Taforalt, or Grotte des Pigeons, is a cave in the province of Berkane, Aït Iznasen region, Morocco, possibly the oldest cemetery in North Africa.

Human occupation and natural processes in the cave have produced a 10 m (32.8 ft) thick sequence of archaeological layers dating between at least 85,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Some burials suggest potential ritualistic practices, as evidenced by the inclusion of animal remains such as horns, mandibles, a hoof, and a tooth, alongside plant macro-remains like Ephedra, acorns (Quercus), and pine nuts (Pinus pinaster).

Ephedra, known for its extensive use in traditional medicine, may have held significant importance in the burial rituals, potentially serving both symbolic and practical purposes during these activities.

[5][6][7][1] The deep and highly stratified cave floor has yielded hearths, lithics, and shell beads, among a variety of artefacts of varying ages.

[citation needed] The site is located around steep hills, rocky mountains, and the natural vegetation of the thermo-Mediterranean biozone including Tetraclinis articulate and Pinus halenpensis.

The following (newer) layers contain side scrapers, small radial Levallois cores, and thin, bifacially worked foliate points typical of the Aterian technological industries.

These Iberomaurusian layers contain microlithics, ostrich egg shells, potentially ritualized primary and secondary burials, and a notable increase in land snail remains indicating a shift in dietary practices.

In particular, the vegetation excavated by Barton in Group E is dominated by the presence of Cedrus atlantica and deciduous Quercus, with the latter declining at the expense of Cedrus.Needs clarification This is consistent with environmental cooling and drying that comes with a change to a montane climate.

[3] Ash lenses from the Aterian levels around 80,000 BP contain large Otala punctate indicating small scale exploitation of land snails prior to the Grey Series.

[10] The vegetation species found inside the cave provide an idea what the environment was like during periods of human habitation with the charred remains of Holm oak (Quercus ilex L.) acorns, Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton) pine nuts, Juniper (Juniperus phoenicea L.), Terebinth pistachio (Pistacia terebinthus L.), and wild oat (Avena sp.)

[1] A 2003 analysis[14] of masticatory and non-masticatory dental modifications among the remains recovered in the 1950s reflected a very high rate (90%)[13] of avulsion of the upper central incisors which subsequently led to increased usage of the proximal teeth.

[15] In 1999, Colin Groves & Alan Thorne in studying three Northern African samples from the Pleistocene/Holocene, Taforalt was described as "Caucasoid" and resembled late Pleistocene Europeans, while Afalou was Intermediate.

[16] The inhabitants of Grotte des Pigeons were hunter-gatherers equipped with the knowledge of harvesting plants and animals as the archaeological context suggests some of the burials contained evidence of baskets and grind stones which were used for food preparation.

[17] In an article in 2005, the mitochondrial (female side) DNA of 31 skeletons from the site of Taforalt in the ‘Grotte des pigeons' cave was analyzed by the Tunisian geneticist Rym Kefi (Pasteur Institute of Tunis) [18] In 2016, Kefi wrote a follow up article: On the Origin of Iberomaurusians: New Data based on Ancient mitochondrial DNA and phylogenetic analysis of Afalou and Taforalt populations.

[19] In 2018, van de Loosdrecht et al. performed the first genome-wide analysis on 7 individuals: 6 males and one female at Taforalt dated to between 15,100 and 13,900 cal BP.

Nuclear DNA analysis showed that these Taforalt individuals were all closely related to each other, suggesting a population bottleneck event in their past.

A two-way admixture scenario using Holocene Levantines and modern West African samples as reference populations inferred that the Taforalt individuals bore 63.5% Levantine-related and 36.5% Sub-Saharan African-related ancestries, with no evidence for additional gene flow from the Epigravettian culture of Upper Paleolithic Europe.

[22] Aizpurua-Iraola, Julen et al. (2023) would state that none of the present-day (Hadza/East/West) or ancient Holocene African groups were found to be a suitable proxy population for the source of this component.

[20] Iosif Lazaridis et al. (2018), as summarized by Rosa Fregel (2021), contested the conclusion of Loosdrecht (2018) and argued instead that the Iberomaurusian population of Upper Paleolithic North Africa, represented by the Taforalt sample, can be better modeled as an admixture between a Dzudzuana-like [West-Eurasian] component and an "Ancient North African" component, "that may represent an even earlier split than the Basal Eurasians."

However, they were found to carry the ancestral SLC24A4 allele associated with dark eye color, suggesting that the West-Eurasian migrant group may not have evolved light skin yet.