A team of scientists discovered traces of the oldest human behavior of using clothes inside a cave, near the outskirts of Temara, near the capital, Rabat.
The study consisted of analyzing more than 60 tools made of bone and whale teeth used for making clothes about 120,000 years ago, according to a scientific study published in the journal “iScience” this week.
The discovery renders the outskirts of Rabat as an important site in outlining the stages of Homo sapien development, Mohamed Abdejalil El Hagroui, former director of cultural heritage at the Ministry of Culture and former research professor at the National Institute of Archeology and Heritage, who participated in the scientific study told Hespress.
El Hagroui said the research, which had begun in the fifties stopped in the seventies due to funding issues. Resumption of the archaeological work was made possible thanks to a Moroccan-American program that lasted for years and culminated in the discovery in 2005.
The “Moroccan-American Archaeological Program for the Temara Region,” stated that early humans settled this area hundreds of thousands of years ago, as it provided proximity to the sea and abundance of prey animals.
The discovery also evidenced the earliest records of collective memory, whereby research showed that knowledge on the use of these tools began about 30,000 years ago and passed on between generations.
Other discoveries inside of the cave include pierced seashells believed to be used for communication by sending messages encrypted with symbols between members of the community.
Scientists also found ovens inside this cave, as well as dyes created by mixing a kind of clay with water, an indication of the first use of chemistry by humans.
In July, a team of international researchers discovered that the stone-tool industry associated with Homo erectus, the first ancestor to have modern human-like bodies, existed in North Africa 1.3 million years ago, hundreds of thousands of years older than previously known.
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