A new archaeological discovery in Morocco of a stone tool dating back 1.3 million years, according to
Nature Report magazine
Researchers from several countries who participated in an archaeological research program near the Moroccan city of Casablanca discovered a stone tool dating back to the Acheulean period, dating back to 1.3 million years, according to Moroccan researchers who participated in the research program, whose results were published in the journal Nature Report, on Wednesday. British Scientific.
Until now, archaeologists believed that the Acheulean civilization, which was characterized by the innovation of two-sided tools during the Lower Paleolithic period, arose 700,000 years ago in this part of North Africa.
In this regard, the Moroccan archaeologist Abdel Wahed bin Nasr explained that the discovered tool dates back to an era that is about twice as old, which makes Morocco its position in this field “on the scale of the African continent,” as the documented discoveries show that the Acheulean in East Africa date back to about 1.8 million years ago, and it was found in the south of the continent 1.6 million years ago.
In turn, the co-director of the French-Moroccan “Pre-History of Casablanca” program, Abd al-Rahim Moheb, considered during a press conference in Rabat that this “important” discovery contributes “to enriching the discussion about the emergence of Acheulean in Africa.”
Seventeen Moroccan, French and Italian researchers participated in this research, published in the British journal Nature Report. It is based on the study of stone tools (double-sided, axes, or cores) and geological data extracted from the “Toma 1” site, west of Casablanca, where excavations have been conducted since the eighties of the 20th century.
At the site, archaeologists discovered “one of the richest Acheulean communities in Africa,” according to Moheb, who stressed the importance of this discovery, given that it relates to “prehistory, a complex period for which little data is available.” The research also made it possible to discover “the oldest human settlement in Morocco,” as confirmed by the co-director, who explained that they are “variants of Homo erectus.”
In 2017, archaeologists discovered at the site of Jebel Irhoud (southwest Morocco), dating back to the prehistoric era, the remains of a modern person or “sane person” dating back 300,000 years, which is the oldest in the world. This discovery contributed to a radical change in the view of human evolution.
This discovery is considered the oldest of its kind with regard to the Acheulean civilization in North Africa. It should be noted that tools from the Stone Age, polished stone pieces, and fossilized bone remains of extinct animals dating back 2.4 million years were found at the site of Ain Boucherit, located in the municipality of Qalta al-Zarqa in the El-Elamah district, at a distance About 30 kilometers east of the capital of the High Plateaux in Algeria, the results of that research were published in the prestigious American journal “Science” of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on November 29, 2019.
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