Copyright © 2016 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance.
Biagetti, S., J. Alcaina-Mateos, and E. R. Crema. 2016. A matter of ephemerality: the study of Kel Tadrart Tuareg (southwest Libya)
campsites via quantitative spatial analysis. Ecology and Society 21(1):42. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08202-210142
Research, part of a Special Feature on Small-Scale Societies and Environmental Transformations: Co-evolutionary Dynamics
A matter of ephemerality: the study of Kel Tadrart Tuareg (southwest
Libya) campsites via quantitative spatial analysis
Stefano Biagetti 1,2,3, Jonas Alcaina-Mateos 1,2,4 and Enrico R. Crema 1,2,5
ABSTRACT. We examined the settlement structure from the Kel Tadrart Tuareg, a small pastoral society from southwest Libya. Our
objective was to apply spatial analysis to establish the statistical significance of specific patterns in the settlement layout. In particular,
we examined whether there is a separation between domestic and livestock spaces, and whether particular residential features dedicated
to guests are spatially isolated. We used both established statistical techniques and newly developed bespoke analyses to test our
hypotheses, and then discuss the results in the light of possible applications to other case studies.
Key Words: campsites; Kel Tadrart Tuareg; settlement layout; spatial analysis
INTRODUCTION
The study of pastoral settlements has traditionally held a
problematic position in the archaeological literature. Allegedly
invisible and likely impermanent, nomadic campsites have
challenged generations of archaeologists and a variety of
methodological and theoretical approaches. The ephemeral
nature of their structural remains in fact limits our capacity to
identify settlement layouts and ultimately the reconstruction of
the past use of space, whether this is the overall extent of the area
where daily activities where performed or the identification of
specific spatial patterning of the build environment.
In the study of ancient pastoral societies, the observation of
modern living populations has traditionally played a central role.
Indeed, ethnoarchaeology has focused on current pastoral
campsites to develop strategies for ancient sites’ identification and
interpretation. In the domain of settlement pattern, the unique
possibility of directly observing human behavior and its material
correlates places ethnoarchaeology in a optimal position for
shaping a more complete and comprehensive vision of ancient
settlements. Scholars have explored the settlement behavior of
pastoral nomads in different contexts, showing that material
evidence can be indeed detected in the archaeological record.
Architectural remains, activity areas, artifacts, and recognizable
alterations of the natural environment have been reported in a
variety of case studies (e.g., David 1971, Robbins 1973, Gifford
1978, Robertshaw 1978, Hole 1979, Cribb 1991, Avni 1992,
Banning and Köhler-Rollefson 1992, Bradley 1992, Palmer et al.
2007, Saidel 2009). Although most of this research was problem
oriented, context specific, and archaeologically raised, a variety
of middle-range theories have been extrapolated from these
particular case studies to approach the study of the vestigial
remains of past societies.
We examined the settlement layout of the Kel Tadrart Tuareg.
This small-scale society from southwest Libya offers an
exceptional context for studying the settlement layout of mobile
pastoral communities. In particular, we investigated whether there
is a separation between domestic and livestock spaces, and
whether particular residential features dedicated to guests are
spatially isolated. All analyses were performed using the R
1
statistical programming language (R Development Core Team
2014), with the spatstat (Baddeley and Turner 2005), maptools
(Bivand and Lewin-Koh 2015), and rgdal libraries (Bivand et al
2014). The source code, scripts, and data set can be found at
zenodo (http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.45453).
IN THE SAHARA: THE KEL TADRART TUAREG OF THE
ACACUS MOUNTAINS
Pastoralism is a widespread strategy in arid lands that is well
adapted to cope with erratic rainfall and patchy resources. In the
Sahara, the earliest evidence of animal husbandry is dated to
about 7000 years ago, three millennia before the adoption of
agriculture (di Lernia 2013 and references therein). Its ideological
and socioeconomic role remained central even after the spread of
farming, and its primacy is well reflected by its relevance in the
research agenda of Saharan subsistence archaeology (e.g., Dunne
et al. 2012). Most of the Holocene archaeological sites within this
region are indeed pastoral settlements, set either in caves and rock
shelters or in open-air locations (e.g., Biagetti and di Lernia 2013).
Despite the long-term continuity of this subsistence strategy,
which persists to the present day, a considerable lack of
ethnoarchaeological research hinders the comparison between
the past and the present in the Sahara.
