LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA—Phys.org reports that four large, funnel-like hunting traps made up of stone walls leading to an enclosed pit have been discovered on the Karst Plateau, which is located on the border of Slovenia and Italy. The megastructures were spotted through airborne laser scanning surveys conducted by Dimitrij Mlekuž Vrhovnik of the University of Ljubljana and Tomaž Fabec of the Institute for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage of Slovenia. The researchers note that the structures were built into the landscape in order to take advantage of cliffs and other natural formations. The walls, made of pieces of stacked limestone, range in length between some 550 yards to two miles long, and measure between three and five feet wide. Estimates suggest the walls once stood under three feet tall. The process of constructing the largest of the four traps would have likely taken more than 5,000 hours of labor, reflecting the prehistoric hunters’ knowledge of the landscape and the movements of wild animals, and their ability to coordinate communal labor to complete a large-scale project. To read about similar hunting structures in the Baltic, go to "Reindeer Hunters' Walls."
