Rome Without Romanization Cultural Change in the Pre-Desert of Tripolitania

MARK GRAHAME

ROME WITHOUT ROMANIZATION: CULTURAL CHANGE INTHE PRE-DESERT OF TRIPOLITANIA (FIRST–THIRDCENTURIES AD)

Summary. The pre-desert of Roman Tripolitania was one of the mostremarkable regions of the empire. From the first to the sixth centuries AD itsupported a thriving agricultural community, despite the marginality of theenvironment. The initial transformation took place at a time when Rome wasactively campaigning against the tribes of the true desert. That the settlementof the pre-desert had something to do with Roman action seems obviousenough, but paradoxically the material culture of the pre-desert shows littledirect Roman influence. This paper resolves this dilemma by arguing thatsettlement of the pre-desert came about largely because of the social dynamicsof its indigenous nomadic inhabitants. It is argued that Roman militarysuccess brought political stability to the pre-desert and that this inadvertentlycreated the conditions that enabled certain sections of pre-desert society toabandon a nomadic existence in favour of a more sedentary one, based onagriculture. This paper explores the reasons why this took place and discussescultural change in the Tripolitanian pre-desert in light of these conclusions.

INTRODUCTION: THE PARADOX OF THE PRE-DESERT

The pre-desert of the Roman province ofTripolitania was one of the most remote andremarkable parts of the empire. Today the pre-desert of Libya is still a marginal zone and theconsiderable forces of the modern world arestill to impact greatly upon it. Yet,extraordinarily, during the early imperialperiod, the pre-desert was transformed: it‘bloomed’ with the appearance of settledagriculture, made possible in this desolateregion by a sophisticated system of cross-wadiwalls that captured and directed the meagre

annual rainfall (Barker 1985; Gilbertsonet al.1984). Archaeological evidence from theUNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey project(hereinafter ULVS) (Barkeret al. 1983;Barker and Jones 1980–81, 1984; Jones andBarker 1980, 1983; Jones 1985) has revealed adeveloped landscape of farmsteads, olive oilpresses (Barker and Jones 1984; Huntet al.1986; Mattingly 1985, 1995), field boundariesand elaborate mausoleums, all of whichindicate the existence of a thrivingcommunity. The analysis of imported Romanred-slipped pottery from pre-desert farmingsites (Dore 1985), together with the handful ofradiocarbon dates so far obtained (Dore and

OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 17(1) 1998

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UKand 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 93

van der Veen 1986), suggests that thistransformation began some time around themiddle of the first century AD, withsettlement continuing in various forms untilthe sixth. At no time before, or since, has thepre-desert witnessed such an intensity ofhuman activity.

By examining the geography and climateof the region, it is easy to understand whysettled agriculture has been such a rarefeature of pre-desert life (Fig. 1). The threeprovinces of modern Libya: Tripolitania,Cyrenaica and the Fezzan, roughlycorrespond to three distinct natural regions.Tripolitania itself lies to the west ofCyrenaica and to the north of the true desertof the Fezzan. The dominant feature of theTripolitanian landscape is theGebel, which isthe precipitous edge of the Saharan plateau. Itruns inland from the Mediterranean coast in agreat arc that encloses the coastal plainknown locally as theGefara. The pre-desertlies immediately to the south of the Gebel,sandwiched between it and the stony uplandarea of the Hamada. Dissecting the pre-desertare the great Pleistocene wadi systems of theSoffegin and Zem Zem. These rise in theHamada and drain in a north-easterlydirection into the Mediterranean.

Two distinct climatic zones are created bythis physical topography. The Gefara and theGebel form one, while the pre-desert is theother. The effect of this division may bereadily appreciated by considering theamount of rainfall in each zone (Barker andJones 1982). The coastal zone and Gebelhave in excess of 200 mm of rainfall eachyear, the generally accepted minimum forsettled agriculture without irrigation. Beyondthe Gebel and into the pre-desert the amountof rainfall and its reliability decreasesnotably. By the middle Zem Zem it is downto about 50 mm per year and decreases to lessthan 25 mm per year on the desert margins.

Furthermore, any rainfall that there is tendsto be extremely localized with most rainfalling in cloud bursts that cause flash floods.Research by the ULVS indicates that thispattern of rainfall does not differ significantlyfrom that of the Romano-Libyan period, andso the settlement of the pre-desert cannot beexplained as resulting from an advantageousclimatic phase (Barkeret al. 1983; contraBurns and Denness 1985).

Given these hostile conditions the Romanperiod settlement of the pre-desert is indeedremarkable. That this transformation hadsomething to do with Roman involvementand influence in North Africa is obvious, butspecifying how Roman presence led to thismetamorphosis is not at all straightforwardand has been the subject of much scholarlydebate. The traditional view is that the pre-desert was settled by colonists, either retiredlegionary veterans, or immigrants from thethree main coastal cities of Tripolitania:Lepcis Magna, Oea and Sabratha (e.g.Goodchild 1950; Goodchild and Ward-Perkins 1949). However, research by theULVS has shown that the colonizationhypothesis cannot be sustained.

If the pre-desert was settled by Romanlegionary veterans, then it would bereasonable to expect that the area wouldshow strong Roman cultural influence.However, close inspection of the pre-desertfarming sites has instead revealed that theywere built using theopus Africanumstyle ofarchitecture, which originated in the Puniccities of North Africa. In addition, the tombsassociated with many of the farming sites arealso typically Punic, as are the relief carvingsfound on them (Mattingly 1995, 162–7).Inscriptions from the pre-desert indicate thatPunic was the vernacular language andalthough there are inscriptions written inLatin, or a hybrid of Latin and Punic(Goodchild 1976), Latin did not ever displace

ROME WITHOUT ROMANIZATION

OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY

94 ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998

Figure 1

MA

RK

GR

AH

AM

E

OX

FO

RD

JOU

RN

AL

OF

AR

CH

AE

OLO

GY

ßB

lackwell

Publishers

Ltd.1998

95

Punic for epigraphic purposes. A handful ofinscriptions suggest that a few individualswere given Roman (or Latin) citizenship(Brogan and Reynolds 1985; Reynolds1985), but these are exceptional. Romanreligion made little impact on the beliefsystem of the pre-desert peoples, thepredominant cult having been that of LibyanAmmon (Elmayer 1983; Mattingly 1995,168). The most obvious Roman influencecame in the form of importedterra sigillata,but beyond this the other culturalparaphernalia associated with a Romanlifestyle did not penetrate the pre-desert.

The prevalence of Punic culture overRoman clearly rules out settlement of thepre-desert by Roman legionary veterans andso what about colonists from the Punic citiesof the Tripolitanian coast? This suggestioncan also be rejected, since Neo-Punicinscriptions from pre-desert tombs indicatethat the first sedentary farmers belonged tofamilies of Libyan, and not Punic, extraction(Mattingly 1995, 147–9). They were clearlydescendants of the indigenous Libyanpopulation and not colonists from the coastalcities (Mattingly 1985, 42).

