Archaeologists uncover 5,000-year-old agricultural society in Morocco's Oued Beht

The people who lived at the site were farmers who cultivated barley, wheat, peas, olives, and pistachios on the arid land.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF DECEMBER 15, 2024 12:40

Tiznit province in the Atlas mountains. (photo credit: Boris Stroujko. Via Shutterstock)

Archaeologists uncovered evidence of an ancient farming society in Morocco's Oued Beht, revealing that between 3400 BCE and 2900 BCE, a large-scale farming community thrived in the region. This discovery, published in the journal Antiquity, showcases the earliest and largest agricultural complex in Africa outside the Nile Valley, reshaping historical views of the Maghreb region, according to HeritageDaily.

The site at Oued Beht is located in northern Morocco, strategically situated 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, uncovering extensive evidence of farming activities, deep storage pits, and large-scale settlements comparable in size to Early Bronze Age Troy, as reported by The Independent.

Moroccan archaeologist Youssef Bokbot from the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage believed the Oued Beht site held significant finds and decided to investigate it. The team included co-directors of the Oued Beht Archaeological Project, Cyprian Broodbank from the University of Cambridge and Giulio Lucarini from CNR-ISPC and ISMEO, according to Live Science.

The researchers found a large quantity of stone tools at the site, including thousands of stone axe heads, polished axes, and painted pottery pieces. "We found an insane quantity of pottery shards and polished axes," said Lucarini, as reported by Express.co.uk. They also uncovered remains of domesticated plants and animals, indicating advanced agricultural skills and a well-established livestock farming system, according to La República.

The findings suggest that the Maghreb played a central role in shaping western Mediterranean developments.

Excavations revealed extensive evidence 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 periods of scarcity.

The material from Oued Beht indicates that northwest Africa was not isolated but played an active role in Mediterranean networks. "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," the authors stated.

Evidence such as the 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 people who lived at the Oued Beht site were farmers who cultivated barley, wheat, peas, olives, and pistachios on the arid land, as evidenced by seeds found in large constructed pits.

"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," said Broodbank, an archaeologist from the University of Cambridge, as quoted in Fox News.

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The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.