A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that they had discovered a 9,000year-old monument in Jordan’s eastern deserts.
The ritual complex was discovered beside enormous structures known as “desert kites,” or mass traps, that are thought to have been used to gather wild gazelles for killing in a Neolithic campground.
Two or more long stone walls converging toward an enclosure make up these traps, which may be found all over the Middle East’s deserts.
“The site is unusual, first and foremost because of its degree of preservation,” said Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Aziza, the project’s co-director. “It’s 9,000 years old, and it’s practically complete.”
Two carved stone circles with humanoid characters, one with a representation of the “desert kite,” as well as an altar, hearth, marine shells, and a tiny replica of the gazelle trap, were found within the shrine.
The shrine “sheds a new light on the symbolism, creative expression, and spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic tribes,” according to the researchers.
The residents’ proximity to the traps suggests they were specialist hunters, and the traps were “the center of their cultural, economic, and even symbolic life in this marginal zone,” according to the statement.