It seems then that the pre-desert wasneither settled by Romans, nor was it‘Romanized’ to any great extent. However,because the pre-desert was not settled at alluntil the Roman period, it paradoxicallysuggests that Roman influence was somehowdecisive in bringing it about. The question tobe addressed in the remainder of this paper is,‘How was it possible for Rome to inducesuch an extraordinary culturalmetamorphosis without apparently havingmuch to do with the pre-desert at all?’

CULTURAL CHANGE IN THE PRE-DESERT

To find an answer we need, firstly, tofamiliarize ourselves briefly with the history

of Roman involvement in Tripolitania (seeHaynes 1965, 25–35 and Mattingly 1995,51–3 for a summary). Roman involvement inNorth Africa began in earnest with thedestruction of Carthage in 146 BC, at theend of the third Punic War. From this timeuntil the civil war between Caesar andPompey the coastal cities of Tripolitaniawere independent of Rome, but probably hadtreaties of friendship and alliance with her.However, their status was to change as aconsequence of the civil war as Lepcis choseto support the Pompeian cause. After thedefeat of the Republican forces at Thapsus,Lepcis was reduced by Caesar to the status ofa subject city and it is possible that Oea andSabratha were implicated with Lepcis and sosuffered the same fate. In 47 BC, then, theTripolitanian cities formally entered theRoman empire.

However, until the time of Augustus, therewas little change in Tripolitania. Withstability returned to the empire after the civilwar with Anthony, Rome began to expand itsinfluence in the Tripolitanian interior. Plinymentions a series of campaigns from sometime before 19 BC, while Tacitus tells us ofmilitary operations against the Tacfariansbetween AD 17 and 24. However, the mostsignificant Roman action came in AD 69when a war broke out between Lepcis andOea over territory in the Gebel and thecitizens of Oea requested help from theGaramantes, a desert people of the Fezzan.Lepcis was besieged by them and thisprovoked a Roman response resulting in aseries of successful campaigns in theGaramantian heartland. This action, however,did not bring about the incorporation of theGaramantes into the fabric of the empire.Instead, Rome opted for a diplomaticsolution and settled political relations wereestablished with them in AD 70. Thiscombination of military action and




diplomacy was highly successful and broughtpolitical stability to the region for anextended period.

Mattingly (1995, 144–53) has suggestedthat Roman intervention was decisive infacilitating the transformation of the pre-desert. Peaceful relations with theGaramantes would have certainly made thefarming of the pre-desert feasible. We canimagine that it would have been difficult, ifnot impossible, for a settled agriculturalcommunity to have been sustained had theGaramantes remained hostile. However,Mattingly argues that Rome had a far morerobust role than just bringing about peace. InAD 74, after the war between Lepcis andOea, the lands of the Gebel were surveyed bythe imperial legate Rutillius Gallicus. Inaddition, boundary stones found in the Gebelhint at widespread official involvement in thedemarcation of lands during the late first andearly second centuries AD. This activity issignificant because Roman practice was totreat tribal leaders as landowners for censuspurposes. By allocating tracts of land tothem, Rome enabled control over communal,‘tribal’ land to pass into the hands of a fewindividuals. This tactic helped secure thesupport of tribal leaders and so ensure peaceand internal stability within the empire.

From epigraphic evidence on pre-deserttombs, Mattingly argues that we canrecognise an e´lite group amongst the‘northerly clans’ (1987, 83) of the ruralLibyan tribes. He suggests that this groupwas already in a dominant position during thepre-Roman period and, because of officialRoman involvement in the demarcation oflands, ‘it is tempting,’ he concludes, ‘to posita state-sponsored consolidation of thedominant position of [this] e´lite group’(1995, 147). Rome did this by removing titleto tribal lands in the pre-desert from the tribeas a whole and passing it to the e´lite. In this

way Rome created a ‘class’ of landownerswho were able to secure their social positionsby farming their newly acquired lands. Sinceagriculture raises the productivity of the land,farming would have provided a source ofwealth and thereby power for the land-owning elite. Mattingly (1985) points to thenumerous olive oil presses in the pre-desertand from assumptions as to their potentialproductivity suggests that olive oil was beingproduced for export. The profits from thisexport trade would have been a source ofwealth for the pre-desert e´lite and would havehelped them maintain and enhance theirsocial status. Rome therefore fosteredeconomic development and thereby culturalchange in the pre-desert as an incidental sideeffect of rewarding the Libyan tribal e´litewith land and incentives such as Romancitizenship (Mattingly 1987, 83).

Roman involvement was therefore crucialin precipitating the transformation of the pre-desert, but was limited to permitting the pre-desert tribal e´lite to take advantage of, andconsolidate, its traditional position withinsociety through the further exploitation ofland and labour (Mattingly 1995, 147).

ROMANS AND NOMADS

This interpretation accords well with theprevailing view amongst scholars that thepromotion of a Roman lifestyle was not aconscious objective of official policy (e.g.Garnsey and Saller 1987, 189–203). Instead,it has been argued that Rome’s strategic aimswere limited primarily to the maintenance ofpeace and border security. Rome did not seekto achieve these objectives through directmilitary control, but by devolving thefunctions of government to localcommunities. Rome encouraged e´lite groupsfrom amongst the defeated populations of theprovinces to participate in the empire. They

MARK GRAHAME


ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998 97

did so by allowing e´lite individuals to retaintheir traditional positions of power, withintheir own communities, and by offering themopportunities for social advancement inexchange for loyalty. (See Millett 1990a fora succinct summary of this view.)

Nevertheless, there is a major difficultywith interpreting the transformation of thepre-desert along these lines and this is that itdepends on there being an e´lite group alreadyin existence prior to Roman involvement inthe interior. However, the only evidence wehave for an e´lite group comes frominscriptions on the pre-desert tombs, which,of course, date from the Roman period. Foran elite to remain an e´lite its members haveto differentiate themselves from others insociety of a lower social status. The normalarchaeological indicators of such socialinequality: nucleated settlements, elaborateburials, prestige goods and the like, aresimply absent from the pre-desert until aboutthe mid first century AD at the earliest. Infact, there is nothing from the periodimmediately prior to this date to indicatethe presence of a social hierarchy.

What, however, of the e´lite groupidentified by Mattingly from the epigraphicevidence? We need to be extremely cautiousabout deriving the pre-Roman socialstructure from inscriptions on tombs datingfrom the Roman period, for two importantreasons. Firstly, as anthropologists are aware,in lineage-based societies descent is oftenclaimed from fictive ancestors with the resultthat the contemporary social structure cannotalways be understood as mirroring that of thepast. Secondly, research by archaeologists onthe social function of mortuary practices (e.g.Parker Pearson 1982) has shown that burial isoften a time when an idealized view ofsociety is projected. This view maydeliberately distort and misrepresent theactual social situation.

