Recent finds have disproved earlier theories about the so-called "Numidian walls". The walls around Dougga are in fact not Numidian; they are part of the city's fortifications erected in Late Antiquity. Targeted digs have also proven that what had been interpreted as two Numidian towers in the walls are in fact two funeral monuments from the Numidian era later reused much later as foundations and a section of defenses.
The discovery of Libyan and Punic inscriptions at the site provoked a debate on the administration of the city at the time of the Kingdom of Numidia. The debate - about the interpretation of epigraphic sources - focused on the question of whether the city was still under Punic influence or whether it was increasingly Berber. Local Berber institutions distinct from any form of Punic authority arose from the Numidian period onwards, but Gabriel Camps notes that Punic shafts were still in place in several cities, including Dougga, during the Roman era, which is a sign of continuing Punic influence and the preservation of certain elements of Punic civilization well after the fall of Carthage.
Gradual integration of the city
The Romans granted Dougga the status of an indigenous city (civitas) following their conquest of the region.
The creation of the colony of Carthage during the reign of Augustus complicated Dougga's institutional status. The city was included in the territory (pertica) of the Roman colony, but around this time, a pagus of Roman colonists also arose alongside the existing settlement. For two centuries, the site was thus governed by two civic and institutional bodies - the city with its peregrine and the pagus with its Roman citizens, both of which had Roman civic institutions - magistrates and a council (ordo) of decurions for the city, a local council from the end of the 1st century CE, and local administrators for the pagus, who were legally subordinated to the distant but powerful
