Life and death at Fewet

This chapter provides an overview of the historical and socio-economic reality of a small oasis in the wider frame of the Saharan history in the chronological span which saw a deep transition in subsistence strategies. The introduction of agriculture and related irrigation techniques, the development of long distance trade with dromedary as pack animal and the emergence of a hierarchical complex society in the region of Fezzan are among the main radical changes which occurred in the Central Sahara from the early first millennium BC. Changes that brought to the flourishing of the Garamantian kingdom and the development of the first urbanisation and state formation by the end of that millennium and the first centuries AD. The core of this process was the Wadi el-Ajal. Wadi Tanezzuft experienced a parallel but original development, sharing some similar cultural traits but also differences in socio-economic and political features. For the good state of preservation of the archaeological evidence, Fewet represents a key site in exploring the formative phases of sedentarisation of the pastoral groups in the area and the later development of the settlements and necropolis facing the impact of a greater polity, centered at Garama, and the spread of a trans and intra-Saharan trade. Moreover the analysis of the skeletal remains from the Fewet necropolis provides a vivid picture of the life conditions of the Fewet inhabitants and of the population dynamics in southern Fezzan in the early-historical times.