Certainly the prominent position of thepre-desert tombs suggests that they wereprobably used as territorial markers (Barkerand Jones 1984, 41; Mattingly 1995, 149).This way of denoting territory, together withthe use of field boundaries, implies a societyconcerned with land ownership anddominated by social competition. Becausethe mausoleums were placed so that theycould be seen, they can be interpreted asmaking a symbolic claim to the land. Theepigraphic evidence from the tombs alsoshows that they were used by severalgenerations of the same family (Brogan andReynolds 1985; Reynolds 1985; Mattingly1987; 1995, 162–6). By recording the namesof their ancestors, the descendants of thedeceased were publicly reaffirming theirright to continue occupying and workingtheir farms. However, given the ideologicalnature of mortuary practice, it is tempting tosuggest that the users of the pre-desert tombsdeliberately projected the contemporarysocial structure ‘backwards’ in order tolegitimize and naturalize their dominantposition. This would have been particularlyimperative for a recently created socialhierarchy.

The archaeological evidence clearly showsthat after the mid first century AD a rural-based e´lite group was present in theTripolitanian pre-desert. If we distrust theepigraphic evidence, then, given the marginalnature of the environment and contemporaryland use practice, it seems likely that prior tothe Roman period the pre-desert populationlived as semi-nomadic pastoralists. If so, theywould not have possessed the centralizedforms of political power that would havesupported and sustained an e´lite group. Itfollows, then, that the e´lite group identifiedin the pre-desert must have beencreated inthe Roman periodand was not simply anelaboration of a pre-existing social hierarchy.




However, to accept this argument presentsus with a problem, since it has beenmaintained that when the Romansencountered such decentralized societiesthey did not take any action to foster theemergence of an e´lite group. Consequently,the Roman failure to conquer and integratethe frontier zones of the empire can beexplained as Rome having reached the‘limit’ of the type of society that she wascapable of incorporating (e.g. Millett 1990b,100). Her only option in such situations wasto resort to direct military control andwithout a civilian infrastructure to enableparticipation in the Roman system suchareas remained ‘underdeveloped’, withsocieties persisting with their traditionalways of life. However, in the case of theTripolitanian pre-desert, there was clearly amove from an ‘egalitarian’ society to onewith more developed social hierarchy. Ifthere was not an e´lite group in existenceprior to the Roman period, it would seem tofollow that Rome must have somehowcreated one. This conclusion would imply amore active interference in the politics ofpre-desert society than recent interpretationsof Roman policy would allow, but before weaccept this inference we need to examinemore closely the possibilities open to Romeand the most likely effects of any course ofaction.

One obvious option would have beencompulsion. Rome’s superior military forcecould have been brought to bear to compelthe pre-desert nomads to adopt a sedentarylifestyle based on agriculture. However, if wewere to argue that Rome pursued this policywe would soon encounter problems. The firstdifficulty is that a nomadic pastoralist way oflife is well suited to a marginal environmentlike that of the Libyan pre-desert. Agricultureis not an obvious mode of subsistence forsuch a desolate area. Furthermore, people

have an affinity with their lifestyle,especially, if like nomadic pastoralism, it isof considerable antiquity. For these reasonswe might suspect that there would have beenconsiderable resistance in pre-desert societyto any attempt to force a change to thetraditional way of life. Ethnographic researchamongst the Bedouin of the Syrian semi-desert has shown that nomads can beespecially proud. The Bedouins, for instance,consider themselves to be of ‘noble’ descentin comparison to those who farm the morewell-watered parts (Lewis 1987, 3). Suchattitudes indicate that the people of the pre-desert would not necessarily have seen anybenefit to giving up a nomadic way of life fora more sedentary one.

Indeed, history tells us that nomadicresistance to a sedentary lifestyle has oftenresulted in an antagonistic and even violentrelationship with state societies. All stateshave an interest in ensuring that thepopulations within their borders are stableand settled, since these are the necessarypreconditions for administering, taxing andcontrolling them. Nomads obviously frustratethese attempts at control through theirmobility and their notorious disrespect forfrontiers. This inevitably results in conflictwith states who attempt to expand the settledfarming regime in order to maximize controlof their territory. Increased farmingdispossesses nomads from their traditionallands, leading to confrontation with thesettled farmers and the state that supportsthem. Lewis notes how in Syria during theearly nineteenth century an aggressive policytowards the Bedouin by the Ottoman Turksproduced a destructive cycle of provocationand reprisal that left many villagespermanently abandoned. Later, the Ottomanstried to persuade nomads to settle down, buthad little success with the fully nomadicBedouin (ibid. 12–40).

MARK GRAHAME



If such a confrontation had occurredbetween Rome and the people of the pre-desert, then a similar disaster may haveensued. However, the evidence for farmingduring the Roman period and the lack of apermanent military presence until the thirdcentury AD rules this scenario out entirely.Perhaps then Rome attempted to make itconducive for the pre-desert communities tosettle down? We know that Rome gave theGaramantes diplomatic gifts and cultivated apro-Roman faction within Garamantiansociety in order to secure peaceful relationswith them (Mattingly 1995, 73–5). CouldRome have adopted a similar strategy withthe pre-desert people? It seems unlikely fortwo main reasons. Firstly, the Garamantesappear to have had a more developed socialhierarchy with a ‘king’ and a society withmore sedentary elements centred on oasistowns. In other words, there was a pre-existing elite group with which Rome couldwork. This was not the case in the pre-desert.Secondly, there is evidence of Roman goodsreaching the Fezzan in considerablequantities as well as the influence of Romanartisans on Garamantian architecture.Considering the Fezzan was outside thefrontier of the empire, the contrast with thepre-desert is remarkable. The culture of thepre-desert, as we have seen, was mainlyPunic and so the lack of much Romancultural influence seems to indicate thatRoman diplomacy can also be ruled out asa stimulus for change.

It seems that whichever way we argue itthere appears to be no way of accounting forthe transformation of the pre-desert if Romeactively intervened in pre-desert society. Theonly recourse we are left with is to argue thatRome was actually ‘inactive’ and simply leftpre-desert society to its own devices. If pre-desert society posed no threat to Romansecurity, then there may not have been any

requirement for Rome to act at all. If so, thenthe transformation of pre-desert society canonly be explained as a sudden collective urgeto settle down. At face value this suggestionseems far-fetched. After all, why shouldpeople suddenly decide to give up a way oflife that was of considerable antiquity andwell adapted to the environment if they didnot have to do so? However, if we examinethe social dynamics of nomadic pastoralismwe find, quite remarkably, that this idea isnot as implausible as it sounds. To appreciatewhy, we need to explore the nature ofnomadic pastoralist society in more depth.

THE NOMADIC PASTORALIST ECONOMY

During the pre-Roman period, semi-nomadic pastoralism in the pre-desert mostlikely followed the contemporary pattern(Barker and Jones 1982, 8–12). Thisintegrates herding, mainly of sheep andgoats, in combination with patch cultivationof the wadi floors. The prevailing climaticconditions make cultivation precarious withtotal crop failure expected every few years.Cereal crops, of which barley is the mostprevalent, are sown in different wadis tospread the risk, usually after the autumnrains. Then, in the late autumn there is amove south to allow flocks to take advantageof the flush of pasture on the desert marginsduring winter. This migration also allowsrock-cut cisterns in the north to bereplenished. In the spring, flocks are movednorth and the harvesting of the now maturecrops begins. The summer is spent in thenorthern plateau and Gebel, with stockfeeding on corn stubble and the scrub of thewadi floors. Water supply is obviouslycritical and so settlement tends to clusteraround wells and cisterns.

