Archaeological research conducted by a team of Moroccan and German archaeologists in the eastern Rif region has led to the discovery of ceramic vessels that are believed to be the oldest manufactured in Morocco. By relying on intense archaeological fieldwork and analyses using cutting-edge technologies, the team of scientists from the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage (INSAP), the Ministry of Culture, and the Kommission für Archäologie Außereuropäischer Kulturen (KAAK) of the German Archaeological Institute, led by Abdeslam Mikdad (INSAP) and Josef Eiwanger (KAAK), has managed to date this pottery to around 9000 BC. This date is 2000 years older than the one that had been proposed until now for the shaping of the first ceramic vessels, not only in Morocco but in all the Maghreb countries.

This discovery took place at the Hassi Ouenzga site, which is located in the commune of Saka, about 50 km south-west of the city of Nador. It is a shelter that served as a habitat for Neolithic populations who frequented this place from 9000 BC to 4000 BC. These populations left vestiges belonging to different phases of the Neolithic: the most recent among them would date back to the final Neolithic with comb-decorated pottery, which would date from the 6th millennium BC. It was preceded by another phase characterised by cardial pottery (pottery decorated by impressions with the shell of the wavy Cardium), considered by researchers as the oldest pottery in Morocco, which was introduced from the Iberian Peninsula through Gibraltar towards the first half of the 6th millennium BC. It is under this archaeological layer that the team of scientists from the eastern Rif programme highlighted fragments of undecorated pottery that would date from the first half of the 9th millennium BC. Mineralogical analyses subsequently demonstrated that the potters of the time used degreasers totally different from those used by other groups to consolidate their clay.

The discovery of evidence of ceramic manufacturing as early as the middle of the 9th millennium BC is likely to profoundly modify our perception of these early Neolithic societies in the Maghreb.

We know that the creation of pottery took on considerable social and economic importance, facilitating and accelerating communications and trade between groups during the Neolithic and the phases that followed. It also testifies to a profound change in culinary customs and would further facilitate the conservation of water. Associated with the appearance of agriculture and the domestication of animal species (sheep, goats, cattle), it will play a primordial role in the socio-economic evolution of prehistoric populations.

Archaeological research is currently continuing at the Hassi Ouenzga site with the aim of further confirming the results obtained and trying to better grasp the nature of the relationships that the prehistoric populations of the eastern Rif maintained with their contemporaries on the northern shore of the Mediterranean and the Sahara