RiceMobility

Mobility is defined by The Human Mosaic as understanding how and why different cultural elements move through space and locate in particular settings. In the readings of North American Odyssey,  stimulus diffusion is discussed and exemplified through the expansion of rice farming techniques in Africa to the Carolinas and Georgia Lowcountry through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Many of the techniques, such as sluice gates, were carried over from Africa to the United States. The Atlantic Ocean acted as a permeable barrier by allowing the spread of ideas through, while also filtering out certain methods of rice farming. Time-Distance Decay is also a reason for the spread of these ideas filtering out. 

When examining the fields, I came across findings that the rice plantations in the Carolinas and Georgia Lowcountry are larger than the rice fields in Africa. I averaged the perimeters of the rice fields as well as their area in meters squared. The perimeter average of the African rice fields is .682 miles and the perimeter average of the US rice fields is 1.45 miles. The average area of the African rice fields was 121,694.198 meters squared. In comparison, the average area of the US rice fields was  346,238.942 meters squared. The size difference is shown visibly through the polygons as well as numerically through the size measurements. 

The shape of rice fields in the United States is typically more of a "perfect rectangle" where as the fields in Africa had similar shapes, but not as sharp rectangular features. 

All of these features through analysis show that the overall method of rice farming mobility spread from Africa to the US, but that certain features such as size and specific shape have been edited to fit the new environment across the Atlantic.

I included images and videos in the map that show some differences between the African and United States rice fields. These are modern day images as well as some historical ones that express the difference between the types of rice fields.