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Terrace Agriculture

Type Object Region Asia Time c. -1000

Terrace agriculture builds level terraces on hillsides to conserve water and soil, enabling crops like rice and maize on slopes unsuitable for farmin…

Timeline

  1. c. 1–250Wuling and the Jiangnan hills · JiangnanFrom the Han dynasty through the Three Kingdoms period, farmers in southern mountain regions built stone and earth terraces to grow rice; combined with pond and weir water-storage systems, terraces turned hilly areas into major grain-producing regions of the empire's south.
  2. c. 200–500Upper Red River and Mekong · VietnamMountain peoples of Southeast Asia built terraces to grow rice; terraces combined with forest fallow rotation supported population concentration in early Southeast Asian states, and terrace landscapes such as those in Yuanyang continue to this day.
  3. c. 200–500Mesoamerican highlands · GuatemalaHighland Maya farmers widely built terraces, reservoirs, and water channels to grow maize, converting steep slopes and seasonally arid areas into high-yield farmland; terrace agriculture supported population growth of Classic-period Maya city-states.

Sources