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Paper short abstract:

Present-day Ethiopian Afromontane forests are severely fragmented and suffer from soil erosion, droughts, and biodiversity loss. Aiming to understand the origin of this issue, this research examines fire history from before, during, and after the ancient Aksumite Empire settled the area.

Paper long abstract:

Ethiopian Afromontane forests have become increasingly fragmented over the centuries from human-driven deforestation. Consequently, these biodiverse ecosystems have experienced environmental degradation from soil erosion, prolonged droughts, and biodiversity loss (Teketay et al., 2010). The Tigray Plateau was once home to the Aksumite Empire, an ancient civilization that rose and fell between c. 50 BCE and 700 CE (Ruiz-Giralt et al., 2021). A favorable climate and advanced agricultural systems allowed for substantial food storage to support the Aksumite’s growing population (Connah, 2004). While the Aksum Kingdom experienced several prosperous centuries, the civilization rapidly and mysteriously fell around 700 CE. One of the leading hypotheses posits that overexploitation of the land led to crop failures and a downfall of agricultural productivity (Connah, 2004).

Aiming to expand on this original hypothesis, this research explores paleoecological evidence of deforestation of Afromontane through reconstructing fire regimes from before the rise of the Aksumite Empire and comparing those data to several centuries of fire history during their rise, and after their collapse. The method of research includes charcoal analysis of a sediment core, KV-II, collected from Adigrat, Ethiopia in 2019. Results suggest fires occurred on average once every ~10 years before the arrival of the Aksumite people and fell to once every ~50 years during the peak of the empire. The significant decrease in fire frequency during Aksumite times suggests an overall reduction in available biomass, including increased consumption of wood fuel and expansion of croplands, likely contributing to accelerated deforestation as the Aksumite Empire expanded.