van Dommelen & Bellard/Rural Landscapes, 5. North Africa

The chapter begins with a discussion of the nature of and problems associated with the available archaeological evidence for settlement in the Punic period in the immediate hinterland of Carthage, including the Cape Bon peninsula, and of the Tell, which forms an important component of the later economy of Carthage. The island of Jerba provides the most detailed case study for the latter landscape, which is linked to the patterns that emerge in the Sahel. Finally, the chapter discusses Mauretania, focusing on both the northern and the Moroccan Atlantic coast. Each of these landscapes will be examined in succession, along with the evidence they have yielded about rural settlement and agrarian exploitation.