This report presents the first in-depth publication of preliminary data from Oued Beht, northwest Morocco, a remarkable site initially identified in the 1930s and now newly investigated. It is based on fieldwork undertaken in 2021–2022 (photogrammetry, survey and excavation), and associated study and analyses. Oued Beht is shown to be a large site of ca. 9–10 hectares in main extent, with many deep pits and convincing evidence for a full package of domesticated crops and animals. Its material culture is abundant and dense, comprising ceramics (including a local painted tradition hitherto barely attested in northwest Africa but comparable to finds in Iberia), numerous polished stone axes, grinding stones and other macrolithics, and a chipped-stone industry. Radiocarbon dates so far cluster at ca. 3400–2900 BC, but there are also indications of earlier and later prehistoric activity. What social activities Oued Beht reflects remains open to interpretation, but it emerges as a phenomenon of strong comparative interest for understanding the wider dynamics of north Africa and the Mediterranean during the fourth and third millennia BC.

Archaeological sites in Northwest Africa are rich in human fossils and artefacts providing proxies for behavioural and evolutionary studies. However, these records are difficult to underpin on a precise chronology, which can prevent robust assessments of the drivers of cultural/behavioural transitions. Past investigations have revealed that numerous volcanic ash (tephra) layers are interbedded within the Palaeolithic sequences and likely originate from large volcanic eruptions in the North Atlantic (e.g. the Azores, Canary Islands, Cape Verde). Critically, these ash layers offer a unique opportunity to provide new relative and absolute dating constraints (via tephrochronology) to synchronise key archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records in this region. Here, we provide an overview of the known eruptive histories of the potential source volcanoes capable of widespread ashfall in the region during the last ~300,000 years, and discuss the diagnostic glass compositions essential for robust tephra correlations. To investigate the eruption source parameters and weather patterns required for ash dispersal towards NW Africa, we simulate plausible ashfall distributions using the Ash3D model. This work constitutes the first step in developing a more robust tephrostratigraphic framework for distal ash layers in NW Africa and highlights how tephrochronology may be used to reliably synchronise and date key climatic and cultural transitions during the Palaeolithic.

In terms of foreign relations, ancient Libya is regularly tied to Egypt and Egyptology. It is rarely linked to Mesopotamia, the other great river-based civilization of the region. Nevertheless, there are a number of people with Libyan names mentioned in Assyrian-Babylonian texts. Proceeding from the premise that it is relevant to talk of a Libyan ethnicity also in this period of intermingling of Egyptians and Libyans and that personal names are meaningful and express identity on the part of the name giver, the people with Libyan names in question are presented and discussed from various biographic and demographic viewpoints in the present article.

A mixed Romano-Punic tomb discovered on private property to the west of Msallata contains many small stone chests containing cremated human remains. Some of these chests carry the name of the deceased written in the Latin or neo-Punic alphabet. Besides the stone chests, there are pottery jars containing animal remains. Figurative relief and religious symbols suggest the practice of rituals associated with the Tophet (sanctuary-necropolis) of Carthage. In addition to the stone chests and pottery urns there are many other objects that are typical of the grave goods usually buried with the Phoenician dead: oil lamps, tableware, coins, medals.

The Roman town of Mustis (municipium Iulium Aurelium Mustitanum) is near present-day Mest Henshir (Tunisia). Its epigraphic corpus has around 200 inscriptions mainly published at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when the French archaeological campaigns took place. However, a group of Latin inscriptions discovered during the 1960s remained unpublished. In the reorganisation of the archives of the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (Paris) the original photographs, negatives, slides and documents revealed new data. In this article I present five new inscriptions (three votive texts, a quadruple funerary epitaph and a new boundary stone) and new data and photographs of three already known inscriptions published by G. Wilmanns in the CIL. All these texts reveal new data about the territory of the res publica Mustitana, the sacred life of the city (including the confirmation of a Capitol) and new onomastic information about its inhabitants.

