Abiotic raw material supply in the Neolithic of the eastern rif, Morocco. A preliminary report

Since 1995 archaeological research has been undertaken in the Eastern Rif (Morocco) by a Moroccan-German research team with participation of the “Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine du Maroc” (INSAP), the “Kommission für die Archäologie Außereuropäischer Kulturen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts” (KAAK), and the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology of the University of Cologne. In the course of these studies, several hundred sites have been discovered and a number of these excavated. Sites investigated in more detail cover the time span from the Lower
Palaeolithic up to Islamic times. From the onset of the project a particular focus has been on Neolithisation processes in the area. In the last years the raw material supply for pottery and stone tool production has also come into focus. In cooperation with mineralogists and sedimentologists a number of raw material sources could be identified. This paper summarises all known Neolithic sites and potential raw material sources of the area and reconstructs their spatial relations.