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Desert Migrations Project XVI: Radiocarbon Dates from the Murzuq Region, Southern Libya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2014

Martin Sterry ,
David Mattingly  and
Tom Higham
Martin Sterry
Affiliation:
University of Leicester, School of Archaeology and Ancient History
David Mattingly
Affiliation:
University of Leicester, School of Archaeology and Ancient History
Tom Higham
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Oxford
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Abstract

This article concerns a series of 20 samples submitted for AMS radiocarbon dating from historic sites in the Libyan Sahara. The sites had been identified initially from remote sensing analysis, then visited on the ground in 2011 and organic samples suitable for a dating programme obtained. With the help of an award from the NERC-AHRC National Radiocarbon Facility, this initial suite of dates has been provided. The results are important in several ways. They demonstrate very clearly that settlement in this hyper-arid desert landscape reached its densest pattern in the late Garamantian era, broadly the fourth-fifth centuries AD. In the Islamic era that followed, though the overall population appears less dense, our dates throw light on several possible phases of settlement renewal.

Type
Archaeological Reports
Information
Libyan Studies , Volume 43 , 2012 , pp. 137 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 2012

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