Urbanisation and State Formation in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond

by Martin Sterry (Editor), David J. Mattingly (Editor)

Overview

The themes of sedentarisation, urbanisation and state formation are fundamental ones in the archaeology of many diverse parts of the world but have been little explored in relation to early societies of the Saharan zone. Moreover, the possibility has rarely been considered that the precocious civilisations bordering this vast desert were interconnected by long-range contacts and knowledge networks. The orthodox opinion of many of the key oasis zones within the Sahara is that they were not created before the early medieval period and the Islamic conquest of Mediterranean North Africa. Major claims of this volume are that the ultimate origins of oasis settlements in many parts of the Sahara were considerably earlier, that by the first millennium AD some of these oasis settlements were of a size and complexity to merit the categorisation 'towns' and that a few exceptional examples were focal centres within proto-states or early state-level societies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108785969
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/26/2020
Series:	Trans-Saharan Archaeology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	77 MB
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About the Author

Martin Sterry is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Durham. His research on the archaeology of the Sahara and North Africa makes particular use of GIS and remote sensing. He has undertaken fieldwork on various projects in Italy, Britain, Libya and most recently southern Morocco, where he is co-director of the Middle Draa Project. He has published many articles on the Libyan Fazzan, Saharan trade, urbanisation and oasis settlements.
David J. Mattingly is Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Leicester. He has worked in the Sahara for forty years and is the author of many books and articles related to Saharan archaeology, such as Farming the Desert (2 volumes, 1996), which won the James R. Wiseman book award of the American Institute of Archaeology, and The Archaeology of Fazzan series (4 volumes, 2003–2013). He was the principal investigator of the European Research Council-funded Trans-SAHARA Project (2011–2017) which created the groundwork for this volume, and he is the overall series editor of Trans-Saharan Archaeology, in which this is the third of four projected volumes.

Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction: 1. Introduction to the themes of sedentarisation, urbanisation and state formation in the ancient Sahara and beyond David J. Mattingly and Martin Sterry; Part II. Oasis Origins in the Sahara: A Region-By-Region Survey: 2. Garamantian oasis settlements in Fazzan David J. Mattingly, Stefania Merlo, Lucia Mori and Martin Sterry; 3. Pre-Islamic oasis settlements in the eastern Sahara David J. Mattingly, Martin Sterry, Louise Rayne and Muftah Al-Haddad; 4. The urbanisation of Egypt's western desert under Roman rule Anna Lucille Boozer; 5. Pre-Islamic oasis settlements in the northern Sahara David J. Mattingly, Martin Sterry, Muftah Al-Haddad and Pol Trousset; 6. Pre-Islamic oasis settlements in the north-western Sahara Martin Sterry, David J. Mattingly and Youssef Bokbot; 7. Pre-Islamic oasis settlements in the southern Sahara Martin Sterry and David J. Mattingly; 8. Discussion: sedentarisation and urbanisation in the Sahara Martin Sterry and David J. Mattingly; Part III. Neighbours and Comparanda: 9. Early states and urban forms in the middle Nile David N. Edwards; 10. Mediterranean urbanisation in North Africa: Greek, Punic and Roman models Andrew I. Wilson; 11. Numidian state formation in the Tunisian High Tell Joan Sanmartí, Nabil Kallala, Maria Carme Belarte, Joan Ramon, Francisco José Cantero, Dani López, Marta Portillo and Sílvia Valenzuela; 12. The origins of urbanisation and structured political power in Morocco: indigenous phenomenon or foreign colonisation? Youssef Bokbot; 13. Architecture and settlement growth on the southern edge of the Sahara: timing and possible implications for interactions with the north Kevin C. Macdonald; 14. Long-distance exchange and urban trajectories in the first millennium AD: case studies from the middle Niger and middle Senegal River valleys Susan Keech Mcintosh; 15. First millennia BC/AD fortified settlements at Lake Chad: implications for the origins of urbanisation and state formation in sub-Saharan Africa Carlos Magnavita; 16. At the dawn of Sijilmasa: new historical focus on the process of emergence of a Saharan state and a caravan city Chloé Capel; 17. The early Islamic trans-Saharan market towns of West Africa Sam Nixon; 18. Urbanisation, inequality and political authority in the Sahara Judith Scheele; Part IV. Concluding Discussion: 19. State-formation in the Sahara and beyond David J. Mattingly and Martin Sterry.