Cultural adaptations at Uan Tabu from the Upper Pleistocene to the Late Holocene

This concluding chapter is an attempt to organise the data presented in the previous chapters, which provide a conspicuous amount of information on several aspects of the settlement history of Uan Tabu and its surroundings. The contributions from different scientific perspectives offer a multi-faceted framework for the peoples who occupied Uan Tabu from the late Upper Pleistocene to the Late Holocene. Here, I present the data in a chronological and cultural sequence. The rockshelter was first thought to be an Early Pastoral site. When it was re-excavated in the 1990s, its cultural attribution was reviewed and the main occupation was assigned to the Holocene prepastoral horizons, which were termed Early and Late Acacus, in order to avoid confusions with Mediterranean-biased terms, such as Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic. An earlier deposit, below the Holocene one, was also identified and was attributed to the Aterian. Therefore, the aims of this book are to review all the periods of occupation and use of Uan Tabu, providing new information and organising existing data in a global frame of reference for the prehistory in the area. To sum up, evidence for Aterian, Early Acacus, Late Acacus, Early Pastoral, and Late Pastoral occupations could be identified at Uan Tabu. Furthermore, the Aterian evidence could be integrated in a wider context, including the Middle Palaeolithic detected in the surroundings and in the Messak Settafet plateau.