According to the results of a study of a multidisciplinary archaeological research project, researchers have identified the oldest and largest agricultural complex on the Oued Beht site. The team discovered remains of domesticated plants and animals, as well as a rich artifact complex including ceramic vessels, grindstones, and chipped stone tools. The details!
On the Oued Beht archaeological site, near Khemisset, an international research team, co-led by the National Institute of Archeology and Heritage Sciences (INSAP), the CNR-ISPC and the University of Cambridge , identified the oldest and largest documented agricultural complex in Africa, outside the Nile Valley.
According to the researchers, “Oued Beht provides crucial new information on the settlement of the Maghreb between the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE (5,000 years before present), thus confirming the crucial role of this region in the evolution of complex societies in the Mediterranean and North Africa. The results of this research are published in an open access article in the journal Antiquity.
Indeed, this new discovery, according to the study, revealed a society from the Final Neolithic (3400-2900 BCE) previously unknown. “It concerns a little-documented period in the prehistory of North West Africa, in fact, although the importance of this region is widely recognized for the Paleolithic, the Iron Age and the Islamic period, there is a significant lack of knowledge for the period between 4000 and 1000 BCE,” indicates the same source.
The team discovered remains of domesticated plants and animals, as well as a rich complex of artifacts including ceramic vessels, including polychrome painted decoration, polished axes, grindstones and chipped stone tools. . “The excavations also revealed the presence of numerous pits and floors, probably used for storage. A significant point is the already known presence of contemporary sites with similar characteristics in the Iberian Peninsula, on the other side of the Mediterranean, where finds of ivory objects and ostrich eggs suggest clear connections with the African regions.
According to the said study, Oued Beht confirms the key role played by the Maghreb in the development of contacts and exchange networks between Africa and Europe during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, thanks to its strategic position between the Sahara Desert to the south and the shortest maritime crossing point between the two continents the Strait of Gibraltar to the north. “The discovery of the Oued Beht site in Morocco demonstrates that this gap in knowledge is not due to a lack of archaeological evidence, but rather to limited attention thus far given to these regions and, in particular, to these historical phases,” conclude the authors of the research,” we explain.
It should be noted that the results of this study come from the Oued Beht archaeological project (OBAP), an international multidisciplinary project launched in 2021 as part of the scientific cooperation program signed between INSAP (Morocco), the CNR- ISPC (Italy), the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge (UK) and ISMEO (Italy).