Whatever the particular migratory patternthe pastoral economy is one based on the




ownership of livestock as the prime means ofsubsistence (See Cribb 1982 and 1991 for anin-depth discussion). The animals are‘capital’, that is, a resource whose biologicaland economic production is controlled byhumans. The animals, however, are morethan just mobile larders: they are alsonecessary for many social transactions thatrange from entertaining guests to theprovision of marriage dowries. The ownerof a large flock consequently acquiresprestige through being able to participate innumerous social transactions and so therebybecomes an individual of note. There is, then,a motive to accumulate stock far beyond thesubsistence needs of the family as a route tosocial status. This desire to accumulate,however, is not without its problems. Flocksize increases exponentially makingconsiderable demands on the labour requiredto manage it. Since the labour force isprovided by the family, labour demands caneasily outstrip the available work force. Inaddition, intense grazing by an everincreasing flock can lead to the availablevegetation becoming exhausted and soreduce the number of animals the land cansupport. It is paradoxical, but the moresuccessful a pastoralist family is, the morelikely it is to suffer disaster.

However, this peculiarity makespastoralism resilient and flexible and so welladapted to marginal and unpredictableenvironments. The exponential expansion offlocks enables quick recovery from lengthydroughts or periods of erratic rainfall. Forcultivators a series of exceptionally dry yearswill drive down production, but not land andlabour requirements. This is potentiallydisastrous if the drought is prolonged andmakes recovery difficult when it ends.However, for pastoralists a reduction in flocksize is not a catastrophe. The labour requiredto manage a reduced flock will lessen and the

land will be spared from overgrazing. Acontraction of flock size will consequentlymake a pastoralist family more viable and soenable it to recover quickly from disaster.

The unpredictable nature of theenvironment, together with the drive toaccumulate, means that the pastoral economytends to oscillate between high and lowproductive profiles. Since prestige is acquiredthrough the ownership of animals, thesefluctuations have a considerable effect onorganizational structure of nomadicpastoralist society and it is to this that wemust now turn.

THE SOCIAL POLITICS OF NOMADIC PASTOR-ALISM

In nomadic pastoralist society the extendedfamily is the basic social and productive unitand different family groups aggregatetogether to form wider social entities, suchas ‘tribes’ and ‘clans’. Within thesegroupings the individual families are‘ranked’ according to their social status,which, as we have seen, is dependent uponhow successfully the family groups havebeen accumulating livestock. However, thesocial structure of nomadic pastoralist societyis not at all rigid and in practice these widersocial formations are highly contingent. Toappreciate why, we need to investigate thesocial mechanisms through which bondsbetween groups are formed and broken.

Bourdieu (1977) has shown how theBerber people create complex relations ofdependency and clientage through the givingof ‘gifts’. Gifts are not analogous to thereciprocal exchange of ‘presents’ in oursociety, since they involve more than justthe exchange of objects. Along with theobjects go intangibles like ‘debt’ and‘honour’ that make the giving of gifts partof social politics. The reason for giving gifts

MARK GRAHAME



of any sort, Bourdieu has argued, is to securepower. Only the rich can give gifts and a giftthat cannot be matched by a counter-giftcreates a bond between giver and receiver.The receiver becomes bound to the giver andis forced to adopt a peaceful, co-operativeand prudent attitude towards him. The giftgiven in return by the receiver takes the formof political support, homage, goods, labour orother services. But, of course, it is in theinterests of the rich to keep a hold over thepoor and they can only do so by continuouslygiving gifts that cannot be matched bycounter-gifts. This creates a lastingasymmetry between the two parties. Suchexchange relations can become extensive andcomplex with individuals simultaneouslybeing gift-givers and receivers.

When combined with the dynamic natureof the nomadic pastoralist economy, regimesof gift-giving create a highly fluid socialsituation. As we have seen, if a family issuccessful, it inevitably encounters theproblem of being short of labour. However,rather than await disaster, one way ofovercoming this difficulty is to recruitsmaller, less viable families to act asshepherds. By allowing a poor family toshepherd their flocks, the rich provide thepoor with the means of subsistence, since thepoor are allowed to retain and use the flocksas if they were their own. This ‘gift’ fromrich to poor establishes a bond of patronageand clientage that helps maintain the socialposition of the rich.

However, the unstable nature of thepastoral economy means that it is difficultfor one family to accumulate enough capital,for long enough, to consolidate their position.If a rich family should suffer throughenvironmental disaster, or attack from a rivalclan, they will not be able to sustain therelationship with their clients and so thebonds of patronage will be broken. Flocks

shepherded by client families will bereturned, thereby removing them from anyfurther obligation. Client families are thenfree to seek new relationships with otherpatrons. However, because client families areusually entitled to keep any lambs or kidsborn to their flocks during the period of theirhusbandry, the situation could arise wherebythe clients are now richer than the familyfrom whom their flocks originally came.Indeed, they may even be in a position toobtain their own clients.

The operation of patronage and thevagaries of the pastoral economy makenomadic pastoralist society extraordinarilyunstable. Loose residence and descent rulesmake it easy for families to join a wide rangeof groups (Irons 1975, 39) and so nomadicpastoralist society is consequentlycharacterized by the continuous formationand fission of numerous different groups.The, ‘fluid, marginal, transitional andunstable’ (Cribb 1982, 43) nature of nomadicpastoralist society militates against theemergence of a rigid social structure,dominated by a permanent e´lite group.Consequently social entities beyond thefamily are extremely transient. However,nomadic pastoralist society should not bethought of as being ‘egalitarian’. It may lackinstitutionalized forms of inequality, butnevertheless there are social differences. Itis the institutionalization of social inequalitythat provides us with the key tounderstanding the settlement of the pre-desert.

NOMADIC PASTORALISM AND CULTURALCHANGE

Pastoralist family groups, as we have seen,are able to acquire wealth, power andprestige through pastoral accumulation, butenvironmental and political conditions make




retaining this status difficult. However, oneway of surmounting this problem is to shiftproduction towards agriculture, which is amore secure form of investment, assuming,of course, environmental constraints can beovercome. In his study of nomadic societiesCribb (1982, 1991) makes the valuable pointthat agriculture and pastoralism are notmutually exclusive forms of subsistence, butrather form a continuum with pastoralism atone end and agriculture at the other. Groupsdo not exist at a fixed point along thiscontinuum, but there is a fluid situationwhereby groups can vary the degree ofpastoral or agricultural production accordingto the prevailing circumstances. Thisflexibility is necessary to enable pastoralistsocieties to respond to changingenvironmental and political conditions.

