It is a wasteland a few kilometres south of Rabat, wedged between a palm-lined road and the Atlantic Ocean. A small cliff is cut in two by a natural trench, covered with a white tarp. In its shade, dogs doze, while a sickly tomato plant stands guard. We are at the entrance to the Dar-Es-Soltane 2 cave. Inside, a handful of students in hard hats are busy, uncovering layer after layer of the past that remains buried there.
The site, rich in fossils and artefacts, had already been excavated between 1969 and 1978 by André Débénath (1940-2016), as part of the French archaeological mission in Morocco, recalls Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer, of the Laboratory of Archaeology and Materials Sciences attached to the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage Sciences (Insap), in Rabat: “The best anthropological documentation of the region comes from this cave, which has been occupied for 120,000 years.” Excavations resumed in 2022, thanks to an agreement between Insap and the Collège de France.
Jean-Jacques Hublin, who holds the chair of palaeoanthropology, has pledged part of the Balzan Prize, worth 3 million Swiss francs, which he received at the end of 2023 and which he describes as “small miracle”. This June, the third month-long campaign is underway. One of the challenges is to try to find out more about the authors of a lithic industry called “Ateriana”, characterized by small pedunculated cutting points, which we find “from the Sahara to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, an area larger than the United States of America”Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer stresses.
This culture, represented between approximately 145,000 and 30,000 years ago, covers the period in which Homo sapiens It left the African continent to conquer the rest of the world about 70,000 years ago. Human fossils found in Dar-Es-Soltane 2 “It would give us a picture of those who left Africa”says Jean-Jacques Hublin. With Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer, he has already given face to the greatest Homo sapiens known, dating back 315,000 years and whose remains were discovered at the Moroccan site of Jebel Irhoud in 2017. The two men would like to continue this momentum.
New paleontological icon
“This discovery of Jebel Irhoud changed many thingspoints out the Moroccan researcher. Since then, several teams from around the world have contacted us to work in Morocco. » The Sherifian authorities have taken stock of this new paleontological icon. “An interpretation centre was created nearby, roads were repaved, activities at a huge quarry were halted and the site was classified as a national heritage site.”Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer further argues.
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