Grotte des Rhinocéros at Oulad Hamida Quarry 1, Morocco
Résumé
Grotte des Rhinocéros (GDR; 33.567°N, −7.701°W) is a hominin-bearing Middle Pleistocene site located on the western outskirts of Casablanca, Morocco’s economic capital. It was documented in 1991 during quarry work in the Oulad Hamida Quarry 1 (OH1), formerly known as Ben Sina 1. Together with the neighboring Thomas Quarry I sites, GDR belongs to the oldest hominin-bearing cluster of sites around Casablanca. The initial hominin occupation episode at the site is estimated to have occurred c. 0.7 Ma based on recent radiometric dating. It is one of the few early Middle Pleistocene sites in Africa in which animal consumption is directly associated with Acheulean stone tool manufacture in a cave context. The record seems to suggest repeated hominin occupation of specific locales in the landscape that afforded them survival benefits, such as protection against environmental events, as well as the development of a structured space for prolonged social and economic activities, including butchery, feeding, socialization, mating, and giving birth. Due to its richness of lithics in a securely dated stratigraphic context and in close association with a very rich faunal assemblage, OHQ1-GDR was selected to be the type-locality for the Second Regional Acheulean. Lastly, GDR holds a great potential for revealing behavioral innovations by hominin groups that occupied the Mediterranean littoral of North Africa during the early Middle Pleistocene.