The 2025 Antiquity Prize,established by the prestigious archaeological journal Antiquity,has been awarded to the study of the Oued Beht site in Morocco.
The archaeological fieldwork carried out in Morocco has uncovered a hitherto unknown early farming society from a poorly understood period of north-west African prehistory,revealing for the first time the importance of the Maghreb (north-west Africa) in the emergence of complex societies in the wider Mediterranean.
The Moroccan archaeological site has yielded significant evidence of the oldest and most extensive agricultural complex known in Africa outside the Nile Valley,dating from 3400 to 2900 BCE.
The archaeologists have recovered unprecedented domesticated plant and animal remains,pottery and lithics,all dating to the Final Neolithic period. Excavation also revealed extensive evidence for deep storage pits.
The findings showed that Oued Beht site was the largest agricultural complex from this period in Africa outside of the Nile region. All of the evidence points to the presence of a large-scale farming settlement—similar in size to Early Bronze Age Troy.
The Oued Beht Archaeological Project (OBAP) is an international and multidisciplinary initiative launched in 2021 under a scientific cooperation progra involving Moroccan Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine (INSAP),the Institute of Heritage Science of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-ISPC),the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge,and the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies (ISMEO).
The Antiquity Prize,established in 1994,is awarded annually to the best studies published in the scientific and academic journal.
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