The people of the present-day Tigray regional state in northern Ethiopia and parts of the Eritrean highlands – pride themselves on being direct descendants of some of Africa's oldest civilisations; the kingdoms of Da'amat (ca.700–400 BC) and Axum (ca.100–800 AD) (Marcus 1994). These civilisations were founded on Africa's most efficient and innovative agricultural production system, where the ox and plough were paired to produce optimal yield (McCann 1995). The subsistence sedentary agricultural society of the Abyssinian highlands developed well-organised local communities, where principles of kinship and descent guided the habitation pattern and access to land. Today, we find the descendants of the Axumites among the Tigrinya- and Amharic-speaking communities in the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands. They are still predominantly sedentary agriculturists (83 per cent), growing teff (an indigenous grain), wheat and barley as main crops, together with beans, lentils, onions, potatoes and maize as supplementary crops. The ox and traditional plough (maharas or mesrie) are still their main means of production; the plough has remained more or less unchanged since its invention more than two thousand years ago. The Tigrinya-speakers straddle the river Mereb which divides Eritrea and Ethiopia. There are about one and a half million Tigrinya-speakers in Eritrea, whereas about 3.3 million live in Tigray. Their ethnic ‘cousins’, the Amhara population, on the other hand, constitute the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia and amount to approximately 16 million (Central Statistical Authority 1998a).