“Dcar acemerar” (White People), Northeast Morocco (Rif). Socio-Political Organization In Archaeology:

A Historical and Etnoarchaeological Review and Interpretation From Remote Perception

Abstract

Comparison between the information of historical sources and several ethnographic studies from Moroccan northeast region (Rif), showed that at the Arabs arrival in the VIIth century, the sociopolitical organization of the indigenous populations (Imazighen/Berbers) from the mountainous areas, was probably a segmentary system, deprived of bureaucratic institutions, to which, in the XIth century were joint by “holy” lineages attached to the sufi tradition, that acted as neutral mediators in the resolutions of conflicts that emerged between several social groups. In archaeological terms -in the mountainous areas-, this system resulted in a dispersed pattern settlement where administrative buildings did not exist, nevertheless, the holy lineages settlements that began to establish in the XIth century, acted as “political mediation centers” where opposite tribes, or factions, solved their conflicts in several levels. This work aim to demonstrate that the pattern settlement of Dcar Acemerar archaeological site, is characteristic of amazigh traditional sociopolitical organization that differs from the Arab system of organization in the region. This interpretation results from contrasting ethnographic and historical data with information derived from the analysis of satellite imagery.