline is small, soil erosion is limited, and sometimes stones are rarer and the soil is fairly continuous and deep. Such areas may often be cultivated without the fulfillment of all the three functions by which the terrace is defined. Nevertheless, these areas which border upon active erosion base-levels or channels and the need for terracing is not entirely absent.
The distribution and formation of terraces in Judea are determined by numerous factors, which represent the relationship between the local farmer and the landscape. At first, areas easily suited to farming were exploited and only later the more difficult terrain followed. Changes in population density and economic, political, and cultural status have also affected the distribution of terraces in this agricultural area.
One of the most important factors affecting the distribution of terraces is the intensity of insolation. The area is poor in water resources; rainfall does not exceed 500–800 mm annually. Insolation varies according to the exposition of slopes: The greatest difference lies between those facing north and those facing south. On south-facing slopes of moderate inclination, which are common in the region, insolation attains its maximum in winter, while north-facing slopes are wetter and preserve their moisture for a longer period. Soil formation is therefore quicker on the latter and the quantities of soil are greater. North-facing slopes are thus more cultivable and have more terraces.
Terracing on south-facing slopes often began later than on north-facing slopes and the terraces are less elaborate even where identical topographical and lithological conditions exist. Most of the north-facing slopes are cultivated, while on south-facing slopes, especially those with a steep and rocky incline, the terrain is bare and terrace-less. The southern side of the Judean Mountains exhibits numerous species of desert and steppe vegetation, and its general coverage is much poorer than the northern side.
Recent research that focused on five specific locations within the Judean Hills aimed to date the formation of these terraces using different tools such as mapping, trenching, and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) of the soil fill. This research produced the findings that most of the more visible terraces today are likely to date from the last 800 years or so, up to the end of Ottoman period. Approximately 100 years ago, these terraces were more or less abandoned and became degraded, leaving a light residue of stones, remnants of the walls following contours of hills, or apparent ripples on the slopes which indicate terraces that have been covered over time by earth or subsequent agricultural pursuits.
In the Judean Hills vineyards, we find a revival of this ancient agricultural landscape, embodying a deep bond between past and present, tradition, and modern technology and techniques – the ancient terraces in the Judean Highlands connect agriculture of over 2,000 years ago with present-day agriculture.
Source:
RON, Z. (1966). Agricultural Terraces in the Judean Mountains. Israel Exploration Journal, 16(1), 33–49.
