Archaeologists at the Oued Beht Archaeological Project in Morocco’s Khemisset Province have discovered a 3,500- to 4,000-year-old ditch-and-rampart fortification that is the oldest known defensive structure in North Africa outside the Nile Valley.
This extraordinary archaeological finding has been confirmed by a study published by American “Discover Magazine” in its latest issue. Oued Beht is an archaeological site that reshaped understanding of North Africa’s prehistory.
The site is perched between Morocco’s coast and the Atlas Mountains. Today, the area is a rural landscape filled with rolling hills, plains, and river valleys. Four thousand years ago, the area was a bustling hub, home to a community that was attending to crops, rearing livestock, and producing pottery.
“It is the oldest defensive structure so far identified in North Africa beyond the Nile Valley,” said first author of the research paper Giulio Lucarini, at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) and the International Association for Mediterranean and Eastern Studies (ISMEO) in Italy.
“A structure like this is both protection and a statement of power. It suggests that social organization was becoming more formal, perhaps with emerging forms of leadership able to mobilize people for such works”, he added.
In the study, the researchers describe a defence structure consisting of a multi-phase ditch, a rampart, and a wall, which exploited the natural topography of the ridge and blocked access to the southern section of the site.
The Oued Beht Archaeological Project was co-directed by Giulio Lucarini and Moroccan Youssef Bokbot, a researcher at L’Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine (INSAP).
“Digging a large ditch and piling up a rampart across the ridge took planning, coordination and a lot of labor sustained over time,” Lucarini said.
By radiocarbon dating seed and charcoal deposits, the team was able to determine when the structure was built. The results suggest it was constructed approximately 3,500 to 4,000 years ago, coinciding with the western Mediterranean’s Bronze Age.
Adding another layer of intrigue, the team discovered the structure was rebuilt sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries C.E., along with a hamlet or farm and a cemetery.
Oued Beht was originally a Neolithic settlement, which estimates suggest was founded as early as the mid-fourth to the early third millennium B.C.E., some 5,400 to 4,900 years ago.
Archaeological evidence shows it grew into an agricultural hub, where local populations cultivated crops such as wheat, peas, and barley; gathered wild plants like olives and pistachios; and tended livestock such as sheep, goats, and pigs. Fragments of painted pottery and tools, including thousands of polished stone axes, suggest the site also produced crafts.
