The article presents important results from the Middle Draa Project (MDP) in southern Morocco related to two mid-1st millennium CE hilltop settlements (hillforts) that were associated with significant rock art assemblages. The combination of detailed survey and radiocarbon dating of these remarkable sites provides a unique window on the Saharan world in which the pecked engravings, predominantly of horses, were produced. As the horse imagery featured on the walls of buildings within the settlement, the radiocarbon dating around the mid-1st millennium CE can also be applied in this instance to the rock art. The rarity of rock art of this period within habitation sites is also discussed and it is argued that its occurrence at both these locations indicates that they had some special social or sacred significance for their occupants. While it is commonplace for rock art of this era, featuring horses and camels, to be attributed by modern scholars to mobile pastoralists, a further argument of the paper is that the desert societies were in a period of transformation at this time, with the development of oases. The association of the rock art imagery with sedentary settlements, where grain was certainly being processed and stored, is thus an additional new element of contextual information for the widespread Saharan images of horses and horse and riders.

本文介绍了摩洛哥南部的 Middle Draa 项目 ( MDP ) 的重要成果，这些成果涉及两个公元1 世纪中期的山顶定居点（hillforts），这些定居点与重要的岩画组合相关。这些非凡地点的详细调查和放射性碳测年相结合，为了解撒哈拉世界提供了一个独特的窗口，在那里生产了主要是马的啄食版画。正如定居点内建筑物墙壁上的马图像一样，公元1 世纪中叶左右的放射性碳测年在这种情况下也可以应用于岩画。还讨论了这一时期岩画在居住地中的稀有性，并认为它在这两个地点的出现表明它们对居住者具有某些特殊的社会或神圣意义。虽然这个时代以马和骆驼为特征的岩画被现代学者归结为流动的牧民是司空见惯的，但本文进一步的论点是，此时的沙漠社会正处于转型期，随着发展的绿洲。岩石艺术图像与久坐定居点的关联，其中谷物肯定被加工和储存，因此是撒哈拉广泛的马、马和骑手图像的上下文信息的附加新元素。