9,000-year-old ritual complex found in Jordan desert
Gulf Times
A handout picture made available by the Jordanian Antiquities Authority on February 22, 2022 shows recently-discovered antiquities linked to hunter-gatherers and dating back to the Neolithic era (4500-9000 BC) in the Jordanian Badia, south-east of the Kingdom.
Archaeologists deep in the Jordanian desert have discovered a 9,000-year-old ritualistic complex near what is thought to be the earliest known large human-built structure worldwide.
The Stone Age shrine site, excavated last year, was used by gazelle hunters and features carved stone figures, an altar and a miniature model of a large-scale hunting trap.
The giant game traps the model represents -- so-called "desert kites" -- were made of long walls that converge to corral running gazelles into enclosures or holes for slaughter.
Similar structures of two or more stone walls, some several kilometres (miles) long, have been found in deserts across Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Kazakhstan.