The Kel Tadrart are a small lineage of pastoral Tuareg living in
the Tadrart Acacus mountains, located in the southwest corner
of Libya (Fig. 1). They raise goats, sheep, and dromedaries, but
they are also involved in a range of subsidiary activities, including
wage work, service in the army or police, and until 2011, tourism.
They recently were the subjects of a specific ethnoarchaeological
research project run between 2003 and 2011 (Biagetti 2014a, 2015,
in press, Biagetti and Chalcraft 2012). Kel Tadrart society is based
upon a small number of households, generally composed of three
generations (elders, adults, and unmarried children; Table 1), with
their heads being closely related, generally siblings or first cousins.
The Kel Tadrart settlement pattern is generally driven by pasture
availability, the water being easily transported from the wells of
the gueltas (rock pools). Different patterns of mobility have been
recorded, from full sedentism to regular transhumance, with the
majority of the households having opportunistic and flexible
strategies for residential moves, and individual choices overriding
CaSEs - Complexity and Socio-Ecological Dynamics group, 2Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Department of Humanities, 3School of Geography,
Archaeology, and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, 4Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Institució Milà i
Fontanals, Spanish National Research Council, 5UCL Institute of Archaeology
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fixed schemes of transhumances. At the site level, an unexpected
variability in domestic architecture has been explained from an
historical perspective. The use of plant material has been in fact
linked to the adoption of an original wooden prototype, identified
by the Kel Tadrart as “their” hut, whereas stone huts are
considered a late adoption. The study of a set of recently
abandoned campsites has given some time depth to the
observations collected in the present, showing evidence of
“delayed curation” (Tomka 1993), whereby previous inhabitants
repeatedly visit abandoned campsites collecting usable items and
leaving worn ones. The accumulation of these activities over
multiple years generally leads to the deprivation of small items,
with the exception of broken artifacts and, crucially, most of the
dwellings.
Fig. 1. The study area: red dots indicate the the Kel Tadrart
main campsites.
Table 1. The Kel Tadrart main sites (2007-2009), with number of
inhabitants and livestock.
Site
ALO_07/1
IMH_07/1
IMH_07/3
IMH_07/4
EID_09/1†
IMM_07/1
RAH_07/1
SUG_07/1
SUG_07/2
TES_07/1
TIB_07/1
TIH_07/1
total
Inhabitants
Sheep/goats
4
3
5
5
5
7
4
9
4
4
6
8
64
80
80
90
70
90
130
90
60
40
110
130
230
1200
Camels
9
3
5
4
21
†
The only main settlement (EID_09/1) that was not mapped and was
not included in the present study.
This particularistic research has provided insights on the ability
of the Kel Tadrart to adapt, through a diversification of their
activities, to a hyperarid environment. This diversification does
leave traces on the ground, the study of which allows exploring
the nuances of this successful human adaptation to extreme
environments.
THE KEL TADRART SETTLEMENTS: MATERIAL AND
METHODS
We examined the main settlements of the Kel Tadrart, i.e., those
where their households spend most of time of the year and are
emically defined as primary residential sites (Table 1). Our data
set consists of all main settlements previously recorded (Biagetti
2014a, Table 3.3), which correspond to all Kel Tadrart primary
residential sites but one (EID_09/1 was not examined for logistical
reasons), dated between 2003 and 2009 (n = 11). We excluded
from our analysis all secondary and opportunistic campsites,
generally occupied for a shorter interval, that dot the Tadrart
Acacus landscape (Biagetti 2014b).
In broad terms, the absolute locations of Kel Tadrart main
settlements are strongly determined by the local topography.
Campsites are located on flat tops slightly raised above wadi floors
with some distance from dry riverbeds to prevent damage in case
of floods. Features are often built in proximity to rocky flanks or
outcrops to protect the settlers and the livestock from the cold
winter winds and, at the same, offer shadow and structural
support; boulders, niches, and vertical rock walls are often
incorporated in the architectural features.
We deliberately focused on permanent features, generally made
of wood, straw, and stones, and left aside small, movable objects.
This is not to deny the usefulness of the research on small items,
especially from an ethnoarchaeological perspective. However, the
research so far carried out among the Kel Tadrart (Biagetti 2014b)
included the processes of the abandonment of settlements,
demonstrating that within deserted sites a mechanism of delayed
curation (sensu Tomka 1993) operates.
