A first. Archaeologists have discovered traces of an ancient agricultural society in Morocco’s Oued Beht, revealing that between 3400 and 2900 BC a large-scale agricultural community thrived in the region.
The discovery, published in the journal Antiquity, highlights Africa’s oldest and largest agricultural complex outside the Nile Valley, reshaping historical views of the Maghreb region, according to Heritage Daily.
The Oued Beht site is located in northern Morocco, strategically located between the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts and the Middle Atlas Mountains. The team of Moroccan, British and Italian researchers began excavating the site in 2021, discovering extensive evidence of agricultural activities, deep storage pits and large-scale settlements comparable in size to Troy in the early Bronze Age, as reported by The Independent.
Moroccan archaeologist Youssef Bokbot, of the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage, believed that the Oued Beht site hosted important discoveries and decided to examine it. The team included co-directors of the Oued Beht archaeological project, Cyprian Broodbank of the University of Cambridge and Giulio Lucarini of CNR-ISPC and ISMEO, according to Live Science.
Researchers discovered a large quantity of stone tools at the site, including thousands of stone ax heads, polished axes and painted pieces of pottery. “We found an incredible amount of pottery shards and polished axes,” Lucarini said, as reported by Express.co.uk. They also discovered remains of domesticated plants and animals, indicating advanced agricultural skills and a well-established breeding system, according to La República.
The results suggest that the Maghreb played a central role in the development of the Western Mediterranean.
+ Strong links between the Maghreb and Europe, across the Strait of Gibraltar +
Excavations revealed numerous traces of deep storage pits analogous to those previously discovered in Spain, reflecting similarities in agricultural practices. These pits likely contained a variety of grains and may have been used to store surplus food, indicating that the community developed techniques to preserve resources during times of scarcity.
Materials from Wadi Beht indicate that northwest Africa was not isolated but played an active role in Mediterranean networks. “Our findings provide evidence that this gap is not due to a lack of major prehistoric activity, but to a relative lack of research and publications,” the authors said.
Evidence such as discoveries of ivory and ostrich eggs in the Iberian Peninsula paints a picture of complex local communities engaged with their contemporaries in southern Iberia, suggesting strong connections between the Maghreb and Europe , across the Strait of Gibraltar.
The inhabitants of the Oued Beht site were farmers who grew barley, wheat, peas, olives and pistachios on arid land, as evidenced by seeds found in large constructed pits.
“Now, finally, we know that it was true, and we can begin to think in new ways, recognizing the dynamic contribution of Africans to the emergence and interactions of early Mediterranean societies,” said Broodbank, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, quoted by Fox News. Source: The Jerusalem Post
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