800 BC to 212 BC

Berbers and Phoenicians

Some of the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens, about 300,000 years old, were found at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco. In historical times the land belongs to Berber peoples, the Amazigh. In the first millennium BC Phoenician sailors, and later Carthage, set up trading posts on the coast, such as Lixus near Larache and Mogador at Essaouira.