ABSTRACT
Seen from the air, the Sahel forms a seemingly endless tapestry of cultivated fields, dispersed among natural woodland (or grassland), for the most part bereft of rivers or lakes, hills or mountains, and marching across the time zones from Cape Verde in the west to the River Nile in the east. A closer look reveals, however, a persistent patterning around the clusters of habitations that make up its countless villages, each surrounded by a ring of fields, which merge together as the villages become larger or closer. The camps of mobile livestock keepers, scattered in the bush, cannot usually be seen. This vast zone, which would take six or seven hours to fly across, has been domesticated over many centuries, using hand technologies.
