The Maghreb, a region defined by its Mediterranean climate, proximity to the Sahara Desert, and short maritime route to Europe, has long been recognized for its historical importance during the Palaeolithic, Iron Age, and Islamic periods. However, there has been little knowledge about the region's prehistory between 4000 and 1000 BC-a time marked by dynamic changes throughout the Mediterranean.
A team of researchers, including Youssef Bokbot (INSAP), Cyprian Broodbank (University of Cambridge), and Giulio Lucarini (CNR-ISPC and ISMEO), conducted archaeological fieldwork at Oued Beht, Morocco, to address this knowledge gap.
Professor Broodbank commented, "For over thirty years I have been convinced that Mediterranean archaeology has been missing something fundamental in later prehistoric north Africa. 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 authors of the study noted that "for more than a century 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 site at Oued Beht has revealed the largest known agricultural complex from this time period outside of the Nile region, featuring domesticated plant and animal remains, pottery, and stone tools, all dating to the Final Neolithic. Excavations also uncovered large storage pits, suggesting a substantial farming settlement on par with Early Bronze Age Troy.
Similar storage pits have been found at contemporaneous sites in Iberia, across the Strait of Gibraltar, where African connections have been suggested by the discovery of ivory and ostrich eggs. This evidence implies that the Maghreb played a key role in wider western Mediterranean developments during the fourth millennium BC.
The findings at Oued Beht demonstrate that north-west Maghreb was an integral part of the wider Mediterranean region, challenging previously held views of the area's role in prehistory. The authors concluded, "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-and, for all the likelihood of movement in both directions, to recognise it as a distinctively African-based community that contributed substantially to the shaping of that social world."