Deep in the deserts of the region of western Sahara there lays countless structures made from stone. They vary greatly in size and shape ranging from crescent shaped monuments to circular, straight lines and rectangular patterns. The most impressive are those consisting of carefully stacked stones. Due to the area being a conflict zone fought over between the Moroccan government and the partially recognized state of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic archaeologists have been unable to fully study the region and only sporadic research has been done over the years. However, this research still provides a wealth of clues on what the purpose of the structures may have been and who may have built them. Scientists think that they could have had a funerary or ritual purpose while others think they may have served a more tangible and practical function such as being used to divert water or providing hiding places for hunting. Some of the structures contained burials of both animals and humans. Judging from the well made ornaments buried with human remains, these people were likely high status individuals while alive. Social stratification was also likely present in the largely cattle herding based societies of the region due to how they gave high status individuals burials and how they devoted substantial labor towards the construction of monuments. Incredibly the region of the western Sahara likely played an important role in the region of the Sahara as a whole as when the Sahara gradually transitioned back into a desert after a several thousand year time frame of being a savannah the western Sahara region likely drew in lots of migrants from the other regions of the Sahara as their water sources dried up.
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Credits:
All music from the YouTube Audio Library
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Sources:
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Many images from “Western Sahara Project”:
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