Understanding Utica over the longue durée

"Understanding Utica over the longue durée" by Andrew Dufton (co-authors: Imed Ben Jerbania, Elizabeth Fentress, Andrew Wilson)

The city of Utica (Tunisia) holds a long and complex history. Utica was one of the oldest and (at times) most important towns of North Africa in antiquity, and yet the site remains relatively poorly understood in comparison to neighbouring Carthage or other more well-known settlements. What was the impact on the built environment of Utica’s brief status as Rome’s North African capital? How did the city change under Roman control, and why did it ultimately fail? The Tunisian-British Utica project explores these long-term developments through a programme of targeted excavation, architectural reconstruction, and geophysical survey. This paper presents some of the key findings from this international collaboration and traces the different transformations at Utica under Rome, its rapid growth and competitive monumentalisation as well as the site’s gradual abandonment and reoccupation.

Dr. Andrew Dufton is currently a Research Fellow in GIS and Landscape Archaeology of North Africa at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He received his PhD in Archaeology and the Ancient World from the Joukowsky Institute at Brown University. His research asks questions of how cities—ancient and modern—shape the daily experiences of their inhabitants, with a particular focus on the long-term dynamics of urban change in North Africa.