(ORDO NEWS) — Archaeologists from Oxford University have mapped over 350 monumental structures created by ancient hunting tribes in northern Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq.
Satellite images were used to search for previously unknown objects, according to The Holocene.
Pilots who saw the structures from above called them “kites”. They consist of low stone walls forming a central circular platform and several kilometers long corridors leading to it.
It was believed that wild animals such as gazelles were driven along these corridors to the places of slaughter.
The age of the structures is about eight thousand years, that is, they are much older than the Egyptian pyramids.
According to scientists, the study of these objects “has the potential to change our understanding of prehistoric connections and climate change in the Middle East.”
So, before, scientists knew only about hunting facilities in eastern Jordan and southern Syria. New research has shown that they were also built 400 kilometers east of these places.
This fact testifies to the cultural ties that were maintained by tribes living at a great distance from each other.
New facts suggested that the movements of hunters passed through the territory of the Nafud desert. Now this is an extremely inhospitable area, but in another climatic era it could be favorable for life.
Experts stressed that the construction of such pens required careful and complex design.
The walls were sometimes placed in areas with very complex topography, which indicated the “incredible level of craftsmanship” of the ancient tribes.
The paddocks contrast sharply with other known “architecture” of the early Holocene. According to archaeologists, the builders themselves lived in houses made of organic materials, which have now completely collapsed.
In the future, scientists plan to conduct new research in arid zones that were blooming and inhabited several thousand years ago.
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