he Tangier Peninsula sits at a geologic and cultural hinge. On maps, it's a narrow wedge of land pressing into the Strait of Gibraltar, with Europe just a short ferry ride to the north. But from 3000 to 500 BCE, this peninsula was more than a waystation. It was a ritual landscape shaped by the living and the dead.
Recent archaeological work1—led by Hamza Benattia, Jorge Onrubia-Pintado, and Youssef Bokbot—has brought the peninsula's past into sharper focus. Their excavations and GIS analysis reveal a once-thriving landscape of cemeteries, painted rock shelters, and standing stones, challenging long-standing assumptions about North Africa's role in the prehistoric Mediterranean.
A Complex Ritual Geography
Between the third and first millennia BCE, the Tangier Peninsula hosted a surprising diversity of burial practices: pit graves, hypogea, tumuli, and stone-lined cists. These were not isolated phenomena. Instead, they were part of a broader network of symbolic and territorial practices, often concentrated at high points near ancient routes.
One of the most striking findings comes from Daroua Zaydan. Here, a single cist burial—constructed from upright slabs capped with a heavy stone—was radiocarbon dated to ca. 2000 BCE. It is the first such date for a cist in northwestern Africa. The grave was found on a modest hill near a long-silted bay, alongside scattered bones and flint flakes. Though modest, this tomb signals a milestone for regional chronology.
"This marks the first radiocarbon dated cist burial in northwestern Africa," write the authors. "It provides a terminus post quem for a burial tradition often assumed to be older but previously undated."
Burial Traditions Across Time and Terrain
Cist burials, like the one at Daroua Zaydan, were not unique to Morocco. Similar tombs exist across the Iberian Peninsula, often grouped into cemeteries on hilltops or beside ancient roads. But in Tangier, they take on local signatures. Some contain ochre, tortoiseshell, or copper awls. Others are empty, perhaps cenotaphs, echoing Iberian precedents.
Hypogea—rock-cut tombs—appear in the early first millennium BCE. These subterranean chambers, often reused across generations, reflect Mediterranean influences, likely tied to Phoenician contact. Yet they appear alongside older traditions, suggesting a layered ritual continuity rather than abrupt replacement.
And then there are the tumuli: stone mounds sometimes topped by megaliths. Some are solitary; others cluster into hilltop cemeteries. At Mzoura, 176 standing stones form a massive circle around a central mound, reaching five meters in height. The site, though only partially excavated, hints at ceremonial functions tied to memory, territory, and perhaps kingship.
Rock Art and Symbolic Space
The ritual landscape of Tangier was not limited to burial. Painted rock shelters—some featuring dots, grids, and anthropomorphic forms—dot the peninsula. At sites like Magara Sanar, red and white pigments were used to create compositions whose meanings remain opaque but whose placement suggests spiritual or communal significance.
Standing stones appear near routes and crossroads, as at Oued Ksiar, where cist cemeteries crown several hills. Their orientation and location suggest not just boundary markers, but places where paths, people, and stories converged.
"These were not isolated shrines," the authors note, "but integral components of a larger ritualized terrain."
Mediterranean Threads, African Roots
What emerges from this research is a vivid, deeply textured image of late prehistoric life in northwestern Africa. Long dismissed in favor of Roman ruins or Nilotic splendor, the Tangier Peninsula turns out to be a key locus of cultural interaction. Its cemeteries and rock art show echoes of both Saharan and Iberian styles. Its burial practices shift slowly over time, absorbing new elements while maintaining older forms.
The authors suggest that this mosaic of traditions reflects not fragmentation but connectivity. The peninsula, after all, was not a periphery but a junction—linking sea and land, Africa and Europe, desert and forest.
"The funerary and symbolic landscapes of Tangier demonstrate a persistent and evolving dialogue between local traditions and trans-regional networks," they conclude.
And so the stones speak—not just of death, but of belonging, identity, and deep time. Beneath the hills and in the hollows of painted caves, the ancestors of Tangier left more than bones. They left a record of how they saw the world.
Further Reading and Related Research
González-Toraya, L., et al. (2010). La necrópolis de Loma del Puerco (Chiclana de la Frontera, Cádiz): nuevas perspectivas para el estudio del Bronce Final en el Suroeste peninsular. Mainake, 32, 231–276.
Lillios, K. T. (2015). The Archaeology of the Iberian Peninsula: From the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139023815
Broodbank, C., & Lucarini, G. (2019). The dynamics of Mediterranean Africa, ca. 9600–700 BC: An interpretive synthesis of knowns and unknowns. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 32(2), 129–186. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.40187
Benattia, H., Onrubia-Pintado, J., & Bokbot, Y. (2025). Cemeteries, rock art and other ritual monuments of the Tangier Peninsula, northwestern Africa, in wider trans-regional perspective (c. 3000–500 BC). African Archaeological Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-025-09621-z
Benattia, H., Onrubia-Pintado, J., & Bokbot, Y. (2025). Cemeteries, rock art and other ritual monuments of the Tangier Peninsula, northwestern Africa, in wider trans-regional perspective (c. 3000–500 BC). The African Archaeological Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-025-09621-z
Share this post