Archaeological research in northern Sahara. Thoughts on the experience of a Tunisian-Italian research program (2014-2017) in post-revolutionary Tunisia

Following the 2011 “Arab spring”, archaeological research in large parts of the Sahara is still at a halt, except for a few areas where it is possible to foresee the possibility of resuming field research at a full capacity in the near future. Nevertheless, the complex and dynamic post-revolutionary socio-political evolution of the countries involved in the “Arab Spring” make us believe that the design and carrying out of the field research must undergo a reconsideration and should be inspired by the criteria of flexibility and modularity. In the present paper, we discuss these aspects by reporting the experience of a Tunisian-Italian research project (2014-2017) engaged in the fields of environmental studies and prehistory of central-southern Tunisia.