Moroccan site reveals Bronze Age occupation continuing after its Neolithic heyday

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Key facts

• At Wedbet, a settlement on a ridge above a river in north-west Morocco, a 2022 excavation revealed a large final Neolithic farming settlement of 9 to 10 hectares dating from the mid-4th to the early 3rd millennium BC
• The Wedbet archaeological project returned from October to November 2023 to dig six new trenches
• The headline result is the first solid evidence that people were still living at Wedbet in the second millennium BC, centuries after the Neolithic heyday had ended
• A massive structure in the southern part of the site, long known locally as Wall B, was built in two stages: first an earth rampart put up after 2000 BC, then centuries later a stone wall fronted by a ditch and an earth embankment
• 17 new radiocarbon dates place the complex in the early to mid-second millennium BC; excavators describe it as among the oldest confirmed constructions of its kind in the region, suggesting a Bronze Age society was emerging in north-west Morocco at much the same time as related societies across the Strait in southern Spain
• At the northern end of the site, three polished stone axes were found still lying where they were left in prehistory, the first such tools found in place at Wedbet; nearby pits held pottery dated to about 3100-2900 BC
• Several east-west aligned burials were uncovered where local residents had reported human bones during house building; an AMS date from one burial returned AD 1221-1279, and the cemetery may cover about 40 by 40 metres and hold hundreds of graves
• A survey of 260 hectares around the site found no other prehistoric settlement nearby, though it did record an 11th-13th century rural settlement, old cemeteries and a stone road; geological work traced the sources of clay and stone used for ancient pottery and tools

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