The advantage of cultivation is that it is amore intensive mode of subsistence: it raisesthe productivity of the land thereby allowingsuccessful families to extract more from it inorder to support their position. From what hasbeen said it should be clear that intensifyingagricultural production does not necessitatesurrendering pastoralism. On the contrary,the traditional ideology of nomadicpastoralist society, which values livestock,is not displaced by an agricultural regime.Indeed, if pastoralist societies are alreadyengaged, in limited cultivation, then a movetowards agriculture may seem to be only alimited change from their point of view.However, the consequences of anintensification of agricultural production aremarked. Firstly, it necessitates greatersedentism since fields have to be tended. Amore settled lifestyle and greater productivitymeans that a larger family can be supported.An expansion of the family increases thesupply of labour, which, in turn, allows largerflocks to be tended. In addition, agriculturalsurpluses may be fed to the animals, further

helping to support more extensive flocks.Agricultural production therefore enablessuccessful families to sustain high levels ofpastoral production and thereby accumulatewealth and so social power. Becausepastoralism can be underpinned byagricultural production, which is a morepredictable mode of subsistence, the naturaltendency for oscillations between high andlow productive profiles is greatly reduced.

With the restraints on livestockaccumulation removed, a greater proportionof the available livestock is appropriated intofewer hands, resulting in an imbalancebetween human and livestock populations.Under pastoralism the vagaries of nomadiclife meant radical changes in fortune forfamily groups, but with successful familiesopting for more agricultural production,poorer family groups become permanentlynon-viable. With more labour available fromwithin the family group, the system of‘farming out’ flocks to smaller family groupsis reduced or comes to an end altogether. Thismeans that many poorer families may findthemselves becoming perpetually subordinateto the wealthy as casual labourers.

The fluid nature of nomadic society isreduced as inequalities between familiesbecome ramified and an e´lite emerges. Theterritorial system becomes more stable withthe ownership of land more widespread,denoted through the erection of physicalboundaries and territorial markers. Moreformalized residence and descent rulesreplace the ‘open’ relations of nomadicsociety. Poorer nomadic pastoralist familygroups become restricted both socially andphysically and this tempts, or compels, themto follow their more wealthy counterparts andopt for a sedentary, agriculturally-basedlifestyle. We can imagine, then, a ‘dominoeffect’ where a settled, agricultural societycan replace a mobile, pastoralist one.

MARK GRAHAME



It is clear that nomadic pastoralist societiesare capable of a major social and economictransformation given the necessaryconditions. As an instructive example, Cribbnotes that in northern Syria the voluntarysettlement of one Kurdish tribe is said tohave led, in the matter of a few years, to theestablishment of 29 farms, 48 hamlets, 28villages and one town (1982, 67).

THE SOCIAL POLITICS OF CULTURAL CHANGEIN NOMADIC PASTORALIST SOCIETIES

If it is so desirable for successfulpastoralist families to increase agriculturalproduction, we might wonder why a movetowards sedentary agriculture is notinevitable. Or, to put it another way, whydo nomadic pastoralist societies persist? Oneanswer has already been given, namely theadaptation of pastoralism to marginalenvironments. This, however, does notexplain the persistence of pastoralism inthe Libyan pre-desert, since we know thatflood-water control technology did allow forsettled agriculture. Why, then, was this notapplied until the Roman period? The answeris to be found in the very political instabilityof nomadic pastoralist societies discussedabove. The drive to accumulate createsrivalries between family groups. Becauselinks of patronage enable family groups tocall on the support of others when disputesarise, these disputes can escalate intoprotracted feuds and even outright warfare.In pastoralist society warfare should not beseen as a special situation, but rather asintegral to their social politics. It is a productof a fractious society with an anarchic socialstructure, that lacks the institutional meansthrough which to resolve serious disputes.Warfare itself perpetuates this situation byprecipitating a cycle of attack and revenge.

A continuous pattern of feuding and

warfare effectively prevents anintensification of agricultural production.Agriculture is a system of delayed returnsin that the return occurs some time after theinitial investment in seed and the labour ofplanting. It also requires permanent buildingsand a wider range of equipment thanpastoralism. In a society in which warfare isprevalent the continuous destruction offarmsteads and crops would soon result inthe ruination of families. The raiding offlocks, on the other hand, is far less damagingfor the victims, since if breeding stocksurvive the flock will reproduce itself.Furthermore, there may be a willing patron,with his own axe to grind, who would bemore than happy to recruit a raided family tohis side and reward their support with chargeof his livestock.

RETHINKING CULTURAL CHANGE IN THE TRI-POLITANIAN PRE-DESERT

If political stability is a necessaryprecondition for a stable agricultural regime,then it seems logical to suggest that Romanintervention in the Libyan pre-desert musthave somehow brought it about. Certainly,Rome, like all territorial states, had aninterest in ensuring internal stability.However, it has already been argued thatRome did not actively intervene in pre-desertsociety. So, how did Rome bring aboutpolitical stability in the pre-desert?

We know that the Garamantes were ageneral threat and Rome’s success inreaching an accommodation with them wouldhave made the political situation in the regionmuch more stable overall. However, thisalone does not explain the transformation ofpre-desert communities. Settled relationswith the Garamantes would have certainlyremoved an external threat, but, nevertheless,we still need to account for how the internal




cycles of feuding and warfare wereconstrained by the Roman presence.

A number of possible social mechanismscan be identified. Firstly, Roman militaryoperations to the south would have providedan object lesson in the realities of Romanpower. Traditional patterns of feuding andwarfare could not have continued in light ofthis lesson without precipitating a Romanmilitary response. The Roman armycampaigning to the south could not haveoperated successfully if political instabilityhad continued in the pre-desert.

In addition, within pre-desert society theremay have been uncertainty about how torespond to the Roman presence, with somefamily groups opposing it and otherswelcoming it. Those families who welcomedit may have sought alliances with theRomans. This would have been a logicalstep in a society based on patronage, wherethe Romans would have been perceived asyet another set of potential patrons. Sincepatronage was also central to Roman society(see, e.g. the papers in Wallace-Hadrill1989), the Romans themselves would haveno doubt been responsive to overtures frompre-desert families. With the power ofRoman patronage behind certain familiestheir political position would have obviouslybecome more secure. The fact that a fewindividuals gained Roman citizenship doessuggest some connection between Rome andat least a segment of pre-desert society.

