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Post by mendeman on Jun 16, 2012 1:13:20 GMT -5
Stumbled across the following article some time ago: The ruins were discovered deep in the desert of Western Sahara The remains of a prehistoric town dating back 15,000 years have been discovered in the Moroccan-administered territory of Western Sahara. The Moroccan state media on Thursday said a team of scientists stumbled across the sand-covered ruins of the town Arghilas, deep in the desert of Western Sahara. The remains of a place of worship, houses and a necropolis, as well as columns and rock engravings depicting animals, were found at the site near the northeastern town of Aousserd. Significant find The isolated area is known to be rich in prehistoric rock engravings, but experts said the discovery could be significant if proven that the ruins were of Berber origin as this civilisation is believed to date back only about 9000 years. "It appears that scientists have come up with the 15,000-year estimate judging by the style of engravings and the theme of the drawings," Mustafa Ouachi, a Rabat-based Berber historian said. Berbers are the original inhabitants of North Africa before Arabs came to spread Islam in the seventh century. The population of Western Sahara, seized by Morocco in 1975 when former colonial power Spain pulled out, is mostly of Berber and Arab descent. www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/08/20084914442080115.html
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Post by anansi on Jun 16, 2012 1:33:05 GMT -5
Nice find and it complement your thread on African archaeology.
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Post by Tukuler al~Takruri on Jun 19, 2012 0:25:04 GMT -5
It is easy to discard Berber identity for this town if in fact it pre-dates the split of Berber from Afrisan and its spread from Darfur to the Maghreb.
Rock art is notoriously hard to date and I question dating a ruin based solely on rock art in its vicinity. Who are the archaeologists who uncovered the town and where is the report they wrote about what they found?
For an 8 year old "discovery" the lack of follow-up reporting leads me to suspect something's not right about this urban center in an age before food production when the Oranian cultural industry is what we find elsewhere in the region at 13,000 BCE.
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