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Architectural features of Kel Tadrart settlements can be broadly
grouped in two categories on the basis of their primary use:
domestic features for daily-life purposes (sleeping, cooking, etc.)
and facilities apt for husbandry (Table 2). Typically the former
include nonmovable fixtures such as dwelling huts, one or two
kitchens, occasionally one wood-made garage, stores, normally
the diwan (a special purpose hut for hosting guests), stone-lined
mosques, and a variety of other features such as dumps, wood
piles, and fuel barrels. Livestock features include a stone pen for
newborns, a few barbed wire corrals, a few chicken houses, and
dung areas. Occasionally, Kel Tadrart campsites include also two
or more isolated features set at a considerable distance from the
others. This peculiar configuration is because of the presence of
unmarried adult sons (daughters are encouraged to marry at a
relatively young age) who deliberately set their hut and other
associated features aside from their parents’ hut. Despite their
isolation, they still gravitate around their parents and still
collaborate with them in the herd management and other daily
duties. All the campsites’ features were mapped by taking a single
point in their centroid using a hand-held global positioning
system (Fig. 2)
Table 2. Number of domestic and livestock features at Kel Tadrart
campsites, features belonging to unmarried offspring, and the
presence or absence of the diwan (as in 2007). Site SUG_07/1 (†)
features some structures that were declared to belong to
unmarried offspring who were not present at the time of the visit
by one of the authors (SB); thus, data regarding use and ownership
were not directly collected, as they were in other cases.
Settlement Domestic Livestock Domestic Livestock
features
features
features
features
for
for
unmarried unmarried
offspring offspring
ALO_07/1
IMH_07/1
IMH_07/3
IMH_07/4
IMM_07/1
RAH_07/1
SUG_07/1†
SUG_07/2
TES_07/1
TIB_07/1
TIH_07/1
8
11
11
10
12
19
9
12
21
10
14
6
2
8
6
4
5
3
4
3
3
6
2
2
0
0
2
3
4
0
6
0
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
Diwan
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
1
Although the small scale of these pastoral communities does not
ensure a sufficient sample size for statistical analysis at the level
of individual sites, the aggregate data offer an exceptional basis
for investigating the spatial layout of these campsites in general.
Interviews with members of each site provided us with key
knowledge that can be hardly recovered from archaeological
contexts, such as the function and use of a given feature and its
ownership by a specific household.
We contribute to the broader ethnoarchaeological research
agenda on the human use of space by examining two social and
functional hypotheses of Kel Tadrart settlement layouts: (1) the
spatial segregation of domestic and livestock features and (2) the
isolation of special-purpose huts (diwans) apt for hosting guests.
Fig. 2. The campsite SUG_07/1. The abbreviation “sup. st.”
indicates superelevated store.
The first hypothesis was originally proposed by Biagetti (2014c) in
his ethnoarchaeological study of the Kel Tadrart. Although the
hypothesis was never formally tested, the recorded data from the
campsites suggested that the cohabitation of humans and livestock
was within defined spaces, from which emerged spatially segregated
areas to be exclusively used either by animals (e.g., pens, corrals,
dung areas) or by humans (huts, kitchens, dumps).
One possible hypothesis that may explain the supposed isolation of
diwans is the specific attitude of avoidance that is widely observed
in the Tuareg world. Modesty and discretion, along with hospitality,
are extremely important values among the Tuareg (e.g., Gast 1968,
Rasmussen 1998, Camps-Fabrer 2000). Nicolaisen and Nicolaisen
(1997) provide an excellent account on the typical behavior of hosts
and guests. They note that host behaves with the utmost reserve and
care, and anyone who plans to visit someone’s else campsite will try
to dress in the finest clothes, veiling his or her face to the most,
talking carefully and modestly, and trying not to seek attention.
This seclusive behavior is observed among both strangers and
relatives during a visit and can be regarded as a key social element
that is considered when a new settlement is build. Given the special
use of diwan as the hut where adult men gather for discussing
political and social issues, as well as the place were these occasional
guests are invited to stay overnight, we should expect to observe
some differences in diwans’ structural properties and their spatial
location. Although the former does not seem the case (Kel Tadrart
diwans are architecturally identical to other dwelling huts but differ
in their mobile furniture), the latter is suggested by the visual
impression of existing settlement layouts. We statistically analyzed
this, in particular looking at the isolation of diwans in respect to
other domestic features of the same settlement.
