The Fezzan Project 1998: preliminary report on the second season of work

Abstract

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.

Reconstructing past cultural landscape and human impact using pollen and plant macroremains

“…As attested by archaeological and epigraphic sources, Garamantes were a sedentary population who exploited wells and settled in oases, developing a network of sites controlling the Saharan caravan routes since the first millennium BC onwards. Described as nomads and ''cultureless'' people by Herodotus, Sallust and other classic authors, the recent archaeological research is revealing how the truth of this culture has been greatly obscured by prejudice because the Garamantes had an advanced and complex society (Liverani 2000b(Liverani , 2007Mattingly et al 2000;Mattingly 2003). A multidisciplinary research was carried out within the ItalianLibyan Archaeological Mission in the Acacus and Messak (central Sahara) Sapienza, University of Rome -Department of Archaeology of Tripoli (formerly directed by F. Mori; then by M. Liverani, 1997Liverani, -2003, and today by S. di Lernia).…”

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).…”

Late Quaternary vadose carbonate diagenesis in coastal and desert dune and beach sands: is there a palaeoclimatic signal?

“…An aeolianite deposit from the Ubari Sand Sea north of Germa in southern Libya (Mattingly et al, 1998) has been sampled (Figure 2a). This site is included as it is an arid site with currently less than 10 mm of rainfall per annum; however, the data must be treated with caution as it is not dated, but is thought to be Holocene in age.…”

“…In addition, like most Saharan desert sands, this deposit is quartz-rich and this will clearly affect the nucleation rate of the calcite cement crystals (being slower than if the substrate was calcite), which may help to explain the lack of cements. However, calcretes are abundant in the area (Mattingly et al, 1998) and so there is a source of calcium carbonate for the cement. Given the circumstances, the data from Libya must be treated with caution.…”