P. Yule, M. Rösch, E. Fischer, The Highland Environment of imyarite ϒaf ãr: Neo-Geographic Determinism? 1 Second Annual Adumatu Journal Symposium, Sakaka, al-Jawf, Saudi Arabia Man and Environment in the Arab World in Light of Archaeological Discoveries 4-6 May 2010 Paul Yule 1 , Manfred Rösch 2 , Elske Fischer 3 The Highland Environment of imyarite ϒaf ãr (Yemen): Neo-Geographic Determinism? 4 Introduction The history of the imyarite tribal confederation (110 BCE–525 CE) centres on the Yemenite highlands) and the early capital at ϒaf ãr . Measur ing some 110 hect ar es, ϒaf ãr is the second largest site in Arabia, following Maɹrib (Yule 2007) 5 . The environment including agriculture is many-facetted and has been dealt with for the Bronze Age in the Yemen (Charbonnier 2008, summarising: Edens 2005, Wilkinson 2003) but rarely for the imyarite age (exceptions: Lewis 2005; Franke et al. 2008) in the highlands (2000ԭ3000 m a.s.l.). In addition, new and old literature regarding traditional agricultural geography has been omitted in recent research (such as Kopp 1981; Yule et al. 2007; Franke et al. 2008) the latter two which remained in the press long after submission. In what follows, the writers briefly restate the relevant data regarding the natural and cultivated resources combined with theory in order to update the discussion of the environmental situation. The interaction of man and environment during the imyarite period is controversial: Late, that is in the 6 th century, the truly amazing series of calamities borders on little short of the divine. New data regarding the nature of world-wide calamities, be they volcanic outbreaks, comet impacts, droughts, or plagues, are amply recorded in 6 th century Byzantine sources (Meier 2003), but only exceptionally in South Arabian ones. Does the imyarite state and its subsequent manifestations prior to Islam collapse as a result of a "decadent" society, military activity, or natural events? Pioneer early geographic determinists include such notables as Edward Gibbon (1776ԭ1789), Leone Caetani (1911) and Ellsworth Huntington (1924). Caetani described for early Yemen demographic expansion running up against water shortage and triggering large-scale migrations. A new research generation yielded concrete climatic data, which first made climate modelling possible. Complementary historic data also caused a reaction 1 Languages and Cultures of the Near East, Heidelberg Univer sity, Schulgasse 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Tel/ Fax +49(0)6221 3379267, e-mail: paul.yule@t-online.de . 2 Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Arbeitsstelle Hemmenhofen, Labor für Archäobotanik, Fischersteig 9, D-78343 Hemmenhofen, e-mail: manfred.roesch@rps.bwl.de . 3 Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Arbeitsstelle Hemmenhofen, Labor für Archäobotanik, Fischersteig 9, D-78343 Hemmenhofen, e-mail: elske.fischer@rps.bwl.de . 4 We thank the Yemeni authorities for permission to conduct work at ϒaf ãr from 1998 to 2009. We thank the German Research Council (DFG) which bore the expenses since 2006 and other foundations before it. Proper gratitude can and shall be expressed in the final report (in preparation). Fischer collected the botanical data in 2008. Rösch collected that in 2006 and studied the entire complex. Yule wrote the summary discussion. Hartmut Müller of the Institute for Spatial Information and Surveying Technology of the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz for support and for 'lending' us Ingo Buchwald und Tobias Schröder for our survey. We are indebted to Walter Müller, who corrected the transliteration and made salient points in the discussion. Ueli Brunner also kindly went over a version of the text. 5 Since this area settlement density is uneven, like the next largest site, MaΣna‘at Mãriya (c. 96 ha) it cannot simply serve as a base for a population estimate. K. Lewis’s description of MaΣnaɸat Mãriya as being larger in surface than ϒaf ãr (2005: 358) preceded her mapping of the escarpment and the reading of our preliminary reports. She questioned whether ϒaf ãr was the centre of the political landscape (p. 155). Numerous Greek, Sabaic and Arabic texts, as well as archaeological finds, give a clear impression of the political and cultural importance of ϒaf ãr as the capital, which cannot be tampered with.