The size of the campsites
Objective estimates of the extent of Kel Tadrart campsites are hard
to retrieve. Although information regarding the presence of each
feature in one household or another can be retrieved directly from
interviews with the local residents, a precise emic definition of the
areal extent of each campsite does not exist. We overcame this
limitation by using a technique called the Ripley-Rasson estimate
(Ripley and Rasson 1977), which is used in the field of point process
analysis, a branch of spatial statistics apt to study the spatial
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arrangements of objects that can be represented as points. Point
process analysis has recently seen a steady rise of applications in
archaeology (see Bevan et al. 2013 for a review), offering ways to
test and compare a broad range of hypotheses (e.g., see Eve and
Crema 2014).
Fig. 3. Different features and areas at Kel Tadrart campsites.
The Ripley-Rasson estimate provides a quantitative assessment
of the areal extent of each campsite by computing a “convex hull”
of the features (i.e., the smallest convex polygon including all
observed points), which is then rescaled on the basis of the number
of observations and vertices. Although this remains just an etic
definition of the settlement area, it offers a reproducible and a
first quantitative account for evaluating our data set, as well as
an attempt to estimate the combination of the residential space
(i.e., the physical space occupied by the structures) and the
occupational space (i.e., the empty space that is daily crossed;
sensu Fletcher 1981).
The results of our analysis (see Table 3) showed that settlements
have an average size of 3.6 ha, although the distribution has a
strong right skew, with the largest settlement more than 13 ha.
This skew is most likely caused by the fact that the estimate also
incorporates the void between the core area and the space
occupied by the unmarried sons, which is emically regarded as
part of the settlement. As noted earlier, this isolation is regarded
as a voluntary choice to maintain spatial and age-based
segregation, although it does not prevent daily interaction and
communication (Fletcher 1981). Given the particular role played
by the unmarried sons in the shaping of the settlement layout,
and their potential conflating effect in the study of the isolation
of diwans, we decided to focus our analysis on the core rather than
the extended areas of the settlements (see Fig. 3). Our choice of
excluding all features belonging to the unmarried offspring was
also dictated by our explicit interest in the original blueprint of
the Kel Tadrart campsites, and not the subsequent changes in the
spatial layout resulting from settlement expansion. The resulting
average size was reduced to 1.34 ha, although this was greatly
driven by the reduction in size of the IMH 07/1 (from 13.80 to
3.66 ha) and TIH 07/1 (from 7.51 to 0.66 ha) sites.
Table 3. Estimates of Kel Tadrart settlement areas computed with
the Ripley-Rasson analysis using all features for extended area,
and excluding structures pertaining to unmarried sons for core
area.
Settlement
Area total (ha) →
extended area (ha)
Area core (ha)
ALO_07/1
IMH_07/1
IMH_07/3
IMH_07/4
IMM_07/1
RAH_07/1
SUG_07/1
SUG_07/2
TES_07/1
TIB_07/1
TIH_07/1
0.42
13.80
1.46
1.91
1.71
1.49
6.63
1.39
2.93
0.87
7.51
0.42
3.66
1.46
1.91
0.44
0.61
0.81
1.39
2.51
0.87
0.66
The isolation of livestock features
Because Kel Tadrart campsites do not feature any physical
boundary separating domestic and livestock spaces, we chose to
formulate our hypothesis in terms of spatial relationship between
feature types. More specifically, we conducted a bivariate L
function (Diggle 2003; see also Crema and Bianchi 2013 and
Bevan et al. 2013 for archaeological examples of its application),
a point process analysis designed to evaluate whether two sets of
points exhibit aggregation or segregation at different spatial scales
(see also Smith 2004). We first defined a binary membership of
all features to either the domestic domain (class D, n = 121) or
the livestock domain (class L, n = 49). Then for each point of
class D, we calculated the number of points of class L located
within distance r. This formed the basis of our summary statistic,
which was then adjusted with the total number of observed points
and the size of the window of analysis (obtained with the RipleyRasson estimate; see publications above for technical details about
the bivariate L function). For each distance r, this observed
statistic was then compared with an envelope generated from
10,000 simulated statistics, each calculated from a random
permutation of the points’ labels, i.e., membership in the domains.
