FIRST ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN THE CHOTT EL JERID AREA, SOUTHERN TUNISIA*

The Sahara is a privileged location for the study of human response(s) to climate and environmental changes1. Nevertheless, we still have limited control over a large part of Saharan contexts because the sedimentary archives are often reduced to vast residual surfaces, and extensive timeconsuming surface mapping of artefacts is usually a means to catch only broad patterns. We present here the preliminary results of a research project described in a Tunisian-Italian agreement signed in May 2014 between the Institut National du Patrimoine, the Université de Kairouan and the Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità, Sapienza University of Rome2. Among the aims of our research programme, we emphasize here the investigation of the population dynamics and the pre-protohistory of southern Tunisia, broadly related to distinct phases of occupation (Middle and Late Stone Age, Epipalaeolithic, Neolithic, etc.), together with the study of modern living communities by means of ethnographic and genetic investigation.