Contact between Rome and pre-desertgroups would have been facilitated if thepre-desert communities had provisioned theRome army with livestock, or provided itwith guides. In a society based on the ethic ofgift-giving, families would not have beenparticularly reticent about supplying theRomans, since doing so enabled them todemonstrate their social power. From theperspective of the pre-desert groups,

supplying the Romans would have initiateda social bond, even if the Romans did notrecognize it. This perceived connectionwould have meant those pre-desert groupsin contact with the Romans could haveclaimed Roman support. A family groupclaiming an association with Roman powercould have used the prestige so gained as aform of ‘symbolic violence’ (Bourdieu 1977,190–7) with which to ‘threaten’ rival groups.Because Roman power was a constant factor,those groups claiming Roman support wouldhave been politically more secure than thosewho did not, or could not, claim it. Thepresence of Roman power could havetherefore disrupted the normal operation ofpre-desert politics without Rome actuallyhaving been involved. Identification withRoman power could have become a culturalresource, appropriated and deployed withinthe context of pre-desert social politics.Ironically, this could have only taken placeif Rome had not actively intervened in pre-desert society, so that families were free toclaim Roman support without fear ofcontradiction. The idea that the merepresence of an external power can have aconsiderable effect on the internal workingsof a society is supported by the ethnographicliterature. Sahlins (1985), for example,recounts how in the eighteenth century theencounter with James Cook precipitated amajor transformation of Hawaiian society,despite the fact that Britain did not seek tointerfere with it in any way.

The very presence of Roman power, then,helped damp down internal feuding betweengroups in the Libyan pre-desert. With morepolitical stability in the region, thosesuccessful pre-desert families, who weretemporarily in positions of power, werebetter able to secure those positions throughan intensification of agricultural production.Political stability produced a more settled

MARK GRAHAME



way of life and a defined social hierarchy.Rome need not have encouraged thesedevelopments specifically, but undoubtedlywould have welcomed them. In this way, thepre-desert society of the Roman periodemerged, but because contacts with Rome,and Romans, were limited, the culturallanguage drawn upon by this emergent e´lite,though which to express their newly acquiredpower and status, came from the Punicculture of the coastal cities. This thenexplains the limited nature of‘Romanization’.

CHARTING THE TRANSFORMATION OF THEPRE-DESERT

To put some flesh on the bones of thisargument we need to chart the transformationof the pre-desert in some more detail,drawing upon the evidence discussed earlier.In particular, we need to specify therelationship between the pre-desert and theGebel in a way that accounts for the evidencefound in both.

We know from archaeological surveyevidence that around the mid first centuryAD the Gebel was more extensively settledand the pre-desert was settled for the firsttime. This evidence we know correlates wellwith historical accounts of Roman militaryaction against the Garamantes and theestablishment of settled political relationswith them. Up until this point, it seemsreasonable to suggest that the lands of theGebel were relatively ‘underdeveloped’. Wemight therefore surmise that permanentagriculture was only associated with thehinterland of the Tripolitanian coastal cities.Beyond this small agricultural region itseems likely that different degrees of semi-nomadic pastoralism dominated theeconomy. In the Gebel there was most likelya bias towards more agricultural production

given the more favourable climaticconditions. Indeed, until the 1920s the Gebelhad been the preserve of semi-nomadicpastoralists, who practised a form of shiftingagriculture as a supplement to the pastoralbase. This involved the establishment of atemporary farmstead, which may havepersisted for several seasons, with livestock,mostly sheep and goats, being transhumed(Mattingly 1995, 14–15). We might speculatethat a similar situation prevailed in the Gebelprior to the mid first century AD. Furthersouth the degree of agricultural production nodoubt declined and by the pre-desert theLibyan people were most likely moving on aseasonal basis with only limited patchcultivation of the wadi floors. Further southstill, agricultural production ceased, exceptaround oases, and any semblance ofsedentism gave way to a fully nomadiclifestyle. In essence, prior to the first centuryAD we can think of there having been anorth-south ‘profile’ to Tripolitania, withagricultural communities at the northern end(the coastal city-states) and fully nomadicpastoralists at the other, with all shades inbetween.

An objection to this picture might be thatwe have literary evidence in the form of areference in theBellum Africum(97.3) to anannual fine of three million pounds of oliveoil levied by Caesar on a town called ‘Leptis’for supporting the Pompeian cause during thecivil war. This fine is of particularsignificance to the discussion here, sinceMattingly is convinced that the city referredto is Lepcis Magna in Tripolitania and notLeptis Minor, a city on the east coast ofmodern Tunisia (1988b, 37). If Lepcis waspaying such a fine it would suggest that theproduction of olive oil was already intensiveby the mid first century BC. Through a seriesof calculations based on the productivity ofancient oil presses and the relative spacing of




olive trees, Mattingly concludes that thislevel production could only have beensustained if the Gebel was already beingintensively farmed at this date (1988a).

However, close inspection of the relevantpassages of theBellum Africumreveals thatthis view cannot be sustained. In the samepassage in which the fine is imposed on‘Leptis’, Caesar also punishes Thapsus,Hadrumetum and Thysdra. Earlier in the textCaesar also fines Utica. If we examine thegeographical location of these other cities wefind that they cluster along the east coast ofTunisia. Leptis is right at the centre of thiscluster, whereas Lepcis Magna is around500 km away by the shortest route, which isby sea, and even further by road. If we studythe Bellum Africumit is clear that the eventsdescribed in it take place in Tunisia and thatTripolitania does not form part of Caesar’ssphere of operations. Given this, it seemsclear that Leptis was meant and not LepcisMagna. Even if we were to continuethinking that the fine referred to LepcisMagna, there is still no historical evidence toinform us for how many years Lepcisfulfilled its obligation, if at all (van derVeen 1985, 25).

Leaving aside the reference in theBellumAfricum, the archaeological evidence clearlyindicates that the Gebel was not intensivelyexploited until at least the first century AD.This confirms that, until this time, the Gebeland the pre-desert were primarily the domainof Libyan tribal people practising some formof nomadic pastoralism. The lack of anyevidence for military installations from thisperiod indicates that the coastal cities did notattempt to exercise direct control over theinterior. The resources of a single city inisolation would not have been sufficient topacify the interior, even if an expansion southhad been attempted. Furthermore, becauseeach one of the coastal cities was an

autonomous political entity, we can also besure that they did not develop a politicalrelationship with the people of the interioreither. As a form of social organization, theancient city-state created a sharp distinctionbetween citizen and non-citizen. Becauseonly citizens were able to participate in thepolitics of the city-state, power could not bebuilt up by recruiting non-citizens. There wasconsequently no need for the coastal cities to‘reach-out’ and include the interior peopleand so a social mechanism by which theycould have been drawn into city-state societysimply did not exist.

Relations between city-state and interiorpeople were probably based on the exchangeof livestock and other staple products fromthe interior for prestige goods produced by,or available from, the cities. This type ofexchange has been found in a number ofanthropologically known situations. Writingabout south-east Asia, Sahlins notes that fromthe perspective of the urban community thehinterlands are ‘backwaters’ whose onlyvalue is as a secondary source of foodstuffsand other goods. From the hinterland’s pointof view the cities provide cash, iron tools andprestige goods (1972, 224). It has beenrecognized that such systems based onreciprocal exchange were also a feature ofantiquity (see, e.g. Whitehouse and Wilkins1989; Stoddart 1989).

