Archaeologists have unearthed thousands of stone axes and painted pottery shards in a 5,000-year-old agricultural settlement. The artifacts found indicate the existence of an unknown community whose members may have cultivated the land and traded with other peoples across the Mediterranean.
In fact, the history of the Ved-Becht archaeological site dates back to the 1930s when French colonists stumbled upon traces of the settlement. After that, the site was forgotten for over 90 years. Recently, Moroccan archaeologist Youssef Bokbot suggested that important discoveries might be hidden beneath the surface of this location, and he assembled an international team of like-minded researchers.
What Did the Researchers Discover?
During the investigation, the findings of which were published in the journal Antiquity, an “astonishing number of pottery shards and polished axes” were uncovered. Co-author of the study, Giulio Lucarini, an archaeologist from the Institute of Cultural Heritage Sciences of the Italian National Research Council, shared this information with Live Science.
Using radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples and seeds found during the excavations, the team dated the site to approximately 3400–2900 BCE. It is likely that the people who lived there had diverse genetic backgrounds. According to the researchers’ conclusions, traditional pastoralists from the Sahara settled in this area, along with migrants from the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East.
“In fact, all the streams of indigenous peoples converge in what we now call a melting pot,” noted co-researcher Cyprian Brudbenk, an archaeologist from the University of Cambridge.
The people who inhabited this arid land were farmers who grew barley, wheat, peas, olives, and pistachios. This was evidenced by the seeds found in large excavated pits. The team also uncovered remains of sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle in the settlement. Furthermore, the abundance of pottery and stone axes discovered here suggests that the Neolithic community produced goods for trade with other peoples living in the Bronze and Copper Ages on the Iberian Peninsula and possibly in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Interestingly, previous studies have found ivory and ostrich eggshells in European settlements from those distant times. However, until now, archaeologists had no evidence that these goods were supplied to Europe from Africa.
For a long time, archaeologists assumed that 5,000 years ago, both sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa were predominantly inhabited by hunter-gatherers and pastoralists—nomadic people who herded livestock. Stationary agricultural societies from that period have been discovered by archaeologists throughout the Mediterranean, except in North Africa.
“Before this discovery, nothing was known about agriculture in North Africa outside the Nile Valley,” confirmed Giulio Lucarini.
“We have effectively shown that this part of the world fully entered the Neolithic, that it is part of the larger world of agriculture. We have only just scratched the surface,” added Cyprian Brudbenk.