Desert Secret Cracked: Ancient Hunting Techniques Revealed

[Adsos Letter]

Source: Arutz Sheva/Israel National News.com
by Baruch Gordon

The article is interesting and has some good photos; I am in no way endorsing the political views of this site.

(IsraelNN.com) How did humans living in the third millennium BCE manage to find sufficient quantities of meat in the arid desert regions? A new study of the "desert kites" that are spread across the expanses of Israel's Negev and Arava desert region, carried out by researchers from the University of Haifa, unearths the answer to this riddle.

Already in the early 20th century, British pilots flying over the Middle Eastern deserts identified strange forms spreading over hundreds of meters, sometimes even over a few kilometers. The shapes looked like two long walls that meet at angles and at the meeting point of each wall was a round-shaped trench.

To the pilots, the shapes resembled kites, hence the name given to them: "desert kites." A few such "kites" are known of in the deserts of Jordan, Syria, Israel, and Sinai. Archaeologists have suggested a number of theories as to the uses of these constructs, most supposing that they were used for hunting purposes, others suggesting that they served as cattle pens.

A few weeks ago, an interdisciplinary research group, funded by National Geographic, completed an encompassing survey of all eleven "kites" of the Negev and Arava, which included archaeological digs in four "kites", detailed documentation by means of state-of-the-art measuring instruments, aerial and ground photography, and dating by means of two independent radiometric methods

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130209

[aquart]

1. Now that's flat out fascinating.

[Adsos Letter]

2. It's interesting to me how similar ways of hunting appear in different parts of the world..

I am thinking specifically of the Native American use of low, tapering brush/stone walls to herd animals, including Bison, into killing zones, or over cliffs/falls.

[dysfunctional press]

3. that's what i thought of too...but then- it doesn't really take too much thinking to come up with...

the idea of driving herds over a cliff, that is.
and it also contradicts the idea that the indians only took 'what they needed' when they hunted.

[ezgoingrl]

6. Not really, it would be simple enough

to drive a number of Bison from the herd and then off of a cliff.

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