The team’s work at Oued Beht unearthed the most extensive and earliest agricultural complex known in north Africa outside the Nile Valley.
A new discovery of an ancient farming society at Oued Beht in Morocco fills a centuries-old gap in history. It reveals that, 5,000 years ago, the Maghreb was far from a backwater. Rather, it was an integral part of life in the Mediterranean, a region nestled between north Africa, south-western Asia and southern Europe.
What did the study find? Located in northern Morocco, between the coast and the Middle Atlas Mountains, Oued Beht occupies a unique position that favours both agriculture and trade. Its varied terrain, with river valleys intersecting rolling hills and plains, offers fertile ground ideal for early agricultural activities.
These likely contained a variety of grains and may have been used to store surplus food. This will have helped to manage resources during periods of scarcity. The abundance of pottery sherds and fragments of stone artefacts in these pits suggests that they were also used as dumping grounds in their final phase of use.
How was the discovery made? Oued Beht was first identified as an archaeological site in the 1930s. Colonial French construction work uncovered a remarkable number of polished stone axes. However, the site was not thoroughly investigated until this century. Nearly a decade ago, a French-Moroccan team, co-led by one of us , conducted stratigraphic investigations there, though the results remain unpublished.
Following state of the art excavation, which very carefully recovered and documented each unit of ancient deposition, radiocarbon dating provided precise chronological information. Botanical and faunal analyses reconstructed the environment and dietary practices of the area’s inhabitants. Together, these methods offer a comprehensive view of the human behaviour and the activities at the site.
Evidence of trade with other regions could further imply specialised roles within the community. However, as our research is still in its early stages, future investigations will be essential to confirm these initial hypotheses.
African History African History + Heritage Maghreb Mediterranean Region Morocco Prehistory Prehistoric Times
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