Until the Roman advance south, astatusquo existed between the coastal cities andthe interior. With Roman military actionagainst the Garamantes this balance wascrucially and decisively altered. As has beensuggested, the presence of Roman militarypower brought political stability to theinterior by damping down internal feudingand removing an external threat. The effectof this would have been to facilitate anintensification of agricultural production bythose family groups temporarily in a

MARK GRAHAME



prominent social position as a strategy bywhich to retain and enhance that socialposition. The expansion of agriculture in theGebel and the first appearance of farming inthe pre-desert consequently took placesimultaneously and was driven by the samedesire to secure social advantage. This is theonly mechanism that adequately explains thecoincidence in dating between the settlementof the Gebel and pre-desert. If the farmingregime had been established in the Gebeland then had just spread to the pre-desert,then we might have expected the pre-desertfarming sites to have had significantly laterdates.

The move to agriculture did not mean thatpastoralism was eliminated. Indeed, thearchaeozoological evidence from the pre-desert indicates that stock-raising andmanagement remained a significant part ofthe economy (Clark 1986). This evidenceaccords well with the idea that what occurredin the pre-desert was not a change in thesubsistence economyper se, but a‘movement’ along the pastoralism-agri-culture continuum towards greateragricultural production.

Of course, to make the pre-desert viablefor settled agriculture, water controltechnology had to be applied to the wadis.This technology was simple and effective andcan be seen to be an extension to the practiceof undertaking patch cultivation in the wadis.Cross-wadi walls represent an innovativesolution to the problem of water shortage,which would not have required a vast input oflabour or resources. Having cultivated thewadi floors, the groups who built the wallswould have had an intimate knowledge of thelandscape and would have understood howbest to maximize agricultural yields. The pre-desert groups and those of the Gebel wereprobably bound loosely by clan ties and theserelations would have provided a conduit for

the flow of cultural attributes from Gebel topre-desert. However, unlike other regions ofthe empire, Rome did not found colonies,which provided an example of a Romanlifestyle for the local inhabitants.Consequently, pre-desert groups borrowedand adapted the Punic culture of theterritorial cities, with whom they werealready in contact. Although Roman materialculture did penetrate the pre-desert in alimited way, we can see its arrival to be aconsequence of cultural change in the pre-desert and not a cause of it.

However, after the initial period ofsettlement the pre-desert and Gebel beganto follow divergent paths. The reason for thiscan be traced to an expansion of theterritoriaof the coastal cities to incorporate the Gebel.Mattingly has suggested that theincorporation of the Tripolitanian cities intothe Roman world presented the land-owningelite of the coastal cities with increasedopportunities to produce and export oliveoil to Rome as an avenue to wealth andpower (1988a). Expanding the level of oliveoil production would have obviously requiredincreasing the amount of agricultural landowned and controlled by the cities. Withpolitical stability in the interior the Gebelwould have been ripe for appropriation by thecoastal cities. The war between Lepcis andOea and the re-surveying of the boundarybetween them in AD 74 take on a newsignificance from this perspective. We cansee the Tripolitanian cities as laying claim tothe lands of the Gebel. From the largenumber of oil presses found in the Gebel itseems that the intensive production of oliveoil did become more important to theeconomy of the coastal cities. As aconsequence the lands of the Gebelincreasingly came under the sway of thecoastal cities, with smaller farmers perhapsfalling into debt and being absorbed into the




estates of the rich, or at least becomingdependent upon them.

The pre-desert, on the other hand, due tothe marginal nature of the environment wasless susceptible to appropriation in this way.Consequently, it developed independentlywith social competition between familygroups for land and livestock resulting inthe emergence of a rurally-based e´lite groupthat had little to do with the society of thecoastal cities.


Cultural change in the Tripolitanian pre-desert is consequently highly ironic. On theone hand there is little evidence forRomanization. The pre-desert communitieswere essentially a fusion of Libyan and Punicculture. Latin did not replace Punic as themain spoken language; Roman citizenshipwas rare; the prevalent architectural style wasdistinctively African; Roman politicalinstitutions did not take hold and the samecan be said for Roman customs and values.Some fine pottery is about the only tangibleevidence that survives to indicate that thepre-desert communities were ‘in touch’ withthe wider Roman world. If it were not for thedevelopment of the frontier in the thirdcentury AD, we might suspect that the pre-desert was outside the empire altogether!

However, on the other hand, the impact ofRome on pre-desert groups was substantial.The political stability brought about by thedevelopment of the frontier and peacefulrelations with the Garamantes had a majorimpact on the social dynamics of pre-desertsociety. Increased agricultural production andsedentism resulted in the emergence of amore stable social hierarchy with a clearlydefined elite group. Without the presence ofRoman power this transformation could nothave taken place.

Cultural change in the pre-desert mayconsequently be described as unconscious,circumscribed, self-development. Uncon-scious in the sense that no single individual,or group, was responsible for the direction ofthe transformation: it was the unintendedoutcome of the actions of a large number ofindividuals. The social transformation of thepre-desert was not an artefact of Romanpolicy, but Roman interests did circumscribeit. However, because these were limited,Rome only circumscribed the socialtransformation of the pre-desert in that if asociety hostile to Roman power hademerged, Rome would then have actedagainst it. Because this did not take placeand the direction of the transformation wasin line with Roman ideology, Rome did notplace any obstacle in its way. Rome did notcreate pre-desert society, encourage itsdevelopment, or attempt to guide itstransformation. The dynamic for changecame purely from the indigenous Libyanpeople themselves and hence the idea thatcultural change was a process of self-formation. All Rome did was provide thepolitical context within which the trans-formation could take place. In effect, bycreating political stability, Rome uncon-sciously and unintentionally removed thesocial impediments on the process of wealthaccumulation that was already integral topre-desert society.

The Tripolitanian pre-desert is remarkable.Although Rome precipitated the emergenceof a structured inequality, Romanization waslacking. The reason it did not occur can beexplained by the remoteness of the regionand the marginality of the environment. Itwas not an area in which Rome foundedcolonies, neither was there any pre-existingelite group with which Rome could work.The elite that did emerge remained based inthe pre-desert: essentially ‘outside’ the

MARK GRAHAME



Roman system, even if it was technicallyinside the frontier of the empire.

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on research carried out in 1990for my undergraduate dissertation. I would like tothank Simon Keay, David Peacock, Clive Gamble andDavid Williams for their help with it. Although the textof this paper is very different from that of mydissertation, the basic argument remains the same andI could not have arrived at it without their invaluableassistance. I would like to thank Simon Keay for

pestering me to return to my undergraduate work andproduce a publishable version. I would also like tothank him for reading an earlier draft of this paper andoffering helpful comments. Further thanks are due tothe staff and editors of theOxford Journal ofArchaeology for their useful advice and assistance.Needless to say any errors that remain, or omissions,are obviously my own.

Department of ArchaeologyUniversity of Southampton

SouthamptonSO17 1BJ

REFERENCES

BARKER, G.W.W. 1985: The UNESCO Libyan ValleysSurvey: developing methodologies for investigatingancient floodwater farming. In Buck, D.J. andMattingly, D.J. (eds.),Town and Country in RomanTripolitania (BAR S274), 291–307.

