Morocco’s hidden history: archaeology, DNA and carbon dating rewrite the story of the ancient world

For decades, stories about the ancient Mediterranean have centred on the grand cultures of Greece, Rome, Phoenicia and Egypt. North-west Africa seldom enters the picture before the arrival of Phoenician traders on the Moroccan coast about 3,000 years ago.

But archaeology is now revealing a different story.

Long before the first Phoenician ships (from today's Middle East) sailed the western Mediterranean (between today's north Africa and southern Europe), communities in what is now Morocco were farming and herding animals. They were also crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and participating in long-distance exchanges.

Over the past decade, I've worked on archaeology projects across Morocco. We've been investigating the origins of farming, long-distance exchange and the emergence of complex societies there. In my most recent study, I brought together archaeological evidence, radiocarbon dates and genetic data spanning nearly three millennia.

The study reveals that between roughly 3800 and 500 BCE – a period that saw the construction of Stonehenge, the flourishing of New Kingdom Egypt and the rise of Phoenician maritime trade – north-west Africa was not a marginal frontier. It was a crossroads linking the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Saharan worlds.

This has important implications for how we understand Africa's past. For too long, interpretations of the continent's history have underestimated the complexity and dynamism of its societies. By bringing north-west Africa back into the picture, archaeology is helping to correct that imbalance and reveal a richer, more interconnected reality.

A centre of multiple worlds

Geography helps explain why north-west Africa occupied such a strategic position in Mediterranean prehistory. The Strait of Gibraltar, which separates present-day Morocco and Spain, is only about 14km wide at its narrowest point. It served as a natural corridor linking Africa and Europe. Strait of Gibraltar from Africa. Hamza Benattia , CC BY

Far from being isolated, communities in today's northern Morocco were embedded in long-distance networks for millennia. They maintained contacts with Iberia and other Atlantic regions and they interacted with Saharan populations. Later, they engaged with Mediterranean traders and settlers.

They were not passive participants in these exchanges. Archaeological evidence increasingly suggests that local communities actively participated in the networks that connected the western Mediterranean.

Early farmers and innovation

Farming was present in north-west Africa from at least 5400 BC, during the Neolithic period when agriculture was spreading across much of the western Mediterranean.

By around 3800 BC, communities in what is now Morocco were practising increasingly intensive farming and animal husbandry. One striking example is Oued Beht. At this large open-air settlement people cultivated crops, raised livestock and stored surplus food in hundreds of large underground pits.

Recent excavations reveal this was no small farming village. Covering around ten hectares, Oued Beht is among the largest agricultural settlements known in prehistoric Africa. The site may have supported a population of more than a thousand people, pointing to a level of organisation rarely documented in north-west Africa at this time.

These developments coincided with broader environmental changes, including the Sahara gradually becoming a desert. The dryness may have encouraged communities to invest more heavily in agriculture, food storage and long-term settlement in order to adapt to a less predictable environment.

At the same time, there's clear evidence of interaction with Iberia, the peninsula that includes today's Spain and Portugal. Shared painted pottery classs, together with ivory and ostrich eggshell objects, point to regular contacts across the Strait of Gibraltar. These local communities were already active participants in wider networks of exchange.

New influences and local continuity

During the third millennium BC, north-west Africa became part of the wider Bell Beaker phenomenon. It takes its name from distinctive bell-shaped drinking vessels which appear across a network of communities that stretch across Atlantic Europe and the western Mediterranean.

For decades, the presence of Bell Beaker pottery in the region was interpreted as evidence that local communities were simply adopting cultural innovations from Europe.

Yet in Morocco, Bell Beaker objects are found alongside distinctive local traditions. This suggests local communities were selectively integrating new elements into existing cultural frameworks.

This was clearly a process of exchange, adaptation and local agency.

The elusive Bronze Age

The second millennium BC remains one of the least understood periods in north-west African prehistory. In Iberia, large, fortified settlements and clear social hierarchies emerge. The archaeological record in north-west Africa is more fragmentary.

Even so, there are important clues.

Burial practices such as stone-built cist graves point to changes in social organisation. At sites like Kach Kouch, there is evidence for settled farming communities with round houses, storage facilities and animal herding.

There are also signs of long-distance connections continuing into this period. For example, a bronze sword recovered from the bed of a river in northern Morocco has close parallels in the British Isles. This suggests links extending far beyond the Mediterranean.

Encounters with the Phoenicians

By the early first millennium BC, Phoenician traders and settlers from the eastern Mediterranean – today's Lebanon – began establishing settlements along the north African coast. Traditionally, this has been interpreted as a process of colonisation, with local populations as passive recipients of a more advanced culture.

Recent archaeological evidence challenges this. Aerial image of the hilltop settlement at Kach Kouch, Morocco. Hamza Benattia , CC BY

At sites like Kach Kouch, local communities continued their own architectural traditions and lifeclass. They selectively adopted new elements, like wheel-made pottery and iron tools.

Kach Kouch and other settlements suggest that these societies negotiated encounters with incoming groups. They incorporated new ideas into existing cultural traditions on their own terms.

The arrival of the Phoenicians, then, did not mark the beginning of complex societies in Morocco. It was a new chapter in a much longer history of interaction, adaptation and exchange.

These advances reflect decades of work by Moroccan and international research teams. Much remains for archaeologists to do. Large parts of the region are still underexplored and new discoveries have the potential to transform our understanding even further.

What is already clear, however, is that the prehistory of north-west Africa is a story of local communities actively shaping their own place in the ancient world.

Hamza Benattia received funding from the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage of Morocco (INSAP), the Prehistoric Society Research Fund, the Stevan B. Dana Grant of the American Society of Overseas Research, the Mediterranean Archaeological Trust Grant, the Barakat Trust Early Career Award, the Centre Jacques Berque Research Grant, the Institute of Ceutan Studies Research Fund and the University of Castilla La Mancha.

By Hamza Benattia, Prehistory, University of Cambridge

   Comments0