PrehistoryBronze Age (second millennium BC) · Oued Beht, Morocco
A 4,000-year-old ditch, rampart and wall at Oued Beht is the oldest known defence in North Africa outside Egypt
Radiocarbon dates place the barred-spur fortification in north-west Morocco in the second millennium BC, the time of the Bronze Age across the western Mediterranean.
In brief 3 key points
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- A multi-phase ditch, rampart and wall cut off the southern tip of the Oued Beht ridge
- Radiocarbon dates put its first construction about 4,000 to 3,500 years ago
- The same defence was rebuilt in the 11th to 13th centuries AD
Archaeologists working at Oued Beht in north-west Morocco have dated a ditch, rampart and wall across the site's ridge to about 4,000 to 3,500 years ago. The researchers say it is the earliest confirmed defensive construction in North Africa outside Egypt.
The results come from the third field season of the Oued Beht Archaeological Project, in October and November 2023. They were published in the journal Libyan Studies on 7 September, and members of the team described them in an article for The Conversation.
A barred spur
Walls and earthworks at the site had been noted since the 1930s. The French archaeologist Armand Ruhlmann recorded three walls, with the fourth side protected by the natural drop of the ridge, a layout known as a barred spur. Their nature and date were unclear until now.
The new excavations show a multi-phase ditch, rampart and wall built across a narrow part of the ridge between the river and a ravine, cutting off and protecting its southern tip. Radiocarbon dates from deposits linked to these structures place the first construction in the second millennium BC, a time equivalent to the Bronze Age elsewhere in the western Mediterranean.
“It's not known exactly what threats these wall-like structures were designed to counter.”
Oued Beht researchers, in The Conversation
The team thinks the defences likely relate to growing competition over land and resources, and perhaps control of movement through the landscape, rather than to invaders. Building them took planning and the organised labour of many people.
From early farmers to a medieval farm
Earlier work by the project had already found what is likely the earliest and largest farming complex in Africa outside the Nile Valley, from about 5,400 to 4,900 years ago. It covers at least ten hectares, with barley, wheat, livestock, thousands of polished stone axes and fine painted pottery.
By the time of the wall, activity had moved from the open northern area to the narrower and more defensible southern ridge. In the 11th to 13th centuries AD, the ridge was used again: the defence was rebuilt, a hamlet or farm stood on a nearby hilltop, and people were buried in a cemetery between them.
The researchers point to fortified hilltop sites built in southern Iberia by Argaric societies, about 2200 to 1550 BC, and argue that the Maghreb was part of wider western Mediterranean networks rather than isolated.
Sources (4)
Peer-reviewed paperfrom Oued Beht Archaeological Project
- A mysterious 4,000-year-old wall is rewriting North Africa’s history (ScienceDaily)
- 4,000-year-old defensive wall found at Oued Beht in Morocco (Libyan Studies)
- The wall discovered at Oued Beht, a site in Morocco that is steadily rewriting the history of the Maghreb. Giulio Lucarini/OBAP Archive (The Conversation (by the researchers))
- >Expanding Oued Beht: Final Neolithic, Bronze Age, medieval... (Libyan Studies)
Paper: Lucarini et al., Expanding Oued Beht: Final Neolithic, Bronze Age, medieval and later discoveries from excavation and survey in 2023, Libyan Studies (2026)
Edited by Guiseppe Weijermars
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