Is the hydraulic hypothesis dead yet? Irrigation and social change in ancient Yemen

Irrigation played an important role throughout ancient Southwest Arabian histories. Irrigation structures provide some of the earliest evidence of crop agriculture and large-scale flash floodwater irrigation systems sustained ancient states; the region thus offers important potential for reconsidering links between irrigation and social change. This paper examines millennia-long connections between social relations and the increasing technological and organizational complexity of irrigation in ancient Yemen. While the hydraulic hypothesis in its original deterministic formulation does not adequately account for the complexity and diversity of regional histories, large centrally managed irrigation systems played an indisputably significant role in Southwest Arabian state formation. Irrigation not only generated the food to sustain burgeoning populations but, just as importantly, afforded ancient kings the ideological prestige of commanding transformation of hyper-arid areas into lush, bountiful oases.