News from the past: Progress in African archaeobotany

News from the past: Progress in African archaeobotany
Author: Ursula Thanheiser
Publisher: Barkhuis
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2016-08-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9492444305

Most of the contributions in this volume were presented at the seventh International Workshop on African Archaeobotany (IWAA), held in Vienna, 2-5 July 2012. They address past interrelationships between people and plants as evident in the rich archaeobotanical, ethnographic, and linguistic record of Africa. Since its inception two decades ago, IWAA has developed into a tightly knit community of scholars from all continents who share a profound interest in African ways of plant exploitation, trade networks, questions of origin, domestication and subsequent dispersal of African crops, as well as the introduction of crops of Asian and American origin.

Aghram Nadharif. The Barkat Oasis (Sha'abiya of Ghat, Libyan Sahara) in Garamantian Times. The Archaeology of Libyan Sahara Volume II

Aghram Nadharif. The Barkat Oasis (Sha'abiya of Ghat, Libyan Sahara) in Garamantian Times. The Archaeology of Libyan Sahara Volume II
Author: Mario Liverani
Publisher: All’Insegna del Giglio
Total Pages: 554
Release: 2006-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 8878144711

Il volume, secondo della serie dedicata alle ricerche ambientali, archeologiche e storiche nel Wadi Tanezzuft, l’imponente valle fluviale a occidente delle montagne del Tadrart Akakus, presenta la pubblicazione finale delle indagini condotte nel villaggio fortificato di Aghram Nadharif nell’oasi di Barkat. L’insediamento ebbe vita fiorente dal 50 ca. a.C. al 250 ca. d.C. e offre per la prima volta un quadro completo di un abitato dell’età garamantica nell’età classica. Oltre alla pubblicazione dello scavo e dei reperti archeologici, botanici e faunistici rinvenuti, il volume contiene una serie di interventi sulla storia del sito, l’economia, la demografia e il ruolo svolto dalla cittadella nella vita dell”intera regione.

Life and death of a rural village in Garamantian Times. Archaeological investigations in the oasis of Fewet (Libyan Sahara)

Life and death of a rural village in Garamantian Times. Archaeological investigations in the oasis of Fewet (Libyan Sahara)
Author: Lucia Mori
Publisher: All’Insegna del Giglio
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2013-12-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 8878145947

This volume presents the results of the archaeological investigations in the oasis of Fewet (SW Libyan Sahara), carried out by the Archaeological Mission in the Sahara of the Sapienza University of Rome. Evidences of an ancient rural village were identified under the houses of the modern town of Tan Afella and a large necropolis, dated to the Garamantian times, spread at the fringes of the modern settlement. Until 1997 very little was known on the Garamantian period in the Wadi Tanezzuft area and on the transition from the pastoral to the early-historical phase. This period witnessed the gradual sedentarisation of human groups in the oases, and the development of caravan routes with the flourishing of an intra- and trans-Saharan trade. These processes, also influenced by significant alterations in climate, which led to the agricultural exploitation of the limited areas where water resources were available – the oases – were archaeologically unknown as far as settlements were concerned. The archaeological surveys and excavations carried out in the area of Fewet were particularly promising and are here analysed in a multidisciplinary perspective, which takes into consideration environmental and anthropological studies in the attempt to reconstruct the culture and the life of people inhabiting the Southern Fezzan region in early-historical times. «The historical archaeology of the Sahara remains an underdeveloped field of research, especially for the pre-Islamic period. The most significant exception to this rule has for long concerned the people known as the Garamantes, who inhabited the central Saharan region coincident with Libya’s south-west province, Fezzan. (…) This volume is a marvelous addition to the small corpus of published research on the Pre-Islamic oasis societies of the Sahara and provides a complementary perspective on the world of the Garamantes to the Anglo-Libyan work I have directed from their heartlands in the Wadi el-Ajal, c. 400 km to north-east of Ghat». Prof. David J. Mattingly, University of Leicester, UK.

