Quantifying Surplus and Sustainability in the Archaeological Record at the Carthaginian-Roman Urban Mound of Zita, Tripolitania

Cultural ecological theory is applied to a spatially and temporally bounded archaeological data set to document long-term paleoeco-logical processes and associated sociopolitical behaviors. Volumetric excavations, treating the material culture of an archaeological matrix similar to an ecological core, can yield quantifiable frequencies of surplus goods that provide a multiproxy empirical lens into incremental changes in land use practices, natural resource consumption, and, in this case, likely overexploitation. Archaeological methods are employed to quantify cultural ecological processes of natural resource exploitation, industrial intensification, sustainability and scarcity, and settlement collapse during the colonial transition between Carthaginian and Roman North Africa. The data indicate that overexploitation of olive timber for metallurgical fuel taxed the ecological metabolism of the Zita resource base, likely contributing to a collapse of the entire local economic system. (c) 2021 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved

Archaeology · Biology · Economics · Excavation · Geography · Natural resource · Natural resource economics · Overexploitation · Resource (disambiguation · Resource depletion · Scarcity · Sustainability · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Ecology

• Phoenicia, Carthage, and Popular Government in the Pre-Classical Mediterranean

  B Kaufman•Phoenicia, Carthage, and Popular…•2025

  Incluir item

• Historiographie contemporaine sur la religion phénico-punique d’Afrique du Nord

  Open Access•Bruno D’Andrea•REVISTA DE HISTORIOGRAFÍA (RevHisto•2021

  Incluir item

• Postmortem Care of Subadults from the Neo-Punic Tophet at Zitha, Tunisia

  Open Access•Jessica I Cerezo-Román, Thomas R Fenn et al.•Journal of Archaeological Method…•2025

  Incluir item

• Human adaptation to Holocene environments

  Open Access•Elizabeth Berger, K Brunson et al.•Journal of Anthropological…•2021

  Incluir item

• Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse

  H Nüzhet Dalfes, George Kukla et al.•Third Millennium BC Climate…•1997

  Incluir item

• The Grain Trade under the Roman Empire

  G E Rickman•Memoirs of the American Academy…•1980

  Incluir item

• Greenland Ice Evidence of Hemispheric Lead Pollution Two Millennia Ago by Greek and Roman Civilizations

  Open Access•Sungmin Hong, Jean-Pierre Candelone et al.•Science•1994

  Incluir item

• Lead pollution recorded in Greenland ice indicates European emissions tracked plagues, wars, and imperial expansion during antiquity

  Open Access•Joseph R Mcconnell, Andrew Wilson et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2018

  Incluir item

• The Reaction against Analogy

  Open Access•A Wylie•Advances in Archaeological Method…•1985

  Incluir item

• Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems

  Open Access•Peter M Vitousek, H A Mooney et al.•Science•1997

  Incluir item

• Archaeology as Human Ecology

  Open Access•Karl W Butzer•Archaeology as Human Ecology•1982

  Incluir item

• Becoming Roman

  Open Access•Greg Woolf•Becoming Roman•1998

  Incluir item

• New insights into the urban history of Meninx (Jerba)

  Open Access•Stefan Ritter, Sami Ben Tahar•Antiquités africaines•2020

  Incluir item

• Libyans and the 'limes'

  Open Access•David Mattingly•Antiquités africaines•1987

  Incluir item

• The Potentiality and the Consequences of Surplus

  Open Access•Christopher T Morehart•Economic Anthropology•2014

  Incluir item

• Filling Gaps in the Protohistory of the Eastern Maghreb

  Joan Sanmartí Grego, Nabil Kallala et al.•Journal of African Archaeology•2012

  Incluir item

• The Use of Ethnoarchaeology for the Archaeological Study of Ceramic Production

  Open Access•Cathy Lynne Costin•Journal of Archaeological Method…•2000

  Incluir item

• Pandemics and passages to late antiquity

  Open Access•K Harper•Journal of Roman Archaeology•2015

  Incluir item

• Ferrous metallurgy from the Bir Massouda metallurgical precinct at Phoenician and Punic Carthage and the beginning of the North African Iron Age

  Open Access•B Kaufman, Roald Docter et al.•Journal of Archaeological Science•2016

  Incluir item

• An Imperial Legacy? An Exploration of the Environmental Impact of Ancient Metal Mining and Smelting in Southern Jordan

  Open Access•F B Pyatt, FB Pyatt et al.•Journal of Archaeological Science•2000

  Incluir item

• The local and global dimensions of metalliferous pollution derived from a reconstruction of an eight thousand year record of copper smelting and mining at a desert-mountain frontier in southern Jordan

  Open Access•John Grattan, J P Grattan et al.•Journal of Archaeological Science•2006

  Incluir item

• Roman Africa

  Open Access•David J Mattingly, David Mattingly et al.•The Journal of Roman Studies•1995

  Incluir item

• The Olive Boom. Oil Surpluses, Wealth and Power in Roman Tripolitania

  Open Access•David Mattingly, D J Mattingly•Libyan Studies•1988

  Incluir item

• The Unesco Libyan Valleys Survey 1979–1981

  Open Access•G Barker, G W W Barker et al.•Libyan Studies•1982

  Incluir item

• Septimius Severus

  Herbert W Benario, Anthony R Birley•The Classical World•1990

  Incluir item

• Supplying Exotic Animals for the Roman Amphitheatre Games

  Michael Mackinnon•Mouseion Journal of the Classical…•2006

  Incluir item

• The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean

  Brian Doak, Brian R Doak et al.•Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician…•2019

  Incluir item

• Archaeological Views on a History of Landscape Change in East Africa

  Open Access•Peter R Schmidt•The Journal of African History•1997

  Incluir item

• European colonialism and the Anthropocene

  Open Access•Kent G Lightfoot, L M Panich et al.•Anthropocene•2013

  Incluir item

• Two tales of one city

  Open Access•Jeffrey H Schwartz, F D Houghton et al.•Antiquity•2017

  Incluir item

• Zooarchaeological evidence for meat consumption at Zita, Tunisia, during the Punic to Roman occupations (2nd century BCE to 3rd century CE)

  Open Access•Victoria Moses, B Kaufman et al.•International Journal of…•2019

  Incluir item

• Climate Change during and after the Roman Empire

  Michael Mccormick, Ulf Büntgen et al.•The Journal of Interdisciplinary…•2012

  Incluir item

• Cemetery or sacrifice? Infant burials at the Carthage Tophet

  Open Access•Paolo Xella, Josephine Quinn et al.•Antiquity•2013

  Incluir item

• Cemetery or sacrifice? Infant burials at the Carthage Tophet

  Open Access•Patricia Smith, Lawrence E Stager et al.•Antiquity•2013

  Incluir item

• A Grammar of the Phoenician Language

  Open Access•Edward Sapir, Zellig S Harris•Language•1939

  Incluir item

• Toward the Identification of Formation Processes

  Open Access•Michael Brian Schiffer•American Antiquity•1983

  Incluir item

• Environmental Anthropology

  Open Access•Alexander Ervin, Alexander M Ervin•American Anthropologist•2002

  Incluir item

• Contingent Persistence

  Lara Ghisleni•Current Anthropology•2018

  Incluir item

• Understanding objects in motion. Anarchaeologicaldialogue on Romanization

  Open Access•Miguel John Versluys•Archaeological Dialogues•2014

  Incluir item