RABAT, MOROCCO—Cosmos Magazine reports that a 5,000-year-old agricultural complex has been identified along the Baht River in Morocco. The site, known as Oued Beht, was discovered during building projects in the 1930s, but it has only recently been investigated by an international team of archaeologists, who found remains of domesticated plants and animals, pottery, stone tools, and deep storage pits. Similar Neolithic pits containing ivory and ostrich eggs have been uncovered in the Iberian Peninsula, indicating that the Iberians had connections to Africa. Cyprian Broodbank of the University of Cambridge explained that the new study will begin to show how the people of northwestern Africa contributed to the emergence and interactions of early Mediterranean societies. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read about bone tools found in Morocco's Contrebandiers Cave that date to between 120,000 and 90,000 years ago, go to "Earliest Leatherworkers," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2021.
