LYON, FRANCE—According to a Science News report, carvings discovered in different locations in the Middle East may have been scaled drawings of desert kites, which are enclosures made of stone walls that were used by hunters to capture herds of animals. One drawing on a rectangular stone in Jordan is estimated to be 9,000 years old, while two others on a boulder in Saudi Arabia have been dated to 8,000 years ago. Rémy Crassard and his colleagues at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) suggest that these drawings accurately depict the shapes of desert kites found nearby. The images may have been used by hunters to plan their strategies, or they may have been used as blueprints for building the massive structures, he explained. Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS ONE. For more on desert kites, go to "Neolithic Hunting Shrine," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2022.
