Abstract
The Abstract will summarize work on the pre-Islamic emergence of oases and networks of oasis systems across the Sahara, with significant implications for the diffusion of technologies and trade connections. The contribution will focus on specific case studies from southern Libya (the Garamantes) and southern Morocco (the Gaetuli peoples of the Wadi Draa), but will also draw on the wider results of the ERC-funded Trans-Sahara project on these issues. A large corpus of radiocarbon dates demonstrates the spread of oasis agriculture at a much earlier date than has been conventionally recognized. This body of work calls for a reconsideration of the presumed date of settlement of many other Saharan oases and of the type of societies that inhabited the Sahara in antiquity, specifically recognizing the existence of sedentary and pastoral population groups alongside one another.
