Engaruka and its Waters

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Abstract
Engaruka, in an arid stretch of the rift valley directly below the Crater Highlands, is renowned for its extensive dry-stone ruins of both villages and field-systems. The most recent excavations were by Hamo Sassoon, who provided a description of the place and an interim account of his work in the first volume of Azania. Dr. Sutton, basing himself on a survey of the area, gives an account of the abandoned agricultural system covering some five thousand acres and how the whole of this area was artificially irrigated. He compares some related, though smaller, sites in the region, and would date the whole complex to the middle or latter part of this millennium. He also attempts to elucidate the reasons for Engaruka's decline and eventual desertion, a process which seems to correspond roughly with the growing ascendancy of the Masai.

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