Cultural landscape and local knowledge: a new vision of Saharan archaeology

This paper, based on an Olwen Brogan Memorial Lecture presented to the Society for Libyan Studies on 4 May 2005, review the Italian archaeological research started in 1955 with the pioneering work of Fabrizio Mori in the Acacus Mountains and surroundings (Libya, Central Sahara). Inparticular, the article explores the theoretical and methodological shifts of the last fifteen years, from an 'adaptionist' point of view to a 'new vision' based on cultural landscape and local knowledge. The paper ends with a call for a new 'African' approach to Saharan archaeology, underlining the necessity of international projects -able to link Mediterranean, Saharan and sub-Saharan regions- for some particularly endangered segments of the archaeological record, i.e.rock art and funerary monuments.