The Fezzan Project 1999: preliminary report on the third season of work

Abstract

This report summarises the work of the third season of the Fezzan project which took place in January 1999. The main environmental findings of the project team of specialist geographers are providing confirmation of dramatic climatic and environmental change over the last 100,000 years and give more precise dates for some of these changes. The excavations in Old Germa (ancient Garama) have continued through Islamic levels, with elements of five main phases of buildings now having been recorded. Additional standing structures, including one of Germa's main mosques, have been surveyed. Field survey around Germa has revealed further new settlement sites of prehistoric, Garamantian and Islamic date. Of particular importance is a series of lithic and pottery scatters relating to neolithic occupation along the edge of the Ubari Sand Sea, to the north of Germa. Further investigation of the irrigation channels (foggaras) has revealed significant new information about their size, construction and probable date. The report concludes with a brief preliminary analysis of changing settlement patterns over time.

Desert Migrations Project XVIII: The archaeology of the northern Fazzan. A preliminary report

“…The Wadi ash-Shati is located on one of the main routes connecting the north edge of the Sahara to the southern Mediterranean coast, as well as being on an important east-west axis of communication across the continent, and is also known to be one of the most fertile areas of the Fazzan. In spite of this, the Wadi ash-Shati has been underexplored in archaeological research, especially when compared with the intense survey and excavation work that focused on the Wadi al-Ajal since the late 1950s (Daniels 1968;1970a;1970b;Mattingly 1997;1999;2000;2003;Mattingly et al 2007a;Mattingly et al 2010), and the Acacus since the 1970s (Barich and Baistrocchi 1987;Cremaschi 1998;Cremaschi and Di Lernia 2001;Di Lemia et al 2001;Di Lernia and Manzi 2002;Liverani 2006).…”

Radiocarbon dates from Fazzan, southern Libya

“…This first batch of AMS dates from the recent excavations (samples FP26-49) relates to the upper levels of the site, down to the late Garamantian phases (Phases 1-5 and top of 6 in the stratigraphic sequence defined in the excavations, Mattingly et al 1997;1998;1999;2000;2001). Whilst a few dates fall outside of their expected range, presumably because they comprised residual organic remains, the dates broadly conform to the stratigraphic succession.…”

“…This paper concerns the oasis area of Fazzan, c. 400 km east and north-east of the Italians' study area, where two British-Libyan teams have worked in the 1960s-70s and the 1990s-2000s (Daniels 1989;Mattingly et al 1997Mattingly et al , 1998Mattingly et al , 1999Mattingly et al , 2000Mattingly et al , 2001. This work has focused to a much greater extent on the historical Garamantes and later agricultural occupants of the oases of the Wadi al-Ajal (see Mattingly et al Forthcoming a, for a first synthesis of results).…”

Three-dimensional cranial shape analyses and gene flow in North Africa during the Middle to Late Holocene

“…Therefore, the question that arises is whether there were also important levels of gene flow across populations, thus indicating substantial population movements, with a primary emphasis on the role of the Garamantes as the population geographically located at the center of the Sahara Desert and the trading networks that developed there. Since the Garamantes most likely represent a continuation of the indigenous Pastoral Neolithic groups (Di Lernia et al, 2002;Mattingly et al, 1999;Mattingly, 2000), they probably have a long history of presence in Fazzā n, and by exploring their biological affinities to other North African populations we should gain some insight into the population contacts that took place.…”