International audienceAlthough the ancient site of Utica has been studied since the 19th century, the location of its harbors remains unresolved as they were buried under sediments as the Mejerda delta prograded and left Utica 10 km inland. Using relief data and a coring survey with sedimentological analysis, we identify the dynamics of the delta's progradation, which produced a double system of alluvial fans. These show that the ancient bay of Utica silted up faster and earlier than was thought, probably before the end of the Punic period. Combined with the radiocarbon dates from coring, this suggests that the harbor lay on the northwestern side of the Utica promontory, communicating with the sea by a marine corridor west of the northern compartment of the delta. As the infilling of the ancient bay progressed, this corridor narrowed until it disappeared completely in the early 5th/mid-6th century A.D., when a peat bog developed on the northern side of the promontory, sealing the fate of Utica as a port. This relative environmental stability ended in the 9th–10th century A.D. when about 4 m of sediment, probably of fluvial origin, covered the peat bog, leaving the site more than 4.5 m above the local sea level. C 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc
The surveys of the Albegna Valley and the Island of Jerba were carried out respectively between 1979–1983 and 1995–2000 using similar methodologies (flow data and transect sampling). Each recovered over 1,000 sites, many of them Roman. They thus provide excellent comparable data for the study of ancient demographics. Using standard parameters, approximate densities per kilometre are calculated for each area, allowing the examination of change over time. The low figures for the Albegna Valley are then considered in the light of calculations regarding the population of Italy as a whole.
The island of Jerba emerges unobtrusively from its shallow waters. The landscape is flat, the vegetation varies from scrubland to sparse palms to large olive trees whose ample root-stocks suggest several centuries of life. The olive groves are ploughed to allow every possible drop of water to reach the roots. Dry farming of cereals is more or less pointless although, when rain is plentiful, barley will be thinly sown on land that is otherwise uncultivated. In this driest of Mediterranean zones, plentiful rain is barely more than the few showers which the 200-mm isohyet would suggest. In the interior of the island a few estates maintain irrigated cultivation, the luxuriant results of which recall Pliny's description of the oasis of Tacape; palms shelter fruit trees, which shelter pomegranates, which in turn shelter little vegetable plots. Wells provide water for these systems, the water trickling into the gardens through tiny channels (sāqiya). Today the water is pumped, but in the past each bucket had to be laboriously raised by mules or camels; their ramps form a distinctive component of the systems. High walls of mud (ṭābiya) enclose the irrigated gardens. However, in spite of the technological improvements, these gardens are less plentiful than in the past and, as the water table falls, it is more common to find an abandoned well than one in use.
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