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Archaeologists have dated a ditch-and-earthen-rampart system at Oued Beht in north-western Morocco to roughly 3,500–4,000 years ago. It is described as the oldest defensive structure so far identified in North Africa outside the Nile Valley. The stone wall visible above it is medieval, not prehistoric.
What archaeologists found at Oued Beht
Oued Beht is a settlement on a ridge overlooking the Oued Beht watercourse in north-western Morocco. During the Oued Beht Archaeological Project’s third field season, researchers investigated defensive features that had been noted decades earlier. Beneath later masonry, they identified a broad ditch and earthen rampart. The project partners date that earthwork to the early-to-mid second millennium BC, or approximately 3,500–4,000 years ago. The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation announced the finding on September 15, 2026.
The distinction between the two structures matters: the ancient barrier was made of earth, while the imposing stone wall standing above it belongs to medieval activity at the site. A cemetery from that later period also indicates reuse of the location. The Italian National Research Council (CNR) describes the medieval remains and the earlier defensive system as separate phases.
How the team established the date and layout
Researchers used 17 new radiocarbon dates to help reconstruct the construction sequence and refine the earthwork’s chronology, according to the CNR. Those dates support a broad age range, not a single year of construction. The sources report no measurements for the ditch or rampart, so the settlement’s area should not be mistaken for the fortification’s size.
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The ditch-and-rampart system closed off the settlement’s southern end and took advantage of the ridge’s natural shape. Its placement helps explain how the barrier worked as part of the landscape, rather than as an isolated wall. The evidence supports its interpretation as a defensive feature; it does not establish exactly whom it was intended to keep out.
A defense added to a much older settlement
The defensive earthwork is one chapter in a longer history at Oued Beht. The CNR describes an earlier farming settlement of approximately 10 hectares, occupied between the middle of the fourth and the beginning of the third millennium BC. That area refers to the settlement, not the fortification. The community had connections extending to the Iberian Peninsula.
A Live Science report published September 29, 2026 describes livestock, cultivated crops and numerous bell-shaped pits that researchers think were used to store grain. The scale of storage may have served people beyond the settlement, but that wider role remains an interpretation rather than a settled fact.
What the defenses reveal—and what remains unknown
The scale and location of the earthwork show that communities in the north-western Maghreb could organize substantial collective construction by the early-to-mid second millennium BC. Giulio Lucarini, an archaeologist at CNR ISPC and ISMEO, co-director of the project and lead author, said the work documents major collective undertakings on a scale researchers had not previously been able to demonstrate in the region.
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The purpose behind the defenses is less certain. Lucarini told Live Science, “We don’t know exactly what they were protecting themselves from.” Competition over land and resources, control of movement and more formal leadership are possibilities he raised, not conclusions established by the archaeological evidence. The earthwork documents defensive capacity; by itself, it does not prove a particular enemy, political system or cause of conflict.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Where the findings were published
The results appear in an open-access paper in Libyan Studies, produced through collaboration among Morocco’s National Institute of Archaeological and Heritage Sciences (INSAP), Italy’s National Research Council (CNR), ISMEO and the University of Cambridge. The project’s co-directors are Giulio Lucarini, Cyprian Broodbank and Youssef Bokbot. The CNR announcement links to the paper’s DOI.
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