Ethnoarchaeology

After more than fifty years of researches devoted to the past of the area the activities of the Mission deals with the study of the people currently living in the area of the Acacus Mts. A key concern of the project is to pinpoint major traits of Kel Tadrart herders - a contemporary Tuareg pastoral community of the Tadrart Acacus - in order to provide a coherent model which will serve as a source of comparison for archaeological research on past herder societies in arid lands. On a broader scale, the area is suitable for the study of the issues of resilience and human adaptation to extreme environment.

Kel Tadrart settlement along wadi Teshuinat (Tadrart Acacus)

Learn more

Biagetti, S., and J. M. Chalcraft. 2012. "Imagining Aridity: Human-Environment Interactions in the Acacus Mountains, South-West Libya," in Imagining Landscapes: Past, Present, and Future, Anthropological Studies of Creativity and Perception. Edited by M. Janowski and T. Ingold, pp. 77-95. Farnham: Asghate.

di Lernia, S., I. Massamba N'Siala, and A. Zerboni. 2012. "‘Saharan Waterscapes’. Traditional Knowledge and Historical Depth of Water Management in the Akakus Mts. (SW Libya)," in Changing Deserts: Integrating People and their Environment. Edited by L. Mol and T. Sternberg, pp. 101-128. Cambridge: The White Horse Press.