Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – The Tangier Peninsula, located on the northwestern African side of the Strait of Gibraltar, occupies a unique location that has operated since the Late Stone Age as a connecting gateway between Europe and Africa, as well as the inner Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
Plan and section of the single, apparently isolated cist burial excavated at Daroua Zaydan; (a-e) images showing the process of excavation of the cist; (f-g) position of the human fibula on which radiocarbon dating was performed. Photograph and drawing by Hamza benattia
Within this area, archaeologists Hamza Benattia, Jorge Onrubia-Pintado, and Youssef Bokbot from the University of Barcelona, the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, and the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage in Morocco aimed to find dig sites that could reveal evidence of human existence from c. 3000 to 500 BC.
Except for fieldwork, they also used radiocarbon dating and GIS-based analysis, which showed that the ritual landscapes of the Tangier Peninsula are far more complex and widespread than previously thought.
However, the team also noted certain characteristics similar to those observed in late prehistoric southern Iberia, and Sahara (pre-Sahara).
Decorated pottery recovered from El Mriès cist cemetery. Photographs and drawing by Pau Menéndez, Arnau Pou & Hamza Benattia
The region changed much from c. 3000 to 500 BC. From around 3000 BC, northwest Africa’s Tangier Peninsula saw increased interactions due to its strategic location between Europe, Africa, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean. These exchanges—initially involving contacts and later through marriages and migration—are evident in unique megalithic monuments, a variety of burial traditions, rock art, and rituals.
Researchers examined pit burials in the Tangier Peninsula during this period. These burials consisted of bodies placed in extended (and, from the size of some pits, presumably also flexed) positions within simple pits, often covered by one or several slabs.
Most probably, some of these burials may have been part of larger cist cemeteries.
From at least the late third millennium BC, cist burials became a new funerary type that emerged in the Tangier Peninsula.
Bronze Age cists were typically constructed by placing four large vertical slabs arranged in a trapezoidal disposition, covered by a larger horizontal slab, often displaying a crescent-shaped stone accumulation outside the eastern slab.
Sometimes, vertical slabs were replaced on one or more sides by a rough wall built with medium-sized unworked stones without bonding.
These structures resemble southwestern Iberian examples, though the crescent-shaped stone accumulation is unique to the northwest African structures. In the Tangier Peninsula and Iberia, these cist burials are frequently found isolated or grouped into cemeteries concentrated on a single hill or dispersed across several adjacent hills.
Yet another funerary type was pit burials in the Tangier Peninsula during this period, which consist of bodies placed in extended (and from the size of some pit, probably also flexed) position within simple pits often covered by one or several slabs.
Some of these burials may have been part of larger cist cemeteries with mixed pits and cist burials.
Another important discovery is the impressive farming settlement at Kach Kouch, which was occupied from the late third to the early first millennium BC. The settlement’s main characteristics are round mud-built houses, rock-cut silos, and evidence of domesticated plants and animals.
Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer