Ricerc@Sapienza

The Archaeological Mission in the Sahara will carry out field activities in Tunisia in the Chott el Jerid and the Grand Erg Oriental (provinces of Kebili and Tataouine). Laboratory activities, dissemination and publications are integral part of the research.
The project continues the study on environmental and cultural trajectories at late Quaternary contexts in the Northern Sahara to understand key evolutive and population dynamics: the appearance of the earliest H. sapiens and material correlates (c. 300 ka, kilo annum); the introduction of food production economies and the interactions with the last hunter-gatherers in the early Holocene (c. 11,000 ka); the network of contacts revealed by late prehistoric funerary traditions (6-3 ka); the genetic composition and ethnohistory of sedentary and mobile communities.
To achieve these objectives, we shall excavate: i) the middle/late Pleistocene sequence of Wadi Lazalim; ii) the early Holocene contexts of Tembaine and Kambout; iii) the funerary monuments in the Grand Erg Oriental.
Fieldwork is carefully scheduled in the framework of an organically conceived territorial project but could shift from area to area after the security advice of the Italian Embassy in Tunis.
The COVID-19 pandemic had serious impact on 2020 fieldwork activities. The mission aim at getting back in line with the program by putting together a large team of around 30 Tunisian and Italian scientists and students: archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists, botanists, and biologists. The fieldwork will also focus on the training of Tunisian and Italian students. We shall also continue the analyses on archaeological materials from the previous and ongoing missions. Other laboratory analyses will be conducted on biological and skeletal material from SW Libya currently curated at the Museum of Anthropology of Sapienza University of Rome (DNA, stable isotopes, C14). Analyses on the Saharan rock art evidence will focus on Libyan and Tunisian contexts.