Archaeologists uncover 4,000-year-old Moroccan defensive complex

Archaeologists have uncovered a defensive complex in Morocco that was built over centuries, evidence that organised agricultural communities flourished in the region around 4,000 years ago, ERR reports.

<pResearchers from Italy, Morocco and England studied an ancient settlement in a river valley east of the capital, Rabat. They mapped the settlement and analysed remains of fortifications and storage pits.

Although the region was inhabited from the late Stone Age, the most significant construction took place during the Bronze Age, in the early second millennium BC. The oldest layer of the fortifications was made of clay, charcoal and wood. Hundreds of years later, a substantial wall of stone and earth was built on top, reaching more than two metres wide in places. A defensive ditch nearly two metres wide ran in front of it.

Researchers also found dozens of bell-shaped pits used to store grain. Their capacity exceeded the needs of local residents, suggesting the settlement may have supplied food to the surrounding region.

The fortifications may have helped control the movement of people and goods as competition for fertile land and vital resources grew during a period of social change across the western Mediterranean. Similar evidence of large-scale construction has been found on the Iberian Peninsula, across the Strait of Gibraltar. The findings were published in the journal Libyan Studies.