Mobile Technologies in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond

Through in-depth examinations of a range of technologies, this book demonstrates that the ancient and Medieval Sahara was as much a connective tissue as a barrier, and was teeming with innovation and knowledge exchange between mobile and sedentary groups. It is of value to historians, archaeologists, Africanists, and anthropologists.

The ancient Sahara has often been treated as a periphery or barrier, but this agenda-setting book – the final volume of the Trans-Saharan Archaeology Series – demonstrates that it was teeming with technological innovations, knowledge transfer, and trade from long before the Islamic period. In each chapter, expert authors present important syntheses, and new evidence for technologies from oasis farming and irrigation, animal husbandry and textile weaving, to pottery, glass and metal making by groups inhabiting the Sahara and contiguous zones. Scientific analysis is brought together with anthropology and archaeology. The resultant picture of transformations in technologies between the third millennium BC and the second millennium AD is rich and detailed, including analysis of the relationship between the different materials and techniques discussed, and demonstrating the significance of the Sahara both in its own right and in telling the stories of neighbouring regions.