Desert dragons
In archeology, desert kites are miles of stone embankments, the extent of which can only be accurately recognized in an aerial photograph . They resemble a pointed triangle or horseshoe. They date from the Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic , their distribution is limited to the desert areas of the Levant and northwestern Saudi Arabia and date from between 10,000 and 3,000 years ago. For a long time the purpose of these apparently man-made structures was unclear. Their name comes from the resemblance to steerable kites in the aerial photograph. Guy Bar-Oz from the University of Haifa sees the close of the 6,000-year old settlement Tell Kuran in northeastern Syria discovered over 2500 Gazelle bone confirms the long-held assumption that it is prehistoric animal traps, which on a large scale hunting gazelle made which began the decimation of this species, which is now threatened with extinction, over thousands of years. Only 100,000 specimens of this Asian gazelle live worldwide.
literature
- Guy Bar-Oz, Melinda Zeder, Frank Hole: Role of mass-kill hunting strategies in the extirpation of Persian gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) in the northern Levant. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . Section B, Biological science. Allahabad 2011. ISSN 0369-8211
- David Kennedy, The "Works of the Old Men" in Arabia: remote sensing in interior Arabia. Journal of Archaeological Science 38, 2011, 3185-3203.
Web links
- Desert Dragons: Gazelle hunt ended in mass slaughter.
- Miriam Jolien Blümel: Hunting gazelles with "Desert Dragons". In: EPOC.de Spektrumverlag, Heidelberg, accessed April 21, 2011.