## 2 Materials and Methodological Framework
### The High Tell in Tunisia, Eastern Maghreb  
In the High Tell in northwestern Tunisia, Eastern Maghreb, geo-ethnoarchaeological research has focused on livestock dung production, management, and storage, waste disposal, as well as on dung use for building, manuring, and cooking in cylindrical mud _tabouna_ (_tantum_ type) ovens [9,10]. Ethnoarchaeological studies were conducted in two small villages, El Souidat and Guasdya, located in the vicinity of the Iron Age Numidian site of Althiburos. The study area is inhabited by families that subsist on herding, primarily of sheep and goats, in addition to cereal agriculture, where their livestock provide the main source of fuel. The fieldwork comprised informal interviews and ethnographic observations under full permission, as well as the collection of modern reference dung and plant materials from agricultural fields, pasture grounds, and road margins, in addition to household activity areas such as livestock enclosures, dung fuel residues from ovens, and building materials (dung-tempered floors and roofing). The ethnographic studies reported dung production and drying in open spaces, dung management and storage in specific stony installations (locally called _Kamur_), waste disposal and its re-use, manuring with domestic fuel remains in household gardens, as well as traditional means of baking and cooking in _tabouna_ ovens. The sampling of both modern dung and plant materials was followed by microfossil analyses [9,10], primarily of phytoliths and dung spherulites, complemented with a pilot calcite plant microfossil reference collection from wood ash pseudomorphs to distinguish between wood and dung ashes related to firing activity [20], as these microfossils may be better preserved within archaeological contexts than macro-botanical remains such as wood charcoal, seeds, and fruits, or charred dung pellets preserving their morphological integrity (Table 1). The wood ash pseudomorph reference materials were obtained from the burning of branches to ashes in a laboratory furnace oven at 550 \({}^{\circ}\)C, and comprised mainly plant species that were common in the Iron Age archaeobutanical records, including Aleppo pine (_Pinus halepensis_) and olive trees (_Olea europaea_), recently expanded with additional modern taxa such as oaks, and new woody plants such as pine seed scales and oak cupules, potentially more resistant plant matter found in early/middle Holocene macrobotanical records from the study region in Eastern Maghreb [9,10,46,47,68,69,70]. The overall aim of this geo-ethnoarchaeologicalresearch was to improve the interpretation of living spaces and energy sources to better understand the trajectories of farming communities in this poorly investigated region in northeastern Africa. The geo- ethoarchaeological research included firing measurements within _tabouna_ ovens fuelled with sheep and goat dung and used daily for baking and cooking, using a portable thermometer that enabled the recording of temperatures over time, showing a rapid initial increase (up to 800 \({}^{\circ}\)C in a few minutes) and, 30 min later, a marked drop in temperatures to around 400 \({}^{\circ}\)C within the fuel and 100-120 \({}^{\circ}\)C within the oven wall during the 5 min baking of bread cakes (namely _Kholz_), whereas fuel at the oven-base remained at ca. 200 \({}^{\circ}\)C about 4 h later. These recordings were consistent with previous experimental records and geo-ethnoarchaeological datasets obtained in rural Uzbekistan [20], as well as with baking measurements in _tamur_ ovens from the Upper Khabur in the northern Levant (see Section 3.3), where the main fuel source was woody material, while animal dung was only residually used, as previously argued [15]. Samples were collected from non-burned fuels, mixed-burned fuels obtained from previous combustions and re-used in the same firing installation, and fuel residues (Figure 3f). Then, the samples were analysed following the same methodological approach.