The arch of Gordian III at Mustis (Al Karib, Tunisia) has been the subject of scholarly work since the eighteenth century, and its dedicatory inscription has drawn the attention of antiquarians and archaeologists since the early nineteenth century. The transcription and reconstruction of its text were proposed by the editors of the eighth volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum in numbers 1577 and 15572. This version has prevailed in scientific literature ever since, even though Beschaouch announced in a short note in 1969 the discovery of a fourth block that substantially alters the information it contains. However, a comprehensive study of the complete inscription was never published due to the lack of graphic material. Thanks to the drawing by J. Vérité, the architect in charge of the monument's restoration, we can analyse the inscription as a whole. We conclude that the proposal by the CIL editors is incorrect, we provide the complete transcription of the epigraph, and we propose a new date for the dedication of the arch, in 240 AD.

New research in the microregion of Musti (El Krib) in N Tunisia in 2019–2023 has revealed unpublished 2nd–3rd-century AD funerary monuments featuring rich iconography, including a female figure beside the altar and two pigs. These items and other published epigraphic and anepigraphic monuments from the fertile microregion stand out from other tombstones in Roman Africa. Both the type of monument and its relief decoration distinguish these objects. A rare holistic approach, combining historical, epigraphic and iconographic analyses with the results of archaeobotanical and archaeozoological research, will enhance our understanding of the history and agriculture of the Musti microregion and this part of Proconsular Africa during the early Roman Empire.

This interdisciplinary study contributes to the understanding of the use of raw materials and pottery production techniques in Late Punic–Late Republican Malta, focusing on the Tas-Silġ sanctuary and the Żejtun Villa. Plates, bowls and cooking vessels were described typologically, and their fabrics were characterised using polarised light microscopy and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence. The aims were to classify these vessels into integrated and coherent fabric groups based on all analyses, to better understand the local production of vessels and to assess a possible local provenance.

Four integrated fabric groups were identified and represent local productions using distinct raw materials or production techniques. These groups can be distinguished typologically, macroscopically, petrographically and chemically. Multivariate techniques, including the chemical analysis of Maltese clays, were produced to enhance the fabric classification and discuss their raw materials. The raw materials identified are consistent with what is known in Maltese geology. One group is distinctive, and the results suggest the possible use of a previously unidentified raw material, Terra Rossa, found over the Upper Coralline Limestone. This new classification provides the basis for further studies of Late Punic–Roman sites in the Maltese islands and the future identification of imports and exports from the Maltese islands.

This paper revisits the history of Christianity in the country of ‘Castîliya’, subsequently called the Djerid region located in the southwest of Tunisia, to re-evaluate and add to the large body of documentation that appeared almost a century ago. Excavations carried out by INP researchers in this region located on the limes of Roman Africa have added new data. The information provided either by written sources, notably Christian sources, or by archaeological excavations, suggests that the region of Djerid was Christianized from the fifth century. Indeed, the four main oases (Tusuros, Nepte, Thiges and Aquae) are all bishoprics belonging to the ecclesiastical province of Byzacene and their bishops, converted either to the Donatist or Catholic schism, are almost always present in the provincial gatherings of the church of Africa, usually held in Carthage. Finally, this research tries to answer the following question, what is the fate of the last indigenous Christian communities of Djerid after the Arab-Muslim invasion?

This article reflects on aspects of the ecclesiastical landscape in southern Byzacena and western Tripolitania. The aim is to highlight the conditions of creation and the process of evolution of the ecclesiastical landscape in a territory with a particular geographical identity. In this context, the approach is based on three clearly defined conditions: first, the factors favourable to the appearance and then the development of Christianity in this space; secondly that its main episcopal seats were divided into three essential sets –the bishoprics of the ecclesiastical district called by late sources Arzugitana,the seats of the Gafsa region, and those of the coastal plains of Aradh and Jfara; finally, the particularities of the ecclesiastical landscape with its imprecise boundaries between ecclesiastical and administrative subdivisions and the low representation of Tripolitania in African councils and religious tolerance.