Papers and Chapters by Wiebke Bebermeier
In the dry zone of Sri Lanka, human-made reservoirs (locally called tanks or wewas) have served f... more In the dry zone of Sri Lanka, human-made reservoirs (locally called tanks or wewas) have served for the collection, storage and distribution of rainfall and runoff and provided irrigation water for the cultivation of paddy for 2400 years. This water management system is deeply inscribed in the rural communities utilizing and maintaining it. Local knowledge connected to the utilization of this system is regarded as a substantial part of the intangible cultural heritage of this unique cultural landscape. In the dry zone of Sri Lanka this system had spread from the fifth century BCE onwards from the hinterland of the ancient capital Anuradhapura throughout the entire dry zone and provides a prerequisite for paddy cultivation. From approximately the 13th century onwards, written sources give evidence, that a weakening of state bureaucracy led to a decline of the water management system. In the Colonial period, numerous reservoirs were restored and the implementation of new governance structures lead to a diminishing of water supplies and conflicts at a local level. In post-Colonial times, since the 1950s, the system had undergone rapid changes triggered by governmental and economic developments (e.g., land use change, migration). The rich local knowledge, serves in line with a high degree of adaptation to local conditions, as a corner stone for its resilience. A future sustainable management requires the integration of local knowledge in combination with modern techniques in education, planning, and application.
Papers by Wiebke Bebermeier
WIREs Water
In the dry zone of Sri Lanka, human‐made reservoirs (locally called tanks or wewas) have served f... more In the dry zone of Sri Lanka, human‐made reservoirs (locally called tanks or wewas) have served for the collection, storage and distribution of rainfall and runoff and provided irrigation water for the cultivation of paddy for 2400 years. This water management system is deeply inscribed in the rural communities utilizing and maintaining it. Local knowledge connected to the utilization of this system is regarded as a substantial part of the intangible cultural heritage of this unique cultural landscape. In the dry zone of Sri Lanka this system had spread from the fifth century BCE onwards from the hinterland of the ancient capital Anuradhapura throughout the entire dry zone and provides a prerequisite for paddy cultivation. From approximately the 13th century onwards, written sources give evidence, that a weakening of state bureaucracy led to a decline of the water management system. In the Colonial period, numerous reservoirs were restored and the implementation of new governance st...
The landscape evolution of the area surrounding the necropolis of Dahshur (Egypt) is analysed on ... more The landscape evolution of the area surrounding the necropolis of Dahshur (Egypt) is analysed on the basis of geomorphological investigations and the integration of late Holocene sediment characteristics. Knowledge of the ancient landscape and palaeoenvironmental conditions allows a better understanding of spatial relationships between monuments and landscape. From altogether 41 sond-ages conducted mainly by archaeologists of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), we selected eight sondages along three transects and one single sondage. Furthermore, the results of geo-morphometrical analysis will be presented. The chosen sondages are characteristic of the typical landscape units of the study area: floodplain of the river Nile, limestone escarpment of the Western Desert and the desert margins east of the escarpment scarp. The geomorphology and channel geometry were also analysed. The results show that different processes influenced the relief of the study area. From the late Old K...
The Widawa catchment area is located in Northeastern Silesia, Poland, and belonged to the southwe... more The Widawa catchment area is located in Northeastern Silesia, Poland, and belonged to the southwestern distribution area of the Przeworsk culture from the younger pre-Roman period until the younger Roman period. It is estimated that iron smelting was introduced to this area with the emergence of the Przeworsk culture, circa the 2nd century BCE. Certain cultural and environmental requirements must have been met in order for this technology to spread to this area. Within the framework of interdisciplinary research, the archaeological context of an archaeological site as well as the natural archives were investigated to explore the preconditions and to describe the beginning of early iron smelting in this region.
The ancient city of Anuradhapura (4th century BCE to 10th century CE), established on the banks o... more The ancient city of Anuradhapura (4th century BCE to 10th century CE), established on the banks of the river Malwathu Oya in north-central Sri Lanka, is one of that country's most important archaeological sites. Numerous ancient buildings and monuments occur throughout the entire settlement. The preserved parts of the Anuradhapura ancient built environment are mostly solid masonry constructions. However, foundations, floor areas, pillars, and entrance units of the buildings provide evidence that rock materials were prominently used in constructions. This study focuses on the investigation of former rock quarry locations in the surroundings of Anuradhapura, their distributional pattern and their classification according to their morphological and archaeological significance. The majority of quarrying traces detected in the survey are distributed along a central rock outcrop line which runs across the city area. Altogether, 65 ancient rock quarries were identified in the area and ...
This special volume is dedicated to the proceedings of the session <em>Bridging the Gap – I... more This special volume is dedicated to the proceedings of the session <em>Bridging the Gap – Integrated Approaches in Landscape Archaeology</em> held at the 3rd International Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC) 2014 in Rome, Italy.
DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin, 2013
A complex and sustainable watershed management strategy was implemented in Sri Lanka during the a... more A complex and sustainable watershed management strategy was implemented in Sri Lanka during the ancient Anuradhapura period, from the 5th century BC to the 11th century AD. Like modern watershed management strategies, it focused on flood prevention, soil erosion control, water quality control and water storage for irrigation. Tank cascade systems were the key element of these ancient watershed management installations. The wewas investigated were constructed in valleys characterised by fluvial accumulation. Sedimentological analyses of these tank cascade systems show that a precise age determination and the reconstruction of sediment and water f luxes as triggered by human-environment interactions are difficult. This is caused by the shallow character of the wewas leading to the steady redeposition of the tank sediments by wave motions during the wet season and agricultural use of the desiccated wewas during the dry season. Beyond, the sediments analysed allow to distinguish between...
DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin, 2011
eTopoi. Journal for Ancient Studies, 2016
The paper deals with the introduction of iron as a new raw material in the transition period betw... more The paper deals with the introduction of iron as a new raw material in the transition period between the outgoing Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. Objective of the paper is to introduce the interdisciplinary research group A5: Iron as a new raw material of the Excellence Cluster Topoi. The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations . After a short overview of the history of the spread of iron technology after the decline of the Hittite empire, the central research categories of the group: space, knowledge, innovation and resource are introduced. The interdisciplinary composition of the group enables the integration of different methodological approaches from the archaeological sciences, ancient oriental studies and physical geography. Furthermore, the spatio-temporal potentials and limitations of the single disciplinary methodological approaches are discussed and a brief overview of the regions under investigation is given. The introduction of iro...
The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Physical Geography, 2018
Landscape archaeology is an emerging interdisciplinary field where researchers from humanities an... more Landscape archaeology is an emerging interdisciplinary field where researchers from humanities and sciences investigate human/environment interactions and interrelations as well as human perceptions of the environment. It is closely related to Critical Physical Geography except that the investigated humans are long gone. Insights about past societies and their relations to the environment are only indirectly accessible via material traces. We present different challenges when interpreting such material remains that are produced by coupled eco-social systems. In order to tackle these challenges, critical physical geographic thinking is necessary that iteratively questions the application of methods from physical and social science, their data selection and interpretation of results in order to arrive at a comprehensive, transdisciplinary understanding of long gone societies within their environment.
Water, 2020
This study aims to analyze the dependence of reservoirs (locally called tanks or wewas) in the he... more This study aims to analyze the dependence of reservoirs (locally called tanks or wewas) in the headwaters of the Aruvi Aru catchment on precipitation and thus to evaluate their efficiency. The Aruvi Aru is located in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka, and numerous human made reservoirs characterize the study area. The methodology is based on the application and correlation of climatic and hydrological drought indices. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is applied to precipitation data at different time scales and the Standardized Water-Level Index (SWLI) is applied to water-level data of five major tanks in the catchment. The results show that near normal present-day average precipitation is appropriate to fill the investigated tanks. The precipitation of the previous 6–12 months has the highest impact on water-level changes. A moderate to strong positive correlation between SWLI and SPI point to other factors besides precipitation affecting the water level of the tanks. These are: ...
Land, 2018
Urban Water Security is essential in urban planning to manage cities’ water infrastructures and s... more Urban Water Security is essential in urban planning to manage cities’ water infrastructures and strengthen their water stress resilience and adaptive capacities. Decision making, governance and socio-economic factors play important roles in achieving Urban Water Security. Kolkata is a growing megacity in a developing country, which is facing rising pressures on water-environmental provisions due to the rapid population growth and urbanization and resultant governance and infrastructural issues. This review focusses on Kolkata, which is facing critical water issues, as a case study. The study presents an overview of the urban water (in)security and its dimensions in Kolkata city, such as water consumption and distribution in the city along with the changing land use-land cover of the city area, based on the results obtained from the satellite data-based land use-land cover classification, available literature, and documents from public institutions.
Sustainability, 2019
The tank-based irrigated agricultural system in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka is one of the oldest hi... more The tank-based irrigated agricultural system in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka is one of the oldest historically evolved agricultural systems in the world. The main component of the system consists of a connected series of man-made tanks constructed in shallow valleys to store, convey and utilize water for paddy cultivation. Up to 10,000 tanks originating from the heydays of ancient kingdoms are still integrated in the current agricultural landscape. During the last two millennia, this indigenous system has undergone many changes in technological, management and socio-cultural norms. This research aimed to analyze the current management practices and existing indigenous aspects of the Dry Zone irrigated agricultural system from the viewpoint of farmers who are the main stakeholders of the system. Altogether, 49 semi-structured interviews were conducted in seven villages in the Anuradhapura district and a detailed survey was conducted in the village of Manewa with a mixed research approac...
Water, 2018
The dry-zone water-harvesting and management system in Sri Lanka is one of the oldest historicall... more The dry-zone water-harvesting and management system in Sri Lanka is one of the oldest historically recorded systems in the world. A substantial number of ancient sources mention the management and governance structure of this system suggesting it was initiated in the 4th century BCE (Before Common Era) and abandoned in the middle of the 13th century CE (Common Era). In the 19th century CE, it was reused under the British colonial government. This research aims to identify the ancient water management and governance structure in the dry zone of Sri Lanka through a systematic analysis of ancient sources. Furthermore, colonial politics and interventions during reclamation have been critically analyzed. Information was captured from 222 text passages containing 560 different records. 201 of these text passages were captured from lithic inscriptions and 21 text passages originate from the chronicles. The spatial and temporal distribution of the records and the qualitative information the...
Quaternary International, 2017
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Papers and Chapters by Wiebke Bebermeier
Papers by Wiebke Bebermeier