A map of agricultural systems in Africa by 1800

Illustrations, maps and GIS-files of the following article

Widgren Mats: Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa by 1800: a map and a gazetteer. In Mercuri, A.M., D'Andrea, A.C., Fornaciari, R., Höhn, A. (eds.): Plants and People in the African Past - Progress in African Archaeobotany (in press), SPRINGER

The GIS-files can be opened with GIS programmes such as QGIS (open source) or ArcGIS. Note that they have to overlayered with coastlines (and lakes, depending on scale).

If you use the data: please refer to the article.

Abstract

Recent global historical cropland modelling grossly underestimates the pre-colonial development of agriculture in the Americas and many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Such models are usually developed from backcasting from recent land cover combined with environmentally deterministic algorithms. Historical geographers have been slow in responding to this new demand for a global synthesis. Here a a preliminary map of African agricultural systems by 1800 AD is presented. It forms part of the project Mapping Global Agriculture and is based on the existing historical literature, observations by early travellers, archaeology and archaeobotany. Its preliminary nature must be emphasized.