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, Japan.]]A terrace in agriculture is a flat surface that has been cut into hills or mountains to provide areas for the cultivation for crops, as a method of more effective farming. Terrace agriculture or cultivation is when these platforms are created successively down the terrain in a pattern that resembles the steps of a staircase. As a type of landscaping, it is called terracing.
Terraced fields decrease both erosion and surface runoff, and may be used to support growing crops that require irrigation, such as rice. The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras have been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the significance of this technique.they are Broad flat steps
Terracing is also used for sloping terrain; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon may have been built on an artificial mountain with stepped terraces, such as those on a ziggurat. At the seaside Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, the villa gardens of Julius Caesar's father-in-law were designed in terraces to give pleasant and varied views of the Bay of Naples.
Archaeological evidence from the Kislovodsk basin in the northern Caucasus indicates the use of terrace agriculture from the beginning of the first millennium BC, associated with the Koban culture, and continuing into the first millennium AD with later adaptations by Alanic communities. In the Mediterranean region, Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) profiling and dating has revealed a major intensification of terrace construction during the later Middle Ages (c. AD 1100–1600), indicating a significant investment of labor in landscape modification during this period.
Intensive terrace farming is believed to have been practiced before the early 15th century AD in West Africa. Terraces were used by many groups, notably the Mafa, Ngas language, Gwoza, and the Dogon people.
In Asian sub-tropical countries, a similar process has begun with the introduction of smaller, lower-tech and much lower-priced 2WTs in the 4-9 horsepower range that can be safely operated in the small, narrow terraces, and are light enough to be lifted and lowered from one terrace to the next. What is different from the Alpine use is that these 2WTs are being used for tillage and crop establishment of maize, wheat, and potato crops, and with their small 60-70cm-wide rotovators and special cage wheels are puddling the terraces for transplanted and broadcast rice. Farmers are also using the engines as stationary power sources for powering Water pump and threshers. Even more recently farmers are experimenting with use of small reaper-harvester attachments. In Nepal, the low costs of these mostly Chinese-made machines and the increased productivity they producePaudel, G.P., A. McDonald, D.B. Rahut, D.B KC, and S. Justice 2019 Scale-appropriate mechanization impacts on productivity among smallholders: Evidence from rice systems in the mid-hills of Nepal. Land Use Policy 85(2019):104-113. have meant that this scale-appropriate machinery is spreading across Nepal's Himalayas and likely into the other countries of the Himalaya and Hindu Kush.
The Inca people built on these, developing a system of , aqueducts, and puquios to direct water through dry land and increase fertility levels and growth. These terraced farms are found wherever mountain villages have existed in the Andes. They provided the food necessary to support the populations of great Inca cities and religious centres such as Machu Picchu.
Despite their prevalence, there is a lack of consensus among scholars regarding their construction date. Various theories have been proposed, with Zvi Ron suggesting that their origins date back to ancient times, Finkelstein proposing the Bronze Age, and Feig, Stager, and Harel suggesting the Iron Age. Archaeologists Shimon Gibson and Edelstein conducted research on terrace systems in the Rephaim valley, proposing that the ones in Khirbet er-Ras were built during the Iron Age II, whereas those in Ein Yael were linked to the Second Temple and Roman Empire periods. Seligman suggested that while some terraces were established in ancient times, the majority of them are more likely to have originated during the Roman and Byzantine Empire periods. A 2014 research study on terraces near Ramat Rachel, using Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL), yielded dates ranging from the Hellenistic period to Mamluk Sultanate and Ottoman Syria times. The majority of the samples fell within the latter periods.U. Davidovich et al., "Archeological Investigations and OSL Dating of Terraces at Ramat Rahel, Israel", Journal of Field Archaeology 37, 3 (2012): 192-208 However, the study's ability to precisely determine the original construction date remains uncertain, as the results could also reflect subsequent agricultural modifications that affected exposure to sunlight.
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