Tim Newcomb
Fri, October 4, 2024
POP MECH
Ancient Farming Society Discovered in Morocco
Ancient Farming Society Discovered in Morocco
Walter Bibikow - Getty Images
Archaeologists just uncovered the earliest and largest known agricultural complex in Africa beyond the Nile corridor.
With a large-scale farming community similar in size to Early Bronze Age Troy, the find rewrites the history of northwest Africa.
The Maghreb region may have played a pivotal role in Mediterranean development.
A large-scale, ancient Moroccan farming community may have played a pivotal role in the development of Mediterranean cultures. That community has gone overlooked for 5,000 years, but thanks to a a team of international researchers and their archaeological discovery in the Maghreb region (northwest Africa), the historical record will be corrected.
In a new study published in the journal Antiquity, the group chronicled the find in Oued Beht, Morocco, a previously unknown farming community that was active from 3400 to 2900 BC. “This is currently the earliest and largest agricultural complex in Africa beyond the Nile corridor,” the authors wrote. “Pottery and lithics, together with numerous pits, point to a community that brings the Maghreb into dialogue with contemporaneous wider western Mediterranean developments.”
Not much is known about the Maghreb region from between 4000 and 1000 BC, but the new discovery could show how it was potentially a hub for major cultural development and international connections. The area’s location bordering the Sahara Desert and a relatively narrow waterway separating it from Europe means Maghreb may have proven critical in the emergence of complex societies throughout the Mediterranean.
“For over 30 years I have been convinced that Mediterranean archaeology has been missing something fundamental in later prehistoric north Africa,” Cyprian Broodbank, Cambridge University professor, said in a statement. “Now, at last, we know that was right, and we can begin to think in new ways that acknowledge the dynamic contribution of Africans to the emergence and interactions of early Mediterranean societies.”
The team believes the large-scale farming settlement was similar in size to Early Bronze Age Troy and featured an unprecedented range of domesticated plants and animals. Crops likely included barley, wheat, peas, olives, and pistachios, while livestock ranged from sheep and goats to pigs and cattle. Add in a wealth of found pottery and stone tools, all dating to the Final Neolithic period, and the evidence points away from the previously believed theory of the site sparingly inhabited by nomadic herders and instead positions it as playing a key role in setting culture trends in an entire region.
“For more than a century,” the authors wrote in the study, “the last great unknown of later Mediterranean prehistory has been the role played by the societies of Mediterranean’s southern, Africa shores west of Egypt. Our discoveries prove that this gap has been due not to any lack of major prehistoric activity, but to the relative lack of investigation, and publishing. Oued Beht now affirms the central role of the Maghreb in the emergence of both Mediterranean and wider African societies.”
The find also included deep-storage pits, which showed the inhabitants’ know-how for long-term food storage, but also linking it to similar sites in Iberia across the Strait of Gibraltar where ivory and ostrich eggs have long hinted at connections to Africa.
“It is crucial to consider Oued Beht within a wider co-evolving and connective framework embracing peoples both sides of the Mediterranean-Atlantic gateway during the later fourth and third millennia BC,” the authors wrote, “and, for all the likelihood of movement in both directions, to recognize it as a distinctively African-based community that contributed substantially to the shaping of that social world.”
Archaeologists just uncovered the earliest and largest known agricultural complex in Africa beyond the Nile corridor.
With a large-scale farming community similar in size to Early Bronze Age Troy, the find rewrites the history of northwest Africa.
The Maghreb region may have played a pivotal role in Mediterranean development.
A large-scale, ancient Moroccan farming community may have played a pivotal role in the development of Mediterranean cultures. That community has gone overlooked for 5,000 years, but thanks to a a team of international researchers and their archaeological discovery in the Maghreb region (northwest Africa), the historical record will be corrected.
In a new study published in the journal Antiquity, the group chronicled the find in Oued Beht, Morocco, a previously unknown farming community that was active from 3400 to 2900 BC. “This is currently the earliest and largest agricultural complex in Africa beyond the Nile corridor,” the authors wrote. “Pottery and lithics, together with numerous pits, point to a community that brings the Maghreb into dialogue with contemporaneous wider western Mediterranean developments.”
Not much is known about the Maghreb region from between 4000 and 1000 BC, but the new discovery could show how it was potentially a hub for major cultural development and international connections. The area’s location bordering the Sahara Desert and a relatively narrow waterway separating it from Europe means Maghreb may have proven critical in the emergence of complex societies throughout the Mediterranean.
“For over 30 years I have been convinced that Mediterranean archaeology has been missing something fundamental in later prehistoric north Africa,” Cyprian Broodbank, Cambridge University professor, said in a statement. “Now, at last, we know that was right, and we can begin to think in new ways that acknowledge the dynamic contribution of Africans to the emergence and interactions of early Mediterranean societies.”
The team believes the large-scale farming settlement was similar in size to Early Bronze Age Troy and featured an unprecedented range of domesticated plants and animals. Crops likely included barley, wheat, peas, olives, and pistachios, while livestock ranged from sheep and goats to pigs and cattle. Add in a wealth of found pottery and stone tools, all dating to the Final Neolithic period, and the evidence points away from the previously believed theory of the site sparingly inhabited by nomadic herders and instead positions it as playing a key role in setting culture trends in an entire region.
“For more than a century,” the authors wrote in the study, “the last great unknown of later Mediterranean prehistory has been the role played by the societies of Mediterranean’s southern, Africa shores west of Egypt. Our discoveries prove that this gap has been due not to any lack of major prehistoric activity, but to the relative lack of investigation, and publishing. Oued Beht now affirms the central role of the Maghreb in the emergence of both Mediterranean and wider African societies.”
The find also included deep-storage pits, which showed the inhabitants’ know-how for long-term food storage, but also linking it to similar sites in Iberia across the Strait of Gibraltar where ivory and ostrich eggs have long hinted at connections to Africa.
“It is crucial to consider Oued Beht within a wider co-evolving and connective framework embracing peoples both sides of the Mediterranean-Atlantic gateway during the later fourth and third millennia BC,” the authors wrote, “and, for all the likelihood of movement in both directions, to recognize it as a distinctively African-based community that contributed substantially to the shaping of that social world.”
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