The Hemeila Riddle: Genealogical Reconfigurations of Pre-colonial Encounters in Southwestern Mauritania

This article will focus on a seldom-considered aspect of Saharan social contexts: the incorporation of European/Christian characters into tribal sociopolitical frameworks. Supported by data from my fieldwork, I will discuss contemporary portrayals of a mid-seventeenth-century woman, Hemeila, whose mother is recognized as a European Christian of Iberian origin. These two women are presently incorporated in different genealogical narratives from Southwestern Mauritania. The research dealt with in this article also relates to discussions of social hierarchy familiar to Mauritania’s Arabophone populations, with a particular focus on groups holding a “religious” (zwaya) status. Additionally, this article discusses the role of the anthropologist as a producer of social facts, which in this context has led to a direct intervention in the reassessment of Saharan historical traditions.     

Animal engravings in the central Sahara: A proxy of a proxy

The rock art of the central Sahara was created out of the beliefs, traditions and experiences of the engravers and painters. The animal engravings of the Wadi al-Ajal in south-western Libya are used to isolate some of the environmental and cultural/symbolic components that make up the pictorial record. A comparison between the depicted animals and the faunal remains recovered in the area identifies a number of characteristics. The engraving repertoire is dominated by a small number of frequently depicted animals that were of symbolic or economic importance to the engravers. Rare and singular depicted species extend this record to a diverse species spectrum. Although a preferential depiction of herbivores is evident in the data, there is a close match between faunal record and engravings which shows that all larger animals (over ca. 10 kg) that were present in the area were also depicted. The selection of animals in the rock art appears to reflect their visibility in the landscape while also providing a record of changing climatic conditions from savanna to desert habitats. The rock art therefore provides an indirect record of the local environment while also capturing the engravers' perception of animals and landscape.     

Holocene Climatic Changes and Cultural Dynamics in the Libyan Sahara

Systematic surveys and excavations were carried out during the 1990–1996 field seasons in the Tadrart Acacus and surrounding areas, shedding new light on the climatic changes and cultural dynamics which occurred during the Holocene. In this paper, the geological, geomorphological, and archaeological evidence is assembled in order to provide a preliminary synthesis on the prehistory of the area. Pendant les saisons de terrain du 1990 au 1996, des récognitions et fouilles systématiques ont été conduites dans le Tadrart Acacus et dans les zones circonvoisines; ces études ont donne des nouvelles information en ce qui concerne les changements climatiques et les dynamiques culturelles de cette région pendant l'Holocène. Dans ce papier, les évidences géologiques, géomorphologiques, et archéologiques ont été intégrées afin d'obtenir une synthèse préliminaire sur la préhistoire de la région.     

On the trail of social relations in the colonial Sahara: a postcolonial reading

The Atlantic coast of the Sahara Desert was belatedly colonised by Spain. The paternalistic nature of this process and the collaboration of Sahrawi tribal leaders produced a specific type of colonial relations. The military hierarchy of colonial structures overlapped with the social stratification of Sahrawi tribes. Yet outside the upper echelons of Sahrawi authorities and Spanish military officers, daily life in the colony was defined by interactions among workers who performed the less lucrative jobs, Spanish immigrants from the Canary Islands as well as members of the indigenous population. Given their similar social status, four decades after the Spanish decolonisation (1975), we can still recognise the feelings that Sahrawi people inspire among Canarian returnees and the Sahrawis’ recollections of Canarian settlers, proving that colonial relations are never simple but ambivalent and open to new interpretations, especially when they intersect with other categories such as social class. Informed by postcolonial studies, our analysis of in-depth interviews conducted in the Canary Islands and the Sahara over the last ten years reveals the affective bond shared by colonisers and colonised at the bottom of the social hierarchy, allowing us to identify colonial memory as a cornerstone of social and cultural geography.     

Persistent deathplaces and mobile landmarks: The Holocene mortuary and isotopic record from Wadi Takarkori (SW Libya)

Recently, a new program of territorial study was launched in the area of Wadi Takarkori (Wadi Takarkori Project, hereafter WTP), located in south-western Libya at the border with Algeria in a strategic position between the Tassili and Acacus Mountains. The core of this program was the excavation of a rock shelter together with the systematic mapping and selected excavations of stone structures in the wadi area, mainly tumuli, a typical Saharan feature.     

Saharan dust: sources and trajectories

The Sahara is the world's largest source of aeolian desert dust, but precise information on specific sources of this material is poor and sometimes contradictory. This paper uses daily data from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) for 1999 to identify source areas for major dust events and their trajectories of long-range transport. Two major source areas are identified: the Bodélé depression and an area covering eastern Mauritania, western Mali and southern Algeria. Both of these major dust sources are primarily driven by natural factors since they are little affected by anthropogenic activities.     

Evidence of artificial cranial deformation from the later prehistory of the Acacus Mts. (southwestern Libya,Central Sahara)

The 1999–2001 Italian–Libyan Archaeological Mission in the Acacus and Messak, southwestern Libya, resulted in the discovery of human specimens from the Wadi Tanezzuft Valley belonging to the Final Pastoral horizon (i.e. late Neolithic, about 3000 years bp). Some of these show clear traces of artificial cranial deformation. This practice, hitherto unrecorded in the central Sahara, is described and analysed in this paper. It represents an additional source of information about population movements and cultural connections in the area. It does not appear to be gender‐related, and neither does it involve all individuals in the sample, suggesting some kind of social and/or cultural differentiation within the group. The pattern of cranial deformation described here is not directly related to types most commonly encountered among recent African populations and elsewhere. It may be considered a combination of antero‐posterior and circumferential deformation and thus is referred to as a ‘pseudo‐circular type’. Archaeological and ethnographic literature related to Africa and southwestern Asia is investigated in order to identify a possible origin of such a custom and its pattern of diffusion. The evidence, according to other sources of information, contributes to interpret this area at the centre of the Sahara as a focal point of population movements and circulation of cultural traditions across North Africa in the latest phases of the Pastoral Neolithic. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Saharan prehistoric basketry. Archaeological and archaeobotanical analysis of the early-middle Holocene assemblage from Takarkori (Acacus Mts., SW Libya)

The paper presents the large set of basketry and other worked fibre artefacts constituting the perishable artefacts assemblage from the Takarkori rock shelter. This site is located in southwestern Libya, central Sahara. Its well-preserved Holocene stratigraphy testifies to human occupations by foraging groups (Late Acacus culture; ca. 9000–7400 uncal years bp; ca. 8300–6100 BCE) and herders (Pastoral cultures; ca. 7400–4500 uncal years bp; ca. 6400–3000 BCE).     

Terrace Dissent in Urban Western Sahara: Between Plazas and Homes

Since 2018, domestic Saharawi houses in occupied Western Sahara have become tactical sites for organising dissent. The move to interior spaces came as a collective retreat from the city's public plazas. This retreat from extravagant plazas illustrates that the turn toward interior spaces was a tactic in front of destructive occupation power rather than a withdrawal. This article explores Saharawi spatial production of dissent under two different political moments. I ask, what spaces of dissent do people under occupation animate when the city is mobilised against them? This paper is based on ethnographic engagement with encounters between Saharawis and Moroccan security forces that led Saharawis to construct the house as its own public. I demonstrate interiorising the exterior by analysing homes’ terraces as the new space of urban dissent in the Western Sahara. As such, the terrace appears as a new space and a new tool of and in urban insurgency.