The North African Economic Landscape: production topography and trade in Zeugitana and Byzacena during the 4th century AD

As part of a doctoral research focusing on the socio-economic transformations in North Africa between the 4th and the 7th century AD, the poster aims to analyze the production topography of Zeugitana and Byzacena during the 4th century AD, a key transition period in continuity with the Roman imperial age. We intend to investigate the distribution patterns of the production sites and the routes for intra- and inter-provincial trade, in order to reconstruct the socio-economic dynamics of the two provinces at the end of the Roman influence on North African territory. The surveys carried out in North Africa have revealed an intense production, by identifying of hundreds of foodstuff production facilities - olive oil and wine presses, fish-salting factories - and dozens of amphorae workshops, all involved in the annona system to supply Rome. Zeugitana and Byzacena show two different economic landscape, with different rural production sites and urban realities. Zeugitana is characterized by a parcelling of the rural landscape in small production units gravitating on many towns and by urban spaces involved in foodstuff and pottery production, whilst the organization of production in Byzacena appears as an inter-provincial trade system, with a rural landscape characterized by large production centres and a urban landscape in which only the periphery is involved in production. Both use the trade route connecting to Carthage (Rome?) as preferential commercial axis - like in the previous centuries -, but Byzacena is also connected to the large commercial ports of the east coast.