BARKER, G.W.W., GILBERTSON, D.D., GRIFFIN, C.M., HAYES,

P.P. and JONES, D.A.1983: The UNESCO Libyan ValleysSurvey V: Sedimentological properties of the Holocenewadi floor and plateau deposits in Tripolitania, north-west Libya.Libyan Studies12, 9–48.

BARKER, G.W.W. and JONES, G.D.B.1980–81: The UNESCOLibyan Valleys Survey 1980.Libyan Studies12, 9–48.

BARKER, G.W.W. and JONES, G.D.B.1982: The UNESCOLibyan Valleys Survey 1979–1981: Palaeoeconomy andenvironmental archaeology in the pre-desert.LibyanStudies13, 1–34.

BARKER, G.W.W. and JONES, G.D.B.1984: The UNESCOLibyan Valleys Survey VI: Investigations of a Romano-Libyan farm, part I.Libyan Studies15, 1–44.

BOURDIEU, P. 1977: Outline of a Theory of Practice(Cambridge).

BROGAN, O. and REYNOLDS, J.M.1985: An inscription fromthe Wadi Antar. In Buck, D.J. and Mattingly, D.J.(eds.),Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania(BARS274), 13–21.

BURNS, J.R. and DENNESS, B.1985: Climate and socialdynamics: the Tripolitanian example, 300 BC–AD 300.In Buck, D.J. and Mattingly, D.J. (eds.),Town andCountry in Roman Tripolitania(BAR S274), 201–25.

CLARK, G. 1986: ULVS XIV: Archaeozoologicalevidence for stock-raising and stock management inthe pre-desert.Libyan Studies17, 49–64.

CRIBB, L.D. 1982: The Archaeological Dimensions ofNear Eastern Nomadic Pastoralism: Towards a SpatialModel of Unstable Settlement Systems (UnpublishedPh.D. thesis, University of Southampton).

CRIBB, L.D. 1991:Nomads in Archaeology(Cambridge).

DORE, J.N.1985: Settlement chronology in the pre-desertzone: evidence of the fineware. In Buck, D.J. andMattingly, D.J. (eds.),Town and County in RomanTripolitania (BAR S274), 107–25.

DORE, J.N. and VAN DER VEEN, M.1986: ULVS XV: Radio-carbon dates from the Libyan Valleys Survey.LibyanStudies17, 65–8.

ELMAYER, A.F. 1983: The reinterpretation of Latino-Punic inscriptions from Roman Tripolitania.LibyanStudies14, 86–95.

GARNSEY, P. and SALLER, R.1987: The Roman Empire:Economy, Society and Culture(London).

GILBERTSON, D.D., BARKER, G.W.W., HAYES, P.P. and HUNT,

C.O. 1984: The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey VII:An interim classification and functional analysis ofancient wall technology and land use.Libyan Studies15, 45–70.

GOODCHILD, R.G. 1950: The limes Tripolitanus II.Journal of Roman Studies40, 30–8.

GOODCHILD, R.G. 1976: The Romano-Libyan cemeteryBir ed Dreder. In Reynolds, J.M. (ed.),Libyan Studies:Selected Papers of the late R.G. Goodchild(London),59–71.




GOODCHILD, R.G. and WARD-PERKINS, J.B.1949: ThelimesTripolitanus in the light of recent discoveries.Journalof Roman Studies39, 81–95.

HAYNES, D.E.L. 1965: The Antiquities of Tripolitania(Tripoli).

HUNT, C.O., MATTINGLY, D.J., GILBERTSON, D.D., DORE, J.N.,

BARKER, G.W.W., BURNS, J.R., FLEMING, A.M. and VAN DER

VEEN, M. 1986: ULVS XIII: Interdisciplinary approachesto ancient farming in the Wadi Mansur, Tripolitania.Libyan Studies17, 7–47.

IRONS, W. 1975:The Yomut Turkmen: A Study of SocialOrganisation Among the Central Asian Turkic SpeakingPopulations (An Arbor: Museum of Anthropology,University of Michigan, Paper No. 58).

JONES, G.D.B.1985: The Libyan Valleys Survey: Thedevelopment of settlement survey. In Buck, D.J. andMattingly, D.J. (eds.),Town and Country in RomanTripolitania (BAR S274), 263–89.

JONES, G.D.B. and BARKER, G.W.W.1980: Libyan ValleysSurvey.Libyan Studies11, 11–36.

JONES, G.D.B. and BARKER, G.W.W.1983: The UNESCOLibyan Valleys Survey IV.Libyan Studies14, 39–67.

LEWIS, N.N. 1987: Nomads and Settlers in Syria andJordan, 1800–1980(Cambridge).

MATTINGLY, D.J. 1985: Olive oil production in RomanTripolitania. In Buck, D.J. and Mattingly, D.J. (eds.),Town and Country in Roman Tripolitania(BAR S274),27–45.

MATTINGLY, D.J. 1987: Libyans and thelimes: culture andsociety in Roman Tripolitania.Antiquites Africaines23,71–94.

MATTINGLY, D.J. 1988a: Oil for export? A comparison ofLibyan, Spanish and Tunisian olive oil production in theRoman empire.Journal of Roman Archaeology1, 33–56.

MATTINGLY, D.J. 1988b: The olive boom. Oil surpluses,wealth and power in Roman Tripolitania.LibyanStudies19, 21–41.

MATTINGLY, D.J. 1995:Tripolitania (London).

MILLETT, M. 1990a: Romanization: historical issues andarchaeological interpretation. In Blagg, T. and Millett,M. (eds.), The Early Roman Empire in the West(Oxford), 35–41.

MILLETT, M. 1990b: The Romanization of Britain(Cambridge).

PARKER PEARSON, M.1982: Mortuary practices, societyand ideology. In Hodder, I. (ed.),Symbolic andStructural Archaeology(Cambridge), 99–113.

REYNOLDS, J.M. 1985: Inscriptions in the pre-desert ofTripolitania. In Buck, D.J. and Mattingly, D.J. (eds.),Town and County in Roman Tripolitania(BAR S274),23–5.

SHALINS, M. 1972:Stone Age Economics(London).

SAHLINS, M. 1985: Islands of History(Chicago).

STODDART, S. 1989: Divergent trajectories in centralItaly, 1200–500 BC. In Champion, T.C. (ed.),Centreand Periphery: Comparative Studies in Archaeology(London: One World Archaeology 11), 88–101.

VAN DER VEEN, M. 1985: The UNESCO Libyan ValleysSurvey X: Botanical evidence for ancient farming in thepre-desert.Libyan Studies16, 15–27.

WALLACE-HADRILL, A. (ed.) 1989:Patronage in AncientSociety(London).

WHITEHOUSE, R.D. and WILKINS, J.B.1989: Greeks andnatives in south-eastern Italy: approaches to thearchaeological evidence. In Champion, T.C. (ed.),Centre and Periphery: Comparative Studies inArchaeology (London: One World Archaeology 11),102–26.

MARK GRAHAME



Documents

Rome Without Romanization Cultural Change in the Pre-Desert of Tripolitania