This report summarises the aims and methods of the Fezzan Project, a new interdisciplinary investigation of human settlement in the Saharan environment of southern Libya. The work follows up earlier British work by Charles Daniels on the Garamantes and focuses on the Wadi el-Agial in the vicinity of Germa (ancient Garama). The time frame of the project is the last 12,000 years. A variety of methodologies has been employed, including topographic survey, standing building recording, excavation, field walking, palaeobotanical and faunal sampling, geophysics and human bone analysis.

The Fezzan Project is investigating the last 10,000 years of human settlement, landscape evolution and climatic change in the Germa region in southern Libya. The second season in February–March 1998 comprised interdisciplinary research in archaeology and geography, centred around excavation and survey work carried out at the site of Old Germa. To date, three phases of mud brick buildings have been partially explored. In addition, wider geomorphological study and archaeological survey and fieldwalking were carried out elsewhere in the Germa/Twesh oasis and around el-Hatiya. Numerous sites were discovered, including a new hillfort of Zinchecra type and several valley centre ‘villages’ of Garamantian/Roman date. Artefactual studies were carried out on pottery and lithics, animal bones and seeds. Further work on the subterranean irrigation features, the foggaras, have confirmed their pre-Islamic origins.

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.

The fourth season of the Fezzan Project continued the interdisciplinary approaches of previous seasons. Geographical and environmental work focused principally in sampling sediments for scientific dating and with integrating ground observation with remote sensing data. Excavations continued at Old Germa, where the site has now reached Garamantian levels. In a separate development, the tentative identification has been made of an early mosque at the site, in an area adjacent to the G1 excavation trench. Substantial results were gained from work aimed at enhancing the important data recorded by Charles Daniels in his earlier excavations and survey in the Wadi al-Hayat. The enhancement of the Daniels' survey archive was integrated with completion of the wider prospection being undertaken by the new project. This survey included fieldwalking, standing building survey, analysis of the foggara irrigation systems and recording of rock art scenes. Finds work comprised the finalisation of a pottery type series for the Germa area, the study of small finds from the recent survey work, botanical analysis and completion of lithics recording. A programme of radiocarbon dating is now being undertaken to improve the phasing of sites and monuments. The first two volumes of final reports are now in preparation.