You must either catch the bus that runs twice a day from Mto wa Mbu on the shore of Lake Manyara, or else risk life and limb on a one-and-a-half-hour dirt bike (‘Piki-Piki’) ride through the bush. The road to get here is long and unpaved. What once may have been one of the biggest inland centers in eastern Africa is now a quiet corner of Tanzania, on the edge of the much more popular and touristic Ngorogoro Conservation Area. Visiting the site today, its location does nothing to betray its prominent history. On the slopes overlooking these fields, villages expanded to incorporate a burgeoning population, which at its height may have included over 8000 men, women, and children. Large terraces were constructed, repaired, and reconstructed such that over time, they reached a cumulative height of over 3 meters in places. A huge amount of labour was invested over this time in building furrows to canalize the Engaruka River and redistribute water to the fields, which sprawled at the foot of the Rift escarpment. Over the next three centuries, however, their success in these small-scale endeavors led to a vast expansion in the farming system and a significant increase in population. Sometime in the 15th century, locals began experimenting with the small-scale cultivation of indigenous African crops such as millet and sorghum. The story, as told by the archaeology, is vague. So it is with the Engaruka ruins, which today overlook a dusty arm of the Rift Valley in north-western Tanzania. The archaeological remains of this part of the world thus remain enigmatic, with few links between the people who created them and those who inhabit the area in the present day. Throughout history, the movement of different groups of people - hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, agriculturalists - have created one of the most unique and complex landscapes on the planet. The history of Africa, and the Rift Valley in particular, is not a static one.

Lake natron monduli tanzania