Uan Tabu in the Settlement History of the Libyan Sahara

Uan Tabu in the Settlement History of the Libyan Sahara
Author: Elena A. A. Garcea
Publisher: All’Insegna del Giglio
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2001-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 8878141844

Uan Tabu is a rockshelter on the left bank of the central valley of the Wadi Teshuinat, which is a main ancient water course in the Tadrart Acacus mountain range. It is located in the Fezzan region, south-western Libya (Great Jamahirya). The site was discovered by Fabrizio Mori in 1960 and was re-excavated and studied by a multi-disciplinary team at the beginning of the 1990s. It has also remarkable rock art that includes paintings from the Round Head and Pastoral phases. Between 1960 and 1963, a trench was dug into the archaeological deposit at the foot of the rock wall. The results of the 1960s’ excavation have never been published before, apart from some brief notes. They are thoroughly described and discussed in the present volume. Between 1990 and 1993, the excavation was resumed and extended. The 1990s’ excavation has been preliminarily published. Further information and details are now presented and commented. A stratigraphic and cultural correlation between the two excavations is also attempted in this volume. Four main archaeological and paedological units were identified and dated. They spanned from the Late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene. The earliest one, dating to the Pleistocene, included an Aterian techno-complex and was dated to around 61,000 years BP. Later, during the Early Holocene, a ‘pre-pastoral’ occupation occurred since the 10th millennium bp. This period was differentiated in two phases characterised by different socio-cultural systems: 1. during the Early Acacus (around 9800-8800 years bp), the site was used on a seasonal basis, probably during the dry season, for practising hunting activities; 2. during the Late Acacus (around 8800-8600 years bp), a more sedentary lifestyle was hypothesised for the inhabitants of the site. These two cultural facies comprised the upper three units. The fourth phase of occupation of the shelter was only attested to the surface of the site, but it could be still considered as an indication of the use of the site during the Late Holocene, as late as the 4th millennium bp. A dung fill in the wall of the rockshelter dated to the end of this, Late Pastoral, phase and is the only evidence for domesticated animals.

Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond

Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond
Author: C. N. Duckworth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2020-09-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 110890484X

The ancient Sahara has often been treated as a periphery or barrier, but this agenda-setting book – the final volume of the Trans-Saharan Archaeology Series – demonstrates that it was teeming with technological innovations, knowledge transfer, and trade from long before the Islamic period. In each chapter, expert authors present important syntheses, and new evidence for technologies from oasis farming and irrigation, animal husbandry and textile weaving, to pottery, glass and metal making by groups inhabiting the Sahara and contiguous zones. Scientific analysis is brought together with anthropology and archaeology. The resultant picture of transformations in technologies between the third millennium BC and the second millennium AD is rich and detailed, including analysis of the relationship between the different materials and techniques discussed, and demonstrating the significance of the Sahara both in its own right and in telling the stories of neighbouring regions.

Farming the Desert

Farming the Desert
Author: Graeme Barker
Publisher:
Total Pages: 428
Release: 1996
Genre: History
ISBN:

A detailed interdisciplinary study by archacologists, geographers and historians in a single region (the basins of the Wadis Sofeggin and Zem Zem in Tripolitania, in north-western Libya). The desert margins of North Africa are extremely rich in archaeological ruins of the Roman period, evidence of dense settlement 2,000 years ago in what are now arid and hostile environments. This project's methodologies for studying the archaeology of arid-zone agriculture have been recognized internationally, and the results of their application have transformed our understanding of how the desert margins of North Africa were farmed in antiquity, with important implications for modern agricultural planning.

Archaeology and Environment in the Libyan Sahara

Archaeology and Environment in the Libyan Sahara
Author: Barbara E. Barich
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
Total Pages: 368
Release: 1987
Genre: History
ISBN:

Barbara E. Barich with contributions by Massimo Baistrocchi, Giorgio Belluomini, Isabella Caneva, Angela E. Close, Achilles Gautier, Luigia Manfra, Bruno Marcolongo, Alberto M. Palmieri, Erhard Schulz and Sandra Y. Vons-Comis