The comparison between the observed and simulated statistics
enabled us to determine whether we had significant instances of
attraction (the observed L function was higher than the simulated
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envelope, i.e., the number of points of class L from each point of
class D was higher than expected) or repulsion (the observed L
function was lower than the simulated envelope).
As mentioned earlier, the small number of observations for each
campsite did not allow an analysis at the level of individual sites.
Instead, we carried out our analysis by aggregating the entire data
set under the assumption that the same spatial process took place
in all sites. Although this approach inevitably hindered any
exceptions or deviations from the general pattern, it provided a
formal way to assess the general spatial relationship between
domestic and livestock features. We generated our simulated
summary statistics in two ways: (1) by freely permuting the entire
data set, thus without keeping the relative number of class L and
class D points for each site (i.e., each simulation had in total the
same number of class L amd D points as the observed data, but
their number at each site could be different from the number
observed); and (2) by stratifying the permutation so that the
relative proportions of class L amd D points were also maintained
at the site level.
The results (Fig. 4) showed that for both cases the observed L
function was lower than the simulated envelope, indicating a
significant segregation between class D and class L features. The
choice of the permutation procedure did not alter the output in
a significant fashion, with the scale of segregation (highlighted
in red in Fig. 4) between 5 to 35 m for the standard permutation
approach and 5 to 45 m for the stratified version. In other words,
on average the expected density of livestock features within a
distance of 5 to approximately 40 meters from every domestic
structure was significantly lower than one would expect from a
purely random relationship in the use of space.
Fig. 4. Result of the bivariate L function for the full
permutation and constrained permutation versions of the null
hypothesis. The pink shaded region highlights spatial scales of
significant segregation between domestic and livestock features
(analysis run on 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations).
sized settlements. We then computed the average z-transformed
distances from the diwan to all domestic features for each campsite
and calculated the grand mean of our observed data, i.e., the mean
of the means. This summary statistic, which we will refer to as
Iobserved , offers an index of the degree of isolation of diwan huts
from all other domestic features. Our null hypothesis was that
diwans do not have any particular spatial position; hence, their
distance from the domestic space would be comparable to those
of other huts. If that is the case, Iobserved would be indistinguishable
from the same statistic computed from a selection of random huts
as diwans (one per campsite, as for the observed data). Given the
small sample size, we calculated the summary statistic for all 1728
possible combinations (including the observed) where 1 hut in the
campsite was randomly assigned as a diwan. The number of huts
(excluding unmarried offspring and including diwans) was 3
(IMH_07/1), 2 (IMH_07/3), 2 (IMH_07/4), 3 (IMM_07/1), 2
(RAH_07/1), 3 (SUG_07/2), 4 (TES_07/1), and 2 (TIH_07/1).
The product of all terms (3 × 2 × 2 × 3 × 2 × 3 × 4 × 2 = 1728)
gives the total number of possible combinations where one hut
per campsite was a diwan. The results showed that the observed
statistic was the highest possible, implying that the probability of
getting a value as large as (or greater than) Iobserved by chance alone
is 1 out of 1728, or 0.0005787037, which is the exact p value of
our test. Our analysis thus strongly supports the hypothesis that
indeed diwans are the most isolated huts among the residential
features because this was systematically the case for all eight
settlements examined here. In other words, the seclusion has a
material correlate that is reflected in the spatial layout of Kel
Tadrart campsites.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Despite the prominence of pastoral communities in the past and
present landscape of the Sahara, there are very few studies
offering a quantitative account of their campsites and virtually
no statistical assessments on visual and qualitative impressions
of their spatial layout. Our study is an initial attempt to fill the
gap in the knowledge by applying a suite of techniques developed
in the field of point pattern analysis.
The Ripley-Rasson estimate has offered an objective, repeatable,
and reproducible quantification of the site area, information that
is often lacking in the study of pastoral communities. We obtained
estimates of the original settlement area, as well as the extended
area after the construction of features associated with unmarried
sons (Table 3). We then tested two hypotheses that were proposed
in past studies but never verified in statistical fashion: the
segregation of domestic and livestock spaces and the isolation of
diwan huts. Our analysis suggests that the empirical evidence
offered by the Ket Tadrart campsites supports both hypotheses
despite the small number of features observed at each settlement.
