Anthracology (Charcoal Analysis) in Investigation of Desert Margin Shifts: A Case Study of Southern Sahara

The Sahara of North Africa is the largest desert on earth, and includes the driest parts of the world. However, it seems that, during the Holocene, this desert was less hostile to human occupation. Evidence for such favourable conditions is clear from the presence of a large number of Neolithic archaeological sites all over the Sahara and the Sahel. Anthracological studies (analysis of archaeological charcoals) in these sites allow us to reconstruct the vegetation in their vicinity and to infer the prevailing palaeoclimatic conditions, and, at a more general level, to infer fluctuations of the Saharan margin. This Chapter reviews the basic principles of anthracology used in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction in arid regions including the sources and nature of archaeological charcoal, the methodology and techniques of retrieval, sampling and identification of the material, as well as outlining different approaches to the interpretation of results. Examples from recent research in the Sahara and sub-Saharan regions illustrate the application of anthracological analysis to the investigation of the prehistoric Saharan margin and underline the fact that study of sites with high spatial and temporal frequency is essential in order to delimit precisely the southern (and northern) margins of the Sahara for the time since the beginning of the Holocene.