A Desert That Was Once Paradise Hides The World’s First Blueprints
Detailed stone drawings of great structures show organization on a mass scale, and large prehistoric cultures.
Modern people suffer from a type of short-sightedness in two different ways. First, we think the current world around us is the way it’s always been in terms of geology and climate. However, things have changed dramatically over humanity’s existence.
For instance, the Sahara Desert, which occupies almost all of North Africa, was once green around eight thousand years ago. According to University College London in Phys.org:
“The Sahara wasn’t desert, but instead was a vibrant ecosystem that supported hunter-gatherers and fisherfolk. The ‘Green Sahara’ — the colloquial term for the African Humid Period — was the period in which North Africa became much wetter than it is today thanks to a series of monsoons.”
It became a desert when the Earth’s orbit changed over time, eventually causing the rains to recede about twenty-five hundred years ago.
Second, we have this strange belief that the sophistication of a culture’s tools equates to intelligence. For instance, since we have iPhones, we’re smarter than ancestors who worked with stone tools. Consequently, limited tools confirm an absence of intelligence.
In this line of thinking, “Stone Age” translates to dimwitted hunter-gatherers not capable of higher-level thought. Well, some recent discoveries have shattered both these notions to pieces.
Within deserts across the Middle East and Asia, animal traps have been found so large that they were only noticed when planes passed over them. Furthermore, not far from a few of these structures, their diagrams were found etched in stone.
Some of the traps have been dated to about nine thousand years old.
So, Neolithic humans with rudimentary tools weren’t only capable of creating these massive traps, but organizing a community to make it happen.
Furthermore, they were mentally adept enough to sketch out blueprints of the designs beforehand and follow the directions.
It shows a level of sophistication far above what many might attribute to hunter-gatherers. This becomes evident when you examine their creations.
Desert Kites And Ancient Blueprints
In their research paper, Rémy Crassard, Wael Abu-Azizeh, and Olivier Barge explain desert kites “are prehistoric stone structures used as mega-sized traps to hunt wild animals.” They were built with stone, forming a type of wall.
Some of these lines or walls could be up to three miles long. Hunters would drive animals to these enclosures, which directed them towards pits. In essence, they made hunting easier.
The structures themselves were complex. The pits could be nearly twelve feet deep, and a single enclosure may have multiple traps. Some even had more than twenty.
Furthermore, they must have been effective. According to the researchers, over sixty-two hundred of them have been found, stretching from “Arabia to Uzbekistan.” But it also proves something about these ancient societies.
According to Crassard, Abu-Azizeh, and Barge:
“Kites are highly sophisticated structures in the landscape involving mass hunting strategies of wild animal herds, far from settled areas, in what are today arid environments. They reflect the emergence of innovative strategies of animal resource procurement (essentially meat, but most likely other resources such as horns, hair and hide), extending beyond the sole purposes of subsistence.”
These tactics were also employed when other communities in the “Near East” had settled societies and farmed. The team also made an interesting discovery. Namely, how these hunters created structures so large.
While researching the kites, they found ancient sketches on rocks in the desert, which looked strangely like the traps they were studying. But to add a layer of impartiality, the group created a computer program. It compared dimensions and structures of kites to the sketches.
The program found many we’re strikingly similar. The team explains:
“These engravings are extremely precise depictions of neighboring desert kite structures dated to the Neolithic. Such depictions were necessarily designed by the constructors and/or the users of the desert kites themselves, as the whole structure layout is impossible to grasp without seeing it from the air or without being their creator.”
It also points to a human society that had a higher-level perception of space, coordination, planning, communication, and the ability to depict “mental representation of a large-scaled structure.”
Their communities may have also been larger than ever imagined.
A Massive Linked Community Of Builders In The Arabian Desert
“Spread over an area of a staggering 300,000 sq km and built to a fairly consistent type, are 1,600 monumental rectangular stone structures that also date to the Neolithic period. Initially named ‘gates’ due to their appearance from the air, the structures were later renamed ‘mustatil’, which translates to ‘rectangle ’in Arabic.”
— Demi Perera, A Mysterious Cult That Predates Stonehenge, BBC
In Perera’s article, Dr Hugh Thomas, co-director of Aerial Archaeology for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Projects says some of these mustatil are the size of five to six football fields and are seven thousand years old.
Another archeologist, Jane McMahon, explains the AlUla section of Saudi Arabia wasn’t thought to be populated until after the Bronze Age. But she’s found evidence of “a dynamic, intensely populated, complex landscape spread over a vast area,” in Neolithic times. Moreover, it was lush and green.
Excavations have led McMahon and Thomas to believe these structures were used as part of a cult’s ritual. It also shows there was a common culture and belief system in Arabia about six thousand years ago, that covered an area near the size of Poland.
Researchers in the article also say some of the mustatil are made of stones together weighing as much as twelve thousand tons, so there must have been a high level of organization and architectural ability. Plus, a large community to mobilize.
Both McMahon and Thomas also note Saudi Arabia’s government has only recently allowed archeologists to begin studying the sites, so they expect even larger discoveries in the future. All in an inhabitable desert, created by Stone Age hunter-gatherers.
A Different View Of Ancient Ancestors, And Our World
As the Ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramid of Giza, the North Star above their heads was Thuban. Ours is currently Polaris. Another twelve thousand years from now, it will be Vega.
Arvind Bhagwath in his research paper Sacred Alignment of Religious Structures to North Star also explains as the Earth’s axis tilts again the Sahara will green once more. Expect this around the time Vega takes position.
It should be a reminder, the world before looked much different than our current picture. Wetlands turned to deserts, and mountains rose out of the water. However, one thing stayed the same.
Intellect isn’t limited to your tools. Stone Age societies were far more organized and capable than we give them credit for. In fact, perhaps our instinctual vision of a “hunter-gatherer” should change like the North Star.
They created massive structures, were capable of incredible organization, and spread their cultural practices further than ever thought possible. Also, they had the cognitive ability to put precise mental images on stone.
It goes to prove Stone Age people didn’t have “Stone Age” minds.
-Originally posted on Medium 5/21/23