The isolation of the diwans
To test our hypothesis that diwan huts were isolated from other
residential features in the same campsite, we developed a bespoke,
permutation-based statistical analysis. For each campsite (n = 8,
because 3 campsites did not have a diwan), we first calculated a
matrix of interdistances between all domestic features and ztransformed the values to ensure comparability across differently
On average, our analysis suggested a segregation of livestock and
domestic features at the scale of 5 to approximately 40 meters
(Fig. 4). The result could testify to functional needs, but could
also be reconnected to the neat Kel Tadrart vision of clean (huts)
and dirt (the livestock dung and related areas). This contrasts with
other African cattle-based pastoral societies, where the corral is
set at the very center of the settlement (e.g., Hodder 1982). The
lack of comparative spatial data from other pastoral societies
prevents further speculation regarding the presence of this
segregation and the scale at which this occurs among herders from
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the Levant and the Near East, although some of the figures
presented (e.g., Fig. 4 in Simms 1988 and Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 in
Banning and Köhler-Rollefson 1992) do not seem to indicate a
clear separation in space, suggesting the necessity of further
analysis. Given that in many cases it is possible to distinguish
domestic and livestock features, we reckon that this analysis can
be applied also to the archaeological record, although
chronometric uncertainty might hinder a proper evaluation of
the spatial relationships (but see Crema et al. 2010 for a possible
solution). This is not the case for the isolation of diwans, because
the material evidence of these special-purpose huts is virtually
indistinguishable from that of other residential units (Biagetti
2014c). Our research can be considered a cautionary tale on how
specific social attitudes might be expressed only within a relational
space, prompting the necessity of more formal analysis of
settlement layouts.
It is also worth noting that alternative social processes other than
the ones proposed here can also generate both observed spatial
patterns. Such an equifinality problem is likely to be even more
limiting in the case of archaeological data, although some possible
solution has been suggested (see Eve and Crema 2014). In general
we believe that the application of spatial statistics can actively
contribute to the study of pastoral societies. The existence of
functional and social stresses that need to be spatially managed
at the campsite level certainly affects many communities other
than the Kel Tadrart. The relevance of the set of rules we have
identified here ought to be framed within a larger cross-cultural
framework. The use of objective, repeatable, and reproducible
statistical analysis is pivotal to this endeavor. It is also worth
noting that the methods presented here are just a small portion
of a wider range of techniques that are able to discern patterns
resulting from the interaction of individual components (inherent
spatial dependency) from those emerging from external
constraints such as local topography (induced spatial
dependency). These methods have been primarily used either for
the analysis of artifact distribution (e.g., Orton 2004, Vanzetti et
al. 2010, Crema and Bianchi 2013; see also Carrer 2015 for
ethnoarchaeological application) or for the study of regional
settlement pattern (e.g., Bevan and Connolly 2006, Winter-Livneh
et al. 2010, Palmisano 2013), and rarely for the intermediate scale
assessed here (but see Eve and Crema 2014). Rather, the originality
of our approach resides in the application of such methods to a
whole set of ethnographic data, collected with ethnoarchaeological
purposes.
Although this case study bears relevance to the broad domain of
human spatial behavior, it holds insights for archaeological
research on nomadism as well. The paucity of extensive
excavations limits the comparative study of multiple campsites in
the archaeology of the Tadrart Acacus and in general of the
central Sahara. We focused on regional surveys (e.g., Cremaschi
and di Lernia 1998, Biagetti et al. 2013) coupled with small-scale
excavations (see Biagetti and di Lernia 2013 for a recent review).
How ephemeral or elusive these can be, the material traces left on
the ground by ancient pastoralists, can be better pinned down by
an ethnoarchaeological perspective aimed at collecting spatial
data to reconstruct settlement layouts. We believe that the
combination of ethnoarchaeologically sourced data and the
flexibility of modern spatial statistics can offer an excellent
contribution to the field of settlement studies in small-scale
societies.
Responses to this article can be read online at:
http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/issues/responses.
php/8202
Acknowledgments:
Data used in this study were collected by one of the authors (SB)
under the logistical and financial support of the Italian
Archaeological Mission in the Sahara.
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